Best of the fests: The Blip Festival

WTF is the Blip Festival?
What’s one thing Metroid, Super Mario Bros. and Tetris all had in common? Their jams. Artist collective 8bitpeoples represents a range of musicians who are repurposing the sound styles of classic video games: They use original consoles (patched through processors, synths and computers) as instruments to create a sonic movement dubbed chip music, or more aptly, chiptune.

In 2006, 8bitpeoples teamed with NYC art space the Tank to host the monthly Pulsewave dance parties, which have become the breeding ground for New York’s chip-music scene and eventually grew into the Blip Festival, now in its fourth year. This week, chiptune fans and 8-bit neophytes will convene at the Bell House to take in an enormous assembly of chip musicians, artists and filmmakers, along with teachers who will show you how to manipulate a Game Boy in ways your prepubescent ego only dreamed of. Let us guide you through the highlights.

Thursday 17
The five-hour opening night kicks off at 8pm; we recommend catching Budapest’s Failotron (Talk Talk and Thee Silver Mt. Zion are cited as influences), as well as U.S. physicist-turned-visual-artist Paris at 8:40pm. Throughout this fest, 24 bands and musicians using archaic game systems to create their music will be accompanied by visual artists who project a range of images behind them. “There really aren’t many opportunities to see such a large number of artists in the same place from so many countries,” says 8bitpeoples cofounder Jeremiah Johnson (a.k.a. Nullsleep). Stick around for a rump-shaking set courtesy of NYC’s minusbaby, complemented by one of Philadelphia’s acclaimed pixel artists, Enso (10pm). Dutch glitch artist Rosa Menkman will tweak out with headliner Eat Rabbit, projecting a rapid-fire pixelated overload reminiscent of a Chris Cunningham Nintendo nightmare.

You won’t want to miss France’s Eat Rabbit (12:40am), the Blip’s opening night headliner. Dressed as a deranged Donnie Darko bunny, he’ll blast psychedelic 8-bit bossa nova.

Friday 18
Check out a screening of Reformat the Planet (1–3pm), a SXSW documentary by 2 Player Productions that chronicles the evolution of the underground chiptune scene. At the “A_SID Synth Workshop,” beginners will learn how to build an emulator kit, a USB-friendly plug-in that you can program to generate tunes. (Bring a laptop and a pair of headphones.) Then let the pros take over. Up at 10:40pm is one of the curators’ more anticipated performers of the festival, I, Cactus, an alter ego of electronic artist Khonnor. He’ll team up with VBLANK (Wil Lindsay), an interactive-arts professor from Philadelphia University, followed by a rousing 11:20pm set of pop gems by Nullsleep. A word of advice for newbs: Moshing chip-music crowds can start to resemble the final level in Smash TV, so keep your pants on. You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow.

For an additional $65—that’s 130 bucks less than what you made your parents shell out for a Nintendo Entertainment System back in ’85!—you can enroll in the “A_SID Synth Workshop” (2–5pm) and become a chip musician.

Saturday 19
Complete your 8-bit cram session at one of the Blip Festival’s principal (and free!) workshops, “Open Source Solutions for Live Visuals” (3pm). It’s led by former schoolteacher and current NYU grad student Don Miller, a visual artist who performs under the moniker NO CARRIER. He’ll demonstrate how to manipulate your malingering NES into a visual instrument (no need to blow the dust off those cartridges), so bring along a PC laptop if you really want to participate—you’ll be provided with NES emulation software to try out. Then, get totally sauced in the Bell House’s front-room bar before to the third and final evening of chip rock. Toronto’s up-and-coming J. Arthur Keenes Band takes the stage at 8pm, along with visualists Rosa Menkman and Enso. But the truly hot-ticket headliner at Blip is the Hunters. The pixelated jams don’t quit there (visit blipfestival.org for a full schedule), although if you’ve made it this far, we grant you 2-D clemency.

Tokyo’s all-girl three-piece outfit the Hunters (10pm) leans toward Aphex Twin’s more accessible moments.

DOOT DOOT DOOT! The Blip Festival: The Bell House, 149 7th St between Second and Third Aves, Gowanus, Brooklyn (212-563-6269, blipfestival.org). Thu 17–Sat 19; various times, $15–$40.

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