Playmobile a festival dedicated to micromusic, retrogaming, do it yourself and game art.

This week-end, the collective Freesson, organised once again at la Gare in Coustellet, a charming little village from the south of france with a very good organic wine, a micromusic festival featuring installations, performances or videos by artists like Debeul Alex (big up), Monsieur Moo (big up too!), Dardex Mort2faim, Archeopterix… And with giggs of Meneo Mobile (big up big up!), Jankenpopp and Confipop among many others.

It was simply great as the whole event was absolutely coherent and qualitative. The artworks were the result of a one week residencies at la Gare and during the day of the 6 march, workshops of tuning, circuit bending and 8bit music were given. The day began with a very good and funny performance by Mr. Moo and its Gateau Blaster. The gateau blaster was a ball built in ghetto blasters, speakers and a battery, playing 80′ music like Grandmasterflash. Mr Moo’s idea was to roll the ball till the dump besides the Gare. We followed him and its gateau till the ball broke and there was this very particular moment when evrything was broken and where no music was playing anymore… but Mr Moo took an electric wire and puted it on the battery and the music played again, it was great!

Then the exhibit opened and my favorite installation (hard to say as I enjoyed everything but…) is the work created by Debeul Axel: Playmobile. A musical instrument created with Playmobiles toys, from the sequencer, to the boomer till the dragoon turntable. This piece was at the same time ludic, poetic and very funny. There was also some bauhaus influence in the way he built the whole mecanism.

The other installation was conceived by Archeopterix, a figure from Marseille as he is known as an archologist of games, old computers and synthetisers. Ludic, funny and entertaining!

At least but not last, a very deep and meaningfull (!) video created for the occasion by Dardex Mort2faim featuring Donkeykong… they played a lot with animated gifs to produce this video!! The video was screened on a wall outside the gare for the eyes of outside partytimers!

Then the music began and I discovered the music of Meneo Mobile and super enjoyed his scenic style and his music. Of course I also really liked the music of Confipop and Jankenpopp. This event was well organised, the atmosphere was “bon enfant” easygoing and pleasant. Congratulations to all the participants and organisers!

Cheers Isabelle

Cédric [La Gare]
Clémentine MAILLOL

http://www.aveclagare.org/micromusic/
www.aveclagare.org — www.freesson.com
http://www.myspace.com/moremeneo
www.myspace.com/jankenpopp
http://www.myspace.com/confipop
w.myspace.com/archeopterix-chip
http://www.monsieurmoo.com/
http://dardex.free.fr
w.myspace.com/baleckprod