TodaysArt (24.09.10)

For some time I’ve been wanting to go to TodaysArt in The Hague. I had invitations in the past years, but I was never able to go. This year I really wanted to check it out, so together with some friends we drove to The Hague.

We parked below Spuiplein (plenty of room, so perfect). From there on we wandered through the centre, looking for some interesting things to see.

We went to Bed Elze, a small old quatters house with 4 installations. One of them you can see on the pictures. It consisted of 96 plexiglass panels which were rotating and thus creating light and shadow. Very nice.

We peeked inside Theater aan het spui to see an iglo made of speakers with 4 microphones inside where you could hear your own voice (but distorted or with some effect). Fun to see/hear.

From there on we went to Koorenhuis (across the street from Paard van Troje). We entered the foyer where there were maybe 20 people. But all of them were dancing hard to the beats by Rät N FrikK (see video). They were going at it, which brought an instant smile to my face. Unfortunately we only saw what you can see on the video because then the gig was finished.

We went back to Spuiplein and got tickets for the exlusive event with Jeff Mills and Mike Banks who were playing in the Atrium of City Hall (if i’m correct). Anyway where they played looked impressive (see video), but their music and the visuals were far below average. The visuals were so 90-ies; still images getting zoomed in and panned. Very boring… The music wasn’t very interesting either…

After that we went on to Paard van Troje where Matthew Hawtin (yes, brother of…) was playing but this was so slow it seemed like the walk-in music on an ID&T event. Totally not interesting.

We expected something more from Container, featuring Richie Hawtin, Jon Gaiser, Byetone and Alva Noto. Unfortunately this was nothing spectacular either. The music didn’t reach any climax and just continued like a small babbling brook. Since the parking closed at a certain time we had to go…. Unfortunately it wasn’t what I had hoped for…