KARLBARTOS.COM

11th March 2009

Former Robot Speaks To Quietus Ahead Of London Date

The Quietus, March 10th, 2009
Karl Bartos will appear at Matter this Friday, March 13th, showtime approx 0:45.

The Quietus had the chance to speak to Bartos, who spent 15 years with the seminal robot-pop troupe, ahead of this weekend's date.

Heading to O2-based club Matter with decks/vocoder operator Mathias Black, Bartos will be performing his new programme ‘The Rhythmic Screen’, putting films, video loops and animated pictograms against his musical back catalogue to forge a new reflexive rhythm between the two.

The Quietus: It’s exciting to hear that you’re coming back over to the UK soon. Can you tell us what we can expect at your performance at Matter?

Karl Bartos: “It will be an audio-visual show and will last for 70 minutes. We’re going to play some hits from the past of course, which I was involved in like ‘Numbers’, ‘Computer World’, ‘The Man Machine’, ‘The Robots’ and some newer tracks from my record Communication and some other highlights.”

The Quietus: For those who perhaps aren’t au fait with Communication can you give us an idea of how that material sounds?

KB: “Well it’s electronic instruments of course! We have a reduced pictogram style in sound and vision because I did some video clips along with some of the tracks which I’m going to play. It’s all about how our society has changed from a word-based society to a picture-based society and to show what it’s all about I’m using pictograms; the language of signs that we know from transport or airports and I’ve made an animation of it.”

The Quietus: And I believe that also that the live cinema AV concept has links to the classic age of cinema?

KB: “In a way, yes. I’m using some quotations. I’m going to play ‘The Model’ which is taken from my classic repertoire and I’m going to mix it, for instance, with some scenes from a movie which was made in London in the 60s, so I have some scenes from a shooting but I have rearranged them. If you put certain sequences out of context, suddenly the visual layers lose their sense. That way I’m treating the visuals like music in a way. You know, we are meant to receive our daily reality through our eyes and everything we see has to make sense in order to survive. At the same time we receive through our ears the sound, which has an emotional impact on us. Now you start to treat a visual sequence like music, like it was pure form, it loses it's narrative – that is what is very interesting to me.”

The Quietus: Is it a difficult project to take on the road?

KB: “This project makes a lot of sense to us because we are only two people and we can travel very light. Commercially this is much more interesting for us because we can go for one day to England and come back the next day. It is very much like the concept of the DJ performance but now audio-visual. And because I’m doing the visuals and sing along with some hits it’s interesting for me because I won’t get bored like I would if it was a normal DJ set! But this is because I’m not a DJ – I feel like a musician – a musician who uses pictures instead of an instrument. It allows me to improvise with visuals and that draws me in.”