Culture

Blip Festival Celebrates Low-Res Art and Music

by Jarrett Martineau | November 19, 2008 at 05:26 pm

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New York's Blip Festival 2008 is playful and fun celebration of "archaic game and home computer hardware" that have been "recast into the unlikely role of musical instrument[s]".

The four day fest runs from December 4-7 and will feature almost 40 musicians and visual artists who've been dabbling in varied forms of 8-Bit culture by creating Commodore 64, Atari ST, and Nintendo Game Boy-inspired beats, blips, bleeps, and bloops.

For the uninitiated, here's a primer on "chiptunes" and the "chipmusic movement".

Of course you could also head over to micromusic.com for an auditory preview or check out 8-Bit Generation, Lionel Brouet's fascinating documentary on the worldwide phenomenon.

While it might be too regrettably late to make a last minute journey to Montreal for tonight's previously mentioned Gamma 3D, before you pull a low-bit four-color freakout (as above), I'll note that there's still plenty of time to plan for NYC's forthcoming BlipFest, the December 4-7th celebration of NES, C64, Atari ST, and Game Boy "chipmusic and its related disciplines."

The schedule is all still TBA, so I can't yet point toward any single can't-miss night, but the overall line-up is star-studded enough that any night's a sure bet for something a little bit amazing.