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Open Music Archive initiated by Eileen Simpson & Ben White, is a collaborative project to source, digitise, and distribute out of copyright music recordings.

Open Music Archive Projects is a forum for projects using material from the archive. Use this wiki to post feedback, suggestions or project ideas.

Open Music Archive presents an Evening of Free Music and Films

On Saturday 18 March 2006 (6-8pm) Open Music Archive Presents ... An Evening of Free Music and Films at My Goodniss vintage clothes shop in Manchester's Northern Quarter. The event coincides with Screen Tests showing at Urbis, Manchester, for British Art Show 6 (29th Jan-April 2006). free music from the archive vintage film footage early recordings of jazz, blues, folk, remixed live DJ & laptop set My Goodniss vintage clothes shop, 40 Thomas Street (Opposite the Bay Horse), Northern Quarter, Manchester All the records we play are out of copyright or sharealike licensed. Bring a memory stick or other device to take away the music This event is funded by Arts Council England

British Art Show 6, Manchester (28th Jan -2nd April 2006)

We were invited by artists Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska to collaborate on Screen Tests for the British Art Show 6 in Manchester. Screen Tests is a film composed entirely of material found and released from the North West Film Archive. The ten minute film is accompanied by a sound track made from out-of-copyright recordings. These source recordings are available in the Open Music Archive to download: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Screen Tests is now showing at Urbis On 18th February (6-8pm) at The Whitworth Art Gallery a DJ remix of Screen Tests was performed live by Ben White.

OMA @ Open Congress, Tate Britain

Open Music Archive presented at Open Congress (Tate Britain 7th-8th October 2005) Open Congress was Inspired by Free Software: software that challenges conventional practices of authorship, ownership and distribution. The innovative congress explored these implications for art, visual culture and cultural production in general. For Open Congress, Open Music Archive presented a DJ set of music made entirely of samples of out-of-copyright music recordings, mainly sourced from 1920s 78rpm records. An accompanying slideshow uncovered the process of tracking this material. Open Congress performance images Tate Online Events Archive (video of the performance) Listen to an excerpt of the live performance: MP3 (5.3MB) | Ogg Vorbis (3.7MB)

DJ Performance of Screen Tests, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art

Ben performed a live remixed version of Screen Tests at the launch of British Art Show 6 (September 2005) at BALTIC, Newcastle. Photos of the performance Further live performances are scheduled for Manchester, Notingham and Bristol

Future Projects

Future collaborations and distributive projects.