Previous Projects

Futuresonic 2006

Leverage, a new project for Futuresonic 2006, centres around the creation of copyleft licensed 12 inch vinyl records containing a range of samples, beats and extracts from the archive in a format referencing scratch tools, breaks compilations and battle records. Read more . . . Sample Leverage at Instrument, an exhibition of artist-made instruments, noise-generators, audio-visual manipulators, and head twisters by sound artists and noise-makers. 20-29 July at 1830 Warehouse, Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester Friday 21 July 11am Eileen Simpson & Ben White talk about Leverage and the Open Music Archive project. 1830 Warehouse, Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester More info Futuresonic 2006 runs from 20 - 22nd July at various venues around Manchester Video of Parkertron (Fingathing) testing the Leverage records using Serato Scratch Live. Download quicktime Duration: 13 mins / 43.1 MB (right-click/ctrl+click to download) Read the entry for this video on Archive.org Shot and edited by Kid Jenson Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5

Broadcast Times: British Art Show Bristol

Broadcast Times: The Birth of Westward - a film by Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Eileen Simpson, and Ben White - is showing as part of the British Art Show Bristol. As the exhibition train leaves the platform, we are taken on a documentary journey of "a happy hunting ground for tycoons" the birth of commercial television broadcasting. 15th July - 17 September 2006 Spike Island at A Bond Smeaton Road, Cumberland Basin Bristol BS1 6EE More info: 0117 929 2266 British Art Show website

Screen Tests @ Canal

An evening of short films and a party to celebrate the opening of: Canal 29 Vyner St, London E2 9QD Friday 2 June 2006 Screenings from 8.30pm The Light Fantastic - Ken Russell, 1960 Behive - Jim Self and Frank Moore, 1985 Screen Tests - Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Eileen Simpson, Ben White, 2005 Party to follow Canal is a temporary project room and studio run by Matthew Darbyshire, Anna Colin, Sarah McCrory, Olivia Plender, Melissa Franklin, Djordje Ozbolt and Celine Condorelli.

Screen Tests DVD

A project in collaboration with Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska that evolved from British Art Show 6. The Free DVD was launched at the Anticipating the Past: Artist: Archive: Film conference on the 12th-13th May, at Tate Modern. The DVD includes three new films - edited from archive film material, with a soundtrack made from out-of-copyright records - along with the original material and source files. The material is released under a Creative Commons license, enabling anyone to use and re-use Screen Tests for future creative exchange. Screen Tests 1/4 Screen Tests The film unfolds as a series of Andy Warhol-like screen tests, slowly revealing the location and the occupation of those before the camera - students and models from the Manchester School of Art. Screen Tests 2/4 Dragline Dragline stumbles across an autonomous event, and echoing 1970's structuralist film, returns the default setting of contemporary digital practice - sampling and looping - to its industrial roots. Screen Tests 3/4 Broadcast Times: The Birth of Westward As the exhibition train leaves the platform, we are taken on a documentary journey of "a happy hunting ground for tycoons" the birth of commercial television broadcasting. Screen Tests 4/4 The Northern Region Film and Television Archive, based in Newcastle did not respond to several attempts at contact, eventually we spoke over the telephone and they declined any involvement. Arts Council England funded the production of this DVD through Grants for the arts. If you would like a copy of the Screen Tests DVD email infoATopenmusicarchiveDOTorg

Dragline: British Art Show Nottingham

Dragline and Screen Tests are showing at Angel Row Gallery as part of British Art Show 6, Nottingham (21st April - 25th June) Angel Row Gallery Central Library Building 3 Angel Row Nottingham NG1 6HP Catch a live performance of Screen Tests in Nottingham at 7.30pm on 19th May at Powerhouse, Victoria Studios (part of the Nottingham Trent buildings)

Dragline @ Swiss Institute NY

Preview of our new film Dragline - remixed archive material, with a soundtrack made from out-of-copyright records, produced in collaboration with Chance Projects showing at: Swiss Institute 495 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10012 Thursday March 23, 7pm

Open Music Archive presents an Evening of Free Music and Films

Archive playlists, remix samples, and photos

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] See Screen Tests at Urbis until 2nd April 2006 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 White performed a live remixed version of Screen Tests for the launch of British Art Show 6 at BALTIC, Newcastle. Photos of the performance Future live performances are scheduled for Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol Screen Tests is at BALTIC from 24th Sep - 8th Jan 2006