Fifteen months after its launch in February 2005, l’mPULSE successfully carried out the third music camp series from 12th-22nd May, 2006 in Beijing, China as a part of the programming for the Dashanzi International Art Festival. ASEF’s efforts to promote process-oriented platforms have led to I’m PULSE Beijing focusing on DJ exchange.
Eighteen emerging DJs from Europe and Asia engaged in a one-week dialogue and workshops through comprehensive digital music experimentation. Internationally acclaimed DJs from the Asian underground scene: Sam Zaman of State of Bengal and Ges-E of Nasha Records (UK) provided a close-up on the possibility of representation, translation and migration of Asian and European DJ-culture.
To further highlight the coming together of all these Asian and European artists in China, a series of interactive multi-media installations presenting Beijing’s daily life were created by German artists Walkscreen: Ruthe Zuntz and Michael Reitz along with Masato Tsutsui (Japan).
Stressing the importance of programme development alongside ASEF’s objectives both on the organisational and artistic side, ASEF played a significant role in co-curating the DJ exchange in Beijing, China with Leon Lee, Producer, Pentatonic Workshop (China) and Aleksander Motturi, Artistic Director of Clandestino Festival (Sweden).
l’mPULSE is a programme of the Asia-Europe Music Camp series, designed to provide a platform for young people to exchange their ideas on music. Its primary aim is to encourage fresh minds to pursue the development of their music concepts by learning from each other.
ASEF co-organised this project with the Dashanzi International Art Festival (DIAF 2006) with support from the British Council, Goethe Institut-Beijing, Hart Center for Arts, the One Minutes Foundation, Beijing-Tokyo Art Project, Vibes and Club Tango.
l’mPULSE Minutes aimed to collect a minute of ideas from Chinese youngsters on music, culture and society in today’s Beijing landscape, through the creation of one-minute videos based in their own inspiration and criteria of creativity. In co-operation with the One Minutes Foundation (TOM) (www.theoneminutes.org), at the premises of the Hart Center of Arts and in the framework of the Dashanzi International Art Festival, ASEF coorganised this video workshop from 12th- 15th May, 2006 in Beijing, as a side event of the 3rd Asia-Europe Music Camp, l’mPULSE Beijing.
Twenty-one Chinese students, aged between 18 and 24, were selected from different Beijing schools by the organisers to take part in this four-day event. These youngsters had the opportunity to work together, meet foreign and local musicians from the DJ scene, develop their own creative stories, and film and edit their one minute videos with guidance from video artists and teachers, Yue Gu and Zhao Chen Ding.
Works produced were presented and screened in a session opened to the public at the Hart Centre, with the presence of the eighteen l’mPULSE DJs and their facilitators, and featured in a multi-media installation set-up as a part of the DJ’s performance at Club Tango on the 19th-20th May, with the attendance of more than 3,000 people. Most of the videos created during this period automatically entered the One Minute Country and Cities Competition, in Amsterdam in November 2006.