I’ve just come back home from ENIAROF. As people say here in France, « c’était énorme » (and in fact we heard quite a few people say it on their way out). If you’re anywhere near Aix-en-Provence tomorrow, you really should drop by. 16h00 -> 23h00, and probably later into the night ;-)
It costs anywhere from 1€ to 6€, depending on the roll of the dice. And you get a special prize of course if you roll a six.
I don’t know how to blog it without sounding full of myself (what’s new, right?), but this year’s ENIAROF is just plain amazing. And FUN. The Eniarofers have really made something wonderful, and Antonin Fourneau’s concept has further proved its generative force. The « attractions » just kept piling up, one after the other into the night, each one more wonderfully absurd than the next and yet perfectly logical in-the-world-that-is-ENIAROF. In fact, we probably could have just stood back and watched the thing build itself, thanks to the DOGMeNIAROF and indeed much of the non-electronic attractions did just that. Karaoke and Mud wrestling was back, this time joined by a very peculiar form of concert: the « CuiCuiBox » where three performers rock out with the Amps set to 11 in a tiny cardboard box with just enough space for a few people to squeeze in and just enough headroom to pogo and headbang to your heart’s delight. Now, 2/3rds of CuiCui make up 1/2 of 8=8 (got that?), so of course we thought it was totally cool, but it really was. They’ll be there again tomorrow night, with the Amps set to 11 1/2. Promise…
But my favorite of all the attractions, way beyond our own (I’ll post videos and photos online of those once I’ve gotten a little sleep and had some time to film), was Makemoo’s « Brouette Tuning », which is nothing more than a tricked out wheelbarrow with a huge bass hooked up to an mp3. Ok, that’s funny, but damn if the thing doesn’t work perfectly to add that little extra punch to the evening. Party getting dull? Just add the « Brouette Tuning ». The wheelbarrows (in fact there were two - creating wonderful mashup possibilities) just naturally migrated through the carnaval and popped up wherever people need a big FUNKY boom bass to get things moving again. So easy to pick up a wicked wheelbarrow and wheel it wherever you want to get ’da party started.
For more information, and a great interview with Antonin by the always cool Marie Lechner, you can read the following article in today’s Libération/Écrans blog : « Nouvelles lois de l’attraction ». Antonin talks about classic video games, monsters, Processing + Arduinio and joyous responses to the pitiful state of digital arts festivals.