AUDIO BALLERINAS, VIDEO PEACOCKS and other Electroacoustic Clothing

Benoît Maubrey is the director of DIE AUDIO GRUPPE a Berlin-based art group that build and perform with electronic clothes. Basically these are electro-acoustic clothes and dresses (equipped with amplifiers and loudspeakers) that make sounds by interacting thematically and acoustically with their environment. For example the AUDIO BALLERINAS use -- among other electronic instruments-- light sensors that enable them to produce sounds through the interaction of their movements and the surrounding light (PEEPER choreography). Via movement sensors they can also trigger electronic sounds that are subsequently choreographed --or "orchestrated"-- into musical compositions as an "audio ballet " (YAMAHA choreography). A variety of other electronic instruments (mini-computers, samplers, contact microphones, cassette and MP3 players, and radio receivers) allow them to work with the sounds, surfaces, and topographies of the space around them in a variety of solo or group choreographies.