Kitchen Motors manifesto
Kitchen Motors is a think tank, a record label, and an art organization specializing in instigating collaborations and putting on concerts, exhibitions, performances, chamber operas, producing films, books and radio shows based on the ideals of experimentation, collaboration, the search for new art forms and the breaking down of barriers between forms, genres and disciplines.
Kitchen Motors emphasizes an alchemical play of opposites, experimentation and improvisation with the aim of discovering new art forms while shaking up the boundaries between already existing ones.
Kitchen Motors is best known for producing collaborations between artists from different disciplines and in finding common ground where artists from often very diverse backgrounds can work together. The idea of Kitchen Motors was originally based on the fact that we found that certain groups of artists, which were on the surface very different, shared considerable common ground that remained unexplored. We wanted to create a forum where these artists could meet on equal terms and work.
In April 1999 the idea began to emerge of a concert series every Monday evening for one month at Reykjavik's Kaffi Thomsen, where musicians from different backgrounds that hadn't worked together before would be asked to improvise a half-hour of music. The idea was to bring together improvisers, electronic musicians, composers and people with indie, jazz, techno/experimental and rock backgrounds, find out the most intriguing combinations and see what happened.
These beginnings have blossomed into an operation which encompasses many fields of cultural endeavor, including a record label, a web site, and countless exhibitions and performances at home and abroad.
Kitchen Motors is in many ways similar to a small independent cultural "institution" which bases everything on very close contact and intimate communication with artists. We "commission" works from artists and develop them in close collaboration. We regard the "commission" and development of the work as an artistic process of no less importance then than the work itself, i.e. the process is as crucial as the end result.
Kitchen Motors was created as a much-needed venue for radical experiments in the merger of art forms. Our ambition is to find the dry spots and to irrigate them. The main area of interest is in music, with special emphasis on the electronic and improvised kind, and its collision with other media, theatre, science, visual art etc.
Projects most often have a conceptual origin within the Kitchen Motors core team, but the creation and execution is in the hands of the artists involved, in close collaboration with KM. Sometimes the the execution of ideas is in the hands of the trio at the core of KM, but we thrive on the collaborative input of other artists.
Kitchen Motors also dynamically groups together artists form all fields, which share a radical and decisive view of art and who work together on the development, dissemination and diffusion of progressive arts in Iceland as well as abroad.
The founders and main architects of Kitchen Motors are: Kristín Björk Kristjánsdóttir, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Hilmar Jensson.
Home page: this.is/kitchenmotors
Email: kitchenmotors@this.is
CD releases
KM1 "Nart Nibbles", 1999
Apparat Organ Quartet, Helvítis Guitar Symphony, Músíkvatur & Múm and more
KM2 "Motorlab #1", 2000
Hilmar Jensson, Ulfar Haraldsson & CAPUT, Stilluppsteypa & Magnús Pálsson, Telefónía
KM3 "Motorlab #2", 2001
Apparat Organ Quartet & TF3IRA, Múm & Sjón, Big Band Brutal
KM4 "Motorlab #3" 2001
Barry Adamson vs. Pan Sonic, The Hafler Trio
KM5 Kippi Kaninus "H u g g u n", 2002
KM6 Slowblow "Noi Albinoi (OST)", 2003
Jóhann Jóhannsson's musical contributions to Kitchen Motors are detailed in his discography. For a more complete Kitchen Motors discography click here.
Selected performances
1999
Nart Nibbles series Kaffi Thomsen, Reykjavík.
RUREK Jazz Festival Tjarnarbíó, Reykjavík.
2000
Motorlab (10 performances in collaboration with Reykjavík Cultural City of Europe 2000) Various venues in Reykjavík.
Batofar Festival, Paris.
Telefonia, premiere Kringlan Shopping mall.
Allt annar munur: Electronica & belly dancing. Skjár 1.
2000-2001
Saunabar, Oranssi Klubi, Yo-Talo, Semifinal í Helsinki og Tampere í Finnlandi.
2001
Klub Sputnik Moloko, St. Petersburg.
The Hafler Trio. Smáralind Shopping Center.
Motorlab Reykjavík. Holland Festival.
FatCat vs. Kitchen Motors. Loftkastalinn.
Ególausi tíkallasíminn. Sound installation at Pólyfónía sound exhibition. Living Arts Museum, Reykjavík.
Innileikar. Vesturport.
Myrkraverk. Vesturport.
Sónar Barcelona International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. Barcelona.
Kitchen Motors 2 day festival in collaboration with Mixing It, BBC 3. ICA, London.
Musicus Concentus & Kitchen Motors. Vie di Fuga, Flórens.
Evolution 2002: Process Leeds.
2003
Strobotika, 2 day Kitchen Motors Festival, Kunstencentrum Belgie, Hasselt, Belgium.
Ultrasound, Huddersfield, England.
Saeluhusid: a monthly series of lo-fi events in the Living Arts Museum.
2004
Motel Mozaique festival, Rotterdam.
5 year anniversary festival, Klink & Bank, Reykjavik.