UCD Imagine Science Film Festival (5 – 14 July in Dublin) with Darklight Festival present an event at The Factory on Friday, 13 July featuring innovator in the field of computer music, Dan Trueman (currently on a return visit to Ireland after last year’s residency), a laptop orchestra and the nine musicians of the Yurodny Ensemble.

This falls within the Dublin City of Science initiative taking place this year, and is part of the first ever Science Film Festival to be held in Ireland, being run by University College Dublin in collaboration with Imagine Science Film Festival New York.

This particular event, entitled Sci-Lens (‘Sci-Lens is to tradition what silence is to sound’), involves, according to the publicity, ‘the design and building of new gestural interfaces; physical and virtual electronics for the translation of traditional music from around the world into contemporary language, and an exploration of the meaning of sound in space.’

Sci-Lens is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland Project Awards 2011 in association with the UCD Imagine Science Film Festival, Imagine Science NYC and Diatribe Records, Dublin.

Led by saxophonist and composer Nick Roth, Yurodny are celebrated for their ‘contemporary interpretations of traditional music from Eastern Europe and the Near East, alongside new works from composers inspired by these traditions.’ The other musicians in the ensemble are Adrian Hart on violin and electronics, Oleg Ponomarev on violin, Cora Venus Lunny on violin and viola, Kate Ellis on cello, Colm O’Hara on trombone, Francesco Turrisi on keyboards and percussion, Dave Redmond on double bass, and Phil Macmullan on drums.

As well as Trueman, the laptop orchestra will consist of Alex Dowling, Emma O’Halloran, Rachel Ní Chuinn, and David Collier.

The publicity material suggests ‘Current explorations in network theory and the organic mathematics of chaos are leading to the development of a new theory of universality that brings the aims of Science and Art ever closer together. In the language of music, it is a common axiom that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Sci-Lens attempts to find a proof for this, in seeking the ultimate goal of both fields: creativity and inspiration.’

The event takes place on Friday, 13 July in The Factory, Barrow Street, Dublin 2, starting at 8.30pm, with tickets at €10 (students/unwaged €5).

ucdimaginescience.ie.