“Think of it as Donkey Kong meets Norman Cook… or maybe Tetris takes on Kraftwerk” – Clark Boyd, BBC News

MIKRO ORCHESTRA is a project that has undergone a transformation from an experimental form of media art contestation in the early 21st century and an ironic commentary on the electronic scene, through chiptune curiosities, to a star of “Got Talent” shows, a meme hero, and a presence on breakfast television programs. Today, more mature and with a new yet old line-up, we present a return to our roots. Equipped with traditional instruments of Japanese pop culture – archaic game consoles – we want to take you on a journey back to the early 90s.

We are not artists, but operators of handheld calculating machines. Four operators will play or create minimalist musical forms live on archaic game consoles during the performance. The event will take the form of a jam session – the musical forms will be mixed live with original visual forms.

Mikro Orchestra are Jarosław Kujda, Paweł Janicki, Małgorzata Kujda, and Tomasz Procków. They debuted in 2001 in Wrocław with a performance at the WRO Media Art Biennale. This one-time experiment turned into a project that was eagerly invited to the largest European art festivals such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Club Transmediale, Piemonte Share Festival, FESTA ELETTRONICA, experimentaclub (Madrid), Festival Emergences, EXIT festival (Paris), ENTERmulPmediale (Prague) and many others.

The Mikro Orchestra project has also been the subject of radio and television broadcasts (BBC News, Copernicus, RAI, ARD, Viva Polska, TVP1, RTL2, ARTE) and articles in national and international press (Gazeta Wyborcza, Przekrój, Liberation, El Pais, VOGUE, Glamour, German Max, Wired Magazine, Japanese Art Yard). The group represented Poland during the celebration of the Polish Year in Austria and the Polish Year in France.

The group also participated in the American documentary “8 BIT – a documentary about art and video games” and has a number of publications related to contemporary art to its credit.