gamma films - scatola a sorpresa

That's what the Berberian Sound Studio must have been like with good working conditions and happy staff, before it all went Giallo...

I stumbled upon the name Roberto Gavioli in a 1971 issue of Graphis magazine and was happy to find a promo of his Gamma Film studio in Milan on YouTube. It seems to have been an important studio for animation film, especially for commercials. Check the reel below, especially the last bit, starting at 18:42 minutes, a pop culture exploitation ad for a washing machine if I got that right.



Update: I found some additional information on the first film on the website of the Museum of Industry and Labour in Brescia, Italy, where the estate of Gamma Film seems to be. The film, called "Jack in a box", was made in 1963 to promote the studio complex "Cinelandia". Over 200 people used to work there. It was not only an important animation film studio. Furthermore, many famous Italian bands and musicians recorded there. Sadly, the studio complex is used by one of Berlusconi's TV production companies.

Hooray For Reading

Hooray For Reading was a "series of ten, minute-long shorts created by Field Communications for children. These would air during the commercial breaks on kid's shows and cartoons. These featured kids briefly doing some other activity besides reading (the "hook") and then describing a book they like using a brief dramatization of a part in the story."
I found these in the Museum of Classic Chicago TV on FuzzyMemories.tv, an enormous collaborative archive of off-air recordings of American television.
Here are my favorites from Hooray For Reading:

Hooray for Reading - "Life on a Plastic Planet?" (#7, 1979)

Hooray for Reading - 'Then Again, Maybe I Won't' (#4, 1979)

Hooray for Reading - "The Accident" (#5, 1979)

Hooray for Reading - "The Glad Man" (#1, 1979)

Hooray for Reading - "The TV Kid" (#6, 1979)

WFLD Channel 32 - Hooray For Reading Special (Promo, 1980)

Atelier Etcetera

Various installations made by Swiss group Atelier Etcetera between 1979 and 1983. Atelier Etcetera consisted of Beat Meyer, Franziska Opladen-Oberli and Heinrich Maria "Mirko" Opladen.
Top to bottom:
Dom, Lake Night Festival, Zurich, 1979
Schattenseiten, reopening Berne Art Museum, Berne, 1983
GR-NAGU, Youth Biennial, Paris, 1980
Garnix, Lausanne, 1981
Mobilhome, 3rd Federal Art Exhibition, Montreux, 1981
Sky-Lab II, Schweizerische Plastikausstellung, Biel, 1980

Found in this book:
Igildo G. Biesele, Experiment Design, More creativity through experimental design work - case studies from pratice and training, Zurich 1986
There's more on this book over here (and maybe on this blog as well sometime soon).

Mix: Sculptural Macramé

Here's an autumn mix for you. Questions and comments welcome as usual.

Download here.
Or listen on Mixcloud.

Sculptural Macramé - Dispokino mix October 2013 by Dispokino on Mixcloud

Bruno Spoerri - Music for Chinde verzelled 's Märli vom Geischt im Glas
Roj - Ludwig's Children
René Eespere - Okasroosike
Vashti Bunyan - Love Song
plastic moonrise - The Rapid Rain
Fred Jordan, Aston Munslow, Shropshire - Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
Vote Robot - eo_xugod_
Frédéric Chanu - Prends le temps d'écouter
Pierre van Hauwe - Bolero
Tod Dockstader - Pond Dance
Les Baxter's Orchestra - The Left Arm of Buddha
Sais Salah Ahmed, Dahir Cali Jimale, Khaliif Osman Cabdi - Umuliso
Gábor Presser - Indulás a koncertre
Tündérkaszinó - A part alatt
Die Welttraumforscher - This Could Be the Greatest Love in Town
Brenda Ray - The Scream
Solfeggio Tones - Solfeggio 396 417 528 639

The Bruno Spoerri track is the intro for a Swiss fairy tale record. The René Eespere song comes from the fantastic Estonian Teeme Muusikat series I got to know through several posts on toys and techniques. All tracks come from vinyl records except the wonderful electronic poems of Catherine Norris (plastic moonrise) and the mathematic melodies of Solfeggio Tones which I found on Soundcloud. Frédéric Chanu's Prends le temps d'écouter was made in a Freinet school. Tom Gagnaire from the Shapes and Colors blog had the wonderfully insane idea to make a reissue of this 7" of music composed and played by children. Well, since you read this blog you probably don't find the idea insane at all and you should order the record through the Tona Serenad label. There's more to come, I'll keep you posted. While you're at it, you should also order the Welttraumforscher's This Could Be the Greatest Love in Town (originally released on cassette in 1987) on 7" that was recently released in the context of the Welttraumforscher retrospective and book I organised.

Die Welttraumforscher: exhibition, book, LP, 7"

When the Welttraumforscher* set out on 14 July 1981 no one could have realized that their journey would not be over soon. For more than thirty years now, Swiss Christian Pfluger(*1963) has been working on drawings, texts and songs for the fascinating universe of the imaginary trio, which is well populated with characters like Leguan Rätselmann (Iguana Puzzleman) or Kip Eulenmeister (Kip Owlmaster) and his astronauts of the spirit. In the course of that journey, among other things, over 35 music cassettes, LPs and CDs have been released, with music that the Welttraumforscher themselves call “Bretzelberg Pop” and “Space Folklore”. I think many of the approx. 400 songs the Welttraumforscher published are number one hits on faraway planets.

I have been fascinated by this cosmos for a long time and now I had the pleasure to curate the first big retrospective exhibition of the Welttraumforscher and edit the first monograph.
The exhibition takes place at Kunsthaus Langenthal in Switzerland until November 10th. Many of the drawings, sketches and archive bits have never been exhibited before.
There will be one of the rare Welttraumforscher concerts and a talk with Christian Pfluger on November 8th.

The bilingual (German/English) book “The World Dream Researchers. Songs, Signs, Explorations” is published by Traversion. There's also a special edition with a vinyl 7” single «This Could be the Greatest Love in Town/Mira II».
Content: Christian Pfluger in conversation with Raffael Dörig and Michael Hiltbrunner. Sebastian Reier (B-Music, Golden Pudel Club) “Space Folklore. Cosmic Music, or the Cosmos of the Welttraumforscher”, German/English (including translations of song lyrics), 50 images, 96 pages.
CHF 36.–/ EUR 28.–, special edition with 7” CHF 42.– / EUR 33.–
Get it directly from the publisher, via your local bookstore or through amazon.

At the same time, the fine people of A Tree In A Field Records and Planam have published the second of a series of beautiful LP issues of early Welttraumforscher cassette tapes. They also sell the back catalogue of die Welttraumforscher (online soon, I think) i.e. the original LPs and CDs that are still in stock.

*"World Dream Researchers" or "Space Explorers" (the German name Welttraumforscher is a play on the term Weltraum = space / Welt Traum = World Dream)


A previous Dispokino-post on the Welttraumforscher with some songs can be found here.
If you understand German, please visit the Welttraumforscher's own encyclopedia on their website. 150 Welttraumforscher related terms explained.


Inside the book:

Promo sheet for the first cassette "Herzschlag Erde", 1981

Cover of "die singende Sternlaterne", Cassette, 1983 (now rereleased on LP)

Cover of unpublished zine supplement to 1983 cassette "Reise nach Bretzelberg"

drawing from the "Bretzelberger Bilderbogen" series (1984-2002)

drawing from the "Bretzelberger Bilderbogen" series (1984-2002)

Promo sheet for the first LP, 1989

LP sleeve "Folklore des Weltalls", 1989

CD cover "Sideria" 1995

Drawing from the "Grosser Bilderbogen" series (2002-now; 50x70cm)

Drawing from the "Grosser Bilderbogen" series (2002-now; 50x70cm)

Leguan Rätselmann's cone house, sketch 1996

From "8 Tage unter Planeten", 1981

Commodore CBM users

From: Lexikon der modernen Elektronik, Commodore-Edition, Munich 1980
The second to last picture actually shows the start of the Euronet-System DIANE by the president of the European Parliament. DIANE ("Direct Information Access NEtwork") seems to have been a pre-WWW online information network (not sure if it was a part of the Internet, couldn't find much information).

Animals And Children Volume 3

Alec Gould / James Harpham / Paul Lewis ‎– Animals And Children Volume 3

Studio G, 1976

My favorite track from this nice British library record is this recorders-metallophones-drum machine-combination, Puppet Show by James Harpham: 

Beni La Roche

Linocuts by Beni La Roche for "Kennst du den Weg?" ("Do you know the way?), a young people's guide to life by Reverend Werner Pfendsack, published in Basel, Switzerland in 1971.
La Roche also illustrated this amazing book.