A series of loose connections, blistering fast and, most of all, completely improvised. These are the traits of a Breadboard Band performance. They use a breadboard for electronic circuits test, producing sessions of audiovisual productions. With a genuine do-it-yourself approach this Japanese group assemble hand-made every piece of the instrumentation used during the performances. The mechanism lies on the ‘breadboard’ a matrix of connectors where basic electronic circuits are plugged in, generating sounds and pictures. After one hundred years from the Telharmonium performance (the first electronic music instrument), opening the black box of the digital tools, the Breadboard Band unveils the role played by the electronic components that many contemporary artists decide to work with. They can’t be considered anymore as a mere support. The use of electronic components is changing the rules of the game. The definition of ‘artistic value’ is shifting from a semantic to a pragmatic layer, so it can’t be related anymore to the object only because it owns a series of intrinsic features, but it has to deal with its belonging to a system of actions. In this way the work of art ceases to exists as an ‘unicum’ and it shatters into infinite other possible works. But in this disintegration seem to conceal the secret of its own value.

Francesca Tomassini