Swiss electronic music collective [http://www.domizil.ch|domizil] pays a rare visit to California on their upcoming West Coast tour, starting this Saturday in San Francisco. They will perform alongside several key local artists venues including the [http://www.sfai.edu|San Francisco Art Institute], [http://www.welcometolace.org|Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)], [http://www.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/|swissnex] San Francisco, and elsewhere, bringing their own unique blend of experimentation and sonic bliss to the West.

Led by Marcus Maeder and Bernd Schurer, domizil is a Zurich-based sound art outfit that produces releases and experiments in close collaboration with the [http://www.icst.net|Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technologies (ICST)], based at the Zurich University for the Arts (ZHdK). ICST director Germán Toro Pérez and a delegation from the Institute join domizil on their California tour, organized by swissnex San Francisco with [http://www.volumeprojects.org|VOLUME] and other key partners.

domizil started up in 1996 on the initiative of Marcus Maeder, who was soon joined by Bernd Schurer. domizil sees itself as a platform for coordination, presentation, production, interchange and cooperation, focusing mainly on publishing and distributing the work of our network of artists - be it online or as record releases, live media, or through the organization of events. From its first release on, domizil has been poised for an in-depth exploration of digital culture, its sounds, methods and its social context. Our artistic focus lies on sonic art and all the facets of its digital practice today, and we're trying to link the work of our artists to the many different artistic genres. domizil is based in the heart of the city of Zurich, Switzerland.

The ICST was founded in 2005 by Gerald Bennett and Daniel Fueter as a research institute of the former Zurich Conservatory to establish itself as a specialist centre in Switzerland for research in the area of music and new sound technology.

The research projects of the ICST are concerned with 3-dimensional sound projection, digital sound generation and control as well as psychoacoustics, generative art, composition, e-learning and the archiving and documenting of electroacoustic music. The results are presented in the form of software, hardware, publications, contributions to international symposia and festivals as well as through the realization of compositions and artistic projects. The ICST is particularly well known for its development of hardware and software for the surround technology known as ambisonics.

The ICST is also involved in the bachelor and masters programs in Electroacoustic Composition, in the certificate of advanced studies in Computer Music and in summer courses at the Zurich University of the Arts.

Visits by guest composers, talks, concerts and workshops are regular activities of the Institute. The ICST media library and the ICST electroacoustic music archives offer one of the biggest collections of their kind for researchers and students alike.

This presentation at CNMAT will provide a great opportunity to discuss research and tools by the ICST in domains such as ambisonics and Interactive Swarm Spaces while also broaching on historic perspectives about electronic music in Switzerland and beyond.