Chiptune artists to converge at Blip Festival

[Above: Bubblyfish takes the seas with her sailor friend on the Blip Festival preview cruise.]

Despite what Jack Thompson and your 4th grade teacher told you, videogames do not always inspire wanton bloodshed and antisocial behavior. An entire new generation of musicians is looking back to the early nineties when all it took was 15 bits of midi beats and synthesized riffs to constitute a musical work of art. For the third year running, Blip Festival is set to celebrate artists utilizing the very best resources in yesterday’s gaming technology for today's listening pleasure, Dec. 4th-7th at Brooklyn's Studio B.

The festival will feature 40 of these videogame musicians and visual artists performing live on an assortment of antiquated game consoles, including Nintendos, Commodore 64s, Gameboys and any other system that you resent your Mom for selling at a garage sale in 1996.

The festival will be presented by The Tank, a Manhattan arts non-profit group, and 8bitpeoples, a group of classic videogame enthusiasts and musicians. The 2008 documentary Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet, which screened at SXSW, follows this recent trend and the ensuing lives of chip musicians through the annual festival, and can be seen in its entirety on Pitchfork TV.

Paste:Local recently got the chance to preview the event on a cruise along the East River. Highlights included the coolest version of the Reading Rainbow theme song we’ve ever heard (by an artist named 8bit bEtty) and a sailor jamming on a Gameboy Classic.

For more information, and to purchase festival passes, visit BlipFestival.org.