The Sancho Plan

16/04/11
The Sancho Plan @ Imagine 2011
The Sancho Plan pulled off a storming set to open the Thursday at Microsoft's annual conference at their HQ in Redmond. We entertained amongst some great presentations, including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Legendary Director Ron Howard and Digital Visionary Jaron Lanier, who came onstage to jam with us using his own exotic rhythmic wind instrument. We also introduced our amazing MIDI-controlled El Wire bass to the Sancho line-up. http://advertising.microsoft.com

16/09/10
The Sancho Plan @ Scopitone 2010
After a wonderful Burning Man experience, The Sancho Plan are off to perform at the Scopitone festival in Nantes, France, alongside such luminaries as Andrew Weatherall, Carl Craig and Addictive TV. We're on at 5:45pm on Saturday 18th Sept, so those that can please come on down! www.scopitone.org

19/08/10
The Sancho Plan @ Burning Man 2010
We are returning to the wonderful neon desert experience that is the Burning Man festival in the USA. We're excited to be showing off our brand new custom-built percussion-controlled El-Wire system. Using this system we can create neon-outline sets and characters that will react precisely to every hit of a drum, note from a synth, or hi hat from an 808. We see great potential for our new system, not just for our own shows but for any band who want their stage set design to seamlessly react to their performance. Please get in touch if you would be interested in hearing more…

15/02/10
Heaven 17 Live Visuals
Martyn Ware - musical pioneer, Future Of Sound host & friend of The Sancho Plan - is back on tour with the fabulous Heaven 17, and we've created a new visual composition to be displayed on H17's enormous LED backdrops for their track Honeymoon in New York. Sancho crew Ed Cookson and Bruno Mathez have recreated New York in 1981 8-bit glory, with each individual note of the track building a part of the landscape. Tour info available here: www.heaven17.com

24/01/10
Talk as part of onedotzero's Decode exhibition 26/01/10
Sancho Director Ed Cookson will be doing a show and tell as part of onedotzero's excellent Decode exhibition at the V&A museum in London. He's in good company with Greyworld, Troika & New Treatment on the panel. They will all be discussing 'digital futures: storytelling in the digital domain', followed by drinks and informal networking. Get your tickets here.

10/01/10
New Augmented Reality Commission
We're really excited to have been awarded a grant by the Arts Council to create a brand new Augmented Reality musical ‘interactive toy’. The project will feature as a touring large-scale public installation, as well as an online video and accompanying interactive that will allow users to play through their webcams. The piece is about our favourite subject - musical collaboration, represented in this case by some surreal singing monkeys.

20/12/09
The Black Page video
We've uploaded the first sneak-peak video edit from our September Tyneside Premiere of The Black Page to our live performance page. Please check it out!

19/11/09
New Blog Post
The Sancho Plan's Director, Ed Cookson, has launched a new blog to share his thoughts on historical developments, current trends and potential futures crossing the discplines of art, media, entertainment, technology and science. The first post is a transcript of his introductory speech at The Black Page launch beck in September.

12/11/09
The Sancho Plan @ Musion
We will be performing at the Musion Academy Media Awards in Central London this Sunday, using the amazing Musion Holographic system. To quote their website, "Musion Eyeliner is a high definition 3D holographic video projection system allowing a spectacular 3-dimensional moving life-size hologram to appear within a live stage setting." So we'll be performing Spacequatica live while our animated creatures float in front of us. Pics and videos to follow.

04/10/09
The Black Page Launch
We had a blast at The Black Page world premiere at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, UK last week. Review from The North Phase available here. Please stay tuned for more UK and international tour dates to be announced towards the end of the year.

20/08/09
The Black Page
Tickets now available for The Black Page world premiere at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, UK. Check here for more info.

06/08/09
Twita
For updates on our upcoming performances & installations, as well as news on our works inproduction, please come follow at twitter.com/thesanchoplan

07/07/09
The Black Page Production
We're happy to report that the ace Soho Post Production House Golden Square are on board to help create & refine the amazing imagery of our latest live audiovisual performance, The Black Page. We'll soon be announcing details of the premiere performance, but keep diaires free around the end of September 2009...

15/05/09
The Sancho Plan at Thinking Digital
We've just performed at the orgy of information that is the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, which looks at the past, present and future of just about everything. Especially enjoyable were Tara Shears talking about the amazing particle physics stuff going down at CERN, and Dan Lyons, who gave a great presentation about journalism today and tomorrow.

09/04/09
The Sancho Plan at fmx/09
Ed Cookson will be presenting The Sancho Plan's work at fmx, Europe’s most well-respected conference on Animation, Games and Digital Media. Ed is taking part in one of the 5D panels on Thursday 7 May alongide speakers from Electronica Arts, United Visual Artists and Applied Information Group. fmx takes place in Stuttgart, Germany from 5-8th May 2009. Get further info at http://fmx.de

17/02/09
Our new immersive 3D experience launches
We have designed, created and installed our own unique breed of interactive musical experience in the new Ars Electronica Centre in Linz, Austria. Jungle Imperator has been especially crafted to take advantage of the latest immersive technologies, including Ultra HD resolution imagery on the wall and floors, incredible quality surround audio and the latest in stereoscopic 3D.

Combining music provided by Vienna-based musicians Tosca (Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber) with rich surrealist imagery inspired by Max Ernst, Jungle Imperator is an interactive visual and musical experience in which you control a cast of animated musical characters.

See our Installation section for the first video footage.

01/11/08
New musical-animation experience
The Sancho Plan have temporarily relocated to Austria where we're working in collaboration with the world renowned Ars Electronica Futurelab & musical heroes Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber (as Tosca) to create a unique immersive audiovisual experience for the new state-of-the art Ars Electronica Centre. The installation is due to open in January 2009 during Linz’s year as European Capital of Culture.

24/07/08
La Noche en Blanco
We're back from a great night in Madrid - we're told that 1.5 million people hit the Gran Via where we performed. We also ran a new installation in which the public could play with our creatures by waving their hands in front of infrared sensors embedded in our Periscopes Of Rave. You can check out some photos here:
www.flickr.com/photos/thesanchoplan/sets/72157607342926985

24/07/08
SIGGRAPH Press Release
More information on the Slow Art exhibit here: http://www.renderosity.com/news.php?viewStory=14086
Come find us in Hall H from 11 - 15 August!

21/05/08
SIGGRAPH 2008
We're pleased to announce that The Sancho Plan have been invited to show our work at the world famous SIGGRAPH conference and exhibtion in Los Angeles this August. It's a great honour for us - we've never been, but have long been aware of the pioneering interactive and animation work shown there, not least the links with Pixar dating way back to the '80s. We'll put up more details of what, where and when we'll be showing over the coming months. In the meantime have a look at www.siggraph.org for more info.

16/04/08
Spacequatica @ Tyneside Cinema
This weekend we're all excited about running our Spacequatica installation for the first time in the UK, and doubly excited about the fact that it will be appearing at the fantastic Tyneside Cinema, originally built as the Newcastle News Theatre back in 1937 and the last surviving news theatre running as a cinema. Check out www.tynecine.org for further details.

16/04/08
Percussion @ Royal College of Music, London UK
The Sancho Plan regular Joel Farland is performing his final percussion recital at London's Royal College of Music this Monday 21st April at 8pm. He'll be doing a 30 minute show, climaxing with an exclusive, new extended Sancho Plan version of Frank Zappa's original Black Page (parts 1 and 2), performing with two other top-class musicians all hooked up to our visuals. Entrance is free and open to all.

22/02/08
Heads Down
It's been development time so far in 2008, but keep 'em peeled for some Spring/ Summer news coming soon...

21/12/07
Hello '08
Back now from Vienna, where we spent a week in the swanky MuseumsQuatier. It was a fun but chillled time - we set-up a new two-month installation at net.culture.space, performed at the opening ceremony, headed back to Linz for a day to upgrade the installation at the Ars Electronica Centre, and I even got in some top skiing. Taking a little break from the gigs for the start of 2008, firstly to get some sun in Rio de Janeiro, and then to get heads down for some development work. But do keep checking back as winter gives way to spring and we’ll be posting a wide range of exciting gigs around the world. Until then I wish the happiest of 2008’s to all our supporters and friends. X

19/11/07
Live @ Fabric
Next Thursday 22nd November we're getting our clubbing boots on and heading down to Fabric (London) to thump out a late-night live av performance on the main stage, as part of The Future of Sound. The night is called Oberon and promises to be "An unparalleled night of underground visual and musical excellence". There's some more info on the night here on MySpace, and you can book tickets here.

14/09/07
Ars Electronica
We've just got back after a tiring but rewarding Ars Electronica. There was loads of great work there, and two of The Sancho Plan’s highlights included performing as part of the grand Gala ceremony and premiering our new cover version of Frank Zappa's Black Page. A special big up to Joel for mastering this full-on drum solo. As both of these were recorded for potential broadcast we hope to be putting together some footage for those of you who couldn't make it. In the meantime a few pictures from the gigs have gone up on Flickr and the first draft of our Spacequatica installation is up and running in the Ars Electronica Center. There are also a couple of new dates in Tour dates, with more to follow/ be confirmed soon. Ciao for now.

20/07/07
The Sancho Plan @ Ars Electronica 2007
Hola! We've got three exciting new events to announce surrounding this year's Ars Electronica, the internationally renowned arty media festival held in Linz, Austria. Firstly we'll be updating our installation currently running in the excellent Ars Electronica Center, to feature a new interactive version of Spacequatica in which the public can explore our musical ocean for themselves. Secondly we'll be performing Spacequatica live as part of the PRIX Ars Electronica Gala Night, held in Linz's most impressive Brucknerhaus. And finally we're currently working on a brand new work inspired by Frank Zappa's legendary drum solo, The Black Page, to be performed on 9th September as part of an evening called "The Long Night of Music". Check out the Tour Dates page for dates and links.

04/05/07
Sit on MySpace
Come say hello to us at MySpace

13/04/07
Final Date of the Future Of Sound
Last night we played our final date of the current Future of Sound tour, organised by all-round hero Martyn Ware. Thanks to everyone on the tour for making it such a success, especially Martyn and Asa Bennett, and we're keeping our fingers crossed for the "Return of the Future Of Sound". Or "Back to the Future Of Sound"? Or "Bride of the Future Of Sound".

31/03/07
The Sancho Plan @ Cybersonica Late at Tate Britain
The Sancho Plan will be performing both their new Spacequatica piece and some of their golden oldies in the amazing surroundings of Gallery 9 at the Tate Britain in London next Friday 6th April. If you are in London and want to see us playing amongst the Constables and the Hogarths, have a look at the Cybersonica site for more details.

26/02/07
Spacequatica: New Live Performance Video on YouTube
We've uploaded a short video showing sections of our brand new live performance, Spacequatica - check out the Live Performance section to see it.

26/02/07
Big Chill '06 Video on YouTube
We've uploaded a short video edited from footage of our live performance at last year's Big Chill festival - check out the Live Performance section to see it.

12/02/07
New London Date Added!
Just a quickie to say that we've added Goldsmiths College of the University of London to our Tour dates for 1st March 2007 .

10/02/07
Spacequatica @ Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, UK
We performed Spacequatica for the second time at the Norwich Arts Centre on Thursday, again as part of the hugely enjoyable Future of Sound tour. This time the show included a solo performance of the final act (a progressive symphony of light-emitting deep sea creatures) by our percussion maestro, Joel Farland. This final act is performed in a black-out, the only on-stage light coming from the glow of Joel's electric drum sticks. Onwards to the next one... please keep an eye on our Tour dates, and don't hesitate to get in touch if you want any further info about The Sancho Plan or our upcoming dates.

29/01/07
Spacequatica @ The Sage, Gateshead, UK
The Sancho Plan premiered their new audiovisual work "Spacequatica" in Gateshead last week to a great reception. The piece has been especially created to show off the 3D sound system being toured by the Illustrious Company, and special thanks to Martyn Ware (co-founder of Illustrious, as well as 80's legends The Human League) for his amazingly positive comments and general support. The venue and crowd were both fantastic, and hopefully we can get to work on some editing to put some decent footage on YouTube (a very lo-fi mobile phone version already exists if you don't want to wait). We've got some further Future Of Sound dates lined up (and more to be confirmed soon), so keep an eye on our Tour dates. Finally a huge thanks to Olly Venning and Edd Dawson-Taylor for all their hard work in creating the huge cast of characters.

28/10/06
Spacequatica (In Production)
The Sancho Plan will form part of a new tour, dubbed "The Future of Sound", run by The Illustrious Company to show off their amazing new 3D sound system. We will be developing a brand new live performance piece for the tour to be performed at several venues across the UK between January and March 2007. See Tour dates for more info.

15/09/06
Burning Man
The Sancho Plan had a great time at the Burning Man festival, where they ran a week-long brand new installation. A massive thanks to Camp Videogasm, and see some photos here for the tour to be performed at several venues across the UK between January and March 2007.