The official launch of the first Pophorn, the Ophonine happened at two fine Colombian festivals. First we went to the Bogotrax festival in Bogotá, an independent laboratorio urbano featuring ten days of free digital music parties, VJ-spectacles and conferences on culture.

Kids, rockers and ravers fiddled with the phones at Parque de los Periodistas, Sake Sano and at the Museo de Artes in Universidad Nacional.

The kids are alright! After learning to scratch and beat-mix in just a few minutes they charged ahead a composed Pophorn music like they’ve been practicing for a year.

We then moved on to Medellín and the Pixelazo. Setting up the Pophorns Ophone stylee in the main square in front of the church caused quite a stir. At first people were a bit hesitant but soon the square was rocking with looping sounds, everything from guttural garbage to guitar-strumming, greetings to relatives and political diatribes.

VJ and organiser Pata de Perro assembled these moving images from the event:

It’s amazing to see how immediate and unintimidating the cellphone has become - probably globally - as an interface. People who would never have dreamt of stepped on stage in front of an audience produced looping compositions to be heard by hundreds of people in central Medellín. Also, it’s interesting to note that many participants were quite outspoken through the Pophorns - in a country were you normally save political discussions for more low-key private situations.

More photos here. Read Erik’s report on these fine Colombian party laboratories if you’re curious of Bogotrax and Pixelazo.

Thanks to IASPIS for supporting the trip and to Sony Ericsson in Bogotá for handing out some fresh, orange W600s for the show.