Center for research & development of instruments & tools for performers in the electronic performance arts. Laboratory, workshop, international meeting place, artist hotel, production office, live electroacoustic music, DJ's, VJ's, theater and installation makers, video artists and nomad studio.
STEIM (the studio for electro-instrumental music) is the only independent live electronic music centre in the world that is exclusively dedicated to the performing arts.
The foundation's artistic and technical departments support an international community of performers and musicians, and a growing group of visual artists, to develop unique instruments for their work. STEIM invites these people for residencies and provides them with an artistic and technical environment in which concepts can be given concrete form. It catalyzes their ideas by providing critical feedback grounded in professional experience. These new creations are then exposed to a receptive responsive niche public at STEIM before being groomed for a larger audience.
STEIM promotes the idea that Touch is crucial in communicating with the new electronic performance art technologies. Too much the computer has been used, and designed, as an exclusive extension of the formalistic capabilities of humans. At STEIM the intelligence of the body, for example: the knowledge of the fingers or lips is considered musically as important as the 'brain-knowledge'. STEIM has stimulated the design of extremely physical interfaces and is widely considered as the pioneering place for the new live electronic concepts.
STEIM has always encouraged the use of low-tech solutions and the creative "misuse" of recycled high-tech.STEIM stands for "a human approach to technology". This technology has to be tailored to the individual. Unique instruments such as The Hands, The Web, The Sweatstick and the MIDI Conductor were created as a result of personal and individual projects but are now used by other performers. > > >
