Benoît and the Mandelbrots see the laptop as their main instrument; they are mainly dedicated to live coding, the process of writing software in real time. They use the programming language itself as an at first sight non-intuitive but simultaneously expressive interface between man and machine in order to improvise sound and music. Sonic conceptions and structures are expressed live as source code and interpreted by the computer. The laptop musicians are connected over the network to enable them to communicate on stage and share parameters, e.g. harmonic progressions, to synchronize their timing and project their screens on a dedicated machine.

As every performance setting is unique and improvisation is the main paradigm of the group, they do not perform “works” in a classic sense but consider their whole oeuvre and underlying concept as their work, which expands with every performance. The musical results vary from electronica and ambient to experimental, noise, drones and avant-garde depending on the event, audience, venue and course of the collective improvisation. 

Links: http://www.the-mandelbrots.de

**Benoît and the Mandelbrots** (DE) was formed in winter 2009 by students of the IMWI (Institute for Musicology and Music Informatics) at the Karlsruhe University of Music: Holger Ballweg, Patrick Borgeat, Juan A. Romero, Matthias Schneiderbanger. Since then they have played in over 30 concerts in different locations and events, notably at Network Music Festival 2012 in Birmingham, Laptop Meets Musician Festival 2011 in Venice, next_generation 4.0 at ZKM Karlsruhe, SuperCollider Symposium 2010 in Berlin and LINKS Biennale für Neue Musik 2010 in Heidelberg.