DUNDEE'S annual festival of experimental music, art and film is something of a national treasure, not only for the way it offers experiences you won't find anywhere else, but also for the manner in which it presents them. There is a boyish, unpretent
ious enthusiasm to co-curator Barry Esson, whose jovial introductions to the acts and informal brochure notes give the event a completely different atmosphere to, say, the forbiddingly academic National Review of Live Art. Whether shepherding the audience to the middle in order to get a better view, or giving sections of the programme titles like "what's going on here?" and "why's it interesting?", Esson, along with partner Bryony McIntyre, neither baffle you with jargon nor talk down to you.
This is important, because KYTN can often be hard going. Friday's opening night included a lengthy performance in which Benedict Drew and Sachiko M used electronic sounds to vibrate a catwalk of charcoal – and this was one of the more accessible pieces, both highly musical and visually beautiful. As the charcoal danced across the catwalk, making waves and patterns as it crumbled to dust, the noises that Drew and Sachiko created made three-dimensional shapes, in a moving fusion of sight and sound.
Other acts were less compelling, at least to these eyes and ears. After Leonardo, a performance featuring multiple images of the Mona Lisa, felt heavy-handed and dull, especially compared to Guy Sherwin's Man With a Mirror, a simple, ingenious piece in which Sherwin interacted with a film of his 32-years-younger self, projected on to a mirror held in his hands.
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