Olaf Bender's (b. 1968, Chemnitz, Germany) experimental work with film material started during school time. The casual finding of a complete 16mm movie equipment gave the initiation. From this time on started an intensive dealing with the medium »film« as well as the raw material »film«.

After the falldown of the Berlin wall in 1989 he was working with a music distributor. The work experiences he collected there led to the idea of publishing own musical projects by himself. Together with Frank Bretschneider he founded the recordlabel Rastermusic in 1996. Rastermusic wanted to publish their own electronic music projects and those of other similar working artists. The special process of creating electronic sound should be reflected also in the graphical presentation of the label and his products.

One of the earliest Rastermusic productions was the project Signal, which Olaf Bender has been continuing together with Bretschneider and Nicolai until today. Nicolai owned the sublabel Noton, which finally merged with Rastermusic to Raster-Noton in 1999.

Beside the management of Raster-Noton he is responsible for graphic design and public appearance of the label. Additionally Bender performs solo under the pseudonym byetone.

Bender creates his music digitally. He assembles sine tones to complex sound fabrics. Digital clicks and effect plug-ins are essential to create the rhythms. All this is brought in a timely relation and so a track is born; an artificial world without any physical effort.

Computer music is often hard to perform in front of an audience. Although possibilities seem almost unlimited it is difficult to present this music in a concert setting without an immense deal of technology.

Bender therefore uses visuals in the sense of animated light. Abstract animations support the abstract pieces of music, in this way the rhythm of music is transformed into a graphic equivalent. By using the computer Bender controls the animations in realtime.

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