Haruhisa Tanaka

Live performance video compilation featuring one track from each of the 32 performers at the first annual Blip Festival, held in New York NY in 2006, and curated and organized by 8bitpeoples and The Tank. Companion to the acclaimed documentary film Blip Festival: Reformat The Planet (which premiered at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival), this compilation offers a front-row cross section of the explosive four-day event that showcased the untapped potential of low-bit home computer and game consoles used as creative audio and video tools.

'Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet' is a feature length documentary which delves into the movement known as ChipTunes, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using old video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results. Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, 'Reformat the Planet' maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-waving melodies, trailblazers of the ChipTune idiom descend upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music.