DJMAG: London based musician and conceptual electronic artist xname tells us how she gets her Killer Sound
If you want, you could think that instead of using the stave and the pentagram, I write code and design electronic circuits. The soldering iron is my pen and the only keyboard I can play is that of a computer.

We were blown away by the level of risk-taking: The UK' female, non-binary and trans music tech community is hailed as thriving - Music Radar 3/09/2024
"Some of the winners are recognised in line with Oram's work as a developer of new technologies: London-based Italian musician Eleonora Oreggia is the puppetmaster behind REBUS, a novel musical machine that can be played by plucking electromagnetic waves."

2024 Oram Awards: Artists in Sound and Music - Unruly Folk 3/9/2024
This year's winners include Hanna Tuulikki, a British-Finnish artist whose work incorporates vocal improvisation and electronic manipulation, and Lola De La Mata, a conceptual sound artist whose debut album was inspired by her experience with severe tinnitus. Other winners include Eleonora Oreggia, who creates interactive installations under the name xname; Coral Rose Kindred-Boothby, who performs as The Silver Field using modular synthesisers and self-built instruments; and Dali de Saint Paul, a vocalist and prominent figure in Bristol's improv scene.

Oram Awards 2024: Winners announced - SOS Sound on Sound 3/9/2024
Five of the most innovative experimental artists, composers and instrument designers from across the UK have been announced as the winners of this year's coveted Oram Awards, an event held in partnership with The Radiophonic Institute and PRS Foundation. London-based Italian musician Eleonora Oreggia, who in addition to creating performances and interactive installations using light, sound, dust, and electromagnetic fields under the moniker xname, is the creator of REBUS, a novel musical machine that can be played by plucking electromagnetic waves.

I 10 migliori libri sull'animazione - Notizie Scientifiche 28-02-2023
"Il segno audiovisivo. Cinema d'animazione e nuovi linguaggi" selected as n.4 best book on animated film among the books available on Italian Amazon by Notizie Scientifiche. The selection is actually ace and the book is in great company. Chuffed!!

Milano FuoriSalone 2021 - Architettura e Musica - Interni Magazine 11-11-2021
A special by Interni Magazine about the installation Bamboo Ring - Weaving a Synphony of Lightness and Form which I worked on between 2019 and 2021 along with Kengo Kuma, Musicity Studio (JP), Midori Komachi, Clare Farrow, OPPO/Roberto Ruffoni. Many thanks to Nick Luscombe for inviting me to mix the incredible composition by Midori Komachi transforming Kengo Kuma's sculpture Bamboo Ring in Cortile dei Bagni, designed by Filarete between 1460 and 1465, into a huge musical instrument. That was an epic project and along with contributing to the design of the resonating structure I designed the lighting and live mixed the private view. Grateful!!

ELEONORA OREGGIA/XNAME: Electromagnetism and Gestures - Interview by Luca Forcucci, June 22nd 2020
Renowned musician Luca Forcucci interview Eleonora Oreggia during her online residency at IKLECTIK artlab, discussing in depth the REBUS musical machine and the Electromagnetic Interactions research from PhD project to art in the Pandemic.

A Colder Global Warming with Nebularosa
International Women Day special: Drift Shift versus A Colder Consciousness, with live sets by Franziska Lantz (beginning), Dj set by Flora Pitrolo and live set by xname (from 1:00).

Radio Assembly, Music Hackspace, Somerset House
Sus and Tadeo from Music Hackspace present their practice and some of the artists they are working with such as Tom Richards (start) and xname (towards the end). November 2018.

Interview for the 3rd edition of The Digital Musician
Andrew Hugill new edition of The Digital Musician (August 2018) features interviews of new musicians included in the book and the accompanying website.

Dronica #13 - Electrowomen on Resonance Extra
Special radio program by Dronica for Resonance Extra dedicated to women making electronic music. Some unpublished tracks by xname in the mix (last ten minute, around 1:50:00). 16 April 2018.

Loose Lips Show w/ xname - 199Radio - 2 February 2018
Medallion Man, Loose Lips cofounder and driving force, interviews xname about noise, magic and music. To conclude, some live unexpected beats.

First Terrace Records w/ Xname
Radio program on Radar Radio 3 december 2017, featuring Beatrice Dillon, Matthew Herbert and ending with a 40 minutes liveset by xname (from about 1:29).

Technologically enhanced sounds with Meta Gesture Music CD. 30 March 2017
The compilation contains new tracks by Goldsmiths professor of media computing Atau Tanaka, both solo and in duet with composer/pianist Sarah Nicolls, as well as Tom Richards performing on his Mini-Oramics set up, Kaffe Matthews making music with sharks in the sea, xname amplifying electromagnetic fields, Laetitia Sonami performing on her patented Spring Spyre...

ACC - Interview on Resonance FM 28 February 2017
Flora Pitrolo A Colder Consciousness interviews the founder of Nebularosa during the first monthly special on labels.

NEURAL 55, INCONVENIENT UTOPIAS - Autumn 2016
Can the lullaby serve as a guiding idea for an experimental electronic music project? Review by Aurelio Cianciotta on printed issue. Digital version HERE

MilanoX. (A)ntimuzak. Pablito El Drito. August 2016
Questo 12', prima uscita vinilica di Nebularosa, e' una chicca. Vede la partecipazione di cinque autori in cinque composizioni che conducono alla deriva psichedelica in modi diversi e originali. 'Floting In' (xname) ci sprofonda in un atmosfera pulsante ma liquida, in profondità sottomarine infestate da fantasmi acquatici che danzano in sincrono.

Blow UP. Waves by Antonio Ciarletta. July - August 2016
Un suono evidentemente conteso tra noise, techno, elettroacustica e un'elettronica di derivazione post-industrial che ricorda le cose di label importanti come Opal Tapes e Northern Electronics (...) Buona la prima, a questo punto aspettiamo sviluppi.

CHAIN D.L.K. Music Reviews by Andrea Piran
A really well crafted release, the digital version has a peculiar image for every track and even notes, that let a bunch of artists express on an uneasy theme. A nice release and a good business card for the label.

Jenny Soep - Stockholm, 17 June 2016
xname just made me feel like a comet travelling through a futuristic brick wall. In a phenomenal, stomach-flipping visceral way. Brutal. As a good friend shouted immediately afterwards - much as lightning cuts through electrical build-up - 'What a FUCKING amazing set!' I still have turquoise space matter burned on the backs of my eyeballs.

The Net - Stockholm, 17 June 2016
David Dahal: "Satan vad hon korde. Maktigt."

Stereoklang - Stockholm, 16 June 2016 A brief visit into the realms of Elektronmusikstudion
Kyoka, Samuel Hertz, xname and Raster Noton at EMS.

Vital Weekly - May 2016
Frans de Waard's review of Nebulullaby, the first LP by Nebularosa, a compilation and vinyl containing a track by xname: "...quite a fine release, which introduces a lot of new artists; where do these people come from I wondered. It's not always easy to detect what kind of approaches are used, with regards to the list of software and equipment, but that's perhaps only for the true insomniacs."

BBC RADIO 2 - 27 August 2015
Jeremy Vine interviews xname on the question: "Do you love your tower block?", and how it is to be an artist living in Balfron Tower. The discussion is then continued with two architects commenting on Goldfinger's building, defined at the same time the ugliest and the most beautiful tower block in the UK.

sonica FM - 19 April 2014
Radio interview and prerecorded music with Marta Zapparoli, xname and Musica Dispersa.

Sender Berlin - 28 January 2014
Radio interview and live set on 88.4FM in Berlin general and 108.88FM in localized places around the city or on 90.7FM in Potsdam. And stream from Sender Berlin or p-node.

MANOTO TV - 19 December 2013
TV program on art and technology, trying to fill the gap between Banksy, Van Gogh and new media art. Manu Luksch, xname (from about minute 9), and others.

Nova snovanja v preseku tehnologije in zvocnih umetnosti - 25 October 2013 - Ales Rojc
Algorave, ki ze na ravni poimenovanja to ritmicnost postavlja v navezavo na klubsko plesno (sub)kulturo polpreteklega obdobja, med betonskimi stenami galerijskega prostora sicer ni premaknil obcinstva v bolj zivahno gibanje, a tega sama izvedba niti ni vzpodbujala. V priblizno polurnih nastopih s poudarjeno ritmicno osnovo je vseeno prihajalo do obcasnih prelivanj in ritmicnih zamikov, zvocno verjetno se najbolj bogatih v noise in industrijskih zvokih pri skupnem nastopu v Angliji delujocih umetnikov Yaxuja in xnama.

Tunnel Crossing at Radio Marais - 26 April 2013
Interview and live music with xname, Ilze Black, Shu Lea Cheang and Ryan Jordan.

Selected Radio Interviews 2010-2011 - Marc Garrett
Interviews By Marc Garrett on Resonance FM, for Furtherfield between 2010-2011. These critically acclaimed live weekly broadcasts on Resonance FM, ran from 2010 - 2011. These hour long interviews featured people working at the edge of contemporary practices, in art, technology, and social change; discussing events and controversies, exhibitions, artworks and their aesthetic and social contexts.

IMPERICA. The Brutalist Kiss - 07 June 2013
For the last month, the Barbican has been running their second Digital Duchamp commission, an homage to the artist and his creations. Eleonora Oreggia's Dusty Mariee is a work that embraces Duchamp's groundbreaking 'readymade' approach to creating art. A live camera stream, complete with microphones has been filming through the large glass window of Eleonora's apartment high up on the 19th floor of the Balfron Tower, uniquely capturing East London's council estates and the harsh but often beautiful sprawl: "a brutalist kiss between the Barbican and Balfron with all the dust and air and magnetism crushed between them." The stream represents the large glass that separates Eleonora's personal space from the external world: private versus public. The camera focuses on the dust gathering on the surface of the glass, while London and the artist inhabiting the flat appear as projections, merging together in a strange sort of fourth dimension. We caught up with Eleonora to find out what living inside a large piece of art has been like...

Digital Duchamp: Dusty Mariee - the Brutalist kiss - Barbican blog
xname's Dusty Mariee, is our second Digital Duchamp commission with Queen Mary, University of London, a work that injects Duchamp's groundbreaking 'readymade' approach to creating art to the council estates of East London and the Brutalist architecture of the Balfron Tower with a live stream from the nineteenth floor.

RE- NOISE - Kevin Martin (The Bug), February 2013
Two nights ago you played your atonal synthesizer improvisations until 3 AM (...)
When I knocked on your door to complain, you did not have the good manners to talk, and you continued to play your synthesizer. And again last night you made the same noise til 1 AM. (...) Ironically, I am a professional musician who hires a studio space, so I don't disturb my neighbours. I have no problem that you periodically practice with your instrument, but cannot understand why you don't realise it is totally selfish, and unfriendly to subject your neighbours to such anti-social behaviour.

A Seance of Sorts... noise=noise 19.01.2013 - Ivory Bunker
xname, who performed utilizing an array of self-built, for the most part it looked, light sensitive devices, gave raising the ghosts another shot. Including incantations (though I could not make out any of the words) this live-performance managed to generate quite an eerie atmosphere as well as some great and interesting noise (musick). Again no perceivable contact with any dead entities was established, but I for my part would say that entertainment for the living was successfully provided.

xname interview - Arts Council England
Anonymous Italian artist, xname discusses Virtual Entity, a research project with an enigmatic Net artwork at its centre. A simple piece of software created by the artist enables users to create (and edit) the 'soul' of any file on the Web by writing and rewriting its metadata (the set of information that describes a file's content and makes it findable). The project subverts more traditional approaches towards digital property and identity. It suggests that by assigning a soul to a file it becomes an independent creation, living a unique life and experiencing levels of transformation in the course of its virtual existence.

Arts Blog. Da Virtual Entity a FlavourCollider, intervista a Eleonora Oreggia (aka xname) - Penelope.di.pixel, 23 May 2011
Iniziamo la settimana con una densa intervista a Eleonora Oreggia, aka xname. Forse qualcuno di voi si ricorda di lei e del lavoro che abbiamo conosciuto circa un anno fa, Virtual Entity. Lo spunto iniziale dell'intervista nasce ancora da li': a marzo, nel corso della mostra "Remix the World! Reinvent Reality" ospitata dalla Furtherfield Gallery (Londra), Virtual Entity e' stata presentata per la prima volta sotto forma di un'installazione, ma sono tante le novita' strutturali aportate al progetto, da una web app fino all'infovisualizzazione delle diverse sostanze che compongono la Ve. Per questo ho chiesto a Eleonora raccontarcele. Il nostro dialogo online e' proseguito toccando due nuovi progetti appena conclusi: "Noise_Objects", frutto di una residenza artistica presso Acess Space (Sheffield) e "FlavourCollider", realizzato in collaborazione con l'artista ed ipnotista ispano-britannico Marcos Lutyens e presentato per la prima volta al Festival Future Everything (Manchester). Come avete notato, tanta Inghilterra. Eleonora si e' infatti trasferita a Londra dove attualmene vive e lavora. L'ultima domanda, quasi inevitabile, riguarda la questa "migrazione" e la possibilita' concreta di portare avanti i suoi progetti qui in Italia. La cosidetta "fuga di cervelli" e' fenomeno cronico e saldamente radicato in tutto il paese, lo sappiamo: ringrazio Eleonora per avermi risposto preferendo a facili retoriche il racconto della sua esperienza diretta.

WIRED. Alice Vincent. 29 April 2011
FLAVOURCOLLIDER VISUALIZES YOUR BRAIN'S REACTION...
The images produced have been created through collaboration between Lutyens' research and the efforts of the "Xname" coding team led by Claude Heiland-Allen.

Resonance FM - 23 February 2011
Interview by Ruth Catlow about Virtual Entity and The Oracle Machine.

xname @ Gogbot 2010 - Florian Cramer, September 2010
xname's electro-optical flicker and noise performance at the electronic arts festival Gogbot 2010, Enschede, Netherlands, 11 Sept. 2010.

Eleonora@Eleonore - ONAIR PROGRAM DORF TV
Die Stadtwerkstatt Linz startete im Juli auf einem Wohnschiff ihr "Artist in Residence" Programm. Das Schiff wurde fur die Kunstleraufenthalte umgebaut und tragt den Namen Eleonore. Als erste Kunstlerin war Eleonora Oreggia auf dem Schiff. Die 32-jahrige Kunstlerin lebt in London und ist auch als Programmiererin fur freie Software tatig. Sie arbeitet zur Zeit im Linzer Hafen an analogen Elektronikschaltkreisen die uber die Natur Tone und Gerausche erzeugen.

derStandard. Kunstschiff "Eleonore" ahoi! - Linz, 2 August 2010
Als erste Bewohnerin war in den vergangenen Wochen Eleonora Oreggia in Linz zu Gast. Die in London lebende Kunstlerin ist unter anderem als Programmiererin fur freie Software tatig. Im Linzer Hafen hat sie an analogen Elektronikschaltkreisen gearbeitet, mit denen sie Naturphanomene in Sounds transferiert.

Il Sole 24 ORE. The emotion of Logic. Programming is just method. 10 March 2010.
Oracle Machine non e' un software che lavora sull'incertezza. Non e' ancora ultimato ma non un prodotto di business intelligence bensi' un progetto artistico. L'autrice si chiama Eleonora Oreggia, ha 33 anni e in rete e' conosciuta come Xname. Al momento dell'intervista si trova a Londra impegnata in una performance collettiva (...) Non e' lineare Xname, si racconta e racconta il suo lavoro passando repentinamente da una concetto all'altro (...)

Artsblog. Virtual Entity - cosmogonie digitali. Conversazione con xname. - Penelope.di.pixel, 15 February 2010
Finalmente, ecco l'intervista con xname (Eleonora Oreggia). La aspettavo da tempo e lo dichiaro apertamente: poche volte sono stata cosi' soddisfatta di poter pubblicare, e soprattutto documentare, il lavoro di un'artista su questo blog. Con un punto d'onore: a quanto mi dice l'autrice e' la prima volta che c'e' una documentazione scritta in italiano sul progetto, nato e sviluppatosi inizialmente in Olanda.
Ma torniamo a noi. Ho conosciuto xname nel corso di AHAcktitude. Non sapevo quasi nulla del suo lavoro e per motivi a me ignoti ero addirittura convinta che fosse un uomo: la sua forma fisica e' stata dunque il primo piacevole spiazzamento. Poi ha iniziato a descrivere Virtual Entity. Ogni tanto capita: si rimane rapiti da un'idea perche' ha la forza di una visione, perche' forse piu' banalmente e concretamente coglie un aspetto della realta' e lo disvela. Virtual Entity ha queste caratteristiche. A cavallo fra la riflessione filosofica e la software art, il progetto costruisce una vera e propria cosmogonia intorno alle entita' digitali (essenzialmente software e file) a cui viene conferito lo status di "unita' culturali indipendenti" libere di interagire nel reame giditale, quali primi e concreti attori dell'ecosistema-rete. Entrare nel meccanismo della Virtual Entity e' eccitante, specie per chi come me si interroga costantemente sui limiti della proprieta' intellettuale (limiti nel senso della sua applicabilita' e della reiterata estensione a ogni campo del vivente a cui assistiamo ogni giorno). (...) Virtual Entity e' bella e mi ha saputo emozionare. Buona lettura.

Without a Traceroute. HAIP Day 2. 18 November 2008
The first talk was by a woman named Eleonora Oreggia. She has an idea for something she calls "Virtual Entity" which would be a universal, shared, collaborative metadata system for files... I'm not sure I fully understood everything that she was proposing. Much of her vocabulary seemed strange to my ears, she talked about metadata being the "soul" of a file, mapping the relations between files as the "DNA of the files"... It's kind of a cool idea, and there are a lot of problems with current metadata systems. But it seemed more like a thought-experiment than a real project to me; I don't think she understood just how freaking impossible her system would be to implement... She had some interesting ideas about authorship, "What you create does not belong to you," which is not an unheard-of position. I think you can make strong case that artistic creations somehow belong to all of humanity.

Eleonora Oreggia aka xname - Virtual Entity - Radio Fro - Ljubljana, 6.11.2008
Interview mit Eleonora Oreggia aka xname: Sie berichtet uber ihr Projekt "Virtual Entity", das sich wissenschaftlich mit Metadaten- Genese, Generation und Permutation beschaftigt. Typologien von Mediendaten... Seele von Files, Container von Files... Verhaltnis beider zueinander... Metadaten als Schlussel nicht nur fur Klassifizierung, sondern weitergehend... Metafiles als Information und Kontextualisierung zu und uber Daten und deren moglicher Nutzung... Interview Michael Schweiger Radio FRO, HAIP

Festival HAIP 08: Virtualna Entiteta / ELEONORA MARIA IRENE OREGGIA aka XNAME - TV INTERVIEW
Infrastruktura Virtualne entitete predstavlja neobvezno moznost objavljanja digitalnih datotek, ki omogoca identifikacijo, komunikacijo in izmenjavo. Je vrsta decentraliziranega arhiva, katerega razvoj bo vrstniski, spontan in neobvladljiv.

Internet Magazine. Quei tasti rosa della blogsfera... - Tatiana Bazzichelli - March 2008
Dal mondo di Noblogs.com, incontriamo invece XName, che racconta di tecnologia, impressioni e sperimentazioni nell'universo hacker: "quando ho scritto il primo post personale, in italiano, mi sono svegliata al mattino avvolta da una coltre di ansia, come se le mie lenzuola sporche fossero state scannerizzate e pubblicate on line. Sensazione complessa, anche liberatoria. Credo che il blog abbia un valore 'psicomagico', il fatto di condividere e non solo scrivere determinate esperienze libera in parte l'animo di colui che scrive. Inoltre credo sia la prima volta nella storia che le donne parlano di loro stesse in modo cosi' massiccio e capillare. Le donne hanno finalmente uno spazio, e la creatura femminile si propone, svela la sua identita', esce allo scoperto". Anche per XName il blog da un hobby si e' trasformato in un'occasione professionale: nel Novembre scorso e' stata la blogger per il Festival Piksel 2007 in Norvegia (http://piksel.no) e a febbraio 2008 e' la volta di Transmediale Festival, il celebre festival di arte e media di Berlino, intitolato, in questa edizione, 'Conspire' (http://tranmediale.de).

Internet Magazine. Quattro chiacchiere con...XName - 18-02-2008
Interview by Tatiana Bazzichelli about xname's blogs.

Medea. Women and science in Rome. A subtle reasoning - Paola Musarra - June 2007
I would like to conclude with a video that young Eleonora Oreggia has presented at wombit and which made me cheerful (others felt anguish) because it reminded me of the period of the small interviews I used to make on Medea asking women: "What do you do with your computer?" (the Infoperline!). The title of Eleonora's video, she lives in Amsterdam, is "/booting - a metaphysical sexual relation between human and machine". In synthesis, Eleonora splats herself on a scanner in different and unexpected poses, then she mixes and blends it all until she reduces the images to a powdering of mad pixels. At the end... restart! The images are recomposing very slowly, but something has changed: "booting is about the possibility to be something else". Like after making love. With your computer, this time.

The computer lets us rediscover imaginative power. Interview with Eleonora Oreggia- Armin Medosch - Amsterdam, June 2006. Transcript from audio interview
I think the computer can be compared to a certain paradigm of mythology. There are many legends talking about a golden age; then something happens, and the situation is compromised. For example in the christian history, when the humans lost some of their privileges (because of the apple) and - they say Paradise was a natural environment but then they lost the food that is there ... Or if think of Esiodos'Teogonia, and his stories from the golden ages to the iron ages, and the birth of the gods, from chaos to kosmos.

In my personal mythology we lost a lot of faculties that we had, mind, brain faculties and with the computers we are in a very different way trying to go back to them and liberate this part of our reality. It is not only like losing this faculties. In a way I had very often the impression that the society was trying to delete a part or has been for long time for centuries trying to delete some of the aspects of human consciousness. (maybe the shadow, one of the shadows so) It is like the rational revolution, Enlightenment decided that only what we could prove, only what could be described with cause and effect was knowledge and the rest had to be destroyed. At the same time also the imaginative power of the humans was lost. I am sure we did not need to have computers to make streams

ITS BETTER LIVE ... - Pedro Soler - 2006
xname is one of the active people at Chequepoint and promoter of the dr0p - Developer in Residence Project. She studied semiotics in Bologne, has worked with various known artists like for example Yves and Jaromil. She makes audiovisual performances, and forms part of the Streamtime collective. THe VJ & DJ skills applied to a next level of media - image and sound files get mixed with remote streams - its the realtime skills applied to media, our hours of nightclub training serving us well for setup and agility and hand crafted software.
The Streamtime performance at fadaiat in 2005 - piloted by Eleonora Oreggia (xname) - was a heady vision of what the future of streaming performance could look like - the fragility of real time making itself felt at every moment, political messages combined with art and reflections on communication (6). "We want more voices" says Jaromil (7) at some point in the transmission - speaking from Catania - and this reflects very accurateely one of the promises of streaming and internet media, both politically and artistically.