another thought
Arthur Russell - Another Thought (Keeping Up)
tropisms (part II)
The second release in our series of Tropisms is now available as a high quality download. This one contains the next three Tropisms. Download it here.
takashi homma
Above: Spread from 'Tokyo and my Daughter'. Below: Images from 'Tokyo Suburbia'
Takashi Homma is a japanese photographer. I really like 'Tokyo And My Daughter' and 'Tokyo Suburbia'. He's about to publish a volume which aggregates a selection of his work on Tokyo to date.
craftsman
Sennett describes craftsmanship as "an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake". It's a great topic, which has come to my mind a lot with respect to software design. I have always viewed programming as a craft, amongst other things. There are reviews from The Times & The Guardian. I've ordered my copy. Grab yours.
tropisms
'Tropisms' is the latest Cacao release. It contains the first two tropisms in a series which will be released in parts. The tropisms are sonic versions of Nathalie Sarraute's interpretation of the term, exemplified in her literary work of the same name (more). You can download the artwork & release in full.
No synthesizers were used.
zimmer
Zimmer is one of our custom-made max/msp instruments which we use in Cacao. Click the image for a full-size version.
chromophobia
Gui Boratto / Chromophobia
Another remix from The Field on this one. Axel Willner keeps a distinctive, simple style through all of his production work. I admire the consistency.
utopia
Wild Combination: A portrait of Arthur Russell is screening in Berlin in Feb 2008 and then hopefully the rest of the world. Here's a video teaser. Don't miss.
starchitect
The only film about me I like
- Rem Koolhaas, on the cover of Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect (DVD) by Markus Heidingfelder. It's a good watch.
sonata
Cacao's second release — Sonatas For VHS — is now available. You can listen to any track in full or download the entire release (including artwork) on the Cacao page. Sonatas For VHS is a re-working of Franz Schubert's last three piano sonatas, which were written just months before his death at the age of 31. Our field recordings come from Melissi & Rotterdam this time around.
UPIC
Haswell/Hecker, UPIC Diffusion Session #13 @ Conway Hall
→ More on UPIC
→ More on the Conway Hall
xerrox
Carsten Nicolai processes muzak culled from hotels, airports & in-flight airline programs in xerrox.
italopsicle in london fields
Afterwards you might want to check this compilation of italodisco artwork, design and paraphernalia (Youtube link).
2/3 things
"I'm very careful when crossing the road... I think of the accident before it happens"
- Jean-Luc Godard, '2 or 3 things I know about her'
semiconductor - worlds in flux
Fatcat have recently released a compilation of Brighton-based Semiconductor's audiovisual work on DVD, and I must say it's great. I particularly like the 'Microclimates' piece, in which real landscapes are subtly altered. You may have seen a number of these pieces before, but it's well worth the compilation. More here.
phonogram
In my article of 12 years ago I enumerated among the uses to which the phonograph would be applied: 1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation, without the aid of a stenographer. 2. Phonographic books, which would speak to the blind people without effort on their part. 3. The teaching of elocution. 4. Reproduction of music. 5. The "Family Record", a registry of sayings, reminiscences etc, by members of a family, in their own voices: and of the last words of dying persons. 6. Music boxes and toys. 7. Clocks that should announce, in articulate speech, the time for going home, going to meals, etc. 8. The preservation of languages... 9. Educational purposes: such as preserving the explanations made by a teacher... 10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that invention an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records...- Tomas Alva Edison, The Phonogram, 1890
the wow starts now
So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.
- Steve Jobs, Thoughts on Music
In related news, we've just signed a deal with warner.
cacao: a sound project
For the past 3 months, Miranda & I have been pooling field recordings and massaging them with max/msp. So far we've recorded musical toys, xylophone stairs, carousels, people trying to whistle, bees, ducks, the Parisian metro and all manner of street sounds. Our field recording setup is described here, and you can see my first (messy) max patch here. Little by little, we're putting together a batch of recordings entitled 'Domes of the World'. 'Domes' is still on-going, but you can check out some Cacao previews.
horizontal/wonderland
Those who've been following the story will know i had my last analogue camera stolen at gunpoint on the streets of Caracas, Venezuela. I've been digital ever since, but recently started hankering for printable media again. Should have snapped the Horizon Kompakt with a 120 degree lens but i want to blow these up, so opted for the medium format Holga. Both are from lomo.
On a photography tip, i recently picked up David Robinson's excellent series on themed landscapes (shot with a Horizon?), entitled Wonderland. Here's a shot from that collection:
For further reading on the subject try Baudrillard's America - in particular his fascination with Disneyworld.
Robinson's also documented the lea valley, pre Olympic Games.
iTunes - formerly a media player
Now a store.
Instead of focusing on my emerging requirements for a media player (large scale track management across disks/track classification/better support for an array of audio formats) they've amped their store up to an even higher level, and added some glossy reflection effects under the guise of a feature. Sure, Coverflow is nice, but it's not high on my list of requirements.
I haven't upgraded to 7 on two of my boxes. I'm not sure i will. Not impressed.
ogle.
This is a man - bluntly - whose only contact with Web 2.0 that I can find is a pretty humiliating set of pictures on Flickr of him on a private jet and ogling at half-naked dancing girls
- Tom Coates, on Ashley Highfield, the BBC's head of New Media
noise video.
I made a noise video from my old handycam tapes. I've found myself coming back to it quite a lot over the past few days. Here's a low resolution excerpt(avi) captured on my digital camera (original still vhs right now).
last.fm
I'm joining social music service last.fm as a full-time developer in a couple of weeks over at their new office in old st (it still looks like a mess - story + pics). As those who know me will confirm, i have views on social software and how culture can suck less under new classification, distribution and publishing models, so i'm really looking forward to getting stuck into moderation strategies, web services, folksonomy and data mining. Particularly psyched to find individuals i respect (e.g. Joi Ito) among the investors.
It should be a tremendous year for last.fm. Hopefully i can play my part in that.
handycam.
Hard to think one company could come up with design excellence like my old handycam as well as design crimes such as the jewel case (what an environmentally damaging design, aside from its aesthetic and functional problems), all in one decade.
I have a phobia of jewel cases. I had to encode all my CD's to digital format just so i could throw them away.
This handycam features a single battery pack that plugs into the 8mm tape player, the camera and the battery charger as well. That's modular design. The whole kit comes in a metal handycam briefcase. Testament to what was arguably a golden age in technology product design.
Still works to this day (more than 20 years of use). Try saying that of your Sony Cybershot in 2026.
immemory.
In the process of archiving and digitizing analog tape loops from work i had done in 1982, I discovered some wonderful pastoral pieces I had forgotten about[...] with excitement i began recording the first one to cd[...] To my shock and surprise, I soon realized that the tape loop itself was disintegrating[...] the iron oxide particles were gradually turning to dust and dropping into the tape machine, leaving bare plastic spots on the tape[...] i was recording the death of this sweeping melody[...] it was very emotional for me, and mystical as well[...] on September 11th I was on my roof in Brooklyn, less than 1 mile from the World Trade Center[...] We saw those towering structures fall before our very eyes[...] We were apalled[...] We sat on the roof terrace on lawn chairs and watched the fires burning all day into night with the Disintegration Loops playing in the background...
- William Basinski, Liner Notes, Disintegration Loops I-IV
William Basinski's 'Disintegration Loops' recordings are a tribute to analog media's temporality; to its ability to invoke human nostalgia. You will not find a better example in the audioture of the 20th century of how memory embeds itself in media and vice versa. Listening in is a shattering experience.
William can post his recordings out to you direct, check his releases page. Here's a pitchfork review if you like that sort of thing.
The Future of Media
This is well put,
1 - Microchunk it - Reduce the content to its simplest form. 2 - Free it - Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it. 3 - Syndicate it - Let anyone take it and run with it. 4 - Monetize it - Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.
[ originally from Some VC in NYC ]
