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My photos of JODI's installation Composite Club at vertexList. The exhibit closes today--go if you can! Efrain Calderon Jr explains the art here; in a nutshell, it repurposes a game-related video camera (coupled with motion recognition software) called an "Eyetoy," designed to turn a child into a human joystick or data glove. As the kid moves head, arms, and torso, the camera reads the motion and a videogame makes countermoves, keeping the child physically active and away from the Doritos bag. Instead of kids, JODI has aimed the Eyetoy on films ranging from cyberpunk classics to Sophia Loren/Marcello Mastroianni romances. The movements of those films trigger video game actions, which are simultaneously layered over the films. Yes, this means you can watch Darth Vader play an anime ping pong player, but such one-to-one matchups happen only intermittently. (The bottom photo, a moving projection on the gallery wall, shows the various formal attributes the camera reads while the movie plays--screen position, light/dark values, etc. The top two are screenshots of "games" in progress.)
JODI (Dirk Paesmans and Joan Heemskerk) are the most painter-like artists working with computers and video today. Imagine Robert Rauschenberg using such tools at the time he did his "combines"--his work was called Neo-Dada and bridged Abstract Expressionism and Pop and that's essentially what JODI does now, with their densely layered amalgam of Japanese videogame weirdness and cult film cinematography, dissolving and mutating before your eyes. The conceit of the "the movie playing the game" isn't always comprehensible in these clips but for me this is a feature, not a bug. Art isn't about rubbing one ordered system up against another to get a third, but rather achieving an energized chaos that reveals something about the initial ordered systems, a la a Burroughs cut up. This revelatory randomness launches Composite Club beyond the pat realm of XYZ new media art. The artists use software like an auto-destructing Jean Tinguely painting machine and let chance processes do the work. They then discerningly edit motion captures of game play to make "best of" DVDs. The results are stunning--as good as anything you'll see in the galleries these days.
An earlier discussion, on why JODI isn't showing with one of the Manhattan cyber-galleries, is here.
"sketchy" version of something posted earlier
"Junebug" [mp3 removed]
...have been having a congenial back and forth with a friend about whether the songs I post are music--he prefers "sound objects" because the structure is so clear. They are that, a little--I like transparency and think grid-based music software should sound like what it is and not some quantized, artificially natural thing. But I think they're music in the sense that techno music is music and have gotten more interested in structure since I first started posting. (Changing motifs makes the original motif sound better when you come back to it--what a concept.)
Blogosphere snapshot--obsessive/compulsive generosity:
Since a big issue was made here with massmirror and rapidshare let me myself explain why i prefer rapidshare:This sounds like a Billmon in the making--a blogger who completely overdid it, then harangued his readers about how hard it was, then loudly exited the Web (twice). I love mutantsounds but take a chill pill, y'all.
1.Rapidshare is still the most reliable host.I've tried Sharebee and proved to be total crap.Massmirror seems to be ok...for NOW.I don't know how it will be in a week or two.Those continously growing waiting times make me very suspicious.So i want some more time till i make a decision...massmirror has to prove it's stability and reliability.
2.Since our time is limited(and mine possibly motre than Eric's) and uploading one by one files takes much time.Rapidshare with rapidupload offers the option of massive uploads....using massmirror will make me spent more time on blog and "steal" this time from my family or time of rest( i already sleep about 4-5 hours per day due to blog...imagine what happens if i have to make uploads one by one).Someone could say lower the daily posts....that's totally out of question...i love music and i think both Eric and me have many many stuff to offer.A blog with one post per day or per week etc is a dead blog.Music is one of the things i could kill for or give my life for and i want to spread good music (IMHO) as much as possible....Besides the posts are from too many genres that no one is obliged to d/l all our daily posts.I hope you understand why i'm still on rapidshare...BUT once Massmirror proves it's stability and reliability i will turn to this .
Thanks for your support and love.
Jim Mutantsounds