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Some new work by Joe McKay:
Sunset Solitaire. Artist projects Flash color bands against building silhouetted in front of actual sunset, tries to match the colors, a la a veejay mixer. Human vs. Nature, who will win this video game? (See also McKay's Color Game.)
Kinetic Computer Sculptures. In these pieces, the private inner guts of computer hardware are opened up to mock-surveillance, like proctoscopy, except instead of what you sit on it's what you sit and use all day. An opened, violated Mac tower has a small robot searchlight sweeping its innards, while on an adjacent monitor, footage is shown of the same scene that doesn't match (like the video loop of Keanu and Bullock that fools Dennis Hopper in Speed).
In another piece, an ink jet printer is rigged for auto-voyeurism, watching its own print head as it slides lasciviously back and forth. Except, again, the footage is fake.
Chris Ashley has a good article on McKay here.
"Composition for Stringed Instruments" [5.5 MB .mp3].
This is the final, four minute version, barring minor tweaks; the previous posts are just parts of this. I'd like to give big props to musicians Sue Lynn, Art, Dmitri, and Enid for putting up with all the retakes while we recorded the string parts. You did especially well imitating the slight pauses and minute imperfections of the sampler and sequencer--that was really perverse of me to ask you to do that. You will get your checks soon! All my love to the music scene--keepin' the spirit "downtown."
Brian Alfred made this image of the art/sound/performance duo LoVid; it's an analog remix of my digital camera photo. The materials are collaged, cut Color Aid paper and the dimensions are 9 by 12 inches. Alfred has a show of paintings opening March 4 at Mary Boone Gallery, and an animation piece upcoming in March in Times Square. Curious to see both--I've only seen the paintings in reproduction, but he is a great animator and a whiz with the X-acto knife.
"String Quartet Piece" (second posting of work in progress with additional music) [mp3 removed].
Final version here.
Internet (sort of, this 18.8 MB .mp4 is more documentation, a kind of moving thumbnail, of a DVD, than "web art" per se):
Non-Internet (screen shots of the DVD on a TV):
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Dear Music Diary, I've already reached the point in this string quartet piece I'm writing where I wanted to transition out of the lugubrious intro and into something peppier. I blocked in this sort of Euro-country dance thing but it wasn't working in 4/4 time and it was way too slow. I counted the beats to make it work--could something possibly be in 23/8 time? 23 is a prime #, I'm already feeling the math in this piece. (Googled and sure enough Genesis worked in 23/8, for the "chase sequence" in "Robbery, Assault & Battery"--Tony Banks called the rhythm "insane.") So I went with it, added another bar with 23 beats where the pizzicato strings come in, gradually increased the tempo from 120 bpm to 200, and used a slow volume fade to diminish the bass and cello parts still grinding away in 4/4. Now I'm ready to embellish on that "dance."
Final version here.
No, the blogosphere won't change the global economy...with sycophants like this asking the questions.
Remember the video that went around in '04 showing how to open a Kryptonite lock with a bic pen? According to business blogger Dave Taylor, it didn't hurt Kryptonite at all. How does he know? He interviewed the public relations manager at Kryptonite.
Q: How long did it take for your company to be aware that there was negative publicity in the blog community?Hope you caught that last part: The p.r. person can't definitively say Kryptonite isn't suing the individual who posted on an online bike forum about the lock--a product the company ultimately replaced as deficient, in numbers up in the hundreds of thousands. That's a great way to restore confidence in the brand, leaving the impression that truth can be clouded with litigation and that the truthteller will be punished by an entity with better resources.
We were aware of the Internet involvement with this issue from the first day. This included blogs and forums.
[The common "myth" of the Kryptonite story is that the company wasn't paying attention to the blogosphere and that it took weeks for it to learn that there was a problem, but as you can see it isn't true and Donna and her team were aware of the problem from the very first day. --DT]
Q: When you did learn about the negative publicity, did you see it as a crisis management problem, or did it not seem that dire?
Dave, we were working around the clock to research the allegation and create a plan for our customers. We took this very seriously from day one. Contrary to popular belief, the media attention didn't make us take notice of this situation; we were already well into creating a plan by the time the traditional media were publishing their stories. I've seen in print that only after the New York Times article on day five did we come out with a plan and talk to the media. That's not true. We were talking to the media from day one.
[Again, the "myth" of the Kryptonite story, that the company was out of touch and didn't know anything had happened until the New York Times broke the story is completely false. Indeed, it is the desire to debunk the untruths and myths about this entire situation that motivated me to produce this interview with Donna in the first place. --DT]
Q: Did your company ever consider legal action against the person who disseminated the information about how to defeat that particular type of lock?
Need to go corporate here. We don't discuss any legal matters publicly, be they in process or in theory.
"String Quartet Piece 1" [mp3 removed]. Haven't decided if this is a first movement that stops and then turns into something else, or if this basic structure will continue, with other themes gradually woven in. A bit of a departure from the electro and "new/old digital sounds" side of things I've been pursuing. More of a swerve than a change of direction--it's all made the same way.
Final version here.