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Miscellaneous:
Speaking of self-referential artmaking, Jack Masters figured out the right thing to do with Artpad, the creative website with the most onerous terms and conditions you will ever involuntarily agree to just by drawing a pitcher.
Michael Bell-Smith has been cast in an amazing one-act ballet, as a slow moving robot that looks like a cross between Big Bird and a toothbrush.
Travis Hallenbeck (and a bunch of other people on delicio.us) posted the page of a cassette dj with exquisite gear made of particle board.
Paul Slocum has updated his Loopcart ROM, a tracker program for the Atari 2600. Click to load an .mp3 example here. I like the way it starts out videogamy and gets more syncopated and weird.
Spraycan (MSPaintbrush drawing)
"Hello Down There" [mp3 removed]. Short atmospheric percussion piece with burbly but slightly ominous synthesizer. Not techno.
...but the same instrumentation. I've been picking up more software synths and samplers and am especially fascinated by drumkits--collections of samples but also live synthesis. This is where my lo-fi religion with regard to software breaks down. I really don't care about the creative potential of Photoshop, I mainly use it to resize things and tweak photos. In the visual realm I'm perfectly happy to try to do complicated things with older, simpler programs. But with music, I'm just blown away with how the tools have evolved. I think maybe my aspiration is to try to do simple (or minimal) things with these CPU-hogs, to just isolate the textures and groove on them.
...it kind of lost steam toward the end so added a few more sounds.
"Perhaps it is an American trait to respond with swift and overwhelming force when dealing with any perceived threat, but it would benefit us all if we attempt to understand those who 'threatened' us, encourage them to further explain their opinions and engage them in active, healthy and civil discussion. Shock & Awe clearly doesn't work. One of the beautiful things about this discussion group is the rigorous critical discourse generated by the diversity of its participants. If the guests choose to respond by dropping out or engaging in pissing contests or calling participants 'cunts'...well, there's always next month. It would be terrible if people felt unable to express sincere opinions here, for fear of offending or whatever. Artists censor themselves too often anyway, and that's the most dangerous censorship of all." (text from a recent listserv discussion added because I needed some filler to separate the graphics in this and the previous post)
[update - and no, I did not write this, I was on the, um, receiving end]
Win $1000 for your webpage! Contest rules are here. Contestants submit the URL of their personal website and in September a $1000 prize is awarded for the best. The site can be a fixed page or a blog, and must be in either text or Flash (what does that leave out?). The jury consists of Emma Davidson, Olia Lialina, Kerstin von Locquenghien, Mouchette, and Vika. Olia wrote that great article about the early vernacular web I discussed a while back, and Emma dj'd at the Bent Festival I still plan to post pictures from. "The site, time and the form of the award ceremony are open and will depend on the location of the winner and the political situation this summer." Some examples of the kinds of submissions that are coming in are here (that's the 1000$ contest page for 2005, which you go to if you skip the amusing Alpine intro).
"Waiting for Stevie to get ready, I ponder the question, what would life be like without music and comedy? Or without Nicks and Henley???"
Recommended: Saving's live blogging of a recent Don Henley/Stevie Nicks show. I tried excerpting more from it but couldn't do it justice, you really need to read the whole thing. Good reporting, with the tone constantly shifting from funny to reverent to thoughtful to smartass. OK, one more excerpt: "Holy shit girls are totally screaming! They love Don Henley so much!"
A post here a few weeks ago mentioned Justin Samson (at John Connelly Presents through Saturday June 18) and went off about hippies in the art world. This was rather ignoring the sci fi/surrealist element, which tips the work more into the culture surfing category from the "makin it real" category, although there is still all that sewing, and those God's Eyes. Images from the show:
The Sturtevant show closing Jun 18 (Sat)--Perry Rubenstein, 23rd St, north side, near 10th ave--is unbelievable. Note-perfect recreations of signature Duchamp works (stool wheel, urinal, bottle rack, snow shovel and many less famous ones), coal sacks on ceiling, films of rotoreliefs projected on wall--all very low, dark lighting, a slightly musty antique feel--exactly what a show of historical Duchamp works would look like, although scholar-devotees like Arturo Schwarz could probably find discrepancies and anachronisms. These recreations were made by Sturtevant over the period from the late '60s to the early '90s. Amazing! Did NOT deserve the sneering review from Ken Johnson in the Times ("they love her in Europe"). Sturtevant stayed on the straight appropriation track where Sherrie Levine went astray with exquisite craftsmanship for the collector tribe and hoky bombast (gold plated urinals, etc).