Live Web mix

The links for my webmix can be found on the upper right hand tab labels Interweb auditory mix. This is my source content That I used to create a full live audio remix in class.

 

Remix Culture

New postings on my blog will now be content from the Remix Culture class.

 

Heady reading is an understatement

Heady, It’s a term I had never used or even heard until this semester.  When I began to read some of the readings described as heady I began to understand what it implied.  I will admit that I am not the best when it comes to reading comprehension and sometimes it takes a while for the concepts to sink in.  Hanson’s new philosophy for new media gives heady an entirely new meaning though.  Not to say that his ideas aren’t good its just so dense I loose track of his ideas very quickly and to be honest after reading through the intro multiple times I still don’t really understand what he saying except that digital art has an ora that is lost or maybe not and that art has a body of some kind.  After trying to figure out the reading we began to get side tracked with new technologies some of which I found to be quite impressive.  The Australian visual technologies 3d modeling program for video footage was very cool and I can easily see myself using something like that to start into the 3d world.  Also the processing programs were very impressive and much more appealing then the basic ones that I have seen and tried to manipulate.  On the zombie side of things are relating to the video game word the intensity and sheer zombie mowing down game play of left for dead is pretty amazing.  Also the bonus level in the new call of duty world at war is a nazi zombie slaughter fest which is pretty damn difficult but a lot of fun and requires at of strategy.  With that in mind im off to kill some digital zombies.

 

24 hr party people and the metafilm

After watching 24 hr party people I couldn’t help but think that for a film to be advertised and talked about like it was all about dj culture and experiencing the music and not the music maker I was a bit confused.  Mainly because the majority of the film was about the rise of punk music and then the next wave of indie music that followed.  The major focus was on the struggles and roller coaster ride experienced by the bands management and the venues.  It felt more like a documentary about the life of Tony Wilson and his career as a TV personality and a manager to the various bands.  I did understand the various instances when the camera was directly recognized to create the feeling that it was a film within a film but these instances were few and far between for me to really feel like it was a true meta film.  Perhaps I don’t fully understand the meta film concept yet and I think it is a very vague label but compared to the readings of house of leaves where you really have three distinct stories that relate to each other but are still their own free standing narratives is a much stronger example.  When I picture some meta idea as information within information I keep imaging something similar to the powers of ten video when you see something and then upon zooming in you get a totally new idea and world.  I feel like the internet is another great example and even more specific the technology seen on the ted discussion where you can have a newspaper and then zoom in again and again always finding something new that was not recognizable before hand.

 

House of Leaves and Infinate Jest

House of Leaves and Infinite Jest were both interesting and complex readings.  Infinite Jest was a more confusing read because of the lengthy sections of back and forth short dialogue that occurred between characters.  The sheer number of characters in the whole book is another part that becomes confusing after looking it up on Wikipedia I discovered that there are near 30 characters in all.  The writing however is quite excellent with particular attention to details and descriptions of the smallest details.  Wallace is quite wordy and I totally see him going off for pages and pages on tangents like the nuclear strike game only to come back to the same place in the story 50 pages later.  These tangents within the overall story seem to be the meta concept.
House of Leaves was a more interesting book in terms of the story or more accurately three stories that take place and also the format of the book.  Writing is a creative outlet but almost all books are the same.  Page after page of black and white text read from left to right top to bottom.  We have seen this departure from the norm in DJ Spook’s book where the entire book had a whole in the middle of it.  Every page had a rough and smooth side to it with one side having artwork and the other having the text.  Not every page had text in the same way and it created a more interesting and engaging read.  House of Leaves has gone even further from the norm with the extensive footnotes that can lead the read astray from the story for a while.  Danielewski also takes advantage of this to have some fun such as on page four where he has a note from the editors about Mr. Truant and how they talked on the phone but have never actually met.  The structure of the pages further engages the reader with secret codes that can be deciphered.  House of Leaves is the best example so far of the idea of information within information with the multiple stories going on. I’m having trouble fully understanding the concept and how to make a project of this and would be more lost not having been exposed to this reading.

 

Wark Battle

Warks chapter on battle and in particular was more straight forward and simple then the other chapters.  His references to the game Rez peaked my interest and after playing it I can say that it is one of the most refreshing gaming experiences I have had in a while.  I would totally agree with Wark on the idea that Rez is not about shooting so much as it is about targeting.  The lock on feature makes the player concentrate specifically on highlighting the targets and then once they are all selected you simply release the button and the targets are destroyed.  You could argue that there is a certain amount of violence because of the explosion animation when a target is destroyed but the setting of the game being inside a computer along with the vector graphic style helps to set the feel of the game apart from all other violent shooter type games.  Mover over after playing for a while and looking closely at the player model and his actions you can see that he has no gun or any other type of weapon in his hands and when you do shoot something the rays come out of his head as if to illustrate the visual connection of targeting.  It very much reminds me of the laser vision a super hero might have.
Visually Rez is a very pretty game and especially when you consider that it came out in 2001 for the Sega Dreamcast.  The levels become more interesting the more you play or even just watch as someone else plays.  You begin to appreciate the environments and the world monuments that you travel through like the pyramids.  The whole feel of the worlds is very reminiscent of the movie Tron.  The combination of the visuals and the intense techno music that is in sync with the game and affected by how well you are playing begins to transform the game into more of a interactive performance piece that just a game.

 

Dj Spooky final thoughts

The concept of flow is a very good explanation of the creative dump or stream that can occur.  I feel like this flow is most common with the creative thoughts of artists and writers as we discussed in class.  I do think however that this flow can be applied to the release of emotions the people build up and then either talk or write it out.  This release usually relives the buildup of stress. Physical activity can also produce a flow although it comes in a release of energy and not thought.

I’m not sure if it is coincidence or not but dj spooky talks about several artists and ideas that we have talked about throughout the semester.  Spooky brings up john cage and his silent performance piece.  He also talks about Duchamp several times including an instillation he did for the Las Angeles MOCA and also refers to the ready-made objects of Duchamp such as the urinal.  Later Spooky also talks about the Linux system in terms of people being a form of this where individuals take something and rearrange or change to make something new or better and then it gets put back out into the world where again someone can use it to make something new.  After reading dj spookys book rhythm science I have gained a huge amount of respect for him as an artist and also as a very intellectual person.  I feel like I have a much better understanding of him and more importantly his work.
On a different subject after looking at peaches and then also comparing here to GWAR I have difficult time swallowing the idea that she does a performance piece and not a music show.  I can definitely see the theatrical values and scripting that GWAR uses as people and events have an exact purpose and time in the concert.  From the live footage of Peaches it’s hard to find the non-musical performance piece that sets her apart from every other band out there.  Maybe I need to see more of here or maybe she really is just a musical act.

 

DJ spooky part 2

As Miller recalls his past and the slow rise to DJ success over the years he talks about his mix tapes that he puts out with his logo on it.  He goes on to note how these tape end up coming back to him is some way through the underground culture where media and ideas and passes around freely.  Its really amazing how something small like a tape can get passed around then copied and played without ever having contact with the DJ can start a buzz that would launch a career.  It’s hard to believe that some of the fundamentals that a modern DJ uses can be traced back to the 1870’s when the phonograph was invented.  The advance of transferring music to record essentially gave power to the non-musician to listen and analyze music that would normally only be heard in a live setting.  While Im sure that when the phonograph came out people did not suddenly become DJ’s and start scratching and mixing it did give the tools necessary for musical creativity to ensue.
“Rhythm science is not so much a new language as a new way of pronouncing the ancient syntaxes that we inherit from history..”  I like this point quite a bit because sound and music have been around for a long time.  Over the generations it has evolved due to technology and also social ideas.  Music from the 50’s that was considered racy at the time is fairly tame in the modern culture.  Most new music out right now is just a reconfiguration on an old song which it from an older song.  Its not to say that new material doesn’t exist any more.  Rhythm science is the evolution of remaking something that already exists and putting it into a new context or story.  Rhythm science also seems to encompass more non musical sounds similar to the happenings movement and experimental works like those of John Cage.

 

dj spooky part 1

The relationship between human and machine is an interesting idea because it really is more then just the physical input of using your hand to scratch a record.  The advances in technology have brought an infinite possibility of creating and remixing sound.  Even from program to program a song can have different characteristics.  Effects can be applied many different ways and the DJ can use all of these tools in his or her own unique way.  It’s amazing how creative the human mind can be.  This is especially true when you are dreaming.  Dreams have no boundaries and so anything can happen.  To be able to take dreams and use them to make stories and sounds.  Sounds being a form of a story is truly a skill only a great DJ can create.
The quotes taken from the interview with DJ Spooky Ad Astra and Paul Miller are a very creative concept and quite interesting because of how one person can talk about themselves in their different personas.  From the reading so far DJ Spooky comes off as being incredibly intellectual culturally hip and extremely creative.  His analogy of the idiot listener as a zombie in the thriller video is a prefect example of his thinking.  The listener is not processing or actively thinking about the sounds but rather reacting to them in movements.
Looping and the process of a loop can go far beyond listening to a track over and over.  The structure of music always has some loop where an idea or verse or composition is revisited and brings the music’s direction back to an earlier point.  Looping is also part of the process the DJ thinks when going through the process of creating music.

 

Road Warriors video game