:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Thursday, January 21, 2010 ::

GOTO 10

/mode +v noise, the ever expanding ASCII based music platform

I saw the /mode +v noise installation by GOTO10 at the Arnolfini earlier today and loved it. Use the IRC link (remember that?) to listen in real time and influence the generative score.

It was made using Puredyne



Puredyne is aimed at creative people, looking for tools outside the standard. It provides the best experimental creative applications alongside a solid set of graphic, audio and video tools in a fast, minimal package. For everything from sound art to innovative filmmaking.

Puredyne is optimised for use in realtime audio and video processing. It distinguishes itself by offering a low latency kernel and the high responsiveness needed by artists working in this field.

Puredyne is based on Ubuntu and Debian Live. All packages provided by Puredyne can be used if you are running this flavour of GNU/Linux. Use, share, copy, modify, join the development team or fork :)

Software highlights

audio

puredata, supercollider, csound, chuck, ladspa plugins, ardour, audacity, ecasound, …

graphics

gimp, inkscape, fluxus, freej, processing + extras, imagemagick, gthumb, gphoto2, …

multimedia

mplayer, vlc, avidemux, kino, mencoder, transcode, luvcview, xawtv, recordmydesktop, …

streaming

icecast2, ices2, ffmpeg2theora, oggfwd, darkice, darksnow, gstreamer, dvswitch, …

network

firefox, links2, network-manager, wireless-tools, ssh, telnet, gftp, irssi, nfs, …

devel

gcc, make, patchutils, subversion, mercurial, bzr, emacs-goodies-el, java jdk, python, …

…and much more.

Labels: Art, Electronic Music, FOSS, Music

:: Dan 21.1.10 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"The Bristol Group of Amnesty International is proud to be hosting an art auction to to raise funds and awareness for Amnesty International, notably human rights day coming up on 10th December, and also local projects right here in Bristol. The projects involved in the auction are The Studio Upstairs, The Rainbow Centre and Bristol Refugee Rights (see below for more details). Human rights day celebrates the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and this year is focusing on ‘embracing diversity and ending discrimination’.

"The auction is to take place at the WATERSHED Media Centre, right in the centre of Bristol, on Saturday 5th December. The conference rooms will be open from 2pm, where people can view all of the artwork up for auction, and the event itself will start at 5pm. All of the artwork is being donated for free so all profits will go into the fundraising pot!

"The auctioneer for the night is Ed Rising from Sotheby’s! With such an accomplished professional at the reigns the auction is bound to be well run and raise as much as possible for charity."



A specially printed 8 by 20 inch canvas of my “Don’t Jump” shot is in the auction, along with works from other locals like Derren Brown...



...Mark Simmons...



...Banksy (obviously), Portishead, Bill Bailey etc. etc.

Labels: Amnesty, Art, Photography

:: Dan 5.12.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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The Atheist Billboard Campaign


E&T chronicles some truly ingenious escapes over, through, across and underneath the world’s most sinister engineering structure - the Berlin Wall.

E&T visits Estonia, a former province of the Soviet Empire, to find one of the most technologically advanced and IT-savviest nations in the world.

There's Only One Sun | Wong Kar-Wai

There's Only One Sun | Wong Kar-Wai
by YforYerom

[thanks Natali]

Solar panels shaped like clay roof tiles


The Bigshot, a DIY digital camera designed for kids to build and use


Muji + Lego x-mas collaboration


In praise of the sci-fi corridor [via grom]

Z-DAY from Peter Thomas on Vimeo.
"In late October 2009 a meteor crashed into St Werberghs, Bristol U.K. While the initial damage was contained efficiently and promptly by the authorities, Solanum-based particles from the meteor quickly spread on the wind, infecting many of the local population and causing a class-2 zombie infestation/outbreak. Within hours, the walking dead had descended on Broadmead Shopping Centre in search of meat and brains... Few survived and many souls were lost that day, however a blood-stained video tape from a local underground film-maker was recovered from the wreckage... Following a press black-out, this film documents the fateful event (dubbed "Z-Day" by locals), and provides a rare and privileged insight into a full-scale zombie attack on a densly populated urban area."

Flavorwire » Blog Archive » DJ /rupture’s Favorite Cities and Songs
"Bristol is amazing, and it’s especially amazing for all sorts of different types of bass music. For a track, it’s hard to say, because there’s so much dub, dubstep, UK garage, reggae, as well… all this stuff coming out of Bristol. But my favorite spot in Bristol, I think it’s a Sunday night party, is at this place called Cosies."

Labels: architecture, Art, Atheism, Bristol, Environment, Film, Humanism, Lego, Photography, Sci-Fi, Technology

:: Dan 22.11.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Some readers may remember I did a stand-up routine a few years ago about Brian Eno being "The One" (like Neo in The Matrix).

Seems someone else thinks he may actually be VALIS (from the Philip K Dick book of the same name, although Radio Free Ablemuth is a much better book on the same subject).

Before scanning that from the Sunday Time Style magazine I searched for an online version. I didn't find one but did find this from last April:

What pop music tells us about JG Ballard
"Author JG Ballard, who has died aged 78, cast a huge influence over the literary world. But for those who have never picked up one of his novels there's another forum for learning about his work - pop music."

Labels: Art, Humour, Literature, Music, Sci-Fi

:: Dan 4.10.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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What sort of man wears mantyhose?
"Skinny trousers for men are everywhere. But how many will take the trend for figure-hugging legwear one step beyond, and wear tights? We road-test the look."
The video is well worth a watch for the reactions. And this is nothing like as eye-catching at the man tights from We Love Colors

Audio slideshow: Art and politics in China
"As China marks the 60th anniversary of Communist rule, Katie Hill, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Art at the University of Westminster in London, looks at how art has moved from the realm of propaganda to the international marketplace."

Dark Nostalgia
"A new tome by design correspondent Eva Hagberg, Dark Nostalgia coins a nickname for the cozy vintage trend in interiors."
Click through for some great interior images.


Fisheye gives new route to perfect images
"A fisheye lens proposed over a century ago can produce perfectly focused images without using any exotic "negative refractive index" materials, a physicist in the UK has calculated."

Pop Life at Tate Modern: the glorification of greed?
"The new Tate Modern show puts a post-Warholian generation of artists, adept at self-promotion and at ease in the world of mass media and commerce, into an art-historical context"

Labels: Art, China, Design, Fashion, Physics

:: Dan 4.10.09 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
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French MPs want health warnings on airbrushed photographs
"Airbrushed photographs could be given government health warnings in France to protect women from 'false' images of female beauty."
[via constant siege]



There's an offensive joke in there about one country/area banning imagines of beautiful women from another country/area to to protect women from 'false' images of female beauty. Substitute place names at your discretion.

Labels: Art, News, Photography, Politics

:: Dan 25.9.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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On Sunday 20th Sept, Arnolfini and Bristol festival will be hosting an afternoon of free workshops, focusing on state-of-the-art tools for interactive, audio and visual media. Practicing artists will be running through some simple projects you can do and will be sharing some of their tips and tricks.

The timetable is:

11:00 - 12:30 - After Effects

13:30 - 15:00 - Max MSP

15:30 - 17:00 - Circuit Bending

The workshops are open to all on a first come first serve basis.
If you are interested, send an email to makebreakbeat@hotmail.com stating your experience and which workshops you would like to attend.
Please help us circulate this email to anyone who might be interested in this event.

Many thanks

Jamie

Labels: Art, Bending, Electronic Music, Visuals

:: Dan 15.9.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Heya! It's been some time. I know I may have thrown you the odd scrap of music now and again but that old spark, it just hasn't been there lately has it. I know you have other places to hang out. I hope you understand what a death in the family has done here. But it's great to meet up again, have a drink, chew that fat, catch up on what we would have been chatting shit about if other events hadn't conspired against us.

Did I tell you I attended the BLDGBLOG book launch last week?

[v.o.g.: You mentioned you were going]

Ah, well, I did. And not only did I get a great book out of it, not only did I meet with and chat with Geoff Manaugh, whose a really inspiring guy, not only is there a photo floating around flickr of me sat at the same table as Warren Ellis (I didn't realise that at the time, I was distracted by the woman with him), but I've also come away with some blog based inspiration.

In the introduction to the book Geoff explains that when he started BLDGBLOG he decided that he wasn't going to pour concerns and negativity into it, it would just be for stuff that interested him. Things that made him think, gave him ideas, starting points for flights of fancy. I like that philosophy. I may try to take it on to some degree.


[source here via here]

So what else has caught my fancy?


Shots taken on Czechoslovakia - East border of the eastern German state security (Stasi)
[via www.ustrcr.cz]
Found in the Vice Magazine photography special, which is out now.

Its good to know that The American President is an Ass Man, Apparently

"But seriously, is this not one of the best presidential photographs of all-time? Even Sarkozy looks like he's sneaking a peek, though he's French, so we expect him to do it. However, in Obama's defense, that is a great ass!"

"Solicitors for the National Portrait Gallery are apparently threatening legal action against a US Wikipedia user for downloading 3,300 digital photographs of paintings in the UK museum's collection, and then uploading them to Wikipedia."
[via clayton cubitt]

Cauty - Julie Andrews tip in the Nude magazine sale


Codex Sinaiticus - Home The ‘Draft for Comment’ version of the Bible

Rumours of a Dr Who film

There, I Fixed It

6 Intriguingly Shaped Communities As Seen On Google Maps

My Pinhole camera experiments


"Patti Smith is one of the most anticipated gigs of the week, and the audience the most vocal. … joined by SMZ leader Efrim Menuck on drums and Portishead’s Adrian Utley, who attacks a guitar with a paintbrush to spooky effect."
Festival review: Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown, Southbank Centre, London SE1 | Music | The Observer
I mentioned this to Leafcutter John, wondering if he was aware Ade was at the Polar Bear gig where John had used the same paintbrush trick a few months back. His response was a spirited "Ah, but did he do it better?"

Stylophone Beatbox

Pre-order here

Open Source TIC - ePetition response | Number10.gov.uk
"The Government supports the principle that, where new software is being developed by the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, this should wherever possible be released under open source licence and available for use by other local authorities. ... Where the pilots will result in new software tools, ownership and intellectual property rights will usually remain with the individual local authorities"
Is this not a contradiction?

‘Ghost village’ to be demolished

"A village built in Argyll to meet the demands of the UK oil boom of the 1970s but abandoned without ever being occupied is set for a new role." [video link]

Stuff you've missed on the tumblr
* a whole bunch of new photographers discoveries
* shoes by architects
* a bunch of LEGO stuff inc jewellery, USB sticks and giant Star Wars models
* London Underground Map print dress
* Geek guide to shoe lacing
* The Battleships drinking game

I've also just discovered that Blogger is limited to 20 tags per post.

So what have you been up to? How are things?

Labels: Art, blogs, Copyright, Electronic Music, Flickr, FOSS, History, Instruments, IP, Law, Literature, Maps, Music, Petitions, Photography, Politics, Privacy, Religion, Sci-Fi, Wiki

:: Dan 14.7.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Stuff I've found recently but haven't found time to write about:

Roomba, Economics and Long-Exposure Photography

Edit: Thanks to Tania for sending this iRobot Create Roomba hack link.

Dream: The Big Art Project
Watch the C4 series on Sunday evenings

New Scientist: You are made of space-time

BCS vs Singh - Astonishingly Illiberal Ruling

Behind the label: Recycled Toilet Tissue

BBC5 TV
"We are NOT the BBC. In an era when the majority of media corporations are subservient to ruling elites, new forms of underground media have to emerge. BBC5.tv would not exist if journalists were always allowed to publish the truth. The fact is that many are silenced."

Newsnight – Immigration Song Contest

BLDG BLOG:
Man unexcited by his own possessions
How the other half writes - In defence of Twitter
The Hills Have Eyes



Bacon is a health food!

Richie Hawtin's 10 most ridiculous ideas

Labels: architecture, Art, Electronic Music, Environment, Food, Gadget, Humour, Law, Photography, Physics

:: Dan 16.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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This shot of mine will be among the Second Look group shots on display at Southbank on Dean Lane as part of the South Bristol Arts Trail 2009. 11am - 6pm Sat 9th and Sun 10th May. Framed 12"x16" prints are £45.

Labels: Art, Gusset, Photography

:: Dan 7.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal."

Labels: Art, Robots, Video

:: Dan 16.4.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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[via claytoncubitt - "Even in a field of flowers, at sunset, set to Donna Summer, for a perfume ad, Cunningham manages to make it creepy."]

Labels: Advertising, Art, Film, Video

:: Dan 16.4.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Well done, Keira!



"I have had lot of press interest since early January which spread throughout the world in a very short space of time, I was featured in my local newspaper The Daily Echo, followed the next day by a report on ITV Meridian (introduced by the one and only Fred Dinenage!), followed that same week in The Sun, The Telegraph, The Mail; and The Express a couple of weeks later. International newpapers and magazines expressed a massive interest and I've been featured in Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish, Belgian and Chinese newspapers; and featured on hundreds of online blogs and news sites.

"I am involved in The Drawing Exchange in Bristol on the May bank hoilday (1-4th May 2009) with my typewriter I will be drawing visual stories from different locations around the city using the letters and numbers of my marvellous orange machine! See festival website."

Labels: Art, Typography

:: Dan 16.4.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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It has never been easy to value art, in any sense. The value it represents in terms of artistic merit will be different to the value it holds to a community (and between communities) and will be different from its financial value, which is of course what someone is willing to pay for it.

This was highlighted recently by the vandalism of Banksy's Mild Wild West piece in Stokes Croft. Someone called Appropriate Media claimed responsibility for this and posted a manifesto on the gentrification of the area and the meaning of art on The Cube website. This ill thought through manifestos (complete with un-credited anti-Banksy sentiment stolen from a 2006 Charlie Brooker column) has since been removed from the website and replaced with the response emails it elicited. The work itself has been cleaned up by the Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft although now shows blood red battle scars in the mortar between the bricks, so it isn’t returned to its former glory but can now show off its war wounds with pride.

This Hijack thread documents the unfolding public outrage at this attack on a work that the community has embraced, voting it the top Alternative Landmark for Bristol in a BBC pole last year. However, the 10 pages of vitriol it produced should be read with great care as it quickly turns into a vigilante mob chasing the wrong suspects. Quite how highly valued this piece is by the community I think has come as a shock to those who sought to deface it in the name of art (and self-publicity). They couldn't have picked a worse target what with Banksy's unusual standing in Bristol where his works are protected by the city council whilst all other graffiti in the city is, hypocritically, still persecuted as vandalism.

This community ascribed value to usually transient street art lies in sharp contract to the financial value ascribed to most other art. The value here is dictated by what someone is willing to pay for it, in some cases as a cynical investment into something they believe will increase in financial value in the future. I am as guilty as many of buying limited editions of music releases or prints because, if I like it and I'm going to buy it anyway, I'll always choose the fancier presentation and perceived exclusiveness over the mass produced version.

But why? I know full well that this is often an equally cynical attempt by the artist (or their publisher) to limit supply to increase value. Sometime I wonder who this benefits as the original artist sees no increased income from future resale value. Shifting larger numbers at smaller profit may earn you more but loses you artistic credibility.

From personal experience I know that even tiny production numbers do not automatically make something more desirable. Gusset's first two self-released EPs were hand crafted by our good selves and produced in numbered limited editions of 40 of each. Even so it took us three years to sale the bastards. And we now have 600 remaining copies of the 1,000 disk run of Ask Dr Kim collecting dust. Now obviously this isn't a great example as I'm a nobody peddling substandard wares to a tiny and increasing saturated underground minority.

Music is one of the most difficult art forms to attempt to make money out of as it is so easily copied and distributed and is almost impossible to intentionally limit quantities of without attaching it to another more physical form of artwork, the packaging.

Due to either misguided artistic integrity or innate stupidity on my part my other chosen field of expression is photography. Arguably one of the most personal of all art forms with low barriers to entry in terms of skill and equipment (compared to music). Why buy someone's photo of x when you could take one yourself? OK, so yours may not to be to the same standard, but it is yours. You created it. You were there. You can talk about it if you hang it on your wall. The alternative, "Yeah, I got that in Ikeal. You have it too you say?"



With this in mind I was intrigued to see Dark Daze selling this frankly stunning Sally F**cking Reynolds motel print in a blind auction in a limited edition of just 10. The nine highest blind bidders get copies with one presumably reserved themselves. (They are a couple incidentally.)

But what's to stop him deciding to print more copies at some point in the future? Just his promise? Or will all other copies be destroyed like Jarre's Music for Supermarkets?

I'm intrigued what sort of prices are going to be offered for these prints. It's clearly an amazing photo that I would happily pay for, although the hinted started bid of a hundred quid (the price of his non-limited prints of the same size go for) already puts it beyond my budget.

Dark Daze, if you read this, I'd love to know what figures you get in the end. Would you be prepared to publish either the highest bid, 9th highest bid, or perhaps the nearest miss?

Labels: Art, Finance, Music, Photography

:: Dan 9.4.09 [Arc] [2 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Bldg Blog on Photography, Rights, Media

"...it has always struck me as somewhat economically lopsided that in order for Dwell to run a photograph in the magazine, we have to pay the photographer a not inconsiderable use fee; but that I, as BLDGBLOG, can simply post that photograph – or Dezeen can post it, or materialicious, or Apartment Therapy – and, at least for now, no one has to pay a cent.

"While I was Senior Editor at Dwell, this hit some particularly surreal notes, such as when an architecture blogger – whose entire visual content has been bought and paid for by other people – emailed me to accuse Dwell of stealing from architecture blogs because we had run images (at no small expense to us) of houses that once appeared on that person's website.

"It's interesting, for instance, in this context, that even mundane technical questions – such as whether to host your work online via a Flash website (which prevents bloggers from downloading your work) – are actually legally motivated decisions made to protect the financial integrity of your portfolio, not aesthetic or stylistic choices at all."

This post asks some interesting questions and it's nice to know it's going to be debated by a panel at the upcoming Postopolis! LA event. I hope some of that discussion makes it onto the net afterwards.

Of course, this applies just as much to any other type of photography, not just architectural, and other forms of art too. For instance, from Clayton Cubitt's tumblr it's clear he has some interesting views on this. He’s even posted to dismiss flash websites as an annoyance yet his own official site is one. [NSFW]

On a tangent, he commented on twitter recently:
"When porn does art it’s hilarious. When art does porn it’s tedious."
This makes me wonder where he sees his own work falling, as it's clearly between the two, as is most erotic photography.

Labels: Art, Copyright, Erotic, IP, Media, Photography

:: Dan 25.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Charles and Ray Eames: A Communication Primer


[via smashing telly]

"The Eames’ showed that films could be approached as a design exercise and as such were the forerunners to much of today’s information design, which has had a resurgence as a result of the Web. Their best known piece is Powers of Ten [below], but this is another little beauty.

"The film is nicely self-referential since it deals with Shannon’s information theory. However, the astounding thing is that the Eames’ were savvy about Shannon’s groundbreaking work which was published only 5 years before. To put this in context, its as if Frank Lloyd Wright had written a book about Einstein’s Special Relativity in 1910, when it wasn’t fully endorsed by the physics community."

Powers Of 10

Labels: Art, Communication, Design, Film, Maths, Physics

:: Dan 15.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"Question: what could make 40 lawyers from the Pentagon get on the Metro to take a field trip across Washington D.C.? Answer: Christopher Sims’ exhibit Guantanamo Bay at Civilian Art Projects. The show consists of 25 photographs of the naval base and joint detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where Sims spent five days in 2006."

[via flavorwire]

Labels: Amnesty, Art, Photography

:: Dan 15.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Mrs P, Slim and I attended the Ray Harryhausen book signing, Q&A and Jason and the Argonauts screening at the Watershed on Thursday. Seeing the film on the big screen was great. I maintain that it still looks better than most of the CGI fests that we see today. It’s a shame model animation is such a dying art. And seeing the man in person, still sprightly and chipper for his 89 years, was an inspiration.

It was a shame that the lip-sync was a couple of frames out. (Or was it always like that!?) I could also criticise the continuity, the colour matching, the acting and the characterisation, but that’s all irrelevant. I never thought I would quote Tom Hanks but as he said when presenting Harryhausen with a special Academy Award, "Lots of people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time... no way, it's Jason and the Argonauts!" And he was right.

Labels: Animation, Art, Film

:: Dan 14.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Check out the videos on the Untitled Sound Objects website. I love this sort of installation.


[press image from transmediale.de]
[thanks to martin freq. for the link]

Labels: Art, Sound

:: Dan 1.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"IKEA is the perfect family shopping paradise, but as
Mark Hoekstra strolled through his hometown IKEA,
something bothered him. They sell everything, for
parents, for kids – they’ve thought of everything, simply
everything. From knobs for your kitchen door to cheap
ice cream after you’ve finished shopping, there's
nothing that has escaped the minds of our Swedish
interior overlords. But... where's the sex?"



IKEA Love Toy - Mark Hoekstra. Photo Leo Veger



GYNEA by Sander van Bussel - Photgraphy by Leo Veger

"GYNEA provides a glimpse into the private lives of
omnipresent IKEA products. The hyper-impersonal IKEA
chair becomes the place where the most intimate and
personal activities take place. A piece of furniture many people in the world own is transformed into a private domain."

Labels: Art, Humour

:: Dan 3.1.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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A selection of the worlds most beautiful libraries.


HANDELINGENKAMER TWEEDE KAMER DER STATEN-GENERAAL DEN HAAG

Labels: architecture, Art, Literature, Photography

:: Dan 24.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"Ben Westwood's campaign against the forthcoming Government bill to ban "extreme pornography" is stepping up a gear.

The photographer, son of fashion doyenne Dame Vivienne, has designed a series of collectable lunchboxes bearing the sort of pornographic images which will in effect become illegal when the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 becomes law in January 2009.

Delightfully, he's planning to release one such box depicting the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, bound and gagged. Westwood had hoped to project the image on to the Houses of Parliament, but has been advised by the Palace of Westminster Police that he must seek prior consent from the crimson-coiffed Serjeant-at-Arms, Jill Pay.

He reckons Pay is likely to decline his request, but after her recent decision to let the Metropolitan Police rootle around the Commons at will, I say it's worth asking."



What would his mother say?
"Brought up by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, he spent his teenage years at the epicentre of the punk-rock explosion. After that, there were only two ways Ben Westwood could rebel: become a chartered accountant, or do something really shocking. Stuart Husband discusses fetishes, fantasy and family ties with a crusading pornographer"

Labels: Art, Fetish, Politics

:: Dan 18.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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From a Red Propeller gallery mailing:

Video on the Guardian website. "Vyner Street has become a hotbed of creative activity with artists' studios and galleries taking over from light industry on the London street. Photographer Thomas Eisl captures the party atmosphere of the monthly late-opening event"
Worth watching for the still at 50sec and some other great captures.

"All-new cover versions: The best new street artists have been let loose in a record shop"

Labels: Art

:: Dan 9.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Babble by Alex McLean

"Babble is a system for authoring mechanistic sound poetry. It occupies a space between speech and music, allowing play with the structure and form of simplified phonetics. The visitor is encouraged to enter nonsense verse, which is then immediately played back as synthesised sound. Although babble's phonetic system is quite unlike that of any natural language, when faced with the text that generates the sound, the listener has the sensation of 'hearing' speech.

"Babble is written in the open source HaXe language, which compiles to javascript and flash. The source code for babble is available under the GNU Public License version 3 or later."

This makes some fun noises and I like the rhythms it generates when given large sets of input data. However, the "simplified phonetics" are simplified to the point they bare little relation to what you put in.

Babble by Alex McLean is a project.arnolfini commission (produced for the exhibition 'Supertoys'.
[development blog]

"Alex McLean is a programmer and live coding musician. He is co-founder of the dorkbotlondon meetings on electronic art, the TOPLAP organisation for the proliferation of live algorithm programming and the runme software art repository. He is also a PhD student at Goldsmiths College, within the Intelligent Sound and Music Systems group."

I had a wander around the Supertoys exhibition last week. There is some interesting stuff, but as I've complained about previous technology based exhibitions at the Arnolfini, half of it wasn't working or was only a prototype. I may go back sometime to see if things gets fixed.

"mechanistic sound poetry. It occupies a space between speech and music"
Sometimes I think people might appreciate art more if the artists didn't write a load of balls about everything they do. That would raise the bar such that the art had to be good enough to stand on its own, rather than need to be justified by some pseudo-intellectual twaddle or gibberish manifesto.
[/end rant]

Labels: Art, Audio, Robots, Speech, Synths

:: Dan 3.12.08 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
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César A Hidalgo - Thinking outside the cube on physicsworld.com
"The discovery that many complex systems are actually well structured networks has not only changed the landscape of physics, but also how we visualize patterns in science."

See some of César's visualisations on his own website.


[large]

Labels: Art, Maths, Physics, science, Visuals

:: Dan 2.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Disinformation vs Strange Attractor
Originally uploaded by Mark Pilkington.


"Circuit Blasting emerged [when] chemist and artist names Richard Brown, told me how back in the early 80s he'd accidentally zapped a casio keyboard with a violet ray device to produce some interesting effects. In the spirit of scientific enquiry, Joe and I attacked an old Yamaha keyboard I have with one of the VRs and sure enough it triggered off a wild volley of random preset sounds, often at the same time. So we've now turned this into a performance. Our debut was at the London Dorkbot gathering in January [2006]. I was concerned that such hardened, jaded geeks would have seen it all before, but we got a fairly rapturous reception."

I found some cct blasting photos a couple of years ago and went looking for MP3s to post. Make blog explains. Audio recordings were elusive and I forgot all about it. Until I stumbled across the Strange Attractor website (after reading about Welcome to Mars in Nude Magazine)
and realised that the great ADAADAT released a CD (clips in link) of this back in Jan 2007 and there's an MP3 CD with over 13 hours of Resonance FM recordings on it. I have a feeling these were in my podcasts before the great hard drive crash, so I may have to invest in the disk.

Labels: Art, Electronics, Noise

:: Dan 3.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Nazi
Originally uploaded by gusset.


Artists models pose in the window of a Bristol stationers.
'Neo-Nazi invasion' terrifies villagers
Gloucestershire Uni Investigates 'Nazi' Students

Labels: Art, Bristol, Flickr, News, Photography, Politics

:: Dan 1.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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CERN engineer Sergio Cittolin depicts the Large Hadron Collider as Leonardo da Vinci might have seen it

Labels: Art, Physics

:: Dan 1.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Panty
Originally uploaded by gusset.


The Ink show at Centrespace Gallery ended today, although I got this shot of their panties while lunching yesterday. However, it's not too late if you'd like to get in their gusset yourself as they will be back there from 31st Oct - 6th Nov and in their normal home at Snap Studio when ever you feel like dropping by.

There was none-pant based art their too btw.

Labels: Art

:: Dan 28.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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flikr2846
Originally uploaded by flikr.
Image made by flickr user flikr using agony, which he wrote and is available for free download (although it's not open source)

Physics World: Did a Chinese calligrapher use ‘fractal expression’?

In the scientific world, fractals were first identified in the mid-1970s by the mathematican Benoît Mandelbrot.

However, it’s possible that artists and artisans have long been using the fragmented shapes in their work.

In 1999, two Australian physicists famously showed that the “paint-drip” canvasses of Jackson Pollock could be dated by computing their fractal dimension — which tended to increase as Pollock matured as an artist.



Now, Yuelin Li of Argonne National Lab in the US has posted a paper on the arXiv preprint server claiming that calligraphy done by the “maniac Buddist monk” Huai Su more than 1200 years ago contains fractals. Li analysed a request for “bitter bamboo shoots and tea” written by the monk and found that it can be characterized by two different fractal dimensions.



Li believes that the fractal nature of some artworks “can be attributed to the artist’s pursuit of the hidden order of [the] fractal”.

Also in physics related art, Physics World are trying to pick their favourite cover image from the last 20 years to celebrate their anniversary. You can see the 20 short listed images and vote on the link above.

Labels: Art, Flickr, Maths, Physics

:: Dan 24.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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When I posted about Zero Image Pinhole Cameras back in July I was inspired to look into them by an exhibition I'd seen at Photographique by Kate Kirkby.

Well, you can now see it again.

Kate writes:
"First of all I would like to thank all of you who attended my exhibition at Photographique in June. If you were unable to make it to Photographique you have a second chance to see the same collection of photographs at The Rummer until the end of November. Or, perhaps you came to my last show but fancy a second look!

"The Rummer Bar and Restaurant is a hidden gem in Bristol city centre, just off Corn Street. It is open everyday from 9am - 12pm (11am - 10.30pm Sundays) and they serve fantastic food throughout the day. If you don't fancy a meal then just pop in for a coffee, cocktail or a glass of wine from their extensive selection and cosy up by the open fire on one of the large comfy sofas. For more info about The Rummer click HERE!

"All the photographs on show in the bar are available for purchase and starting at only £40 would make excellent christmas presents. Many of these photographs were taken on my recent travels to Asia, including a selection of pinhole images.

"Most of my photographs from this show are now on my website www.katekirkbyphotography.co.uk

"Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you think may be interested.
Many thanks
Kate"

I won't deeplink to her images, but this is my favourite one.

Labels: Art, Photography, Pinhole

:: Dan 20.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Artist/culture jammer Jimmy Cauty's latest project: horrifically gory versions of classic animated cartoon cells
[via null device]

I've just bought one of these:


Not an entirely new idea (see Massimo Mattioli's "Squeak the Mouse" for example) but very nicely executed, if you forgive the phrase. But nice to see something other than Disney getting subverted for a change.

Talking of which, Grom recently linked to the stunning animationbackgrounds blog. This also focused a little too much on Disney for my liking. OK, so some of the artwork is amazing, but it's not the strange angled, hard lined, brightly coloured toons I grow up loving. Check the Warner Brothers and Tom and Jerry tags for that.




^ Click for large size.

P.S. Some of Cauty's 4th Class Stamps in my flickr stream.

Labels: Animation, Art

:: Dan 20.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Friend & Co
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Trying to show just how small Friend & Co is. Love the street scene painting on the hoarding.

Geoff Barrow says:
"last week a me and a friend opened a little gallery in bristol its fuking tiny and the work is pretty cool it incudes work by marc bessant who does our artwork including 3rd it also has work by some fuking good local guys and faris from the band the horrors which looks like a mousaphant.
friend-and-co.blogspot.com/
and the shop is here
friendandco.bigcartel.com/
cheers for now
Geoff {P}"

Labels: Art, Bristol

:: Dan 20.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Betraying the fact that I bought a Sunday Observer a few weeks ago and circles half a dozen articles for blogging, then put it aside until now, here's a link dump I should have published a month ago.

Alex James on making cheese

Plea to save vanishing art of the pub sign
(I notice The Victoria in St Wurbergs replaced their Victoria Beckham pub sign with Vicky Pollard last month, perhaps a couple of years too late.)

Warning to advertisers on 2012 cash-in

Einstein fridge design can help global cooling
"Scientists relaunch a 1930 invention that uses no electricity and would reduce greenhouse gases"


Isle of plenty
"In the past 10 years, one Danish island has cut its carbon footprint by a staggering 140%. Now, with a simple grid of windfarms, solar panels and sheep, it's selling power to the mainland and taking calls from Shell. ... 'Shell heard about what we were doing and asked to be involved - but only on condition they ended up owning the turbines. We told them to go away. We are a nation of farmers. We believe in self-sufficiency.'"

Labels: Advertising, Art, Environment, Food, News, Physics

:: Dan 17.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Steal From Work are very happy to have been asked to produce the debut SPQR solo show...



Saturday 11th - Sunday 19th October, 12pm-7pm
Trash Express, 8-10 Bond Street, Broadmead, Bristol, UK
(between Rikaxxe Music and Debenhams)

"Way back in May SPQR chatted about doing his first solo show in Bristol, and asked if we could find a suitably 'interesting' venue and help produce the show for him. Although we've spent the summer gallivanting round the world, we returned just in time to find the perfect venue (a former pawn shop, just doors down from the new shopping monstrosity in the heart of Bristol) and we are well on the way to producing a killer show.

"SPQR uses a mix of stencils and freehand spray-can work to montage and subvert popular contemporary imagery from the pop art world through to images harvested from the continual media onslaught. Simply Producing Quality Results.

"Highly collected and hugely popular, he quickly sold out at his last two shows and is famed for such iconic pieces as The Fifth Man, Paint Bomber and Patty Hirst.

"We invite you to come and enjoy the unveiling of all new works and take note of these cautionary tales…"

Please email stealfromwork@gmail.com with any sales enquiries
PDF catalogue

www.spqr.uk.net

Labels: Art, graffiti

:: Dan 12.10.08 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
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