Rabbit by Run Wake

When a boy and girl find an idol in the stomach of a rabbit, great riches follow, but for how long?

Once again, thanks to PAgent of PAgent’s Progress for the great find.

flickr photo by cornp0ne. Visit lemon pepper hot wing.

The little girl giant woke up one morning, got a shower from the Sultans Elephant, and wandered off to play in the park…

Thanks to Liz of LizLysinger.com for the link.

flickr photo by Felix Salazar

I just learned this morning that my CalArts Professor, James Tenney, passed away in August of this year.

I remember the first day of class with him. James mentioned that when people asked what kind of music he wrote, he would sometimes respond with, “I write unpopular music.” I have since used that line many times myself.

One of my favorite works of his is For Ann (rising), a process music composition featuring an endless rising glissando. This glissando is similar to Jean-Claude Risset’s. In my opinion, Tenney’s is more musically interesting, and the illusion of the glissando is much more transparent.

James is also one of the performers in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte, which is featured on Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music.

James, you will be missed.

The Whitney Music Box is a wonderful example of Process Music. The audio generated is musical in nature, and the process itself is obvious thanks to the simplicity of the animation. Each of the 18 variations have their own distinct qualities, showing the versatility of the instrument and of the sound spaces it creates.

Whitney Music Box is based on John Whitney’s motion graphics, realized by Jim Bumgardner, aka KrazyDad.

From the description:

in three minutes, the largest dot will travel around the circle once, the next largest dot will travel around the circle twice, the next largest dot three times, and so on. the dots are arranged to trigger notes on a chromatic scale when they pass the line

Thanks to PAgent of PAgen’ts Progress for the link.

Circuit Bending: The Spin Brother

time lapse video of real life circuit bending, edited to sounds made by the real circuit bent toy.

I reserved the Nintendo Wii this morning. 30+ people showed up, but only 24 pre-orders were available. I was lucky number 18.

I only wish they had posted the entire performance. From the description:

This is a taster of our live performance mix of ‘Electronica’, a piece which uses clips from a 1940’s russian film ‘Experiments in the Revival of Organisms’ which can be found on www.archive.org. Music by Kinetic Fallacy (Hannah Peel and Emma Welsby). Video chopped, treated and performed by Smeech.

Permalink @ blip.tv

:the early gurus of electronic music

“Electronic music represents freedom from conventional music forms: it liberates the production of sound. I was very interested in electronic music from its philosophical point of view. It is music that takes chances: it’s adventurous, it doesn’t sit still. And that’s something that should be applied to culture at large.” – Iara Lee

Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music is a sensational sonic history, grounded in mold-breaking experimentation. With virtually no rules to follow, or previous works to emulate, these composers were given a new freedom unlike anything else before. Naysayers would call this compilation a lot of things, but not music. For the open minded, this three disc +dvd set is an opportunity for exploring a world of sound you may have not experienced before.

“I desire macaroni pictures.”

TRON is my favorite movie of all time. Though the film virtually bombed at the box office in 1982, it has since gained cult following status. Every once in awhile, a direct reference to the classic pops up. For example: Homer 3D, Tony Hawk’s “I am Sci-FI” promo, Family Guy, and in South Park when Moses is portrayed as the Master Control Program.

The latest homage comes in the form of a Honda Civic commercial. This one is particularly nice as it captures the essence of the original, much more so than anything else I’ve seen. Special thanks to Tron-Sector for the find.

End of line.

Uploaded to flickr by urban_data

The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protestors with open source tools for urban communication. The goal of the G.R.L. is to technologically empower individuals to creatively alter and reclaim their surroundings from commercial and corporate culture. G.R.L. agents are currently working in the lab and in the field to develop and test a range of experimental technologies for the state-of-the-art graffiti writer.This site documents those efforts with video documentation and DIY instructions for each project.

LED Throwies fascinate me.

The scene of the crime

I bent my first circuit this Saturday, with limited success.

The victim was a cheap-o $5 keyboard from walmart. Opening it up was as easy as removing the screws. What I found inside was very little in terms of electronic components. There were two long narrow boards that acted as the controllers for the buttons and keys. And then there was this tiny little square where all the “stuff” happened.

Connecting the limited set of dots I had to work with, I found three distinct circuit bending functions: The sound stopped, a popping sound came out of the speaker (which is bad), and the rate at which the samples played back increased by ten-fold. So I soldered a toggle to the only pair of interesting dots on the board. The end. Being useless, I’ll go back and reclaim my toggle.

What did I learn? Uninteresting toys can make for uninteresting bent instruments. Newer toys are probably much more efficient in design, thus having fewer circuits to bend. Don’t touch the hot part of a soldering iron.

Part of Get Bent

K-2 circuit bending in their after school enrichment program

Part of Get Bent

Simply brilliant.

Shamelessly stolen from Fuzzytopia