It's been a week of malfunction. Two of the six computers in my office went down. Muxtape was shut down. My Ffffound "bookmarklet" went on the fritz. And I hear Netflix has been lagging. At least, surprisingly, my phone is working.
Still, it's a provisional replacement with no camera, which means my photography hobby has been on hold. I loved all the hazy deformities and numinous light flares that I got with this Samsung, especially at night, and I'm afraid the iPhone will be too hi-fi (even though the pixel counts are the same.) But I really enjoyed documenting pretty things on the fly without thinking twice—or even using two hands. It was instantly gratifying to capture and load all that diaphanous(-looking) data so effortlessly.
It won't be the same, but I'm finally putting together this pinhole camera I picked up from the Moma store a while back. Until I figure out which bits of tape go where on that, here's a brief commemoration of my short-lived romance with an iffy phonecam. (Feel free to cue the music in time to the start of the slideshow.)
Credit of course due to the artists where work is pictured, most of it mentioned in these archives.
Apologies. Been too busy to post lately. But as promised here's an update.
Just a quick collection of experimental music [re/]production methods that freshen up old ideas with new technology or work old-fangled tech into new designs. Some of the tracks are directly related; some I've just correlated.
[Also: The lettering above is from a new typeface I'm working out. You can see it in action on the flyer for the Sharegroove get-down last Friday and on this Bastille Day Party invitation.]
Busy week so short and sweet: Listen to Lemonade, best friend to sparklers, partner of three-legged race winners, and secret ingredient in that summer cocktail of good music and good friends.
This sort of falls under the "guess you had to be there" category. So here's a set of phonecam flicks to help illustrate. I'm not purporting to be an art critic by any means, but I really enjoyed the evening of absurd, interactive performance art and breezy beats at Michael Portnoy's Milk the Weasel, Pull the Rug and Summer Session 2008 at the SculptureCenter in Long Island City last night. Thanks to Jeremy for the heads up and to him and Matthew for the jams. I woke up this morning with Eye in the Sky still playing in my head.
Read on for my attempt at putting this into words.
Looks like all the World Science Festival events that really interested me are sold out. Actually, that's not entirely true, but I'll be in the Poconos this weekend so will have to miss out on, say, Saturday's What It Means to Be Human moderated by Charlie Rose, with a panel that includes Jonathan Harris among philosophers, geneticists and neuroscientists. Get tix, go, and I'll borrow your notes when I get back.
If you can't make it out to these talks either, keep reading for a round-up of science and science-y links that I've been bookmarking (wikis, articles, vids, etc), so you can school yourself without leaving your desk/couch/hammock. With science-y musics, of course.
I've had this one saved to drafts for a while now, so when I read that The Depreciation Guild were influenced by Dario Argento films, I figured now was as a good a time as any to dust it off.
It took my roommate and I four months after Netflix sent it before we sat down to watch Phenomena. (Our catch-up-on-Lost marathons were seriously getting in the way.) But once I got over my aversion to horror movies, I really enjoyed it. Argento's 1985 classic has it all: blood, beauty, new wave fashion, a preposterous premise and, perhaps most important, a kick-ass soundtrack. As for most of Argento's films, Claudio Simonetti's prog-rocking Goblin does the title theme and mood music, and on this one Iron Maiden, Motörhead and Andi Sex Gang rip through the chase scenes.
° Goblin - Phenomamp3
(make sure you get past the intro to a minute:30)
There was a lot of great work at the NY Photo Festival—really inspiring stuff. But to celebrate the sunny weekend ahead of us, here are a couple phonecam shots of Penelope Umbrico's wall of sunburst photos, Suns From Flickr, printed out on glossy 4x6's. I especially like that when you get close you can see the jpeg artifacts from the lo-res images. Similarly, I like how details of printed rosetta moirés appear in the enlarged "candy-colored horizons" culled from honeymoon resort brochures in her Honeymoon Suites. Check out the other work, from collections of TV screens and pillows to "ends of things" on her site.
Between ICFF and the NY Photo Fest there's plenty to do this weekend, but I'd like to direct your attention to one event in particular. If you've not yet visited the SoHo concept store Kiosk, their first Mini-Exhibition opening this Saturday is for a show by collaborative group Rich, Brilliant, Willing and will be the perfect opportunity. Continue reading for more about RBW (their "Candle Party" pictured below) and the story behind Kiosk's Hong Kong neon.
° Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Gardensmp3
