Speaking of lumpenfuturism (although this is from the past, and fairly elegant). More from Bill Schwarz.
Day: February 21, 2010
Tomorrow Museum explains Facebook
...as in, it's worse than AOL.
Had heard about "the poke" but couldn't believe it. (Obviously we aren't Facebook users here.)
Update: The Tomorrow Museum blog went offline -- the above article is in the internet archive.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (with Electro)
A tune of mine ("Yog 2012") is used in a YouTube-documented sculpture work by Aron Namenwirth, titled I Can Hear You. An abandoned speaker is filled with soil, which is used to grow an oak tree seedling. The music emanates from the "tweeter" while the tree occupies the slot for the former "woofer."
Namenwirth is using cast-off furniture and other artifacts as soil cases for growing trees--in this case with a literal audio component. Back in the '70s there was much discussion and media buzz about talking to plants and playing music for them. That's somewhere in the cultural background of this electro-eco-botanical artwork. I like the lumpenfuturistic element--it works as an abject counterpoint to all the buff new media pieces that try to incorporate growing things, while still being straightforward in its urban environmentalism (Namenwirth plans to eventually plant the trees and let the casings rot in the ground).
"Fusion Disassembly"
"Fusion Disassembly" [mp3 removed]
Tunes were added to "Audrey (Royal Beats 2)." Much time spent EQing and compressing and rearranging to get this--it's about 10 tracks total, including three drum tracks, three basses, and two e-pianos.
Had in mind a kind of deliberately robotic, or MIDI-oid, fusion jazz, a collection of parts that come together as counterpoint elements as the song progresses. (But still feels "perky" and moves along, and with a fuller sound than old school "homepage MIDI.") So the tunes are kind of placeholders, that I start liking more towards the end of the song. (And it's only two minutes.) No idea if any of this communicates in the finished piece, or why anyone would especially want to do this.