June 2011

If GIFs didn't exist, what...?

Comments Off on If GIFs didn't exist, what...?

Would love to put the GIF wars behind us but emails are still coming so here are some lingering issues. All the comments below, from an AFC staffer, are "what ifs" about GIFs. Generally it's not useful to speculate in criticism.

Comment one: If GIF support weren't integrated into every layout engine worth considering, you'd be working in Flash or Quicktime. If GIFs didn't play instantly and unstoppably, without plugins or play buttons, you'd be working in Flash or Quicktime.

Answer: Wrong and wrong. I wouldn't work in Flash, ever, and have found Quicktime to be an awkward delivery system for animation. Haven't posted one in over two years. Likely I'd have just continued making collages with scraps of xerox paper if GIFs hadn't been universal. But they have been universal!

Comment two: If your artwork - your GIFs - continue to exist and function and be visible on all browsers, but are no longer used by the web public generally, is that bad?

Answer: Thanks for phrasing this as a question this time. See Answer to Comment three below.

Comment three: If GIFs stopped being supported by browsers, but your GIFs could be translated painlessly, with identical pixels, to the new cross-browser atomic lossless raster animation format (a category of file for which there will always be a need), would that be a problem?

Answer: These questions are too speculative. If what you have called GIF partisanship exists or has a purpose, it is to make web developers aware of what they're thoughtlessly phasing out before it happens. A business person might need to make predictions about future supplies and customers, but artists mostly roll with what comes.

flame wars

Comments Off on flame wars

backhanded compliment *BLAM*
complaint about lack of civility in the face of semi-friendly joke *DOUBLE BLAM*
mild riposte *CRACK*
hurt feelings *MOAN*
dig at credibility *LASH*
gripe about too many digs *WHAM WHAM*
spilled tea
mopping up tea
counter-argument coupled with diss about mother *ZONK*

OK, these wars aren't what they used to be but I still wish we could avoid them

"Noise Gospel"

Comments Off on "Noise Gospel"

"Noise Gospel" [mp3 removed]

Some of the quasi-vocal sounds used in "Quadruple Carbon" were made into samples and loaded in the Reaktor "Krypt" synth. The resulting track is the spine of this short song, with voltage-controlled kick and percussion sounds running underneath (and a piano riff).

Note to trolls (guess I should post this periodically): If something is a fragment or a work in process I usually mention that. I don't really have a genre peg for what I'm trying to do with music, or a group that I particularly want to throw in, or down, with. (I really dislike the wave files on Soundcloud, reducing expression to graphic peaks and valleys.) Generally I consider this electronic music or home computer music. I have had great conversations with and feedback from one or two artist/musicians about points of crossover between music, visual art, and "expression that is somehow inherently digital." I have co-produced a CD and have posted over 500 songs now; some are done quickly and some take several days (or more) of sustained focus, even though the average length is only a couple of minutes. I know when something's finished and if it's not, I generally won't post it unless there is some idea or texture I want to share.
These aren't really songs in a traditional sense, but then neither are they the formal or system-oriented experiments that are usually considered art. I am interested in combining styles and moods and investigating whether it is possible to tell musical untruths (I believe it was Auden who said you couldn't.) I'm interested in why something doesn't fit in the "art" genre--does "art" always have to mean unstructured-sounding or "noise" based?
Thanks to the bots sniffing the web for, um, publicly available music, my audio files are the most-trafficked content on my blog. Most downloads are just mistakes but the work is "getting out there" in fairly substantial volume. Certain songs are downloaded again and again. Occasionally I receive a a review, a "like," or a sale. Is this enough? Probably.