B
usy times around here preparing for the April ‘09 Megapolis Festival, an art-tastic audio weekend here in the Cambridge/Somerville/Boston. We’ll have workshops about creating challenging audio works, making hardware to make noises, interacting with your environment in all its sonic glory, and more. We’re setting up collaborations with local and regional audio groups, most notably the Boston Cyberarts festival in these parts. Visit megapolisfestival.org for more deets, even though we’re in the very early stages of a whole lot of stages, to sign up for the email list or to figure out where we at on the Facebook. AUDIO ART TO DA BREAK OF DAWN!
November 20, 2008
Megapolis Festival Indeedy!
October 21, 2008
The Bird Destroyed my Keyboard.
The bird destroyed my keyboard., originally uploaded by jugrote.
I spent over an hour trying to put the keys back together, but it needs fixed. Moral: never leave Wrigley alone in a room with my computer again.
October 16, 2008
Times a Changin’
Time to turn the page. Why not? I’m ready for some newness in my life.
October 14, 2008
Free Internets
Catch us up with the rest of the world already! This could go a long way toward helping our economy by giving online access to those who can’t afford the sometimes ridiculous connection costs, esp. away from home. Chyeah.
September 30, 2008
Theremin Solo
Thinking now (as I do approximately 2.3x/month) I should concentrate more on making music. Ah well, someday soon. The trigger: I found a 14-minute solo [mp3] I did about six months ago with my optical theremin and a delay pedal.
September 22, 2008
Conflux Redux
Conflux is a fantastic festival in NYC that explores how artists and audiences interact with the urban environments around them. I had the chance to interview some of the festival curators in the weeks before the festival, which definitely helped me get a better understanding of how a festival like this is organized and executed. It was a Thursday to Sunday affair, and even though I didn’t have enough vacation time to hit the first two days, my curiosity has been sufficiently piqued for Conflux fests in the future. The fact that the festival headquarters were stationed in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood I was mostly unfamiliar with, was also a plus.
I think all cities should have a festival or day like this, and it doesn’t even have to be on this scale. It allows artists to get a better understanding of their surroundings, to express that understanding in their work which in turns teaches an art-hungry audience (in the case of this year’s Conflux, anyone who passes through a neighborhood that is much less prominent as an artistic hub than it used to be) how to appreciate and enjoy their immediate urban surroundings. Inspirational and relaxing and all that good stuff.
September 18, 2008
links for 2008-09-18
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How laptops are used in live musical settings beyond purely electronic / techno music.
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Photoshop Tutorials, bad soap operas, good stuffs.
September 17, 2008
Nagra SNST Recorder
(A beautiful photo I most certainly did not take)
Nagra SNST Recorder, originally uploaded by mab @ flickr.
“Nagra SNST, a miniature reel-to-reel audio recorder optimized for surveillance applications, circa 1975.
Slightly larger than two iPods, the mechanism runs virtually silently for six hours on two AA batteries, and can record about two hours of voice-grade stereo audio on each 2.75 inch reel of 1/8 inch wide tape. The device is operated with a single switch, with recording or playback selected depending on whether a microphone is attached. Rewind is via a retractable hand crank (the “T” shape between the two reels). A separate amplifier/speaker post-processor (not shown), called the “SNST-DSP” (an anachronistic misnomer, since it’s not digital), filters and EQs the recorded audio for high-intelligibility playback.”
