March 29, 2004
Batman Begins
Oh goodie. The new Batman film and they haven't stuffed it up yet. Well, it's just a nice industrial logo so far. *fingers crossed*
March 22, 2004
March 21, 2004
Free Culture
Looking forward to reading Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture". The sparks are already flying as Lessig collects his bad reviews.
I love the idea he is using Pan (albeit Peter Pan) as an example in the book, by the sound of it. Part of my motivation for making Horses for Courses was to do a story about the little green guy who so many cultures love to rip, mix and burn.
March 20, 2004
The Weather Project
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The best interactive art is always so simple in hindsight. Walking into the Tate Modern at midnight to feel warmed by the sun is an experience only available for another two days. I'm glad I caught it.
The top hemisphere of the sun is the roof, a giant mirror stretching back halfway down the Tate's massive entrance hall. Lying on your back looking up at the reflection of the sun-baskers, many playing, some writhing across the floor. The patterns across the space were relaxing. The cold air from the entrance mixing with the warmth and faint smokiness emanating from 'the beach'. The space had real atmosphere. Not many things entice me into lying on a cold stone floor but we spent at least an hour in this people canvas. Tate Modern | The Unilever Series: Olafur Eliasson: The Weather Project |
March 19, 2004
Mailbucket
Email to RSS gateways are a great idea worth developing especially for people who grudgingly use proprietary mail clients without a hell of a lot of confidence that their saved folders will be available in ten years time.
"MailBucket is an experiment in alternative methods of email management. For now its only feature is a public email-to-RSS gateway: forward your email to slurp@mailbucket.org and have your news reader pick it up at mailbucket.org/slurp.xml (where you choose slurp, having checked that it's not already in use)."
March 18, 2004
Looptracks
Looptracks is a rather funky interactive music video. The visuals are abstract vector motion graphics for the most part but the experience delivered through the interface, similar to navigating a throbbing and hopping circuit diagram, works well.
P2P is the distribution key
The files contained on this website are copyright property of their respective owners. All rights are reserved.
Such is the state of law around most Internet content. Now let's take the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act a few extreme steps further and you have a situation where not only can nothing deemed original, as in everything can be provably derived from earlier patented material, but your usage rights around any material are reduced even further.
It's not just businesses that are affected by the endemic greed we are dealing with now, it's everyday people as well. Non-commercial use, free use, is often as restricted as commercial use when you are talking about media corporation property.
All the thoughts in your head are copyright property of their respective influences and their owners thereof. All rights are reserved.
Where will it all end? In a stinking messy heap perhaps. Hopefully, more and more creators, in the true sense of the word, will come to their senses and fight this creeping force in the trenches. It doesn't take much, beyond the absolute conviction that without the ability to build on the past, for work, for play, for expression, for exploration, our lives are meaningless.
All files contained on this website are licensed property of their respective owners. Some, if not all rights, are reserved.
In a P2P world, the distributors are your audience, people with their own networks. Word of mouth to their peers, on paper, by email and phone, using sound and visuals. Don't be afraid of letting all these people interact with your material. Don't worry about their morals. Leave people to their own devices, trusting that taste and social justice will deal with the worst true offenders. You are not responsible for how people MOD your work, only for what you create. Give yourself a chance to strike a chord with new audiences.
March 17, 2004
Copyright and Missing the Point of the Computer
I've been getting stuck into arguing the case for more re-mixable art in a thread on grandtextauto.
March 16, 2004
Johnny Cash - Hurt
I love this song, I love this singer and I love this video. It's simple and a wicked cover of a beautiful song by a wonderfully messy but elegant band (Nine Inch Nails).
March 13, 2004
Dayscratching
You're more than a little bit homesick when you catch yourself absent-mindedly scratching video backwards and forwards and it's time-lapse footage of your home town. Actually, I'm not that embarassed by it. Dayscratching is kind of soothing.
March 12, 2004
Laurence Lessig speech
Two years old but this recording of a speech Lessig made to the Open Source Convention is still fresh food for thought.
http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html
- Creativity and innovation always builds on the past
- The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it
- Free societies enable the future by limiting the past
- Ours is less and less a free society.
One of many examples quoted, is how Disney Corp. began by ripping off Buster Keaton's silent film, Steamboat Bill, Jr, to make Steamboat Willy.
March 10, 2004
March 05, 2004
The art of mis-direction - DVD-Video
Is it just me or has no one really noticed that DVD-Video is in fact practically speaking less functional than VHS? The one feature I constantly use as a viewer and VJ is the fast forward button and now, on most players, I'm limited to a slower speed. OK sure there's chapters but that's a crapshoot of the first order. Can I have my linear playback system back please Mr Manufacter?
March 02, 2004
Yoko Ono - Film No. 4 (Bottoms)
Rare bums indeed. 365 in fact. 365 bottoms shot in loving close-ups for 15 seconds, one after the other. Now that's high concept. We only lasted about 30 minutes into Film No. 4 before my friends gave up on "beautiful bottoms". The soundtrack is made up of people being interviewed about their relationship to the work. Yoko herself comments that "despite a lot of attention in other forms of art now there is no audience participation in film. You've got this aristocratic medium."
I found No. 4 far more watchable then "Wrapping Piece" which consisted of fly-on-the-wall camera shots of Trafaulgar Square where Nelson's lions have been wrapped in white cloth.
"Cut Piece" is probably Ono's most famous film. She sits on a bare stage while audience members come forth to cut her clothes off piece-by-piece with a pair of scissors. A fantastic set-up where the audience is drawn into the action.
Last line has to go to the guy in No. 4 who says "it's just a statement of the obvious". I guess that's the point. *yawn*