Drone and Dance

Two albums that are worthy of your attention:

 

 

Replica, Oneohtrix Point Never purchase here
Higher Ground, Rimar. purchase here

A Hypnagogic Journey Through an Apple Vending Machine

James Ferraro's latest album Far Side Virtual plays out like a smooth, ambient journey through a Playstation 2 game. Allowing his samples to be recognizable to the point that they're inhibiting, this album recounts and confronts any utopian feelings we may have stumbled upon during our visits to Best Buy or the airport recently. I found myself at once grooving, chilling, and laughing. Check out his more abrasive Night Dolls with Hairspray if this gets too glossy for your liking.

Chill out, brah

Enjoy a cool Sunday courtesy of Norman McLaren.

Labor, Algorithms, and the work of Liza Lou

The SCAD Museum of Art opened up last week to an exhibition of Liza Lou's beaded 2d and 3d works. She makes her art entirely out of threaded beads, often without the help of any assistants. The piece shown here, Continuous Mile is a mile of beaded rope placed in the form you see (someone inform Guinness). The energy of her work stems from the labor involved in the construction of the pieces. The most exciting work for me was her "2d" work made out of Light Bright looking beads placed on their heads and glued to a flat surface. The image produced was a geometric patterning reminiscent of a computer chip or a really nice rug. I kept thinking of my old days in Computer Science school, endlessly programming various algorithms to create certain effects. Seen in this fashion, her work is not only a meditation on woman's labor but on energy output in general. With computer and mechanical labor slowly becoming more intelligent and capable, what human labor is worth keeping? Apparently cleaning and cooking.

 

Kitchen (1995). Yes this is made entirely out of beads.

Feeling hopelessly nostalgic?

Rest assured my good friends, we all do. About the strangest things too. Indulge yourself tonight, in lieu of the holiday season...
http://www.ubu.com/film/ahwesh_bethlehem.html

Comment if you wanna talk about this film...

We're cavemen writing on walls

I'm a SCAD student right now and I'm taking an intro to Interactive Media class with Andrew Hieronymi (his website). Outside of being a professor, Andrew makes installation video games. Absent of any narration, Andrew's work presents the user with the most primitive situations imaginable, successfully recreating the most intense moments in certain types of games (such as JUMP before this platform falls, HIT this ball coming at you).

He briefly mentioned a little dodad about a curator friend of his not understanding his work. Apparently there is a lack of consensus on new media art being art worthy of curation and consideration alongside the more established art mediums. He mentioned interactivity being a barrier. People don't necessarily intuitively know how to interact with a computer program. I believe that he is right and I'd like to extend his point.

We know how to make 2d and 3d art. Human civilization has given us quite the inheritance as far as that is concerned. Furthermore, we're getting pretty good at making 4d art (proof). What is exciting and offputting about new media art is that once again we're developing a new language of expression. That is expression through technology with technology. Video games have been the pioneer in this respect. Inevitably we are reaching a plateau with traditional controller game play mechanics. Increasingly game developers fluff up the situations they are presenting the "gamer" with instead of developing new ones (hence sequel mania). But regardless, the idea of interacting with a computer (implying an artificial intelligence) is a very young idea, one that is only going to get more profound if not more frightening. So while right now what we can express through new media art (video games specifically) might be crude, it is going to be kick ass or frightening as hell very soon.

Telakoe by Pan Sonic, 1999

First blog post ever!
Welcome to Appleton Love by Corey Martin. I post music and artwork on here. I'll probably digress a bit.

Pan Sonic- Talakoe
I stumbled across this today as I was youtube surfing through some music by Oval. This video is beautiful. As the minimal, droning rhythm sinks in, the viewer is taken on a journey through a seemingly infinite landscape.