Category Archives: sound

Sara June @ Woodstock4

i absolutely LOVE this clip of Sara June’s collaborative, improvised public intervention performance with Endguys out in Boston Common for Woodstock4

Sara June Woodstock4 from Uncle Shoe on Vimeo.

Movement artist Sara June in performance at Woodstock4, presented by Whitehaus Family Record on the Boston Common August 18-19, 2012. Improvised music by Endguys (Steve Norton, bass clarinet / Matt Samolis, flute). Video by Douglas Urbank.

Synthesize, Improvise and Otherwise — Saturday, June 8

on Saturday, June 8th — Lee Todd Lacks, Tom Swafford and i will appear at Matt Samolis‘ ‘Synthesize, Improvise and Otherwise,‘ a new and interdisciplinary performance works events out at Nave Gallery in Somerville

Check out more info up on The Book, aight?

we’ll perform a new composition of Lee Todd’s written in A flat minor with relative wholetone flourishes and micropolyrhythmic, purposely dissonant percussive undertone accompaniment with a slightly woody taste wildly reminiscent of 1984 or so aptly entitled ‘Ghost Mall’ — you won’t want to miss it — i’m serious — well, okay, i really have no idea who you are right now, right? the technology i used to put this blogpost together can’t really dynamically detect who might be reading this post in the moment and then, based upon your innermost desires and personal likes or dislikes in music then assess whether you might or might not want to miss it, this ‘Synthesize, Improvise and Otherwise’ that Matt Samolis is putting on out at that wickid cool Nave Gallery in the general Somerville districts of Massachusetts and all, but, hey, i have the write to pretend and play and let’s pretend for just a second that WordPress allowed for that post-humanic, überCreepy and simulated predictive functionality, okay?

woah

yeah

that’d be, like, kind of simultaneously amazing, this kind of stuff we dream up and invite, but also a little bit annoying and probably a little bit broken

like

it might not get it EXACTLY right, right?

but we’d kind of ignore the fact that it’d be a little ‘off,’ right? like we normally do — and we’d probably think, like, woah — oh my gawd, that’s pretty fucking awesome — who the hell dreamt this cool, new innovative trick up? how’d they implement that? was there some sort of direct emotional sensor that somehow reached out via webcam into my retina to pull out my wants, needs and personal tastes in music and performance art?

probably not

i bet it’d just be kind of random, but we’d believe there’d be this wonderfully creative and epically smart algorithm of pure genius behind it all — that somehow data answers every question we have and that any tiny miraculous event can be somehow utterly dewonderfied through scientific conjecture and fully quantifiable proof of anything seemingly magical, real or exciting

hey

i’d go out to this ‘Synthesize, Improvise and Otherwise’ — ‘sGonna be off da hook ‘n shit

i can tell it is

probably the best way you can spend your Saturday night { unless, of course, you’re going out to that competing Mobius event happening on the verySame night — jeez! }

introducing Random Acts of Laughter

RAoL_screenShot

OMFGawd! — today ranked in as one of the funniest, funnest April Fool’s Days EVER!

My very good friends and colleagues out at MobiquityRachael Stedman and Skylar Roebuck, the mad fucking geniuses that they are — took my rather broken dregs of an initial attempt to prototype a ‘Laugh Hotline’ concept I tried to throw together at Tufts Hackathon 2013 and really made it into something functional, fun and quite hilarious — i mean, this shit is FUNNY!

check out Random Acts of Laughter

Just enter your name and the target — er, ehm — recipient phone number you’d like to send a random laugh to and through the magic code expertise of Idea Squad Brain Trust { aka, Rachael Stedman, Skylar Roebuck and I … and any other Mobstrz that join our all powerful forces of hackage } the RAoL back-end servers randomly selects one of our hand-crafted audio laugh pre-recordings { generaously supplied by Laugh Institute } and sends it over with some light salutations to help brighten somebody’s life for a few ephemeral mobile moments

After just one day of our 2013 April Fool’s Day Beta Launch we’ve already received a barrage of random accolades and praise — just take a gander at what people are saying about Random Acts of Laughter:

One receiver of a random laugh immediately replied, ‘Oooh my goodness! I just sent this to myself and almost lost it — fun for the whole family!’

Another unsuspecting participant in our surprise mobile laugh intervention chimed in by saying, ‘Just had some moron/creep call my cell phone and leave a voice mail message. It was a Quincy number so I didn’t answer it. The message was just maniacal laughter. Creepy—like a deranged clown. Probably some idiot calling random numbers on his day off from Walmart.’

And finally, yet another delighted and mirthy victim of Random Acts of Laughter says, ‘Lolz!  So funny!’

Looking forward to more incredible evidence of the success, joy and positive energy we’re all feeling out here at the Idea Squad Brain Trust, the Laugh Institute and Mobiquity

Random Acts of LaughterMake ’em laugh

a box full of music, rose petals and seaShells

last night i found a box in the basement, a treasure

as much as Marco and i buckled under the legal pressures brought on by our contractual relationship to XeXeX | OBLiViON back in the ’90s and stopped recording our beware the haberdash material on carefully planned, sequential schedule — we did move forward in our secret underground recording studio to capture that haberdash magic on tape to create a veritable bucketful of bootleggy sounds

only select tracks made it to any official releases over the years, however, as litigation got rather nasty and we both chose to focus on the positive experience of making music over fighting against ‘The Man’ every step of the way to merely preserve this rather eclectic and strange post-deathmen project we both still treasure to this day

so here you have it — the visually-designed artifactual remains of the overarching master gameplan for every pre-Sewingbox beware the haberdash release as envisioned and begun back in the late 1990s / early 2000s

transducer :: like, my favourite new word ::..

aight … in my Sound for Dynamic Media class last nite, i think i decided my new favourite word of the day ( at least for this week ) is transducer … here’s the MW definition for you to get better acquainted ;]

transducer – Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Main Entry: trans·duc·er
Pronunciation: \-ˈdü-sər, –ˈdyü-\
Function: noun
Date: 1924

 

: a device that is actuated by power from one system and supplies power usually in another form to a second system <a loudspeaker is a transducer that transforms electrical signals into sound energy>

how ’bout them apples, eh? ;]

the laughter life

aight, aight, aight …

new concept … coming right outta this here Sound for Dynamic Media course @ The DMI …

so … lately … on my Facebook laugh group, i’ve been using the smile emoticon as a sort of parenthetical, visual naming element + convention … so, the name of the group + all that is surrounded [: like this :] in little smileys, right? … + then on the other more poetry-based Facebook group i started up ( an actual second attempt to eRessucitate the poetry round-robin open mike i had running back in the early ’90s, The Sound of Dolphins ) i used a slightly different, but subtly similar convention … |: something more like this :|, right? these are the written music symbols that surround a repeating set of bars …

… so …

… why not create a Score for Laughter? sections of the score would be surrounded by the old [: smiley emoticons like so :] … + i could use the pitch + other parameters of musicality to really demarcate what i might want a laugh ensemble to produce for me as the laugh conductor … might be ridiculous, but worth trying out, right? ;]

could be creepy-cool-fun

869062-DSCF2864

photos for sound + texture

i took these shots over the weekend to capture some of the conceptuals for my Sound for Dynamic Media course ( taking it by night this summer as part of my grad work through The DMI ) … we started by capturing audio samples … then, the idea was to put image representation to the sound … and now, this week we need to have our first time-based ( video or video-like ) piece ( part 1 of 2 parts ) done by Wednesday …
my idea ( which came to me shortly after collecting the sound ) is to create some point-of-view visuals from the perspective of some creature … i’m thinking of making it all in Flash ( since my copy of AfterEffects was completely ass ) … i’m thinking a nice pinhole-like mask that moves about the screen … quick scurrying images w/ little stops + starts here + there … that’s the idea that i’m running with for now … of course, the titles of things come easier to me than the actual work ;] … so i was thinking of calling it something like automagicCreature # ( inserts #s 1 through whatever for the version # … or perhaps automagicCreature beta through versions 2.0 … something sort of software, semiSurreal, nice ‘n’ chocolatey ) …

Design Seminar 2 » Blog Archive » one cozy minute of isolation

one cozy minute of isolation

By lou suSi March 4th, 2009

a crisp, saturday evening in autumntime

down in the fort point area of Boston, the mobius annual artrages fundraiser party takes over an entire floor of commercial space to create an atmosphere of surreal, unbound creativity — the crowd warms the space — the rawness of the space goes unnoticed as people walk through and enjoy the art installations, participatory music and performance art, roving performances, and the company of so many amazing, creative people — lights and sound cascade and echo across the hardwood floors — there is a sense of celebration, uncanny premeditation and a joy for the subconscious enjoyment of this ocean of possibility

the night sings of timelessness — suspension of clocks and watches — a quarternote of one moment

i am waiting in line — the half hour passes fairly quickly as i talk with the waiting people — there is an installation up ahead — conversation in the line compresses time even further — there are people to watch, performances to figure out and discuss, distractions and thoughts pouring in like sunlight

as i get closer i see a man in a dark suit — very much a sombre sight — serious and cleancut — either a bit of business is being conducted or there may be a funeral, i can’t quite figure it out — but he is opening and closing a wooden door { the door to the installation } — letting people in and out, one by one — he is pleasant enough, but tall and calm in demeanor

every once in a while there is another person — shorter, wider — dressed in overalls and a thermal shirt, workboots and a red and black plaid hunting hat — he seems to have tools and occasionally goes into the wooden space between the flow of the line — he’s a bit nervous, but all smiles —  almost a living contradiction to the suit

as i get closer i can see that the wooden door opens into an outhouse construction labeled with a large ‘#1’  above the door — the man in the suit talks to each person at the head of the line — he literally helps each person in and out of the installation — i can see each person being pulled up and out from behind the door — everyone that emerges from the installation seems happy, pleasant, a bit relaxed

i look at the artrages map — apparently the piece is called ‘claustrophillick enclosure #1’ — i am almost at the front of the line — people are wondering what’s inside

i finally get to the front of the line and the man in the suit welcomes me — he explains that one person is allowed in the space for exactly one minute — he warns that the space is tight and if i have any fear or phobia of being alone, enclosed in a tight space, then i may want to reconsider experiencing the enclosure

he opens the door, reaches in and helps a young woman get up and out of the space — the interior of the outhouse is lined with a pink, floral cushioning material — the woman stands up, readjusts to the light of the mainspace and moves to re-gather with friends at the party — the man then helps me curl up inside the womblike fabric of the inner space — as he closes the door i am completely alone, surrounded by darkness — it is warm — the scent is that of flowers, perhaps the previous visitor to the enclosure

since i am enveloped in pitch black — my attention is drawn immediately to a subtle soundtrack — no real music, or at least no instrumentation — just many sounds, a soundscape — water dripping — passing traffic — a jet flies by — little girls singing together — songs from a playground — hopscotch or jumprope comes to mind — a muffled heartbeat becomes the most overwhelming sound in the mix

the space is warm and soft — very accommodating

my eyes begin to grow accustomed to the dark — i see what looks like someone moving, directly in front of me — just the silhouette — a little scary — i am looking into a mirror — a mirror on a medicine cabinet that is clearly marked ‘PRIVATE’ — an image of an angel dangles from the edge of the cabinet — i am facing my reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet — i notice a sign that says ‘Open Me’ — i open the door to the cabinet and can see restroom signs, the symbols for ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ — between them is a small jar with a magazine clipping — the image of child inside the jar — just the child’s face — there is also another clipping that says ‘True Love’ — and then i notice a sign that says ‘Close Me’ { very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland | Through the Looking Glass } — i close the medicine cabinet and quite suddenly the door opens up — the man in the suit asks me how i am doing, let’s me know my minute in the claustrophillick enclosure is up, and reaches down to help me exit the outhouse — my eyes hurt a bit as they begin to readjust to the light

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blogpost to Design Seminar 2 for The Dynamic Media Institute @ MassArt :: in response to Kevin Brooks’ session on Storytelling and Narrative …

group of 9 | Art Rock kcoR trA

that’s Deb + i … you could probably recognize the shot of Deb from the previous one, eh? ;] … anyhow … smiles everyone, smiles …