tom moody

Open letter to Paul Slocum:
What determines the tempo of individual loops on your sample-remixer? Or put another way, how is tempo detected?
You said the program looks for "interesting loop points"--what is interesting to your random generator? (This sounds skeptical but I'm just trying to grasp the methodology--I like the idea of self-designed art-making tools being almost an art in themselves.)
Also, what is the database that the sampler is using to look for loops?
Do you have a folder of contemporary Christian music that the program is searching?
Also, is it contemporary Christian rock? (I only watched enough of the Casting Crowns vid to see that they look like gentle metal dudes.)
Again, these aren't criticisms, just trying to understand the concept better, and thought it might be fun to have a little cross-blog discussion going. (While we still have this freedom and before the Internet turns into walled garden Facebook ghettos controlled by your local cable provider.)
Best, Tom

...at vertexList. Top photo: the projection on the rear wall is Paul B. Davis/Paper Rad's Video Compression Study II, interpolating Rihanna (I think), the Cranberries, and assorted '80s VHS ephemera. My "Stock Popcorn" GIF, based on a stock footage video of a rotating popcorn kernel found by Guthrie Lonergan, is in the foreground--from an "enlarged GIFs collection" vid I burned to DVD for the show. The bottom image and detail is a rather handsome work by Paul Slocum--the description reads "MINIMUM ATARI 2600 EMULATOR. This software emulates 2% of the functionality of the Atari 2600 game console. Supports 3 out of 151 instructions in the 6510 processor: INX, STX, and JMP. Supports 1 out of 58 TIA audio/video chip registers: COLUBK"

The Atari console is on the floor, connected to the left hand screen; a PC is connected to the screen on the right. I'm guessing the joke is that the console image is set at the same minimal level of information as the emulator--a kind of pre-emptive subtraction to avoid the usual XYZ reading of this kind of transformation.

Slocum adds (via email):

...I thought [the minimum emulator] needed to demonstrate some sort of verifiable output and use the simplest command subset to do so. I chose INX (increase the X register by one), STX (store the X value in a memory location), and JMP (like GOTO in BASIC, need this to keep it running in a loop).

So the program that both the emulator and Atari are running is made up of a long string of alternating INX and STX commands with a JMP at the end to make it loop. I probably spent more time designing the sequence* than I did writing the emulator.

At this level of minimalism in code and machine, I noticed that it reduces to a variation on the concept of [Steve Reich's] "It's Gonna Rain." Its visual complexity is due to mismatched phase. I may explore this further in future work...

*A .pdf showing the "Atari 2600 ROM Disassembler Output" is here.

product box, ink jet on cut paper, map pins

One candidate stands up to Giuliani in the Republican debates and says the US's destructive policies abroad led to 9/11--it's not because "the terrorists hate us for our freedoms," the official loony story line. Millions appreciated his candor and have given him money as the sole conservative candidate not on defense industry payroll. Yes, we're talking about Ron Paul. Now considerable effort on both the right and the centrist left is going to marginalize Paul as a "nut." Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com examines the anti-Ron Paul movement, particularly posts by center-left blogger David Neiwert, who seems not to understand that the US has bigger problems than Ron Paul's candidacy. I would also add the ultra-verbose Open Left blogger Paul Rosenberg, who I believe tacitly supports a permanent U.S security state and endless military adventurism abroad with his Herculean efforts to prove that the "paleo" conservatives are a greater danger to us than Rudy and probably ultimately Hillary. Rosenberg says the paleos are isolationists who want to return us to a time that never existed, but so what? Being the world's cop clearly isn't working out--that part of the critique rings true. Rosenberg's effort to discredit the already discredited paleos seems like cloud cuckoo cerebration in the face of the rise of Thug No. 1--the neocon 9/11 profiteer who has promised to continue Bush's policies of preemptive, undeclared wars and the resulting curtailment of civil liberties here at home.

Neiwert at one point singled out this 1999 Raimondo column as an example of the paranoia of the paleos. Raimondo was talking about the Y2K madness and how it was prepping us for an Afghanistan attack--incredibly prescient, it seems to me.

"Song 8 (Blip)" [2.3 MB .mp3]

Tune done "live" on an Electribe groovebox (the Amkii, not the Rmkii I was using last year)--it's semi-default-y; I wrote the melodies myself but some of the textures (like the scratching, and the ending sputter) are direct from the factory.

This is a straight recording, no compression, effects, or changes to the tracking or balance have been added (hence the hard panning of the right and left channels). Eventually I might tweak it but right now I'm kind of enjoying it raw.

This is a show I'm in that opens Saturday, November 24. Many of these artists are not in what I'm calling the Steffany Martz Biennial (in joke--meaning the Whitney 2008). I'm pleased to be in "Bitmap," though--a kind of counter Biennial for the abject geek set. I started using the word "bitmap" in gallery labels about '98 to the consternation of print mag reviewers so it's nice to be in this crowd.

image: Petra Cortright

VertexList space and Blip Festival have the pleasure to present “B I T M A P: as good as new” a group exhibition celebrating the history of the digital image, the aesthetics of early computing and early video-game consoles. Expect pixels, old monitors and 8 bit sounds!

"B I T M A P: as good as new" is proud to feature: Cory Arcangel, Chris Ashley, Mike Beradino, Mauro Ceolin, Petra Cortright, Paul Davis, DELAWARE, Notendo (Jeff Donaldson), Eteam, Dragan Espenschied, Christine Gedeon, Kimberley Hart, Daniel Iglesia, JODI, Olia Lialina, LoVid, Kristin Lucas, David Mauro, Jillian Mcdonald, Tom Moody, Aron Namenwirth, Mark Napier, Nullsleep, Marisa Olson, Will Papenheimer, Prize Budget for Boys, jimpunk, Akiko Sakaizumi, Paul Slocum, Eddo Stern and CJ Yeh.

A reception will take place at vertexList on Saturday, November 24th 2007 from 7pm - 10pm.
The exhibition will be on display until Sunday, February 3rd, 2008.
Live 8 BIT music performance @ the opening reception, 8.30pm.
VertexList gallery hours are Friday, Saturday, Sunday 1pm -6 pm, or by appointment.We are located between Graham and Manhattan Avenues on Bayard St, Brooklyn, NY. For more info please visit our website www.vertexlist.net or call 646 258 3792

disc via B3TA; other creators unknown

And speaking of the lifeworld, check out these prospective utopias in Manhattan.

(the images came from Curbed, here and here)

Re: the Momenta Art exhibition "Air Kissing: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art about the Art World," in Brooklyn, NY:

Me, prereviewing the show on Paddy Johnson's blog: "The last thing I want to see is an extended whine about how horrible/capitalistic/phony the art world is--as content. There are just more pressing issues from the life world that artists could be addressing."

Artist m.river's reply, also on Johnson's blog: "Yeah Tom, like circles, gif animations and electro. Way to hold us up to your higher standards for art.

On another note, the show is great."

My reply, currently in moderation on Johnson's blog: "More circles, gif animations, and electro, less whiny art about other people's art and what a dreadful place the art world is, I say. Thanks for drawing the poles so clearly, m.river."

Update: I'm joking here about prereviewing the show but it's hopefully clear to all but artist TWhid that my remarks on Johnson's blog were addressed to the general topic of "art about the art world" and the work of this ilk I *have* seen.

For the record, here's what I wrote on Johnson's blog that didn't really get responded to:

I disagree with this reasoning: Because some artists have made art about the art world, one must think they blow if one thinks art about the art world blows. (e.g. Alex Bag–she has other personae besides art-specific personae.)

...[I]t’s often a sign that an artist has jumped the shark when s/he starts making art about art. (E.g, Lichtenstein’s awful Leger quotations, Jim Dine’s Greek statues… Sherrie Levine was an exception because a philosophical point about authorship was being made–at least until she started doing gold urinals. Similarly Andrea Fraser’s museum tours were kind of interesting but fucking the collector was just belaboring the point.)

That was my complaint about the Cory Arcangel screen burning piece–the subject was the mechanics of art display and the types of screens "A" list artists get to destroy as opposed to overlooked wharf rats. The last thing I want to see is an extended whine about how horrible/capitalistic/phony the art world is--as content. There are just more pressing issues from the life world that artists could be addressing.

from cpb.tumblr