tom moody

Chris Bowers' reasons for not feeling like cheering Democratic speeches:

* I have a difficult time wrapping my head around the notion that Obama will be great because he will work with Democrats and Republicans, even though we should all make sure to vote for Democrats.

* I have a difficult time wearing my partisan hat and cheering loudly for speeches that virtually all complain about partisanship being a major problem in Washington, D.C.

* I have a difficult time understanding Democratic criticism of McCain since it is always prefaced with effusive compliments about the service he has done to the country, and how we should all respect him so deeply.

* I have a difficult time cheering when I am told someone will end the war, even though we all know he will leave a large residual force in the country.

* I have a difficult time cheering when I am told we are going to pass universal health care legislation, even though we know that no one is proposing universal health care legislation.

"Hope" and "change" aren't synonymous with the words "Joe Biden." (More like "credit cards" and "war.")

Alan Sondheim, "Skinned" [YouTube]

Writhing, topologically-distorted flayed man--this is what we will all look like when the big black hole takes us in the Final Days. (Unless you are saved, then it will be OK.)

Stylistically, JODI's Max Payne cheats meets Carpenter's thing meets that exhibit with all the plasticized corpses. Quite gnarly and great. Sondheim's description of the method: "experimental motion capture doubled avatar work through poser and proprietary motion capture software."

Compare: Get Low, Petra Cortright hand (and Crispin Creeper finale), Silicious John McCain video.

An article in Minneapolis' The Rake titled The New Dada discusses Internet surfing clubs. The writer comes to the scene with a fresh set of eyes (i.e., from outside the circle of usual suspects looking in) and concludes that while much political art post 9/11 is "dull and dry and deadpan and rote," the clubs' brash and chaotic approach might be closer to the spirit of Zurich 1916.

Interestingly he found the clubs via online discussion of the Net Aesthetics 2.0 panel at the New Museum. This blog feels a bit vindicated since it was trashed after the panel for being insufficiently respectful of the "sincere" political art that is out there.

A piece of mine was used in the article: the Mark Napier Steven Dutch Remix. It's funny, I've been introduced to Mark Napier several times and he says "I've heard your name somewhere..."

most of the cartoons on this page aren't so hot but these are keepers

"Ultramagnetic Aerobix" [3.9 MB .mp3]

Mostly rhythm and electronic sounds--similar to some pieces done in early '07 with the Electribe groovebox but this is all software.

Post no. 666 (cue eerie music) at Spirit Surfers is a rotating, shimmering 1-bit cube. Quite lovely possible companion for this piece by Jim Hamlyn from the Infinite Fill Show.

Catherine Spaeth and CAP are discussing critic Harold Rosenberg and a post here got mentioned. Comment in reply:

Thanks for the link.

That blog post was actually not a good example of Rosenberg being mentioned only because Greenberg was.

The pairing of the two critics was the Jewish Museum's frame and the post was responding to it.

From your discussion (and the Jewish Museum's) it seems that Rosenberg was more interested in evaluating artists (are they heroic? cosmopolitan? a good embodiment of Marxist ideals?) than the artwork they make.

There is a strain of art that values personality and anecdote over work and it may trace itself back to "American Action Painters." But it's a bit like basing jurisprudence on the lives of the founding fathers and mothers rather than the study of history, economics, and so forth. Fun to read but incoherent if your goal is a common language.

You can compare work to work but it's hard compare artists to artists so you get careers based on personal funkiness, e.g.: "The most important thing about Tracey Emin is...well, her Tracey Emin-ness."

see also, Tracey Emin, Fame Academician (hat tip Marisa Olson). A feminist reading of Emin can be made and that writer doesn't even try, and there are certainly worse artists currently stroking personality cults (for example, Richard Serra).

earcon's Funkiller CD is now available at at CD Baby.

These are great solo, art brut electro tracks made with the Elektron Monomachine synth.

One of the tracks on the CD is my drum and bass remix of the song "Minto." Twas posted here previously but this is earcon's new-and-improved remix of my mix:

"Minto (Tom Moody Remix)" [2.9 MB .mp3]

Also check out a re-release of an earlier earcon disc The Noise of Experiments (under his jenghizkhan alias). More doomy and ambient, with late night TV field recordings layered with crackling static and digital drones.