tom moody

"Krolock's Dub" [3.9 MB .mp3]

Still poking around in the Reaktor User Library. This track has an effects chain ending in a delay instrument called Dubbyk, which features really rich, long-tailed, filtered echoes erupting at unpredictable intervals. The beats are fairly rudimentary, just enough to anchor it. It's a short, fairly structureless piece--the structure comes from the random triggerings of effects events.

1. In the lab:

2. Loose in the wild:

3. Captured and domesticated:

top two images: The Outer Limits, "The Mice" (YouTube)
bottom image: Lynda Benglis, as seen on VVork

Speaking of the pre-director's cut Donnie Darko, critic J.E. Barnes offers one of the best explanations of how Richard Kelly hurt his own movie:

[T]he revision, however more closely it may dovetail with Kelly's personal vision, considerably dilutes the film's drama and power on almost every level. While the theatrical release was fueled by its own judicious editing, structural hard edges, glorious ambiguities, and evocation of the suburban weird, the so-called director's cut continually literalizes the plot while simultaneously altering the status of essential story elements.

In a grave error of judgement, the daimonic rabbit Frank, a dominant presence in and the very symbol of the theatrical release, is now overshadowed by Roberta Sparrow's previously obscure book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, which is brazenly promoted into the foreground. Additional superfluous scenes of the Darko family interacting (which were wisely included as outtakes only in the original DVD) undercut the film's pivotal forward momentum, while the deletion of some of the mean-spirited dialogue Donnie's peers direct towards one another weakens the satiric and parodic humor of the original.

Key characters, like the free thinking, anti-establishment teacher beautifully portrayed by Drew Barrymore, now seem to have briefly wandered in from another film entirely. Awash in new CGI effects, the director's cut should make more logical sense, but simply does not. The film's last ten minutes, in which everything that has gone before coalesces into terrible meaning, should have been considered sacrosanct and left unaltered. As a result of these changes and others, a clever, multi-faceted, fairly original, and genuinely tragic film has become a muddy, unfocused, and protracted exercise in the unthreatening and the banal.

So in a reversal of several well documented Orson Welles projects, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)... Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut is a concrete example in which the much-maligned Hollywood executive machine has actually strengthened a creative work through forcible tampering.

Saw Donnie in a mostly empty NYC movie theatre during its brief, original run a few weeks after the World Trade Center attacks. The jet engine crashing through the suburban ceiling had a cosmic message ("temporal loops happen") as opposed to the WTC attacks' tawdrily pointless one ("enjoy a lap dance and then go kill some Americans, stir up the country and fatten the wallets of war contractors"). The film's cult built on DVD, the director got a big head, and then damaged his handiwork with the later cut as Barnes describes. After seeing it I made a point to buy a disc with the original version.

"Streetsong 3" [6 MB .mp3]

This started with cymbals on an analog drum machine tuned to a kind of chimy percussion. Those sounds were sampled, pitched down and played over the top as loops, with MIDI changing some of the notes and filtering. Another actual '70s breakbeat was sliced and added underneath. The trumpety sounding instrument is from the Reaktor User Library, a synth called Shark (because the capacitor wave that serves as its main tone generator looks like a shark's fin), with reverb added to soften it. This is all pretty technical but the melodies are klutzy and sing-songy, hence the title (inspired by Karl Orff's pieces for children). Something musical does happen at the end--still mulling whether that (or some other hint of compositional chops) should happen sooner.

A grinning, soul-sucking Incubus from the low-budget film Ink, currently on Hulu.

Worth a watch--combining some of the better features of Run, Lola, Run (fast-forwarding and reversing through people's lives), The Matrix (kung fu protectors from another reality), Wings of Desire (the voyeurism of the disembodied) and a hint of the pre-director's cut Donnie Darko (eldritch forces swirl around suburbia).

A caveat, that tedg nails thusly:

The price they decided to pay was to put it all into the service of a profoundly syrupy confection of moral simplicity. family/child = good, money/career = bad. But one level higher it becomes coolly reversed. This is film, but the bad guys are the ones with the film presence. The saviors are a storyteller and a blind seer who never meet. The conflict is designed not to reflect real conflict, but something staged so that you can see.

It is an acceptable price. The storytelling is wonderful, just wonderful.

As for the bad guys, some creative use of low budget digital effects to create indelible images. The incubi, all male, sport '70s aviator glasses and square transparent shields suspended in front of their faces; these portable lens/monitors crackle and sizzle with CGI static and project jumpcuts of their moving features, suggesting some kind of time distortion. Terry Gilliam-ish but with a digital mashup vibe.

Afterthought: This would have been an arthouse hit a la Pi if anyone in the film biz had had the smarts to distribute it. The film found its audience through Torrent downloads and web buzz.

Am continuing to remake previously-posted GIFs (this one a cpb.tumblr enlarged thumbnail) in an effort to keep up with changes in browser technology: the slicker and smarter your Web experience gets, the GIFs will look older and clunkier.

Paddy Johnson is having a fundraiser and I just made a contribution. A writer for a New York newspaper recently emailed me asking (i) why I thought people were attracted to Johnson's blog, and (ii) what she does that other people writing about art don't.
Here was my reply:

Johnson's blog blends thoughtful writing about art, news, humor, original reporting, lively comment threads, guest contributions, and "dish."
She was an immediate hit because she calls 'em like she sees 'em in an art world where everyone watches what they say.
She is also one of the few writers that can talk intelligently about two fields, art and new media, and their points of crossover.
This has attracted two large readerships that might not otherwise mingle.

Speaking of new media, Rhizome.org is also having a fund drive and I contributed there, too. (Just call me Santa.) Things I'd like to see happen there in the next year:

1. Redirect old posts to their new editorial numbers. Just noticed that sometime between July and December 2008 Rhizome completely renumbered its blog posts so "permalinks" to posts prior to that time period are broken (including many links from this blog*). No redirect, just a 404 message.

2. Restore reblogged content from the non-Rhizome web community. After its short-lived but vital "glasnost" era of guest editors and heavy reblogged content from non-staffers (around 2006 or so) Rhizome removed the reblogged content (including posts of mine) from their blog archives. Eyebeam also zapped years of guest content--what is going on? The Rhizome posts are still there if you dig for them, they just aren't coming up in the monthly archive.

*example of what happened when Rhizome changed its posts: My link to their article about painter Dan Proops used to go to http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/blog.php/611 (see Google's cache of the post). This was changed to http://www.rhizome.org/editorial/297 (see my revised post, only because I happened to catch it). With the link dead the discussion makes even less sense than it does with it.

Update: Item 1 above has been fixed; regarding item 2, a browsable list of the reblogged content is in the works, per Rhizome.

Unqualified as this blog is to comment on Australian politics, our editorial staff favors the barely repentant kid who hosted a "destructive" street party over the nightly newscaster who is far, far too confident of her right to meddle, as seen in this YouTube clip. (hat tip aron and paul for what has all the earmarks of satire but probably isn't)

"What type of problems are you having with the unit?"
"There is a sort of drift between channels."
"Drift? I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."
"The stereo image isn't stable."
"Stereo image? Again, you'll need to explain that a little better."
"The panning isn't fixed. One channel will suddenly get louder and the other softer."
"That is not a known issue with this unit. Did you [check all the other things that might be contributing to a wavering audio signal]?"
"Yes. It's only the analog outs that are a problem. I can ADAT the signal into another sound card and get perfect stereo from that card's analog outs. According to the specs there is some sort of 'servo-controlling' of the pan. Could that be out of whack?"
"No, no. That would be a hardware problem."
"I think we're talking about a hardware problem."
"OK, what about this? Is there corrosion around the output jacks?"
"Yes, I think there is."
"OK, here's your job number. Send the unit back to us for inspection, and write the number on the outside of the box."