Thanks to Neg-Fi for including one of my tracks in their guest-DJ mix for (Make The) Product last night on WNYU-FM. The weekly music show features demos, self-released, live and private-pressed recordings. You can hear their set in streaming audio, and here's the playlist. The set features much skronky, minimal, micrometallic and otherwise neg-fi material, I'm honored to be in this company with an electronic "drum solo."
Day: August 22, 2007
YouTube "Overlay Ads"
Per the New York Times, Google has put the final nail in the YouTube coffin with "overlay ads":
...Google believes it finally has found the formula to cash in on YouTube’s potential as a magnet for online video advertising and keep its audience loyal at the same time.
The company said late Tuesday that after months of testing various video advertising models, it was ready to introduce a new type of video ad, which it said was unobtrusive and kept users in control of what they saw.
The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.
A user can ignore the overlay, which will disappear after about 10 seconds, or close it. But if the user clicks on it, the video they were watching will stop and a video ad will begin playing. Once the ad is over, or if a user clicks on a box to close it, the original video will resume playing from the point where it was stopped.
This doesn't matter much to me--all my favorite YouTubes have already been deleted for "terms of use violations." Really glad I made the decision to put only one "art video" on YT; it's my belief that my two headed, self drawing deer will only be improved by an erectile dysfunction ad scrolling along the bottom.
Slocum, Bewersdorf at Okay Mountain
Photos of an exhibition by Paul Slocum and Kevin Bewersdorf in Austin, TX. Reification of the internet is a big theme (i.e. taking something "virtual" and making it into a tangible object), as well as celebrating/critiquing trash media such as chiropractor TV ads, theme park architecture, and corporate promotions. Imagine taking the concerns of the Nasty Nets website, where Slocum is a member* (surfing, making fun of low rent graphics), and translating them into a physical environment. The point is not commodification, although that surely factors in, but creating a neutral zone where you can walk around an object or imagine touching it when its only previous life was passing rapidly through your screen. Also included is performative-type work suggested by everyday Internet interaction, such as Bewersdorf's use of the Walgreens digital photo center to have Google-found images printed on pillows and coasters. Or the crystal clock they ordered online to commemorate the exhibition. The show isn't all static objects; it also features video such as Slocum's Time Lapse Home Page, consisting of hundreds of screen captures of a web page changing over time played at hyperfrenetic speed.
*also me, struggling for objectivity as usual