"Weather Watch," by Mr. Andrew [YouTube] reminiscent of early '00s ambient electro (Plod, Duracel, Plasmalamp, et al) except this is from 1982 (hat tip stage)
"Trollz" by Glass Popcorn [Soundcloud] Mr. Popcorn "redefines dubstep" in the defining deviancy down sense of making it louder, grittier, and funnier. By the end this song is just square waves. What the home computer revolution should be about.
"Clangs and Whimpers (Short)" [mp3 removed -- some of this got incorporated into Field Whimpers, on Bandcamp]
"Clangs and Whimpers" [mp3 removed]
mmmd1 stands for minimal morphing machine drum--an analog-modeling synth/sequencer from the Reaktor user library that un-analogically allows you to morph among hihat, snare, and bass drum to get your drum hit. The amount each of those percussion types contributes to the sound of the hit depends on the position of a yellow square in the step key boxes above. The parameters of those three sounds can also be messed with, pre-morph, using the dials under bd, sd, and hh.
In this song I used the mmmd with effects as shown above. The diagram isn't entirely accurate in that several recording sessions were done, each time with the effects configured slightly differently:
Session One: All drums (mmmd1 "Out" in the diagram) went through Flatblaster 1.0 (a compressor/limiter) to channels 1 and 2.
Session Two: Hihat through Echomania (delay) to channels 1 and 2.
Session Three: All drums through Instant Repeater (another delay that adds pitch), then Flatblaster, to channels 1 and 2.
Session Four: As shown above. Since Reaktor's inboard .wav recorder only records channels 1 and 2, I used a second PC to record all four channels simultaneously through an ADAT connection. I could have configured my sound card to do this on a single PC but frankly I get confused with all the in/out and it's too much bother trying to avoid feedback loops among player, recorder, and monitor.
I then did post-production in Cubase with the .wav files resulting from those sessions (cross-fading them and using automation curves to add and subtract reverb).
Am posting two versions of this song. They are identical, except that the long one has more variations and gets progressively noisier. What interests me most in both versions is the funky robot syncopation resulting from the layered delay tracks. Like syncopation at its most primitive and reductive. The sound overall is pretty harsh--the reverb provides the only softening factor.
a melding of two pics posted to dump.fm (one by carjackcker and one by blingscience). This was briefly on the daily hall of fame but was edged out by a "dudes with mohawks" theme
Not sure how long this will be up but here's an interesting layering of Cowboy Bebop hands GIFs, combining the original titles, the "art room" version, and the GucciSoFlosy flipped minimal version.
The maker is lrntrlln aka sumoto.iki. No idea what page is linking to this--it came in via my stats.
Those hands/arms are all over dump at the moment. Some have cropped and rotated them and used them as legs! #history_of_net_art
Exhibition of animated GIFs curated by Paddy Johnson. Johnson's essay limns an intriguing parallel universe to the now-familiar net art history posted by her former intern Karen Archey. (Funny how the grand timelines lately seem to culminate in paintfx.biz and Jon Rafman.) Archey's essay is all about assimilation of the internet into institutional art world practice; whereas Johnson has chosen a medium that has proven particularly resistant to the museum/gallery Borg.
Alert readers may have noticed that this is the second show called "Graphics Interchange Format"--Laurel Ptak organized one three years ago in Brooklyn, which I missed but read about on Rhizome.org:
Some of the artists are among the net's gif stars and others made their first gifs for the show--they were all commissioned on three days' notice by Ptak and are being sold in unlimited editions (accompanied by a personalized note from the artist) for $20, instigating "gif shop" puns across the net art blogosphere.
Never really got the premise of that show--like, GIF slam? Three days' notice?
By contrast, the GIFs in Paddy Johnson's were years in the making, or at least, it took years for them to be recognized. Just BS-ing around here, can't really comment objectively because am in the latter show but wasn't in the former. Most documentation of Ptak's show has disappeared, so the only people we know were in both shows are Petra Cortright and M. River (who is in Johnson's show as one-half of MTAA). If you were in both, drop me a line and will add your name. At the time of Ptak's show, tumblr was just getting going and most of the GIF discussion centered around surf clubs. One such collective appears in Johnson's show (those "spirit" guys); of more recent vintage, and not a club exactly because anyone, even Brad Troemel, can join, dump.fm is represented by a "daily hall of fame" consisting of the day's most "fav"-ed posts. There you have the GIF world: the exalted platonic vs the vote-hungry mundane.
