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Went to see a Unity Gain performance at the Spiegeltent, the elaborate temporary structure now living at the South Street Seaport. Unity Gain is a sort of electronic jam session of audio & video artists, mostly using computers. Great layout of the space – big vertical screen on top of a round table, all the musicians (12 of them) sitting around the table, with the video team (a whole bunch) at a table to the side. The format of the night was a sort of tag team, where pairs of musicians and video artists would take turns performing. Two ITPers performing: Zach Taylor, and Luke DuBois, creator of Jitter.
While it was all interesting, a particular highlight was the duet by Bubblyfish and Glomag, played entirely on four Nintendo Gameboys. Really cool high energy music, and lots of “expression” by the musicians!
It occurs to me that in the 6 weeks or so that I’ve been in New York, I’ve been to three such audio/video electronic art jams. The Warper party, Share DJ and Unity Gain events all featured multiple artists, audio & video integration and free format. My favorite kind of art!
Went the SoHo Art Parade, organized by Deitch Projects. Interesting subversion of a traditional form (the “parade”) to present some amusing, satirical and quite snarky art.
Today is the first day of class at ITP!
I am taking the basic four foundation classes:
- Applications of Interactive Communications (taught by the chair, Red Burns)
- Communications Lab
- Introduction to Computational Media
- Introduction to Physical Computing
I had considered waiving one or more of them, since they cover ground that I’ve known extensively for the past two (or twenty?) years, but decided to go ahead with them since a) it’s been a long time since I was in school, b) I don’t know what I don’t know, and c) this course for me is about joining a community, not building technical skills.
I am very much looking forward to the Physical Computing class: that, for me, is almost all new. It deals with the problems of physically interfacing to and interacting with computers. It brings computational media out of the realm of the virtual and into the physical, which is a key part of a convergence process I outlined 10 years ago at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Spotted at Madras Mahal, 28th & Lexington. One way to fix a broken mirror in the bathroom.
I was walking back from the subway to my sister’s house, and met an athletic-looking woman walking her dog, a pretty greyhound-like creature. I like dogs, so I gave it my hand to sniff. The walker said “She’s supposed to greet people, because she’s being trained for search and rescue, so do you mind if…” and let her jump up and say hi to me.
Who knows, might run into that dog again…
Coffee with painkillers attached.
This picture was taken from the roof deck at 300 Mercer, next to the Tisch school at NYU.
I went to see TheUpgrade at the Eyebeam gallery in Chelsea, featuring a presentation of three pieces developed at ITP on the subject of surveillance. Interesting emphasis in the discussion, away from the well-trodden areas of politics, privacy, security, etc. and instead exploring the joy experienced by those doing the surveilling.
The three pieces were in(security) by 31 down, Little Feet by, uh, Little Feet and GSN (Generative Social Networking by Christian Croft and Andrew Schneider.
I was struck by the theatricality of the presentations – two of the pieces were presented as a marketing pitch to an imaginary audience of customers, and two relied heavily on PowerPoint. After 16 years in cubicle-land, it was funny to encounter PowerPoint driven pitches in the context of an art installation.
   
I went to see Matthew Herbert at Irving Plaza, great show. Opening act was Skye, lead singer for Morcheeba.
Herbert is an interesting sampler-based performer, always very original. For Wednesday’s show, he was performing with a jazz ensemble, letting them get up to speed and then seamlessly joining in with his sampler magic.
His stage persona is very funny: an eccentric, jerky hybrid of David Byrne and Buster Keaton.
One of the most original performances I’ve seen in a long time: the music, technique and staging all different from anything I’d seen before.
Went to the Warper party at the Delancey bar.
Nice scene, with VJs, laptop musicians and an interactive installation, the Octa-masher by Moldover. It reminded me of some events at Super-Deluxe in Tokyo, lots of experimentation and interaction. The VJs had all their gear set up in the upstairs bar – two computers, video mixer, entrancer, DVD player and all kinds of wires. Reminded me of my rig… and seeing people debugging and chasing down various cables and adapters made me very nostalgic!
I look forward to getting more involved at the next party.
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