awhispering noise.

_susurrous @ 2007-06-10T21:42:00

2007-06-10T20:42:54Z

in sheffield. working with open-source digital media. still getting settled, but things seem promising.

how are you?

_susurrous @ 2007-05-21T11:28:00

2007-05-21T15:28:15Z

_susurrous @ 2007-04-19T17:41:00

2007-04-19T21:41:39Z

i don't much like eliot, but april is indeed the cruelest month.

_susurrous @ 2007-04-15T19:52:00

2007-04-15T23:57:02Z

open-source digital media in sheffield this summer. maybe some workshops in london or berlin, jawohl?

_susurrous @ 2007-04-12T00:06:00

2007-04-12T04:16:06Z

autopoesis. anticipation of automaticity as proof that we are not merely, as deleuze might argue, machines encapsulated in flesh, but something more; to quote gins & arakawa: the organism that persons, the architectural body.

brötzman trio on tuesday.

_susurrous @ 2007-04-02T08:53:00

2007-04-02T12:53:19Z

The "Manifesto of Computer Art" was performed first time at the IMAGINA festival (Monte Carlo), and published in the catalog of the DIGITART II. exhibition (Budapest).

THE MANIFESTO OF COMPUTER ART

I.

Computer Art has not come into existence yet.

That's exactly why we have to write, talk, and think about it, to call it into being.

The computer was not invented for us, the artists. The computer was made for military purposes, it has served scientific purposes, and when a flicker of hope for artistic use appeared for the first time, it fell prey to propaganda and commercial film making straight away.

In order to create art with the computer, we will have to cast off all clichès of present commercial forms.

The computer is just a means. We are wrong if we want to use it to conceal a lack of vigour in our message under a more fascinating guise.

If we just use it to make our work easier, we give in to our innate idleness.

We have to be fully aware of ourselves and of the world around us to be able to use it adequately.

People say the computer will transform the world. By this they mean the same as what they proclaimed about radio and television; that communicating even huger masses of information can only be a positive line of development.

In reality, though, the computer can be one of the most effective means to increase the danger of war, the stress on mankind. It is also a means for further manipulations in the mass media.

The computer is a typical example of an instrument Man has created and now does not know how to use.

We have to face up to the fact that the computer will by no means change Man, the decisive unit of our world.

We can make another go at the eternal subject, perhaps shooting the film from a slightly different angle.

Taking a picture of an object with this new medium might bring to light some details never seen before, and the ones known might be put into new perspective.

If we approach the computer with our old way of thinking, grounded on old means and devices, we will be knocking our heads against brick walls and miss a magnificent opportunity to create a new world.

Establishing new quality is much more vital - at least from an artistic point of view - than turning out products of the traditional kind a hundred times as fast as before.

Computer art has not been found out yet. Let us find it out for ourselves.

Traditional art trade, criticism and art history have not yet built walls around this kind of art. It is in our hands how we will shape their future relations.

(The task of sensible criticism would be to measure pieces of computer art by the measure of art. Artistic quality should be decisive and not the label "computer-made".)

These pictures have not yet been bid for at auctions. We should realize that it is not the prime objective to transform these works of art into marketable goods.

Censors' attention has not yet been so clearly focused on these works of art. Why should we be censors of ourselves? Why should we build barriers in our own minds?

The right form for exhibiting computer art is unclarified so far. The solution to this problem also lies in our hands.

II.

Why should we think that better equipment will make better works? Good equipment is by all means justified, but is only secondary to the force and clarity of concept.

The computer can become a new means to understand the world. Long forgotten knowledge about geometry, mathematics, logic and about the thousandfold forms of reality might once again come to light.

Science and art can be joined again.

We may lose the unique irreproducable stroke of the artist, but we will gain a new way of thinking. Perhars we will realize that the artist's stroke might not even be of such value, and that works of art have always shone through with their content.

We can become aware of the working of hidden mechanisms. Using a drawing programme, I can become conscious of the subconscious processes which direct my hand when painting.

Forced barriers, such as picture resolution and colour, can encourage you to be inventive. These limitations can help us realize what advantages brevity of expression can have, how few elements can be used to form an image, and how simple means are enough to make a picture.

III.

Working with the computer can be a pleasure. It is an extremely interesting invention, a source of experiences which could never be accomplished through any other means.

When we have made a three dimensional model on the computer we have had a share of an experience so far unknown to the human mind: we can create a statue while sitting in front of a two dimensional screen, a statue which expands in all dimensions, has a surface, has mass, colour, is capable of absorbing and reflecting light, which is therefore a real statue, but is simply non-existent to our notions. Through this experience we can realize how far we have ventured into a new world. Then all clinging to traditional notions will be nothing but petty hair- splitting.

Whereas a video and a film projector can only be played forwards or backwards, frames of films stored in the memory of a computer can be projected in a random order. A computer can not only run forwards and backwards but also sideways, downwards and upwards. No other device has ever been capable of this so far. Let us not pass by this new three-dimensional forrn of projection procedure but take advantage of it.

The new method of projection alters the dramatization.

Traditional film music is transformed from the very roots.

The terms between the artist and the viewer have to be newly shaped as soon as we turn away from a simple plot with a single thread.

Movement on the computer has no beginning and no end. There is no filmstrip, no celluloid or metal tape of measurable length. Why should we then cling to customs dragged along by the limitations of the filmstrip and the videotape?

IV.

Let us establish a much better relationsnip with programmers. They become our co-workers even when we buy programmes ready-made, and our work will bear their initials as well.

Programmers develop software for us to use. Unless we know the capacities of the computer, we cannot sufficiently formulate our needs. Unless we sufficiently formulate our needs, we will receive nothing but traditional repIies, programmes following the usual logic.

Electronic brushes will then follow in the footsteps of traditional brushes, instead of finding their own special ways.

Electronic film making will then follow in the footsteps of traditional film making, although we have seen the new paths, yet undiscovered.

We should not let customary programmes force us to make customary films.

V.

Only in very few works made with computers can you be enriched and feel the artist's desire to conquer the world, the desire to create a new work of art with a new medium.

We could even take an example of computer drawings made for purely scientific purposes: the motive is obvious, the demand for clarity of thought compels the scientist to create a simple and precise formulation of his ideas. Our aim is not science but creation.

Artists' responsibility is the responsibility of those who create signs; the signs we leave behind will make people of the coming centuries know we have lived and thought.

Budapest, 15 January 1989

Tamás Waliczky

Translated by Emöke Greschik

Copyright 1989 by Tamás Waliczky

_susurrous @ 2007-03-22T02:01:00

2007-03-22T06:03:52Z

fingers hurt. exhausted. i don't know what it is with me and not sleeping. got six hours total sleep for the whole week of march 5. don't plan on repeating that mess. jazz and mahler, all the time.

spring's here, and it's lonely.

_susurrous @ 2007-02-19T08:36:00

2007-02-19T13:37:30Z

RIP Emmett Williams.

_susurrous @ 2007-02-16T02:14:00

2007-02-16T07:17:52Z

cutting up haydn, building something new out of little pieces. a lego sonata, but where you take a sledgehammer to a lego wall and then cement all the shards together with model glue. it's rough and edgy and tenuous and likely to fall apart at any moment, and the best part is you can start over again from scratch whenever you want.

today [and lately], destruction is my aesthetic, my poetics -- my philosophy and my process.

_susurrous @ 2007-02-13T22:46:00

2007-02-14T03:46:23Z

not mine

2007-02-04T03:36:17Z

An old woman is being led through the parking lot by two girls. They hold her hands and speak in energetic, explanatory bursts while she cranks her head this way and that as if expecting something which has yet to appear.

As if the crystalline clarity of this ocean pool, cradled in two lava arms, meant something which we had been waiting to hear, something indistinguishable from meaning itself, and unchanging, so that, finally, it’s we who turn to go.

Rae Armantrout, "Clear"

source for the previous post

2006-12-21T07:06:11Z

John Cage: 'Indeterminacy' Story No. 24, Duration One Minute

"an eskimo lady who couldn't speak or understand a word of english, was once offered free transportation to the united states, plus five hundred dollars, providing she would accompany a corpse that was being sent back to america for burial. she accepted. on her arrival she looked about and noticed the people who went into the railroad station left the city and she never saw them again. she also noticed that before leaving, they went to the ticket window, said something to the salesman, and got a ticket. she stood in line, listened carefully to what the person in front of her said to the ticket salesman, repeated what that person said, and then travelled wherever he travelled. in this way she moved about the country from one city to another. after some time her money was running out, and she decided to settle down in the next city she came to, and to live there the rest of her life. but when she came to this decision, she was in a small town in wisconsin from which no one that day was travelling. however in the course of her travels she had picked up a bit of english, so finally she went to the ticket window and said to the man there 'where would you go, if you were going?'

he named a small town in ohio where she lives to this day."

_susurrous @ 2006-12-20T09:55:00

2006-12-20T09:55:17Z

where would you go, if you were going?

_susurrous @ 2006-12-19T07:34:00

2006-12-19T07:34:29Z

spent more time this week[end] with vinyl than with people. keeping the radio alive daytime hours. tomorrow, too. rather like it. have become quite well acquainted with parts of the archive. john zorn + mike patton + ikue mori = hemophiliac = sheer amazing noise from taipei.

bye!

_susurrous @ 2006-12-03T01:49:00

2006-12-03T01:49:55Z

finished writing my gene music creation program in Java. it basically takes as input two files, one for the base sequence and one for the amino acid sequence and translates them using the system of two Japanese scientists into MIDI output.
still need to do a bit of work with the basic implementation [representing start-stop codons and the like], and it might be nice to use some sort of graphic interface, but it's basically done.

so, here's the first MIDI file that i've produced:

Raphus cucullatus cytochrome b (cytb) gene, partial cds; mitochondrial gene for mitochondrial product. (mitochondrial gene from Raphus cucullatus (Dodo)

source of sequence

if any of you guys are interested in any more information, let me know.

_susurrous @ 2006-11-26T05:22:00

2006-11-26T05:22:21Z

p.s. i may have found stumble-down, fall-to-the-floor. and glasses. full of eyes and liquor.

and the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers

2006-11-26T05:20:27Z

fluent in harp and myth and semiotics -- learn something new everyday. should be in birmingham right now, i suppose.

_susurrous @ 2006-11-11T09:53:00

2006-11-11T09:53:46Z

i want stumble-down, fall-to-the-floor. i want doorways, i want empty 3am streets and emptier wine bottles. i want hypertext and good taste. i want 10am coffee and 2am liquor. or the reverse.

_susurrous @ 2006-10-28T19:36:00

2006-10-28T19:41:42Z

manhattan's rainy but warm, mostly. almost completely sold on the interactive telecommunications program at NYU. christian marclay [ + harp?!? ] at the stone tonight. knock-down dragout party in middle-of-nowhere brooklyn last night. this is a strange place, with strange people. craving woundmetal strings under fingers, strum and swing and tapping of foots. socks wet. need to read.

_susurrous @ 2006-10-16T14:43:00

2006-10-16T18:45:15Z

from the great beyond: internet as entity?

_susurrous @ 2006-10-15T20:00:00

2006-10-15T20:02:01Z

i think it is quite telling that my university, a self-designated "football school," lost their own homecoming game to a university that removed the position of athletics director in order to emphasize academics, the "scholar" in athletic scholarship, &c.

_susurrous @ 2006-10-10T05:03:00

2006-10-10T05:04:39Z

the shit.

_susurrous @ 2006-10-06T07:33:00

2006-10-06T07:33:38Z

will be in manhattan oct 25-28.

_susurrous @ 2006-10-04T19:53:00

2006-10-05T00:04:41Z

"I am certum–certain di.verse–confissive in this action–the vagabond ka. Seurat, Seurat. 1900:pointillism–2000:pixellism–same same syn.ama–timeless–achronic chronic–be[coming]behavior–points the way there, back to here and there. The De|part[mental]ized avatar is scattered, exits into dys|array–a glove inverted Janus I return–I re:turn you–I return.ture. disintegrated| integrated"

Talan Memmott Lexia to Perplexia

_susurrous @ 2006-09-12T02:23:00

2006-09-12T06:24:04Z

bring back cage! bring back black mountain! bring back random for the sake of random! I Ching forever!