While moving forward on a new body of work in 2023 for Lightspace Modulator — my continuing intermedia art endeavor — I’ve also been taking some time for a look back at the history of the project and a review of some of the conceptual underpinnings of the process.
Music and sound design, words and narrative, a growing set of visual assets, and ultimately a live performance: these are the components of the “postmodern rock opera” The Continual Return of Dr. Ordinaire.
With the release of the new album by the legendary German rhythmic noise act Synapscape (Ant-Zen) comes the official video for “Dirty Deal”: This piece — built around aggressive, dynamic 3D typography — was composed of footage generated entirely (and live, in real time) by the VSx visual synthesizer, making use of the UDP connection […]
Continue Reading →With some communities in rebooted lockdown conditions and movement restricted everywhere else, no one is posting pictures of their sourdough. Zoom cocktail parties have lost their novelty, Netflix can only release so many new series. The news seems worse every day, yet we compulsively scroll through it.
We get distracted by social media, yet have a pile of books unread. We keep meaning to go outside but somehow never find the time. We’re bored, listless, afraid and uncertain.
What is this feeling?
John Cassian, a monk and theologian wrote in the early 5th century about an ancient Greek emotion called acedia.
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Recently it was time for something of an overhaul on the motorcycle. This time, I thought that it might also be a good time to revisit Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (it’s been — well, decades since I last picked it up) … while doing some wrenching!
Continue Reading →“Way back in 2014 Los Angeles’ LabXIV released a really pleasant 12″ of lush but minimal and understated electronics. The strength of the material was in the melancholy melodies and the way each song made the most of the small handful of synth and drum parts, splitting the difference deftly between synthpop, minimal and some […]
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My friends at RabCup here in Los Angeles recently made this cool video that features a number of my designs, seen at venues from Washington DC to Las Vegas and beyond.
Finishing off 2019 with a live audiovisual set in Barcelona: this was an opportunity to give the latest version of the live performance video tool a test run in front of a festival audience. With only minor UI issues that were easily worked around, the touchscreen-driven visual instrument performed admirably on stage. On return, I used VSx as a presentation tool (imagine a realtime motion graphics version of a PowerPoint deck) at a local Los Angeles forum to tell the story of the event and describe some key features of the application. With the full feature set now tested in front of live, discerning audiences, I’m looking forward to further visual adventures in 2020.
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In July at a venue in downtown LA I gave a talk that described some of the background, historical references and motivation behind the development of the VS4 project. This discussion touched upon a range of topics — from Wagner and early 20th-century avant-garde art, to UX and design of the current revision of the software visual instrument.
