16
Nov
An Immersive Center for Innovation in Washington, DC
25
Sep
Synapscape: Dirty Deal
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 →22
Sep
Acedia
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.
Continue Reading →25
Jul
Motorcycle Maintenance and an Inquiry Into Values
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 →24
Jul
labXIV: The Betrayal EP
“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 […]
Continue Reading →31
May
Interactive Technology for Experiential Marketing
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.
31
Dec
VSx Visuals in Barcelona
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.
Continue Reading →14
Aug
A VS4 Discussion in DTLA
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.
27
Apr
VS4 Visual Synthesizer Beta
The VS4 (“Visual Synthesizer, iteration 4”) project is finally at a point where it can be called a Beta version, meaning the basic architecture and feature set of this tool for audiovisual performance and real-time motion graphics are pretty much complete and functional.
This is the first in a suite of three tools (and associated processes) currently under development for furthering realtime audiovisual experiences and interactive storytelling across multiple media. While each component has a distinct purpose and audience (ranging from practical to experimental, commercial to fine art, tactical to theoretical), they all share a common architecture built around symbolic structures and patterns.
Continue Reading →28
Mar
Art and Technics
“… we cease to live in the multidimensional world of reality … we have substituted for this … a secondhand world, a ghost-world, in which everyone lives a secondhand and derivative life. The Greeks had a name for this pallid simulacrum of real existence: they called it Hades, and this kingdom of shadows seems to be the ultimate destination of our mechanistic and mammonistic culture.” – Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics, 1952.
