Radio Killed the Video Star: Curating by Performing. Ancient Chinese Secret / 8:11[mp3 .zip archive / 14.5MB] Performance/Video, CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY, March 2008 What is left to be done in the New York public sphere?
How does one creatively stir someone to action and distinguish this plea from a spectacular mediation? Our project for CUE Art Foundation intended to answer critically these types of questions by setting up a creative, yet conceptual practice. With a certain melancholy of sorts, we published and distributed an open call [ongoing and available for download] looking for musicians and composers who would like to hear their work played over the public radio of this metropolis. The winning composition Ancient Chinese Secret (available for download above), written by Jeff Morris, was played by the collective on the opening night and transmitted live through Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR), on the night of 13th of March, 2008. Laboratorio 060 Interview - Conducted by Ryan White (CUE Art Foundation) Many times.
The Digital Curator in Your Future. The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports.
These were physical books that contained press clips. It seems downright archaic now but that’s how I learned about the press - by cutting, pasting up and photocopying clippings. My fascination with the media never abated. Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies.
Today I am re-launching my Tumblr site with a new name, a new focus and a new format. It all kicks off today with a 15-page installment of The Clip Report. A STEIM residency project report. [Phil Stearns and AANN : install @ Soundwalk 2007] Audio clip of AANN Video of AANN from SoundWalk2007 Install An Introduction of Sorts: During my two week residency at STEIM, I was furiously constructing many little electronic sculptures. 50 identical sculptures, piece by painstaking piece.
Though I had not named it at the time, I was calling the project the “neural network piece.” [AANN : install @ Soundwalk 2007] Description of Project: AANN is quite possibly the most absurdly meticulous project I’ve dreamed up, worked out, and fully realized. A Longish Story: The development of AANN started in December 2007 with the idea of creating a network of electronics which would pass around a signal obtained from “the environment” according to some predetermined indeterminate circuit design. After a semester of doing “other things”, the network idea was picked up, dusted off, and polished to a new and improved “neural” network piece. [conceptual sketch of circuit] An Analog Artificial Neural Network as Art. Phil Stearns has constructed a 45 “neuron” network of electronic parts which responds to lights and tones with a (rather cute) squealing sound.
A picture of the components for this strange device: Each “neuron” consisted of analog electronics corresponding to each of 6 functions: Input, Summing, Threshold, “Offset,” “Output,” and “Structure” (not sure about those latter three). The connectivity was determined by hand. Phil states that the sculpture is not intelligent, but rather “some kind of squid baby.” Neural networks have great potential for contributing to the arts. Here’s some art from a portion of rat brain placed into a petri dish: And, of course, there’s Jonathan McCabe‘s fantastic network art: Jon McCabe’s process is perhaps the most interesting. It sounds like none of these networks were trained to produce good art – but they seem to have some “natural” talent regardless!