November 27, 2005
Yeast After Me
For some reason, a couple of lovely artists decided I could taint their show, Repeat After Me, with an attempt at Art (more likely, art). Being in love with the science of complexity, the topic of self-replication has come up more than a few times. Fortunately, my original, colder, less fun idea wouldn't come to fruition in time for the show, so I've been forced towards a more seasonally appropriate goal: the creation, recording, and imbibing of beer.
What better way to say "self-replicate" than helping billions of fungal organisms live and die, drinking their waste in celebration? This is a sound art project whose name is still undecided (though my collaborator Søren and I have a few good ideas). We've field recorded the brew cycle and will be conjuring the sound pieces into an audible reflection of the process. We've got one month to do it. Yikes!
Tonight was the first I've played with the samples. If you are bored and I mean really bored (it's really boring), you can listen to the first exbeeriment. It's here solely as something to look back at when we finish the final piece. Our work (including the crap linked previously) is licensed under the Creative Commons Sample Plus license.
July 23, 2005
Manhattan: First two photos.
Living in the East Village (NY, NY) for the summer. Keeping a loose journal on the wiki. Email me if you want a link to it. It's not super private, but it's not so much meant for other people, i.e. it may be boring. :)
August 23, 2004
Sunday
Before my window. Breeze coming through, blowing across the stripped bed. Birds are chirpping, a harmonica is played, the gospel church sings, and the clocktower slowly bongs 12pm.
July 07, 2004
Qingdao treats
For sensory experience, last night in Qingdao was pretty golden. A swift jaunt was made to the local Carre 4 -- a French company bringing China their version of Walmart. I bought some nice looking green and oolong teas sold in bulk and pitched in to get a cake for Lancelot (it was his birthday). Lancelot is not his real name, but many of the chinese students have created english names (loosely based on their true names) in order to help the westerners stop butchering their language. Similarly, I had someone translate my name into chinese characters so it could be pronounced more easily.
Into the streets we went. The groups fractured and I found myself wandering Qingdao city with Lancelot from Beijing and Allan from Boston. First mission was to find out why there were tapped kegs of beer on so many sidewalks. Two yuan were handed over to someone sitting by a keg and a weighed kilogram of beer in a plastic shopping bag was handed over; along with a wrapped juice straw. A gross distortion of drinking capri-sun back in the day.
Drinking and talking, cultures colliding, we found ourselves next to an array of kebab stands selling various creatures cooked on sticks. Allan eyed the box of wiggling, larvae-like things. Some translations were made by Lancelot and we found they were silk worms. They were very strange to watch. One end of their body was spiraling round and round. Allan decided a new food discovery could not be passed up. 5 for 2 yuan. Onto a wooden stick they silk worms went. A yellow fluid oozed from them. I cringed. A sauce of hot spices was applied with a brush, and onto the grill they went. I ordered squid on a stick, a Qingdao specialty.
Allan made little hesitation to try his new found food. He popped a cooked silkworm into his mouth and chewed heartily. "This is fairly disgusting". He spat the remains into the bushes nearby. I offered some of my squid, which was great. After his bite of squid he said, "you should try the silkworm." Though his experience offered humor, it did little to entice. "Oh come on," he persisted, "you can have silkworm with a squid chaser." I sighed.
April 01, 2004
March 06, 2004
the sound of azuki beans
refamiliarizing myself with the self-healing cookbook, i decided to cook up some azuki beans. one half-hour into their simmer they should be cold shocked.
listening to the beans boil against the pot, i was enjoying the rhythm in which they scraped against the metal vessel. as if the bubbles rattling the beans were coming from a bellows. the sound of submerged, scraping beans was padded with the quiet rumble of escaping vapor.
the balance changed over time (as the beans soften, the high-tones degrade). slowly, the highs muted away until finally, the sound of bean scraping metal was gone. then i looked at the time and saw it was the half-hour point. which made me wonder if this was how the half-hour point was chosen.
