Rx Gallery: Jiffy-Scuttler 1

What follows is a failed, forced attempt at descriptive writing:

Never having heard of Carl Stone before, I was informed he is one of the original San Francisco electronic + field recording artists. Mr. Stone’s full and rich field samples were processed clean and crisp. The warm field recordings, so coolly post-processed, were delicate and satisfying. Sounds were layered onto and into one another with the care of experience; vocal scraps were released within lush shrubs of crunchy static. Transitions between moods were slow and smooth; a few times along the journey, I lost track of where some of the aural personalities had gone.

Under this veil of mastery, I expected a complete and whole story. Instead, the end came rather abruptly, devoid of the care I felt sheparding transitions. The unfortunate end made me question the piece as a whole; I was unable to understand the journey I had taken. Was this merely a meandering through the land of electronica, or was there a deeper structure transparent to my naive gaze? Mostly, my disappointment rises from a long-standing issue: the majority of laptop musicians I’ve heard don’t understand beginning, middle, and end. Particularly, end.

The evening concluded with nostalgic visits to 80s era arcade games and consoles: Asteroids, Missile Command, Pole Position II, an Atari 2600 (which I still have in my grandmother’s home), and more. The games, open for free play, are part of Rx Gallery‘s current exhibition by the BOLT: A Low Tech Odyssey.

This entry was posted February 1st, 2004 and is filed under hear, San Francisco, see. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.