Oh yeah

If you haven't already, check out the radio show of NZ drone, noise, and lo-fi that Rose has been doing for an outfit called Radio 23. Details are on her blog.

Elective E

Part of my course this semester is Fine Arts Elective E, also known as 'rhythmic feedback noise from electrodes', about using sampling and synthesising technologies. For the course, we've split into groups and are each doing a project involving audio and/or video. My group – Neoteric Sound Research Unit No. 0001 – is doing an audio project, culminating in both a performance and a record.

Another member of the group's keeping a blog as a kind of online workbook. On it, you can check out the recording of Saturday's practice and look at pictures of Matt's violog, among other treats.

Border collies can recognise photos

Or so says this. I might have to experiment on mine.

Some pics

So I had my first crit yesterday. A tutor and a group of other students gathered in my studio:

I gave them a questionnaire:

A The content (images and text) of some of these paintings was intentionally chosen, but for others the content was randomly generated according to a system of rules. Does knowing this, but not which painting is which, affect the meaning of the paintings?

YES  NO 

Comment: ............................................................................................................................

B Please indicate whether each painting has a meaning:

1. YES  NO  Comment: ......................................................
2. YES  NO  Comment: ......................................................
3. YES  NO  Comment: ......................................................
4. YES  NO  Comment: ......................................................

And I showed them paintings 1–4:

My favourite comment for painting 1 was 'Neo-conservative rebellion'.



You can't see it cos I haven't painted it in yet, but the last one says 'the lure of sudden evil'.

After everyone'd filled in the questionnaire, we had a nice discussion.

And...

...speaking of photos, I promise I'll put up some photos of the paintings I'm currently working on soon.

And maybe I'll have a wee rant about participatory art as well. You never know.

Oh yeah

Check out some glorious photos of the end of the world.

The joy

I woke up with a hangover this morning to the joyous sound of contractors cutting into the street right outside our house.

Impressive

Yesterday, our lecture was cancelled cos the lecturer didn't show up.

On posterity

Let's just take posterity out of the equation. We're facing a major extinction on the scale that wiped out the dinosaurs. These have happened a several times in the history of life on Earth, but this is first one created by an animal species that's part of the system it's destroying, i.e. us.

It's pretty clear it's way too late to stop the process. There's no point in recycling, carbon off-setting, alternative energy, saving for your retirement, or any of that. If anything, we should be preparing to move to Antarctica. Either that or just enjoying the last days as best we can.

We're the first generation of artists in history who can't rely on posterity. We're making art for our time, and only our time.

Some first impressions

So I mentioned in the last post that I've been finding the other students a little annoying. Today and yesterday at my classes I got to spend the first 10 or 15 minutes listening to these whinging cunts whinging about how they are so hard done by by the university not indulging their every whim and not revolving around them. It's unbelievable.

So far there's only one tutor I've been unimpressed with, but the others seem to be pretty good.

I'm doing a grad diploma. As I explained to someone tonight, this means I've been parachute dropped behind enemy lines in the middle of third year. There are some other mature students, but I'm the only one who's already had an actual practice. Speaking of which, the tutor for my tutorial today seemed very suspicious of me, and my motivation. This may well be my paranoia, but I did get that impression.

Fucking hell, it should be obvious what my motivation is.