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Audio Foundation and funding link

I was checking out the NZ Audio Foundation website again today and came across a link from an email on the AF-l about funding from Damian from Frey. it's an interesting argument. I think Australia is similar to New Zealand in this way, but also at a glance I think New Zealanders have the creative support advantage over the Australians, or so it seemed to me at least, as they have MANY! support organisations helping the artists. will have to do some more research to see if my assumptions are founded.

20080215 ::: sound walk through the old city of jerusalem

right click to download the audio mp3 file

a sound walk through the old city of jerusalem

today I went to the western wall and left a note in the wall with my friend Angus' (RIP) name (this is what the Jewish people do - it's their holiest place being the last remnant of the Temple which was destroyed a couple of times) and then went to the Church of Holy Sepulchre (built over the spot where Jesus died so a holy spot for Christians) and lit some candles for him. and I went to Dome of Rock, one of the holiest places for Islam but because it's friday only Moslems are allowed in so I took a photo at the door. (this is the closest I've been able to get to Dome of the Rock - it's always closed when I go). I recorded video whilst walking but the camera was by my leg so most of it is of my legs walking on the stones, so I've extracted the audio. I felt so bad that I couldn't get home to Brisbane in time for his funeral. I've been thinking about him non-stop so I wanted to remember him and leave something for him in Jerusalem. if there is a God and he is close to this spot then I wanted to make sure he was looking out for Angus. I thought of other people close to me who'd passed away too, and lit candles for them too in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on my next visit. this walk was for Angus.

I always get a bit lost in the Old City. the market lanes and labyrinth starts looking the same and I often can't see above to get a sense of direction. so I tend to always go to the Wall first, then work my way in from there. today was the first time I found the quickest route to the Dome of the Rock - which is quite obvious in hindsight but I've always missed it and walked past. not knowing how to read Arabic has been part of the reason on other visits. the Christian quarter area is less marked too. some of the streets have recognisable names but I seem to miss the signs to the Church. today I was determined though and I had less offers from market stall owners to visit their shops. I went in the afternoon when most would be closing up soon. I was thinking of my friend the whole way, sometimes getting a bit teary.

the sound was recorded on a Nokia N95 8Gb phone - it was recorded along with video and I extracted the audio only later. I've left my mini-disc, microcassete recorder and microphone back home in Australia now so I carry less gadgets. I wondered how much disk space would be used up but it was less than 2Gb and I still have plenty left.

here's a flickr slideshow of the photos from the walk :
photos only

15/02/2008

jerusalem jugglers

jugglers in jerusalem's ben yehuda mall. my friend darren & late friend angus are both jugglers so I took this to show them. my timing was out a bit as I watched the guys juggle for a while then remembered to start filming.

08/02/2008

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Live Feeding 5 March

LIVE FEEDING is a one-night occurrence of audio-visual performance and installation under the stars. The Old Melbourne Gaol exercise yard will become a site of convergence for local AV practitioners and merry makers. To kick the evening off, we would like to invite you to play with our overhead projectors, get acquainted over drinks and enjoy a BBQ until the sun sets, when the performance and installation programs will come to life! Artists: Philip Samartzis + Marcia Jane; Rosalind Hall + Marco Cher-Gibard; Helmet Head (Anthony Magen + Rod Cooper); Xenosine AV; Marden; Christina Tester; Melody Henderson; Idora Alhabshi, Lisa Shingles. Proceedings begin: Wednesday 5 March 2008 at 7pm

Location: RMIT City Campus, Alumni and Belvedere Courtyards (behind
the Old Melbourne Gaol). Entry via LaTrobe St then Bowen St, then
between buildings 1 & 3, map: http://tinyurl.com/2dfqx3

Bring: things (overhead transparencies + objects) for freeform
participatory projected fun!

Live Feeding is brought to you by Stream, RMIT Orientation Committee
and RMIT Union Arts.

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STREAM is a RMIT Union Arts collective who are passionate about live
audiovision.

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Streaming Festival 3rd edition | call for entries | October 2008

The Streaming Festival is now accepting submissions for its 3rd edition in October 2008.

Deadline for submissions is 01 September 2008.
Accepted genres are documentary, animation, video art, flash and narrative.
No entry fee.

Send submissions through postal service, or provide a website link with a preview to the submission.

The Streaming Festival is an international artfilmfestival on the internet. Films are presented full screen on streaming servers with high image quality.

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site undergoing upgrades

aliak.com is being upgraded this week. some links won't work until the upgrade is complete as I've disabled some modules. the 'look & feel' of the site is currently using a default template which will also be upgraded. the RSS / XML feeds should still be working. thanks for your patience

status:
11/02/2008 - the site is now running drupal 5.0. tomorrow night I'll upgrade to the most recent drupal 5. some of the modules have been reinstalled but you may see some errors until the upgrade is complete.

19/02/2008 - the site is now running drupal 5.1. only a few patches to go ...

14/03/2008 - the site is now running drupal 5.7

15/03/2008 - the site is now running drupal 6.1
there seems to be an issue with page caching in firefox on windows (to reload the page - press Ctrl -Shift-Delete or Tools menu - clear private data, then reload the page)
IE on windows seems ok
also posting articles from a mac seems broken! :(
it seems to be working now. (mac problem was a problem with my net connection at the flat I was staying at)

12/05/2008 - upgraded to drupal 6.2

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Award Winning Electro-Rockers Super Massive Return Battlescarred To Play at Sonar Sydney

Award-winning electro-rock band Super Massive play a show on Sydney's northside at new venue Sonar Sydney in Milsons Point, with alterna-pop friends Captains and The Chaperones in support. Entertaining electro/funk/rock band Super Massive return from a successful first Northern NSW & Queensland tour to play a show at Sonar Sydney on Saturday 16th February. Teaming with their good friends The Captains and indie rock duo The Chaperones, it promises to be a solid night of alternative-rock-pop music. Doors open 8pm. $12 at the door or through Moshtix. For music samples, live gig photos, tour blog and more go to: http://www.myspace.com/supermassivesounds or read more for details

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news slices in the snow

jerusalem snow

it snowed in Jerusalem for a couple of days. the first day many of the roads were closed. the stores close - the city shuts down. my workplace was closed for both days (so a long weekend for some!). the second day by mid morning the sun was out and sky was blue.

snow in the middle east! lots of fun!

the music is "Snow" by Severed Heads off the Gigapus album
http://www.sevcom.com/

30-31/01/2008, jerusalem, israel

http://blip.tv/file/get/AliaK-jerusalemSnow649.flv
http://blip.tv/file/get/AliaK-jerusalemSnow649.mp4
http://blip.tv/file/651524

Hakim Bey articles

some Hakim Bey & related links gathered from the MLA forums

Hakim Bey's website - hosts his articles including the well known Temporary Autonomous Zone. The Ayahuasca Reading is interesting, especially since it sounds like it was written in the late 1940s / 1950s? at least written about events during that period. it was originally appeared in the Psychedelic Review in 1965 and Hakim Bey read a reprint of it from the Psychozoic Press on a New York radio program in 1994. interesting since Ayahuasca has become 'flavour of the year' so to speak, with even hollywood stars heading off to South America to experience it.

Vidgets: The Development and Use of Interactive, Network Based Video Works by David Wolf (dpwolf)

dpwolf has finished his thesis - you can download it from his site - it's called Vidgets: The Development and Use of Interactive, Network Based Video Works by David Wolf (dpwolf)

I've downloaded it but haven't finished reading it yet. he makes cool live video performances using isadora and quartz composer and the music is made with controllers and max / msp. I'd been to a workshop of his the previous year and that's how I started trying out isadora. (obviously he's more advanced than me ;)

I noticed page 138 has a photo which looks like a capture from a video I took of his & Somaya's performance at electrofringe 2006. I thought I had a photo but can't find it but I have a video. and the other photographer in the room was on the other side of the room as I recall. small world.

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electrofringe 2006 - max msp workshop - video patch

one of the workshops we did at electrofringe 2006 was on max / msp with Bruce Mowson

our group made a simple max patch which rotated through a few video clips we recorded of people who were in the workshop. we had limited time which is why we chose something simple - so we had a chance of completing it! we'd asked them to say something about the electrofringe / this is not art festival. the patch was basically a random video player. we only had an hour to make it. we had to show Bruce the following day. our patch worked and we were one of two groups (well our group + 1 person from another group) who turned up the next day to demonstrate the finished patch

here's a photo of the attached patch - version 2

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alexa rating for www.aliak.com

alexa rating for ww.aliak.com

I've just installed the alexa toolbar so I can now see my site's rating. I'm not sure if it matters to me yet - still thinking about this - it seems to rate mostly US based sites, so I guess because this is a .com not .com.au it's included, not really sure. but interesting to see movement

01/02/2008 # 1797395
03/02/2008 # 1798744
08/02/2008 # 1606121
21/02/2008 # 963009 - under 1 million! what's going on?? (this is after the drupal 5 upgrade)
06/04/2008 # 597674 - almost under 500K! (crazy - this is after the drupal 6.1 upgrade. I hadn't been able to post for about 3 weeks - which turned out to be a net connection problem no site issue)
12/04/2008 # 580183

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http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main/aliak.com/blog
Site Stats for aliak.com:

* Aliak.com has a traffic rank of: 597674 (up 1627945)
* Speed: Not available What's This?
* Other sites that link to this site: 30
* Online Since: 19-Dec-2000

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video file list

I need to make a drupal module to store / manage my video files - fields such as :
filename
date
location
subject
url01
url02
project used in
file path
version
movie format
original
camera
archived
archive location
backup drive
backup path

+ more as I think of them

attached is a text version - there's some missing as I had to delete some files from my backup drive to save space. so they'll need to be added once I find the box the dvd is stored in back in sydney (whenever that may be!) some have been lost as a backup drive I used in Auckland has broken :(

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mimi on the beach

https://archive.org/details/AliaK-mimiOnTheBeach247-2
Watch the video
video page on blip.tv

zoom'n'fx from kath.

mimi on the beach

the music is an excerpt of the song 'mimi on the beach' by jane siberry (now known as issa) http://www.issalight.com

the footage is taken at bethells beach west of auckland, new zealand in early 2007

made in isadora and inspired by Will from Taylor Street Studio's work - I'm running some tests to see if I can work out how to do some of the effects he does as I love his work - it's so beautiful! http://www.taylorstreetstudio.com

28/01/2008

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