Blogs

In the aftermath of New Years, the ENViRON crew offer and incredibly over the top sensory experience on Sunday January 2, presenting a four-hour fully improvised AV collaboration by around 20 artists propped up on multiple podiums around the loop venue. The TALULU set will feature obscure trans-genre crossovers like ex-techno god Steve Law of Zen Paradox fame musically meeting Joey Phantom, the bass player from psychobilly band 'the Fireballs'. Austrian Loop guitarist Bernhard Wagner, local VJs Kirsten Bradley (Cicada) and Khalid Abdullahi, Antediluvian Rocking Horse, Andrew Garton (Son of Science), Viktor Markov (from Bulgaria), and Ian Kitney (drummer from 'Tim Rodgers & the Temperance Union') are amongst the lineup. Electronic musicians, Electric & Acoustic players, Video artists, live camera operators, DJs, VJs, Dub mixers & slide projectionists all have a part to play in TALULU. 7pm Sunday January 2 : Loop 23 Meyers plc. For more info goto www.environline.net

"Can I be honest? No one's going to offer you an office job. There's too much competition. Why don't you fight? I read somewhere you're a very good fighter." For an excuse to get out and have some fun Monday 20th December 18:09pm , "Pillow Fight Club" Traverse over to http://www.mobile-clubbing.com/pillow.html for full instructions.

This forum has been organised to discuss the Australia Councils recent announcement for a major restructure, including the abolition of both the Community Cultural Development Board and the New Media Arts Board. Why the continued existence of the CCDB is important... Whatever its faults (and most of these are due to a string of inappropriate Ministerial appointments), the CCDB remains a significant symbol of the achievements made by communities and the artsworkers who have supported them. It may be that the [Australia Council] aren't aware of these achievements or, worse still, are all too aware and wish to see them buried. It's too early to tell, but we need to find out. - John Hawkes (Community Music Victoria Newsletter, December 2004)

Google is launching a massive effort to begin digitizing the collections of major research libraries, including New York Public Library and the collections of Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Michigan. Google, which will underwrite the project's cost, plans to digitize and render searchable at least 15 million books in the public domain. visit http://www.smartbrief.com/latestIssue.

all people interested in experimental use and hacking of turntables are invited to join this event. after a tour through the history of turntablism and plunderphonics - with use of audio-samples - several methods of deriving non-rhythmic music out of common records played with a standard dj-setup are presented. hidden sounds, errors, cuts and dust play an important role in this approach to understand and play records as interface of a stand-alone instrument. another motivation of the 'off-beat'-session is the demystification and a new definition of the dj's role in modern and temporary musical practise. read more or visit http://mattinger.firstfloor.org/offbeat/index.htm for details. http://mattinger.firstfloor.org/wolf.htm has details on Wolfgang Fuchs

Institute of Sound, the popular series of electronic music production workshops from Clan Analogue, returns this month to Loop Bar, 23 Meyers Place in the city. This Sunday, the 28th of November, from 7 until 9pm, electronic music producer and live performer Damian Murphy (The Good Omen) presents Using Electronic Music Hardware. A range of electronic music tools, including synthesizers, samplers and sequencers, are used in music production today. This workshop will examine how to set up MIDI-based systems and the techniques of using this equipment in live and studio situations.

RESFEST 2004 Digital Film Festival travels the world showcasing short films, music videos, motion design, live music, guest speakers + more. Australian performances include, 3-7 December, Melbourne and 9-12 December, Sydney. visit http://www.resfest.com for details

The background. While a lot of experimental music seems to maintain an exclusive approach (stay out you wouldn't understand), the music of Hinterlandt is meant to be an invitation to anybody (come in - join the trip). While pop music gets more and more geared towards the ever-decreasing attention span of young listeners (which has shrunk from 2-minute radio songs to 30-second mp3 snippets), Hinterlandt warmly offers the format of 10-15-minute compositions. read more or visithttp://aliasfrequencies.org/product/af004.html for details

Graduate Certificate in Sonic Arts, LCC, University Of The Arts London. Duration: 15 weeks from January 2005. The Graduate Certificate in Sonic Arts gives you an opportunity both to learn new skills and refine and develop your existing techniques, broaden and deepen your practice and extend your critical awareness of trends and issues in contemporary Sonic Arts practice. read more for details on how to apply

Workshops and Demos on Free + Open Source Software for artists by Aymeric Mansoux and Derek Holzer. While many tools exist for sound, multimedia and VJ purposes, few of them are designed with an open architecture which allows artists to configure the tools they use themselves. Fewer still are free to use, share and rebuild. This workshop introduces the software combination of Pure Data, GEM and PDP/PiDiP, running on the Linux operating system, as a platform for audio, video and multimedia artists to explore. Full workshop program [actual program varies with venue]: http://electric-boogaloo.goto10.org/pdzilla/ or read more for details

online editions of the OVO zine, published from 1987. OVO was the first to publish several essays by Hakim Bey that later appeared in his book T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone. OVO published work by Mike Diana long before his work drew the attention of State and Federal employees. Photographs of body piercing appeared in OVO two years before the Modern Primitives issue of Re/Search. The phrase 'phone tag' appears in print for the first time in the first issue of OVO. 'Liberating Wednesday' by PM, author of bolo'bolo, appears here for the first (and only) time; this is nearly a decade before and fifty-two times more radical a suggestion than today's 'Buy Nothing Day.' Crop circles and the Men in Black are referenced at a time when they were still obscure. The first appearance of Ride Theory in print occurs in Ignatz Topolino's contribution to OVO. And OVO was aware enough of the outer edges of scientific ethics to mention gene patents in the same year they first were granted.

Lawrence Lessig held a lecture about creativity and copyright and digital rights management at the Hans Christian Andersen Academy at the University of Southern Denmark. A video of the lecture is now online at: http://media.sdu.dk/hca2004/hca1.wmv In the seminar he speaks about: remixing culture, both digitally and not; creative commons copyright http://creativecommons.org/; atmo.se online videos http://www.atmo.se; Brewster Kahle and the internet book archive project http://www.archive.org/texts/texts.php
plus more

Photos of Southern England have been uploaded to the photo gallery. ::: Brighton ::: Oxford ::: Bournemouth ::: Portsmouth & Hamble Valley ::: Southampton & Eastleigh :::

Culturejam: Hijacking Commercial Culture delivers a fascinating rap on the 20th Century movement called Culture Jamming. Pranksters and subversive artists are causing a bit of brand damage to corporate mindshare. Jammers, cultural commentators, a billboard advertiser and a constitutional lawyer take us on a wild roller coaster ride through the back streets of our mental environment. Stopping over in San Francisco, New York's Times Square, and Toronto, we catch the jamming in action with Batman-inspired Jack Napier of the Billboard Liberation Front, Disney arch-enemy Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping and Media Tigress Carly Stasko. Culturejam asks: Is Culture Jamming civil disobedience? Senseless vandalism? The only form of self defense left?
visit http://www.culturejamthefilm.com/ for details