tom ainslie

stop watching television
only dvd’s

director’s series, res supplements, liquid television for starters

television remote
light switches
light dimmers
television dials

to do: go to Canal St and scrounge around

that’s where i’m at… can’t seem to figure out what i should be doing now.

over the weekend i’ve been going through the many many many gigs of detroit footage and logging all the video and sound information. this’ll help me to get reorganized and also i’ll be able to refamiliarize myself with the content.

at a point where thinking about the thesis has hit an impasse, so i take that as a sign to just start making things for a little bit. hopefully this will serve to stimulate my creativity a little bit.

also, i need to get back into the world of jitter and start thinking about how i’d like patches to work. and another key issue for me is that of image and sound quality, and this is not on of jitter’s strong points. i know that you can cheat the processor a little bit by rendering the video through OpenGL, but i haven’t actually done this yet and i’ll need to spend time figuring it out.

i’m tired.

http://www.massmoca.org/

gideon stressed that it is probably a good idea to keep the audio married to the image it comes with in the video footage. he then said that the interesting part of performing with this would be to figure out a way to shuffle and skip to the desired areas of sound.

i’m liking this idea, and it’s making me think that i should create some montages with this in mind. so i’ll put together a few strings of video clips that have the most interesting sounds, and these can serve as compositional fodder.

So I proposed my NIME idea in class today, and a few interesting ideas for an interface came out of it.

Idea #1 (sponsored by Lasse Bergfeld): use the physical found items from the locations as musical controllers. I guess this would entail having the assortment of items set up on a table, and each one possessing a different musical value. Interesting idea, although it would probably mean I would need to return to Detroit some time during the semester.

Idea #2 (sponsored by Gideon D’Arcangelo): take an old linear video editing board complete with the shuttle wheels and all those fun analog buttons, and try to make a composition with that.

A general consensus was that I should avoid manipulating the sounds from the locations as much as possible, since I’m trying to stay true to the spirit of exploring the abandoned structures in the first place.

Week 3 and 4 assignment. Made with Mel Camero.
check it

i’m sorry i haven’t written, but i swear i’ve been thinking about you a lot. it’s just that i’m at a point where i’m afraid to commit. it’s not your fault, it’s mine.

so i’m getting back into a slightly older idea that kind of involved my obsession with a choose-your-own-adventure horror movie. the roots of my project will definitely be industrial decay in detroit. however, i’d like it to be presented in a way that will allow for variations from one viewing to the next.

this idea, along with the idea of sampling video footage from the locations i visited, has led me to explore the possibility of combining my thesis project with my New Interfaces For Musical Expression class.

so idea: create an exhibit/installation/thing that a user can approach and play with. it’ll be an instrument of sorts, so playing with the interface will yield immediate aural results. and the music will decide the video.

basically at this point i’m thinking it’ll work by having different elements of the video coincide with different audio tracks.

the drum beat is the structure of the song, so empty corridors and other images of the buildings (physical structures) themselves will react to the drums.

the bass is more often than not another component of the rhythm section, filling out the foundation of a song. so visually, the left-behind items and artifacts from the buildings can coincide with the bass.

i associate melody with the emotion of a song, and visually the melody will be associated with the found video and film footage, the memories of the inhabitants.

i know i’m not explaining this too clearly at the moment, but that’s about the clarity with which i’m currently looking at it.

full interview here

Shadow: Yea I mean I am interested in sample culture as well. Sample culture is an extension of vinyl culture. I should say sample music really. My instrument of choice is a sampler. When I bought it it was brand new and its sort of a standart now. I have allways used instruments that are simple I`m not a technologically orientated person. I like to keep the musicmaking process very simple so its more grassroots. The technical stuff I save for the mixdown, but the actual creating process should be very simple. And I just want to be progessing with my instrument. There is no excuse to loop a four to four beat. Thats why I like on the album, and thats one of the things im proudest about, the experimentation with the timesignature. Taking 4/4 beats and putting them in a 3, 4, 5, 7. That takes a little bit more thought then just the press play. Hiphop has so much more to offer than its offering now. Whatever people call it I am just going to keep on doing it anyway.

“Love of the music should be the driving force of any producer, performer or DJ. Everything else stems from that core, that love. With that love, sampling can become a tribute; An expansion on ideas long forgotten, reconstruction, collage. Using the same understanding openly and respectfully can turn DJing into a spiritual participation. It can turn a few hours of selection into essential history; Necessary listening through movement.”

http://www.shrinkingcities.com/
http://www.tigersushi.com/site/frameset.jsp?page=tsc/genre/3.htm
http://www2.abc.net.au/arts/soundsliketechno/html/default.asp?SegID=8
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=6949
http://www.liv.ac.uk/ipm/research/
http://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/main.jsp?articleID=158&applicationID=203&languageID=2
http://www.icon-magazine.co.uk/issues/017/shrinking_text.htm
http://www.buildings.com/Articles/detailArchitech.asp?ArticleID=2186

a) My musical tastes lean towards the stuff with rhythm. I’m really into electronic music, and while I began by liking hard 4/4 techno, my ear has gravitated more towards downtempo house-type music with organic funk and jazz infused samples. But I like everything. Hip hop, reggae… stuff like Fela Kuti… Jaco Pastorius… I really like MoTown like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder… so yeah that’s what I like.

b) Percentage breakdown of entire collection by genre:

–electronic 50%
——techno ————–>15%
——house —————>25%
——drum & bass——–>2%
——idm (for lack of a better term)——->8%
total 50%
–hip hop 20%
–jazz 10%
–rock 10%
–funk soul 10%

c) Percentage breakdown by genre most listened to:
–detroit house 30%
–hip hop 20%
–MoTown 20%
–jazz 15%
–other 15%

from mel:
http://www.section.ws/

The assignment was to use pixilation with a still camera. Mine is more stop-motion, but I still like it.

Check it

from liubo:

http://www.ci.south-bend.in.us/Press/Releases_2004/062104_Avanti.htm
http://avanti.nd.edu/

Borrowing:
Sampling aesthetic
Apply to video documentation

Where do I fit in here?
I’m an outsider looking in.
How do I address this?

Sampling algorithm

artists/musicians sample from environment…

I’ve been struggling to come up with my thesis abstract for an unsettling amount of time. I’m going about it ass-backwards, having decided what my content will be before I’ve developed a solid idea. I’m not really sure what I’ll be adding to the footage of decaying factories by researching their histories, although I’ll continue to do so. At the moment I’m trying to take a few steps backward and recall why I wanted to go back to school in the first place, and why I’ve been interested in decaying cities for such a long time.

This boils down to: sound and image. The combination of audio and music with the moving image is extremely evocative. In many cases the soundtrack defines the content of the image. One can use the same image with two separate soundtracks, and the viewer will extract two separate meanings, much like Eisenstein’s famous experiments with montage.

With a long time interest in Detroit-related music as well as the landscape itself, my thesis will be an exploration of these two media. I will attempt to bridge the aesthetic gap between the environment and the music it fosters. Blah blah blah.

What’s the interest?
Isolation, escape, dystopia, emptiness, memory

How does environment affect creativity?
What sorts of environments lead to innovations?
Can this be broken down so simply? Probably not.
What are the links between the environment and the artworks that emerge from it?

Sampling… an appropriation of existing sound, reused in a new context
Does this cause deterioration?
The original concept deteriorates, but does not disappear altogether. It merges with the new concept, and other preexisting concepts from other samples. A number of seemingly unrelated compositional elements merge to form a whole composition.

Apply this idea on a larger scale…
Detroit – bastion of industrial activity, falls apart and decays in the mid part of the century.
In the mid 80’s, the environment gives birth to Detroit techno. Heidelberg project. New artworks that are tightly linked to the city.

Linked how?

The Heidelberg Project is overtly linked to the city on a physical level. It is literally part of the city’s landscape.
Detroit techno is a more subtle link. Interviews with the musicians frequently include references to the landscape of the city. (Dig up some of these interviews)

Another potential resource: 313 listserve

John Portman’s Renaissance Center: largest building in the city. Built in the 1970’s in an attempt to revitalize downtown Detroit. Failed at that, but it did manage to become an iconic image of the city.

Joe Louis fist

John Portman – creator of the Renaissance Center
here’s a link