Critical digital culture and media arts · Since 1993
L'Archivio Neural è un archivio di pubblicazioni noi raccolte nel corso degli anni. Sfoglia la nostra collezione qui.
Sometimes the online world reveals unsuspected parallel dimensions. This is an unknown restyle of Neural independently (and secretly as we never knew about it) made by NY-based Motion and Graphic Designer, Clarke Blackham. Very nicely made, perhaps only a bit glossier for the magazine’s line, it testifies once more how even your most familiar outcomes can have another life somewhere else.
The value of craft after software sounds rampant sometimes, expressing the freedom of escaping repetitive taps and clicks to accomplish some assumed tasks. Mixing media, electricity, electronics, mechanics and inert objects Graham Dunning has realised a structured track/performance/open script in his “Mechanical Techno: Ghost in the Machine Music.” More than a proof of concept a machine music declination.
Isn’t ASCII Art a perfect form of “graffiti” in 2010s? The 8-bit aesthetics is among the strongest visual references connecting the analogue recent past with the omni-digital present, so why not adopt it to finally have some public art embedded in the present? In Varberg, Sweden, 2016, the GOTO80 crew (feat: Karin Andersson) did it, choosing (not by accident) the Mo Soul Amiga-font.
YesNo by Timo Kahlen feels like “traditional” net art, a well crafted stuck webpage for the user’s aural and clickable enjoyment.
The relationship between Andy Warhol and personal computers (becoming quite popular during his last years) has been only partially investigated beyond his Amiga works. In November 2015, Sotheby’s sold his “Apple (from Ads)” (acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas) for 910.000 USD, and in catalogue’s notes Warhol tells about his meeting with Steve Jobs insisting to give him one and showing him how to draw (even if still in black and white): “we went into Sean [John Lennon’s son]’s bedroom–and there was a kid there setting up the Apple computer that Sean had gotten as a present, the Macintosh model. I said that once some man had been calling me a lot wanting to give me one, but that I’d never called him back or something, and then the kid looked up and said, ‘Yeah, that was me. I’m Steve Jobs.’ And he looked so young, like a college guy. And he told me that he would still send me one now. And then he gave me a lesson on drawing with it. It only comes in black and white now, but they’ll make it soon in color…I felt so old and out of it with this young whiz guy right there who helped invent it.”
Harsh Noise Wally, is a sophisticated mashup mixing strips of Wally, the lazy and cynic colleague of Dilbert with some epic noise music extreme attitudes. Well conceived and assembled.
Minority Report comes closer… Three huge screens at Birmingham New Street railway station are scanning passers-by and play advertisements accordingly. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/new-street-station-advertising-screens-9920400
GoPro ancestors in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly sport and movie persons like F1 driver Jackie Stewart, Bob Sinclair and Steve McQueen.
USB Flash Drive – Computer Club
Seconda release della Computer Club label che si deve a Yaxu, solo project di Alex McLean, pioniere algorave e componente della seminale live coding band Slub. L’uscita subito colpisce per la confezione in busta trasparente (all’incirca delle dimensioni di un 45 giri), completa d’un elegante cartonato nero opaco e di una USB card white and black sulla quale fa bella mostra il logo d’un floppy disc. La scheda USB funziona come una memory stick per l’accesso al materiale audio e bonus. La scheda USB è anche bootable su sistema operativo Linux Mint a tema Computer Club e con Tidal – un servizio di streaming musicale – già installato. Ad essere precisi ci sono fra i dati estratti dalla scheda sei tracce mp3, un bonus video e il sistema operativo customizzato al quale abbiamo appena accennato, insieme ad una libreria esclusiva di oltre 100 algoritmici Tidal patterns da esplorare, adattare e remixare. Insomma i materiali da utilizzare sono tanti e le combinazioni a disposizione non si esauriscono in poco tempo, mettendo assieme beat e melodie, spianate in caotiche rielaborazioni techno. Tutta la musica naturalmente – nella scia di quello che è l’approccio di Alex McLean – viene creata utilizzando un codice e basandosi su pattern di musica generativa appositamente sviluppati dall’artista nel corso di 15 anni e che ora possono finalmente essere utilizzati da tutti sotto forma di software Tidal. Dal vivo – va reso merito a McLean – non c’è enfasi su come e con quale setup i suoni sono realizzati, seppure la visualizzazione di proiezioni del codice sempre frontali e dirette verso i musicisti-programmatori diventano un elemento intrinseco e direttamente correlato alla performance.
Yaxu – Peak Cut demo
Canute live in Jubez Karlsruhe Algorave
