Critical digital culture and media arts · Since 1993
The Neural Archive is a repository of publications collected by us during the years. Browse our collection here.
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.
by Alessandro Ludovico
After the disembodiment of the physical medium (cd vs mp3 files) do you think the music world is ready for the disembodiment of the musical performer?
Not at all, on the contrary, I think that importance of live performance increases even more. People still have bodies, right? And music is still a sensual medium so live concert is a sensual two-way experience between ‘real’ performers and the audience. Also I think that a changefrom vinyl (analog) to cd (digital) carrier made much more difference than a change from cd to mp3 (which is also digital). In this sense vinyl LP’s could substitute live performer in a better way because of their quality of originality (all copies would be of an inferior quality) and object qualities (big size, colorful covers, physicality of sound tracks). People will always need this “here and now” feeling – look how many football fans travel to witness the game from a real stadium stands (not always in the first row!) although they could enjoy much more details via TV broadcast.
As you included all the software on the cd, 386DX is also the first ‘portable musician’. What kind of feedback you got from 386DX fans?
Surprisingly, not much. Seems like most of people use objects in the way they are used to: if it’s a CD – let’s play it! This can also be understood in relation to my answer to the previous question – 386 DX’s live gigs are quite popular. But still I think it was a good idea to include software so everyone could reconstruct the original 386 DX interface. If not practically – then conceptually. One more meaning layer so to say.
As a street performer, 386DX is a successful hardware/software combination asking for spare changes. Don’t you think it embodies, with its singing voice, the human touch we’re always seeking in the machines?
Oh yes, that’s where the effect comes from! Similar to looking at monkeys in a zoo and finding funny similarities they have to humans. And also, there are big cyberpunk, cyborg and artificial intelligence cultures that are very much integrated in general pop culture these days. Robot begging for money gives a relief – it’s not superior to humans (yet!).
After the release of ‘The best of’ and lots of live dates, what’ll be the next implementation of 386 DX?
I have just released the second CD with Russian rock hits (it’s title “The Legend of Russian Rock” that parodies the title of the famous CD series) and now working on another project which is not “another 386 DX” project but rather a further development. I will not tell you what exactly it is because I might fail with it, but I have good expectations for the coming autumn. Also I thing that the project still has big potential in integrating in a mainstream music scene. I am invited to Sonar/Barcelona this year and there are talks about other big events.
Do you think a ‘software musician’ is a new possible subject to consider in the copyright/copyleft debate? And what 386dx’d think about it as it is formed by abandonware?
Ha, never thought about that… Do you think I should apply for a patent? Interesting enough (also from the copyright point of view) is that 386 DX is nothing but combination of copyrighted items: pieces of commercial and free software, songs with melodies and lyrics. It’s not a product but a custom combination of many products that turns to be a unique entity. And it illustrates the idea that artist today is an information filter and re-transmitter.
