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.
Cassette – Crónica
Boa-Língua in Portuguese literally means “good tongue”. This expression is often used in contrast to “bad tongue” that is “small talk”. For his second album Siria used structures of his former work, Cuspo. She used them as organising principle for the structure (9 songs in one sequence, the final one being a repetition) and length of the tracks, after collecting several different recordings of rehearsals. The whole result is a refined form of musicality, with the vocals in the foreground and a mix of various experiments. These might make us think of a world-music or ethnic approach, but they also display a passion for improvisation and electroacoustics. The repertoire of the album is made by different versions of traditional songs. They include a version of an Azeri song and two original versions, one in Turkish and the other in Portuguese, and two other unreleased songs where the vocal does not take the form of words. Within the catalogue of Crónica Electrónica, this production might seem atypical, but this independent media-label usually performs an elegant eclecticism. While listening, the different pieces of the puzzle come together. Later, the tracks were mastered by the specialist Miguel Carvalhais, who, along with Pedro Tudela, produced a remix of the second track, “Nos Montes”. That is not the only example of artistic convergence. “Canção do Gato” is a version of a song recorded by Tiago Pereira from A Música Portuguesa a Gostar Dela Própria. “Senhora dos Remédios” is a version of a song performed by Catarina Chitas and has a sample from Maile Colbert. “Belgian Shepherd” is a remix of a song by Rui P. Andrade from his album All Lovers Go To Heaven. “Ay Işığında” is a version of a song performed by Nərminə Məmmədova. “For Ghédalia” and “Boa-Língua” both have recordings from Los Niños Muertos, André Tasso and Bruno Humberto. Overall, this is a complex but lovable production, which a broader audience than the usual followers of electronicmusic and audio art can deeply appreciate.
Síria – Boa-Língua
