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.
CD – PAN
From Berlin, the current world capital of electro-techno, comes this debut album from Objekt. Composed between 2012 and 2014 there is no doubting the freshness of Flatland. The title is surely a reference to the homonymous Sci-Fi →
12” – Pan
Bill Koulingas’ Berlin-based PAN Records focus on electronic, experimental and sound art, promoting a rather harsh, abstract, conceptual and techno-oriented catalogue. We are in the borderland between clubbing culture and a more sophisticated investigative approach, a form →
12” – Le Cabanon
Released only on 12″ vinyl for Le Cabanon, this Horla production references two fantastic horror tales written by Guy de Maupassant in the late 19th century, stories that many literature aficionados consider exemplary chronicles of human →
CD – Ad Noiseam
Crossover between experimental work and more normative fields of contemporary music (especially those that incorporate elements derived from electronic scenes) has always been a path fraught with danger – though one offering many possibilities for fruitful →
CD – Line
Under the moniker Pinkcourtesyphone returns Richard Chartier, with his fourth extended release for Foley Folly Folio. Description of Problem features artists such as William Basinski, AGF, Evelina Domnitch, Cosey Fanni Tutti and King Congo Powers, who contribute →
CD – FFSpace
Body in White, the latest release from 14Circles, immediately stands out from our pile of new tracks to be reviewed thanks to its fancy packaging: the half plexiglass, half hardbound CD features striking artwork by V4W.ENKO. Hiding →
CD – Minus Habens
The album opens with the title track “Vulkan”, a piece characterized by the interesting voice of Carmen Buss and a series of delicate, almost ambient treatments. The sweetness of these quiet electronic sequences is followed by →
CD – 4Bit Productions
The first track of Songs For William 2 by Ulrich Troyer immediately gives the listener a taste of dub. The Tyrolese artist, who has been based in Vienna for a long time, suspends himself between illustration, →
CD – Bed Of Nails
Released by Bed Of Nails, Under A Single Banner is the new work by Shifted, also known as Alexander Lewis, Covered In Sand, delete_everything and Pacific Blue. The artist is also known for his →
CD – Aagoo
Blevin Blectum returns with her bare, adventurous and versatile electronica. Working with Aagoo Records, the artist performs intriguing and unconventional sonic sequences, taking inspiration from diverse fields. Her talent is obvious in the strong vocal lines and →
