Category: Art

No pants!

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Momus has found a book with passages by Brian Eno’s tutors on the young man’s working style while at art school:

“October 13th, 1967. Brian laid his radio-lightwave machine out along the studio. Everyone who walked in front of it interrupted transmission. Philip became interested, helped him fiddle about with the equipment. It reminded me of boys playing with electric trains.”

And, this one made me smile:

“February 15th, 1968. Watson, Dyer and Brian had a long discussion about Brian’s electronic machine. Watson had got Brian a grant of £17 towards building the machine. Brian had come up with some snags and intended to present his work in the form of a written report. Watson argued that this was not good enough; he would learn something by not only producing the machine, but in assessing the effects of its operation. Dyer said now that Brian had proved that the machine was operational there was no point in actually making it. Watson said to me afterwards that Dyer was basically an engineer and that Brian had to decide if he was an engineer or an “artist”. Brian had finally accepted his point of view that the machine would have to be finished and operated.”

Go read the lot of it.

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The Big Draw

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The Big Draw, originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

Iain wrote about ‘Courses I’d love to do’, and one of them was:

“Doodling for success – regardless of how good your drawing skills everyone can doodle, learn how to harness your inner doodler to illustrate any idea that might be lurking in your brain so that people immediately get your point.”

Wandering home from Spitalfields this evening I found this banner… looks like just the sort of thing he’s looking for… It’s part of the wonderfully-named “Campaign for Drawing” which runs for the month of October.

Looking forward to joining in if I can…

A Manhattan melange of “Macroscopes”

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Globe of Patents, originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

By chance this morning found an excellent mini-exhibition in midtown Manhattan.

“Places & Spaces: Mapping Science” has been curated by Dr. Katy Börner and Deborah MacPherson.

From the website:

“Today, the word “science” encompasses myriad arenas of physical and abstract inquiry. This unique exhibition, at the Healy Hall in midtown Manhattan, uses innovative mapping techniques to physically show what and where science is today, how different branches of science relate to each other and where different branches of study are heading, where cutting edge science is erupting as archipelagos in the oceans of the yet unknown – and – how it all relates back to the physical centers of research. The world of science is turned into a navigable landscape.

Modern mapping imagery has come a long way from Ptolemy. In this stimulating show compelling for all ages and backgrounds, audiences will both visually and tactilely uncover how contemporary scientific thought has expanded. Such visualization of scientific progress is approached through computer-generated relationships, featured on large panels as well through the collaboration of New York based artists W. Bradford Paley, Digital Image Design Incorporated and Columbia University and Ingo Gunther with renowned scientist from the field of scientonometrics: Eugene Garfield, Henry Small, André Skupin, Steven A. Morris, Kevin Boyack and Dick Klavans.”

Scientonometrics! Awesome!!!

It’s a concise, enjoyable and clear exhibit showing concrete examples of what John Thackara might call ‘macroscopes’: artworks, mappings and visualisations of complex interconnected systems (in this case science and intellectual property) that help ‘ordinary folk’ examine the choices they make and those being made for them.

Recommended.

Clayton Cubitt interviews Tom Carden on “Generative Art”

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Tom and Clayton collaborated on a set of beautiful images this year, and now Clayton has published a short interview with Tom on his site.

Tom discusses with Clayton his reaction to the finished work and the process they shared to create it; but also his route to generative art, it’s history and his influences:

“Before mass access to computers, people used other hardware, tools, toys and rule-sets to make algorithmic and process-driven art – pendulums, spirographs, Indian rangolis, Celtic knots, mandalas and so on – and a lot of the methods people use in computer generated art were investigated by mathematicians by hand before computers were available, such as Fibonacci series and the Golden Ratio. Casey Reas has looked into Kinetic Sculpture in some depth, and that’s something I keep intending to read up on. I’m sure that before computers were around the same things that people like about generative art were satisfied by fireworks, fountains, may poles, crop circles, wax lamps and oscilloscopes. Grid-based games such as Go and Othello are very reminiscent of the patterns created by certain types of Cellular Automata, too. The main advantage with using a computer is speed, such that there is now scope for using any of these systems over long periods of time and with minute variations.”

Beautiful stuff – congratulations to both artists.

Tracks in the city

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This is "Ghetto Superstar"
Originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

This is Pras, ODB and Mya’s “Ghetto Superstar”: a visualisation from Jake Elliot’s PopSketchSeries.

Artists statement:

“this is a series of drawings generated from pop songs. the songs are analyzed note-by-note. at each note, a line is drawn. the angle at which the line is drawn is determined by the pitch of the note and the length of the line is determined by the volume of the note. the result is a series of playful, doodle-like, linear drawings.

Imagine taking music visualisation, mixing in play and embodiment into the mobile realm – mobile music players allowing you to trace your tracks like a demented Logo Turtle through the city.

Joined-up listening – groups and groupies conga together through the streets propelled by a programmatic peer-2-peer pied piper.

Dance Dance Dance Situationist Revolution.

Vib Ribbon Reality…