Nothing comes for free, right?

I visit Warm Not Cold because of the ready opportunities to leverage my personal brand-capital in an international marketplace of self-selecting research assets. How about you?

The best reviews/critiques set a scene for you to engage yourself with whatever it is they are writing about – to draw you in, so that you can make up your own mind, rather than have their opinion make up your mind for you.

We owe it to ourselves to not be convinced of things by others.

Perhaps it is worth noting that most of the material assembled in Robin James’ _Cassette Mythos_ survey was published or released by its contributors in the mid-1980′s: mostly 1983 – 1987. The discourse gathered there was shaped by particular conditions in the media ecology of that moment. This was several years before the advent of inexpensive digital reproduction and before the internet or World Wide Web were popularly available for the distribution of the large files audio reproduction requires. Compared to other means of reproducing and distributing audio programs available, the cassette format was radically inexpensive and accessible. Tapes could be re-recorded and cannibalized from other sources. Players and recorders were essentially ubiquitous and interoperable through-out the world. Its rugged, lightweight mechanism was also well suited to international distribution through the available postal services. To many activists, the Cassette moment suggested the imminent arrival of, if not practical evidence gathered from, an emerging global post-industrial vernacular folk culture.

On a personal note, I began to investigate and embrace the potential of the cassette format through songs and experiments in audio documentation and playback about 1982. Along those lines, I first encountered Daniel Johnston’s work in the form of a self-produced audio cassette called “Hi, How Are You?” in ’82 or ’83. I had the emphatic sense of discovering a colleague and spiritual ally in the exploration of the unique social capacities of the medium.

One last note: it was a condition of many inexpensive recorders at that time that there was a unique kind of “chunk” sound left on the tape by the crude way the record head was imposed on the tape channel. Daniel J’s early tapes were filled with this sound between songs as presumably they captured a performance that included pressing the record button. That act – pressing record – continues to fascinate and demand further investigation and critique.

This post reminded me of the books and writings of Jose Luis Castillejo – he made several works, where he formed letters into repeating patterns, some of which made more sense than others (phonetically, as much as linguistically) in any language, Spanish being his native tongue. Some of these applied reduction more than others, “The Book Of Eighteen Letters” cast aside the rarely used. It posed some important questions – If I don’t really need these other letters, if I don’t really need the form of words, of dialogue – what would be left? Other books used fewer letters, or individual letters, recurring horizontally, or rhythmically spaced. At the extreme was his project, which roughly translates as “The Book Of A Book” – a book formed of transcriptions and reproductions of blank pages from other books. A wordless, voiceless remix. Yet still not free of the traces of history – those pages once resided elsewhere, in time, and space.

The present, by way of its fleeting consequence, forces us to revisit the past, in order to shape the future – the pixels shift, as the ink fades, as the stone carvings wear away….

http://www.hansbernhard.com/X/pages/painting/pages/ART_FID/index.html

From the site:

ART FID was created as a product in the tense field between fine art, new media art [net.art] and high tech. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is one of “THE” leading technologies of the future. As artists it is our intention to work on the edge of the technical revolution with low technology tools.

I’ve said this to you before, and – what the heck – I’ll say it again….the economy of ideas is worth more than the ideas of economy.

Attali underestimated the power of the media – I feel sure he would write of a very different “Noise” in 2006 to that of which he wrote in the 1970′s. The (mass) media largely won, and the consumer correspondingly lost. I’m not saying that’s a good thing – more that I’m as in agreement with certain of Attali’s shrewd observations, as I am confused, repulsed, and exasperated by others. The internet, however, has provoked something of a fightback against these statistics in recent years, with blogs being a prominent example – their being easy to start, but difficult to stop having contributed to their rise, and virulent growth. A project is a project, but a media, in particular one which is fairly open and participatory in nature, I would argue, should perhaps not be stopped – rather, encouraged to continue. I only wish all of us could share more of ourselves in this way, and hope that as time passes, that technologies and application/interface design will improve to facilitate this, rather than introducing as many obstacles as they serve to push back.

Derek Bailey, the recently deceased improvising guitarist, practised his playing almost every day he was able – his distinct style was the object of much physical work, thought, and outword (as well as inward) looking. Yet to many people hearing his work for the first time, it would appear he had not learned a thing – that he was encountering the instrument for the first time, playing whatever he wanted, out of time, out of tune. Such freshness could only come from extremes – introduction, or immersion.

Every living person is an artist. We can all draw….breath.