um... yah.

i think because i am lost i keep making lists. i want a map so that i can see where i "should" be here in this new environment.. i don't know if that will help though. i will try. so this semester i will:

write a bunch of papers.
build an organ out of an exercise bike and some other stuff
take a bunch of pictures of myself nude or almost nude
hopefully make some music.
write some max programs.
read alot
decide whether i am actually going to be an artist or not.
try to actually listen to people more. yah
learn processing and flash and bla bla blah.

basic stamp programming is pretty awesome. i need to start thinking about some applications. like the following:

a bunch of clickers for people to make a really loud sound. it would be good if this was totally mechanical. we shall see. it will probably have to be connected to a computer. tho audio synthesis on a basic stamp is pretty cool.

piezo buzzer collection for controlling max to do wierd things. connect the freaking dots.

yo know what i just found out? there are mice that come out at night to walk all over my clean dishes and shit on them. f those mice.

Posted by peterflat at 3:59 PM | Permalink

awesome.

Posted by peterflat at 9:02 AM | Permalink

okay. this is the deal. i'm not really into my brown performance class. it's very much focused on dance and theatre performance and not really on what i am interested in. i'm more interested in how i can push deeper into a barely explored performance practice based on the little objects i have made in max. i’m interested in these:

not looking at the computer
a meeting of precomposition and improvisation
voice based control
rainbo glitch trauma lover. kissbleed envelope cut moving down clouds
tempo change
breath
form shock
short + right long

AH! i know what it is. or at least in part.

really because music is the most direct route to contending with my personal sense of aesthetics, i evade it with the sense of a ninja who can vanish into mist. i don’t want to look at them. and school is a very effective sheen for obscuring that which i actually want to do. because i am afraid. remind me, you who read my blog, that i *want* to make music and that’s what this is about. that’s what this WHOLE thing is about.

SO++i

how can we make this pansy ass dance class about what the fuck i actually want to do.

break down your desires into components and see if you can "out-source" them to this class to use the jargon of my southern bay area brethren.

i could make some patches with the noise < > beauty continuum that i am always thinking about. i could develop a series of voice analysis algorithms that i could use in my own work. i just want bang up sound like what. i don't know how much space i need, but it seems like alot. just keep putting it some place. the music.

Posted by peterflat at 10:56 PM | Permalink

parallax board of education + parallax basic stamp BS2SX-ic

even though parallax says you don't need the usb driver, you do. it is here:
this thing

this is macbs2 for programming in pbasic on osx.

knowledge;

a basic stamp has it's own ground. when included in a circuit you sometimes use a pull down resistor to enforce the current moving through the basic stamp and not just ignoring it.

homework: serial communication via multiple basic stamps. we should probably use multiple colors of leds and pause commands to see exactly where the data is being passed.

Posted by peterflat at 3:07 PM | Permalink

i think my right hand is seizing up on me. where's my dove?

Posted by peterflat at 12:12 PM | Permalink

i fell over in my chair. itemize

bike organ
me weekly
pretty much anything having to with electronics and ir sensors
sub ground speaker systems for spatialization
rfid fighting

sleeeeeeep.

Posted by peterflat at 12:10 PM | Permalink

i like chimneys.

today we are reviewing everyone's ideas for different applications of digital switches. the basis of the assignment is to push us to think about the most rich applications of the simplest electronic communication. binary states. i thought up a few that are all sort of so so.

- scissors with pennys attached to the ends so that you would make a connection everytime you cut something.
- spitting buttons into a pan with wires attached to them. this would generate a somewhat aleatoric effect because the connectino between the button and the wire is intermittent.
- putting a bunch of metallic tape in meaningful patterns on the wall or something and having a metal mitten that you could sort of rub over the wall. i guess this would count as multiple switches. i feel like alot of other people delved deeper conceptually and came up with alot of fruitful stuff.

if you have any questions about the application of art and technology you should watch this.

no but really. i need to figure out a way to filter all this stuff and properly boil the information around me. it's sort of overloading.

really it would be best if i could have a blog that was half physical so i could write in it. i feel like i transfer alot of information between places. but i suppose that's good for retention.

zombie violence.

Posted by peterflat at 2:25 PM | Permalink

not really. but i thinking about making something out of one of them. i'm not sure which one yet. today was a good day. i got to put in some actual "work" for my assistanceship. i put together this giant document in illustrator of gps points and associated photos that were taken at the points by my professor. i suppose i didn't really sign an nda when i came to risd so i can pretty much talk about anything that i am working on.

today we had class with this curator from boston, on the sort of history of digital media. not just history but contextualizing current work in conjunction with past works. today we talked about technological innovations that have had an impact on the art world. in many cases conceived by artists. in some cases the things created went on to affect everyone. photography for example. or electric lightbulbs. we started by talking about perspective. brunelleschi was a 15th century florentine architect who is considered one of the earliest proponents of the concept and largely responsible for it's adoption in 2-dimensional art. albrecht dürer, who lived around the same period mastered the technique to a degree that is almost more mathematical than artistic, though no one can challenge the aesthetic depth and power of his works. i sound like a text book.

the most stimulating point in this discussion was when it was pointed out that before the adoption of perspective in painting, the size of each character represented in a work was directly related to how important they were in the narrative of the work. this is why there are paintings with giant saints next to normal people who actually look like hobbits. when size was wrested from the hands of narrative and subjectivity by this logical system, i'm sure people had to rethink a few things. uh..
ya. this is an early example of say science revoking some of religion or art's power to speak as an authority on the way things should be. but oddly enough it's still people that make the decision, and in so many cases kowtow to the NEW way that is most of the time just simple rationality but not necessarily better. can i spell?

after that we began discussing immersion in art and the desire to reinvent reality in our own image along with the ideas of escaping the mundane and being recreated in a more mythologically charged state. a couple different people brought up james turrell because of his simple use of light and line to recontextualize people because of the space or lack of space that they are in. good.

ok. sleep time. i'll talk more about my project in the future. in the mean time i need to find some metal buttons so i can electrify a pan to spit them in to.

Posted by peterflat at 12:06 PM | Permalink

okay thoughts time.

it seems like there are alot of people who's creative process starts with just that, technical process and then moves towards concept. i suppose that makes sense, you have to speak a language before you can actually say something. i don't know. i feel like it leads people on technical tangents and then it takes them forever to actually figure out what they want to say/do. but that's easy for me to criticize. i just program max all day. whatevs. i'm in an oddy moood.

what am i doing at gradschool? i understand it's good to change environments to stimulate your creative process but tonight i had my second class with a teacher with a questionable teaching style. maybe i'm complaining too much. i do feel a little bit of panic though. there is this trend in new media of teaching the technical and letting those that "know" sort of glean the *actual* learning from the teachers in a happenstance manner. i mean to say that understanding how to further your work and ask good questions, these are things that need to be taught but people keep asking about jitter. ha. but really the person that doesn't understand the technical foundation for the class need to work on that outside of class. blablibbity bla. it's pretty much always the same difficulty teaching intermingled theory and technical courses. things gotta be defined.

in other news i heard that andre 3000 track at a bar tonight about spreading / love. that's a good song. my friend wrote a song called little coyote, and i guess andre heard it through a friend of a friend. go figure. tell me when i start to sound like everyother blog in existence. i'm self conscious right now.

this also makes me wonder. our class = this. what am i paying for. haha.

Posted by peterflat at 12:04 PM | Permalink

so two among the river of thoughts i had this morning:

how can i make a space that facillitates experimentation and ease of use in creating music?
i think that means that i need a keyboard. or somesort of input device for pushing sound around in this box.
a variety of microphones
a couple different instruments. prefrerably a bass guitar and a synthesizer.
a good space for letting things get messy. a good work table.the thing is, i can make it go. i've put together a fair amount of sound using the system that's evolved out of my addictioni to
protools and my use of max based apps. it's just that it doesn't feel very free right now. hmm..what can i do in creating media?

make videos
make websites
make posters
make fonts
make music
make poetry
create dictionaries
create a school
tutorials
write novels
write a diary
create a network of people
make robots
make installations
make sculpture
do performance
invent new technologies / ;medias
criticize old technologies / medias let's boil it down
i can make content for people to consume
i can make a tool for people to create content for people to consume
i can make a medium to define the way content is created for people to consume
i can make objects that will record / or transmit content for people to consume.

uff. consume. that's a dirty dirty word.

Posted by peterflat at 12:02 PM | Permalink

the sirens in providence are strangely obnoxious. i'm obsessed with sirens right now because i think i am going to build one out of a bike and some stuff. it's probably going to be more akin to an organ in terms of acoustic technology but philosophically it's kind of a siren. i dont' know why but i have also been thinking about gang banger fashion alot because i live on the edge of a "ghetto."

things that inspire me right now
• this blog
• spitting metal buttons in a pan (it's homework) • finding ways to make music making more fluid and natural with my laptop.
• the books/prefuse ep
• lifestyle by bruce mau. even tho everyone and thr moms likes the manifesto. me too.

at some point i will write down the different ideas for projects i am startings.

xoxo

Posted by peterflat at 11:57 AM | Permalink