Creating and Facilitating Creation

Busy bunch of days, weeks...

Piconet went surprisingly well at last week's SWAN Day Festival. This marked a personal turning point for me and my work— I was actually able to see a project through to its logical conclusion, without compromise, and within a timeframe to which I had to stick rigidly in order for the project to be a success. I'm quite proud of this one, and it was very well received. (I even got a compliment from the luminous composer Jonathan Bailey Holland who was in attendance.) I wish I had recorded audio better, but alas that was impossible. I only had the ability to record four spaced-out channels of audio in mono (I should be ashamed, I know!) so the recording in my documentation is pretty lacking. However, I might get the opportunity to install Piconet again in New York (it's being pitched to Tom Tom Magazine for inclusion in their next benefit/showcase) and if that happens, I'll be sure to document it better.

Share is coming up on April 30th at All Asia Cafe. I am super super excited about this, especially because I'll be performing an actual electronic music set for an audience. I've been pretty busy this year with the installations and performances, but I haven't done any live dance-able music in awhile. It feels good to get back to my native instrument. The set I'm working on is a lot of fun, and includes a remix of "Motherboy XXX" that you can bop around to, a violent piece for a violent flute (which will use some of the frequency squishing techniques I worked on in Piconet), and a tribute to Crime Mob, who have enriched my life so much. The show's lineup is pretty impressive— we'll also have performances by NoraJean (who's quite an awesome local DJ), Michael Richison (who looks good in a suit), and a screening of this video produced for the show by artist Yulia Pinkusevich where Yulia scales a huge wall to create big black & white vertical paintings. Yulia's based in New Mexico, but she's actually coming to Boston for the screening. It feels pretty awesome that Share.tv is a forum for Yulia's performance; I guess that makes me an official producer.

I did not get into MIT. Comparative Media Studies did not admit any students this year, due to the loss of their director, and I learned that the group at the Media Lab to which I applied did not have the opportunity to admit any students this year either. I don't know if that was the basis of my rejection, but it definitely feels better to think of it that way. Fortunately, I did get into NYU's Media, Culture, and Communications program, and it looks like I'm going to go there (provided the government gives me some money to pay for it). I am definitely looking forward to studying under Alexander Galloway, who is actually a f*ing god on earth. Galloway is one of the founders of the Radical Software Group, who did Carnivore, and Kreigspiel (in collaboration with Matt Shadetek and DJ /rupture— also heroes of mine). This might actually be the greatest opportunity I could ever have, so my qualms about money, lodging, accruing a mountain of debt, tuition, leaving my life in Cambridge behind, leaving CMCB which is the best job I've ever had, Noah, the horrible job market... might have to take a back seat and I will bite the bullet and just go. This is hard, but then again, it's just life in flux— that's how it goes.