February 2012
15 posts
4 tags
3 tags
4 tags
“The more ‘physical’ the media channel was, the more ‘solid’ was the impression...”
– From “Brands Get Physical to Build Trust”
Via Fast Company
2 tags
Another Smart Response to my Post about the... →
4 tags
A Smart Response to my Post about the Windows 8... →
Some smart, well articulated responses to my comments on the Windows 8 logo. I agree with the points about formalism making a kind of ‘comeback’ in response to the PoMo-ing of everything. I appreciate thoughtful criticism of my posts, even they tend to treat them like theory rather than the ‘thinking out loud’ pieces that they are.
That being said, while I think the idea...
6 tags
Rejecting Materiality for the "Authentically...
Certain corners of the web seem to be all aflame, debating the aesthetic merits of the updated Windows 8 logo. Some, like Venture Beat, deem it ugly, denouncing it as as Microsoft’s “Gap Moment” and declaring that it looks like it was made in “MS Paint.” Others aren’t sure what to make of the new, Pentagram-approved design. If Michael Beirut and Paula Scher...
4 tags
“If one concedes the point that a Sabbath for restorative reasons need not...”
– From “We Don’t Need a Digital Sabbath, We Need More Time,”
Via The Atlantic
3 tags
“TED attempts to present itself as fresh, cutting edge, and outside the box but...”
– From “Against TED”
Via The New Inquiry
4 tags
“It’s not hard to imagine how the less confident students, despite moving in a...”
– From Slate’s “If You Think Your Facebook “Friends” Don’t Like You, They Probably Don’t”
“But you need live feedback to teach you to navigate relationships with grace.” I don’t think I could like this sentence more if I tried. Real time social dynamics, especially...
3 tags
4 tags
“That is, our consumption, especially of information, is a mode of production....”
– From “Google and the Production of Curiosity”
4 tags
“In our phone survey, we asked SNS users a variety of questions about their close...”
– From “Why most Facebook users get more than they give”
Via Pew Internet
My immediate thought on the above, albeit interesting, correlation is that more gregarious and social people (i.e., the kinds of people who are more likely to receive and accept friend requests) are probably more...
4 tags
“The real world is where you take pictures for... →
“Documentary vision is kind of like the “camera eye” photographers develop when, after taking many photos, they begin to see the world as always a potential photo even when not holding the camera at all. The habit of the photographer involuntarily framing and composing the world has become a metaphor for those trained to document using social media. The explosion of ubiquitous...
January 2012
3 posts
2 tags
5 tags
5 tags
“One does not necessarily think of a color as a commodity. Colors, the ancients...”
– From “Colors/Mauve” By Shelley Jackson
December 2011
7 posts
9 tags
Anonymous asked: do you belive in god
4 tags
4 tags
3 tags
5 tags
RE: On Beauty, Which Really Does Not Have to Be...
Although I agree with Nitsuh Abebe’s observation that Ideas aren’t always sounds and sounds may sometimes be ideas, I’d like to suggest that maybe there’s a third option as well: sounds can create contemplative spaces for ideas (revolutionary ones or otherwise). In short, that maybe there is some kind of alternative, third space between ideas and sounds that can be created...
3 tags
“The truth is that I don’t know many music lovers who actually listen like...”
– - “On Beauty, Which Really Does Not Have to Be Dull”
Nitsuh Abebe, Via Pitchfork
1) Nitsuh is on Tumblr
2) Read this article, especially his points about ideas not always being sounds and sounds occasionally being ideas. Good stuff.
November 2011
15 posts
4 tags
“The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the...”
– Foucault, “Of Other Spaces”
I’ve read this passage so many times in the last few days that I’ve basically committed it to memory. This is as close as I’ll ever get to saying that reading Foucault feels like a giant philosophical hug. But there is hope in this essay.
5 tags
4 tags
Eulogy For a Friend, or A Note About Suicide
A high school friend of mine committed suicide this weekend. He hanged himself in one of UChicago’s research buildings. We hadn’t been close in the last few years and I found out through a mutual friend’s Facebook status update. John was important to me in a way I can’t fully articulate. But I am going to try to anyway because I am upset and feel this is necessary, this...
5 tags
3 tags
I spent the better part of this evening revisiting...
3 tags
“So what happened to rave utopia? This isn’t a simple case of decline, of a...”
– From “Lesbian Propaganda & Other Myths: Misogyny In Dance Music”
Hat Tip to the Women in Electronic Music Facebook Page for the link. They post great content on their page and it’s definitely worth liking (or loving)!
4 tags
When I am not writing electronic music, I play in...
3 tags
“The ergonomic dimension of public and political life is nowhere as evident as in...”
– From “Benches, stairs, sidewalks and the politics of urban comfort”
Via Material World
3 tags
4 tags
Love in a Time of Digital Spam
This is the best spam email I have received in some time. He had me at “I’m your beautiful stranger.” And “personal data”? Oh, yes, let’s get acquainted.
4 tags
“Many writers who are no longer young claim, for various reasons, to read very...”
– Susan Sontag on writing.
P.S. This Recording has been a recent and unexpectedly pleasant source of great, smart writing. Highly recommended.
Anonymous asked: hi, with your sound reputation in the exploration of modern culture in the digital age, i'd was wondering, how one would deal with the 1000's of posted and liked posts on tumblr, all the images, articles, infographics, gifs. what would ever become of them when tumblr clearly still isn't waning. what should i do? thank you very much in advance, for the hopeful enlightenment of...
4 tags
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
I recently finished Peter Handke’s A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, a short but incredibly dense and affective work. Handke’s writes about the suicide of his mother, a woman who lived through Nazi Europe and its aftermath. The book is as much about her life, the cultural context in which she lived and was shaped, as it is about her death and its impact on Handke. In short, the book is truly...
5 tags
Occupy Brunch This Sunday [in Chicago]
Dear Chicago based Tumblr friends,
A smart friend of mine from my graduate days at the University of Chicago is hosting an “Occupy Brunch” at The Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport this Sunday at 11am. The brunch-there will be mimosas!-will include strategizing, discussions, speakers, etc. So for the socialist-inclined amongst you, think about joining the group.
And for those of us...
4 tags
“In many ways, the augment reality perspective on technology (i.e., that the...”
– From “Why You Can’t Convince a Cyborg She’s a Cyborg”
Via The Cyborglogy Blog
October 2011
13 posts
2 tags
culturalbytes - Tricia Wang: Design Research: A... →
culturalbytes:
For a long time, I’ve wanted to understand how ethnographically driven research is different from market research. While I intuitively understood the differences between the two, I didn’t take the time to fully sort it out.
I finally found someone who not only clearly explains the…
Read all of this.
3 tags
Rough draft of new instrumental, one that is more...
2 tags
4 tags
“The slogan advances the opposition of the people to the elite that has exploited...”
– Jodi Dean on Dave Winer and Occupy Wall Street. The slogan she is referring to above is the “We Are the 99%” slogan. Her quote is in response to Dave Winer’s post about OWS, including the following quote:
“The 99 percent message is brilliant, but it’s problematic....
1 tag
1 tag
5 tags
All the Single [Straight] Ladies
You know that feeling when you like the initial idea of something and then it’s execution is so terribly offensive (but arguably well meant) that you can no longer support the idea? Subsequently, the terrible execution makes the mere mention of the idea irritating to no end. For me, Kate Bolick’s recently published piece, “All the Single Ladies” in the The Atlantic is a...
3 tags
Radiohead Discussing the Production of the The... →
Apparently my theory about TKOL marking a shift in production techniques not just new sounds and songwriting approaches was correct. The band used Serato for creating the textures of TKOL.
1 tag
“I had a guitar, as always, in the corner, leaning against the wall. I’d...”
– Feist on playing the guitar, writing music and her new album.
Metals was worth the wait. It manages to take every quality that made Let It Die and The Reminder special and coalesce them into a sound that is fresh yet distinctly Feist.
5 tags
