Saturday 21 February 2009

Don't worry, I can work on the PhD there.

Last minute tour! I'm going on a last minute tour!

Babel, a close friend-band of The Cedar's, is doing a Scottish tour this coming week, and, at the minute, they lost their violist*. So, of course, they've asked me to cover. Hmm, a week getting paid to play music with friends, run about the highlands and stay here? Okay. Okay!

All this exactly one month before The Cedar's German tour. Phew. Violas and rock-stardom. Who knew.





*Whoa. I don't mean they died. Phew. Just were unable to go on tour. Okay. Okay.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Thursday 12 February 2009

I can see the logic in that

In university (third year?) I took Philosophy 205* 'Logic' with Peter Vetsch, to fulfill my formal maths requirement. That was fun. Except the why-didn't-you-choose-chartreuse?! rift between us during that exercise based on the prisoner's dilemma. In any case, it was mostly fun, that logic, but

not as fun as the new kind of logic I got today!

Today I got, and learned to use (thanks Neil!) Logic Pro 8. The recording/mixing/playing-with-sound-for-hours software. It is so deeply powerful and detailed and yet so easy to use. My very first Logic Opus was called Cryolophosaurus and features Melodica, Kalimba, Musical Saw, Singing, Whirring, and Whispering. So much fun. It will no doubt be, in the macrocosm, the death of professional recording studios, and, in the microcosm, the death of my phd reading.





*That's probably not the real number. I don't remember the real number.

Friday 6 February 2009

Who does this guy think he is,

coming to London and taking over the Tate Modern and claiming to know what is (the) what about post-post-modernism?! Hmph. I'm a little skeptical about the lack of mention of post-colonialism, that seems a little glaring, no? Nevertheless* I'll admit that it's a neat concept, a hopeful and potentially artistically fertile one. Here, take a look:

"Altermodern
Manifesto
POSTMODERNISM IS DEAD

A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture

Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live

Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe

Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture

This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing

Today’s art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves

Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.

The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain presents a collective discussion around this premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity.

Nicolas Bourriaud
Altermodern – Tate Triennial 2009
at Tate Britain
4 February – 26 April 2009"



*Isn't nevertheless a neat word? It's one of the most German-word-like of English words. It's just three words stuck together! Nevertheless, it's one word. One great word.