Press Play Pause is a documentary about the democratization of creative production through technology. For the most part it focuses on music, delving into film a bit as well. Ideas are conveyed through brief interviews with artists, producers, and writers- some you may have heard of, others who operate more behind the curtains.

Throughout the movie there are brief clips following Olafur Arnalds as he prepares and delivers a performance in Machester. Having discovered his work a month or so ago, this was pretty exciting to see.

For the most part I find the documentary exhilarating. I’ve been playing around with sounds for about a decade now, and have felt the advances in technology- here I could relive some of the excitement an emotions with producers and musicians who began long before I did- the feeling of tools that encourage and expand the creative process.

The documentary presents some conflicting viewpoints as well. Initially I was irked, but figured it was a good thing. Mostly around 30 minutes in, there is a discussion of the effect of it being so easy to make films and music- that we are inundated with noise, that everyone wants to be the next big thing.

It doesn’t surprise me that these ideas were conveyed- look at who is describing them: music producers, or musicians who are in some part made, even someone from pitchfork. Their power comes from my faith in them to tell me what is good art and bad art. There is a deeper ecology in creativity. Maybe with the first band I was in during high school I wanted to be big, but after that I realized it was something more personally meaningful for me, that if I could play for friends and people I care for, or in a basement around town- that would be enough. I’ve met tons of artists and musicians who feel the same way.

I’m excited about how easy it is to make music and put it online. I can meet someone and they will send me a link to their music, hosted for free somewhere on the web. I’ll send them a link to mine, not because I want to get big and have a review, but just because I think they may like it, and we can connect on it.

The whole ‘there is too much noise and we’ll get overwhelmed’, well come on, I don’t know how to put it better than, that helpless mindset is so yesterday. Tools are being developed. One of the things I’ve recently discovered is that people are not only empowered to be creators, but also curators- I’ve gotten onto tumblr and I’m impressed at the ease in which one can curate art and become an online dj. I can follow people who have similar tastes and make my way through the ‘noise’.

Arguments encouraging only formalized curation and artistic elitism follow from some old school institution of critics, and are better to kill ideas and enforce a stale hierarchy than to cultivate beautiful work. A diversity of interpretation and a plethora of curators is much more conducive to grow a creative vocabulary than a single source of ‘official’ critique.

If you haven’t already, go watch the documentary here.

Joey and I will be performing at the next Pico Picante, this Friday. It will be future bass themed, which is fantastic because I’ve really been getting into this genre.  It is still developing, but some places you can get an idea of this genre here.  So right now I’m playing with different bass textures.  Should be fun.  Details on  Facebook.

Next Thursday will be an opening for Art on the Marquee, featuring work by local digital and video artists.  Urban Bloom will be one of the pieces presented.  See the press release below:

Boston Cyberarts and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Present

ART ON THE MARQUEE

at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

415 Summer Street, Boston

February 23, 5:30-8 p.m.

Boston Cyberarts and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority are kicking off “Art on the Marquee,” an ongoing project to commission public media art for display on the new 80-foot-tall multi-screen LED marquee outside the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston.  The largest urban screen in New England, this unique digital canvas will be one of the first of its kind in the U.S. to integrate art alongside commercial and informational content as part of the MCCA’s longstanding neighborhood art program.

Six Massachusetts artists – Nell Breyer, Falling Men, Dennis Miller, Marathon, John Slepian, *sigh*, Kawandeep Virdee, Urban Bloom, Jeffu Warmouth, Fall, and Ellen Wetmore, Pacing and Blue Boy Jumping – will be featured.

A media and artist reception will be held at the BCEC on Thursday, February 23 from 5:30-8 p.m. Visit artonthemarquee.com for more information. 

Enter through Summer Street entrance, reception on 2nd floor

Please R.S.V.P.  to events@artonthemarquee.com by February 21

Called the largest urban screen in New England, the digital canvas will be one of the first of its kind to integrate art alongside commercial and informational content as part of the the convention center’s neighborhood art program. Six Massachusetts artists including Nell Breyer,Dennis Miller, John Slepian, Kawandeep Virdee, Jeffu Warmouth and Ellen Wetmorewill be featured in the first round of projects.

Stereotyping is alive and well in data aggregation. Your application for credit could be declined not on the basis of your own finances or credit history, but on the basis of aggregate data — what other people whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours have done. If guitar players or divorcing couples are more likely to renege on their credit-card bills, then the fact that you’ve looked at guitar ads or sent an e-mail to a divorce lawyer might cause a data aggregator to classify you as less credit-worthy. When an Atlanta man returned from his honeymoon, he found that his credit limit had been lowered to $3,800 from $10,800. The switch was not based on anything he had done but on aggregate data. A letter from the company told him, “Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express.”

This article opens up a fantastic discussion in the direction of Tim Wu’s Master Switch, Nick Carr’s the Bit Switch, and Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble- in this case it questions the ethics of certain uses of data inference.  Actions can feel invasive or unjust.

At the moment when it comes to the social and political implications of machine learning and big data, I’m deeply interested in decentralizing these tools, out of the hands of only those with tons of data or wealth to contract these services.  But now I’m wondering – what is a way to assess how just a tool is- when it is helpful, or when it can be weblining?  Certainly transparency can be helpful, but I don’t think its the only thing.   I’m curious how this dialogue will proceed.

Yesterday I went to the Boston stop for the Kinect Accelerator Tour at Microsoft. I got one of the new Kinect for Windows.  It reminds me when I got my first Arduino.  Currently going through the process of installing everything to get it working.

The piece consists of three analog projectors, a sculptural housing, and an LED video animation. The opening reception was on January 12th, 2012, and featured modern dancer Yuka Takahashi.

We took the opportunity to introduce a work of interactivity to a public space in Boston, exploring themes of play and creativity, while unifying the work with the goals of the Greenway and the Boston Harbor Islands.

Photos by Matthew Shanley.

Support for the materials for the work was provided by the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The Harbor Islands graciously provided the pavilion and the LED screens, which were integrated with the assistance of Boston Cyberarts and the Pavilion.

The work shows from January 2012 to mid March 2012, and is a block from the Aquarium T stop.

See associated posts with Lighthouse, including coverage by the Boston Dig, and a press release.

click for PDF flyer

Joey and I met with Julia and Tom of Sensate, and Ben of goodgood a few times in the past weeks to plan out the workshop details. It’ll be a fun event, with live music (PC//MM) and people remixing sensate work with Zeega. The facebook event link is here,

Sensate will be holding a workshop on January 27th at MIT—come by and see what we’re all about! Suited for scholars, artists, and scientists who are interested in new modes of publication, presentation, and multimedia scholarship. Stop in anytime between 4 and 7pm. This workshop will feature live music by Plastic Color Math Magic and demonstrations of the new interactive documentary platform, Zeega. We invite participants to build their own multimedia projects using Zeega and explore the future of interactive art and online multimedia publishing with the Sensate journal crew.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Sensate Workshop is from 4-7 tonight at room 144 and 148 on the MIT campus.

Also I really love the logo Ben made for PC//MM (plastic color math magic).  You can see it on the bottom right corner of the flyer.  Its kind of hilarious. I’ve blown it up here:

And here is a video Sensate made to be projected during the event.

The past few weeks I’ve been talking coffee with a barrista at Voltage in Kendall, and he’s been telling me about the process of tasting, then reading or hearing a description, then tasting again to look for flavors. This is how I began to understand nuances in beers. So far I’ve been exploring that in pour overs.

Today I tried their new reanimator espresso by barismo which was launched a week back.  I asked what I should look for.  Taste it first. So I did. And wasn’t sure what to say.

Then I heard some taste descriptors- lemon, fig newtons, lime, and others.  I tasted again, this time with the tip of my tongue. Okay, now I’m starting to find flavors.

The way to taste espresso is this.  You take a sip, a loud sip, the louder the better.  It aerates, and spreads around your mouth.  From a single sip, over time tastes reveal themselves.  And through the duration of the cup certain tastes become more discernable.  My favorite was the final taste in my mouth at the end, it remained for about half an hour and it was delightful.  I kept thinking anise, but it wasn’t- it was closer to the fig newton taste.  And that lime descriptor crept in.

And now I understand it.  Now I can explore espresso and enjoy it, and it feels really good.

Why is it so important to me? I think to an extent I love music, art, writing, and poetry as a means to understand others and myself.  To develop stronger sensory vocabularies to make sense of things, to create narratives for meaning.  In this case the creative object is the espresso.