The following is a radio piece about the state of DIY and pirate radio broadcasting, particularly as it exists in large urban areas like NYC. It explores the history and motivations for DIY broadcasting, examines the migration of DIY broadcasters from the airwaves to the internet, and what effect the recent passage of the Local …
We Want the Airwaves: An Investigation into Pirate and DIY Broadcasting Read More »
There’s something that has just always seemed tragically lonely about NYC subway musicians. Making music is (or seems) to be an inherently social activity – something we do with, and for others – and yet most buskers perform by themselves. This isn’t unusual of course, there are many people out there who identify as “solo …
At the risk of saying too much about the ‘intent’ of this piece (something I usually steer clear of), I feel as though explaining a bit about how it was constructed might enhance the listening. When creating Scream Symphony #1, I tried to find screams that were as “authentic” as possible – some of my …
Today’s artist – like Donna Haraway’s cyborg feminist – moves beyond both traditional limitations and modernist ideas about art, and enters into a hypermediated relationship with society and technology in which technological methods and mediated collaboration across networks are common. Art has always been a carrier of cultural information. Cybernetics as a theory of communication …
Cybernetics in Art and the Myth of the Cyborg Artist Read More »
Barbie Dolls, Love Story, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, KC & The Sunshine Band, Jaws, Queen (the band), Barry Manilow, Pong, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Google, Woody Woodpecker, Altered States, True Red, Run Lola Run, The Shining, Dead Alive, The Six Million Dollar Man, ET, The Elephant Man, One Got Fat, The …
“They Call Me Pubefinger” – A True Story Told in Pop Culture References Read More »
In their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman posit a theory of “systemic propaganda” in which the mass media control content in order to serve the ends of the dominant elite. The ingredients of this model are five “filters” used to censor content, which consist of concentrated media ownership, advertising, government news …
The Impact of Digital Technologies on Chomsky’s Media Ownership Filter Read More »
This piece was created following the Snap Judgement guidelines, with one of the following titles/themes: Great Expectations, The Wizard of Oz, or Busted. I chose the first, and wrote a script about my romance with a young German actress back in 1986, based on my journal entries and her letters. Thanks to Noel Dinneen and …
A three-minute sonic collage created almost entirely from appropriated materials, mostly soundtracks from military training and educational films, following the guidelines for the Third Coast Festival Short Docs Challenge. I’ve included a brief statement of intent below. Statement of Intent: The piece was actually inspired by a Brecht quote about “an inescapable profusion and confusion …
“As in the other arts in America today – painting, poetry, sculpture, theater, where fresh winds have been blowing for the last few years – our rebellion against the old, official, corrupt and pretentious is primarily an ethical one.” The above statement, taken from the manifesto of the New American Cinema Group (81) written after …
The Influence of Art and Performance on the Rise of American Independent Cinema Read More »
On February 26 2010, in a piece called “The Free-Appropriation Writer,” The New York Times’ Randy Kennedy reported on the recent controversy over German novelist Helene Hegemann, and whether the use of another writer’s work in her novel was theft or an allowable form of “sampling” or “remix.” Kennedy’s article misses the central issue around …
‘The Free-Appropriation Writer’ in the New York Times Read More »