I'd like to try something out - at the beginning of every month I am going to post a very simple "CALL FOR CONTENT."
The main focus of the extended pizza network is our own creative projects, but in this case I am asking you ALL to publish a very short comment in which you recommend something interesting NOT by you. It could be an artist, an exhibition, a book, a movie or tv show, music, a web site or on-line content... Pretty much anything at all. It doesn't need to be "cool" or "new" or even "new to you."
My hope is that this will allow us to share interesting things with each other. This will both allow all of us to learn about new things and establish a kind of body of knowledge that we have in common which will enable us to communicate with each other at a higher coding level.
Your comment can be super-short or very detailed. Two ideas - please start your comment with the word "CONTENT" in all caps so we can find it easy (cause I assume there will be "regular" comments as well...), and try to let us know how we can find it - especially if it's on-line.
I hope that this can keep EPN an exciting place! I know that it has been a little quiet lately - I think that is because there was naturally a burst of activity at the very beginning because we wanted to share older works. As an artist, I often work very slowly, but despite my best efforts, my mind is always racing... This site will find an equilibrium somewhere between the speed of thought and production.
Hope you all can post! Keep it real.
29 comments:
CONTENT!
I'd like to share the work of RAYMOND ROUSSEL 1877-1933, specifically the 1914 "novel" "LOCUS SOLUS."
After I completed my work "Parsing the Panoptic Fugue" a video in which I described numerous drawings in detail, my "editor" Kirsten told me about the work of this author (I promptly returned the favor by stealing the books from her...). In "Locus Solus," Roussel describes various sculptures at length - both the appearance, function, and history of the works. Therefore I think this work is essential reading for any sculptors as well as artists and writers and anyone who uses mechanical means or computers in producing their work (basically everyone).
On the wikipedia article on Roussel John Ashberry (a poet who has much in common with Roussel) describes the novel much better than I ever could -
"A prominent scientist and inventor, Martial Canterel, has invited a group of colleagues to visit the park of his country estate, Locus Solus. As the group tours the estate, Canterel shows them inventions of ever-increasing complexity and strangeness.... Exposition is invariably followed by explanation, the cold hysteria of the former giving way to the innumerable ramifications of the latter. After an aerial pile driver which is constructing a mosaic of teeth and a huge glass diamond filled with water in which float a dancing girl, a hairless cat, and the preserved head of Danton, we come to the central and longest passage: a description of eight curious tableaux vivants taking place inside an enormous glass cage. We learn that the actors are actually dead people whom Canterel has revived with 'resurrectine,' a fluid of his invention which if injected into a fresh corpse causes it continually to act out the most important incident of its life."
But the most fascinating thing about Roussel is his method of writing which followed a formula based on chance operations, puns, and pre-determined processes. This is what Oulipo (The French automatic literature group) and Burroughs also investigated, as the Fluxus Group among others did in art. I don't think I could ever have started out doing the kinds of participatory, process-based art experiments that I am doing now without the work of these people.
In his day Roussel was extremely unpopular. He did not reveal his methods until after his death in the book "How I wrote certain of my works." Let me give you an example - each chapter in "Locus Solus" started out with a pair of puns (in French). The author then wrote two short sentences using these two words and words commonly associated with each of them. The challenge was then to flawlessly connect the two sentences into one concrete whole - a process he called the "evolutionary method." for example - "Demoiselle a pretendant" (a young woman's suitor) and "Demoiselle a reitre en dents" (A pavior's beetle's soldier of fortune in teeth.)
The kind of higher coding level, pun-heavy, meta-ironic, Pavementesque conversations that are required for members of our artistic generation have their roots in these strains of modern literature and art that have never really had the kind of exposure that more well-known aspects of modernism such as abstraction, expressionism, popism, etc have, and that still have tremedous productive potential and indeed may only be coherent to the mind of the linked-up info-damaged brains of the citizens of the post-industrial age.
I came across this today. It's pretty funny, but I don't know how it would sound (and I don't know if anyone does). Maybe...
Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz
Release the penguins!
this sounds great. thanks for the tip.
coincidentally, there's a recent minimal synth artist who takes his name from this book - martial canterel. very worth checking out for those of you into epic lo-fi synth pop.
i am going to upload an album by ohio-based early 80's minimal synth wizard, john bender, for everyone to check out, and maybe some other treats...
Shawn - had you known that Martial Canterel had taken his name from "Locus Solus" before, or did you just realize?
I'm looking fwd to the synth wizardry even though (as previously noted) I do think wizards are not as benevolent as they are made out to be in current pop culture. But I don't want to open up THAT can o' worms again...
I hope that I can copy something by Roussel and put it up - (maybe in word format?), but it's not compact work - it's more worth putting on a list and checking out the books from your local public library... I'll consider it...
Chet - I thought that I had seen something quite similar to this before - concrete music scores by Cage and all that shit, but this takes the cake for being totally hilarious and yet full of genuinely strange ideas, not just stupid jokes.
Rests are imaginary!
no, i didn't realize the name was taken from roussel. i'm not as literate as i may sometimes seem :P
'locus solus' seems like an influence on lots of things i'm interested in, though, so i will definitely track down a copy.
CONTENT!
freaked out, cold, weird abstract synth pop.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xve1pi
this is a compilation of stuff by john bender, an ohio-based minimal synth artist from the early 80's. biographical information is scant, so i'll let the music do most of the talking.
i will address a few things, briefly, however. what draws me to this stuff, particularly, is how effectively it straddles pop elements and an expanded, experimental approach. krautrock is a key influence here, an influence made explicit by bender's '27B4', a cover of the faust classic 'it's a rainy day, sunshine girl'. but the resulting sonic space is not full, expansive, 'cosmic' - instead it is spartan, claustrophobic, collapsing upon itself. that isn't to say it is needlessly harsh or dire - there are moments of real beauty, a detached, but earnest and quaint sort of bliss. but it is devoid of the sterility one might normally attribute to the electronic music of the era - instead there is a tension, an awkward space pregnant with the possibility of error.
a sidenote - john bender takes his name from a 19th century family of serial killers, the 'bloody benders'. do a wikipedia search, if you're curious ;)
enjoy!
CONTENT- Here is more music. I have been enjoying this one for a year or so now.
http://www.fauxfetus.net/faux/bands/zzpot/music/zzpot_3.zip
It's ZZPOT's third cdr. ZZPOT is Mat Brinkman from Forcefield/Mindflayer. The base matierial for this music is mostly hip hop cds he found in the street. He remixed and looped them. Some songs are crappy, but there are some good ones in there too. Many are funny tooooo.
CONTENT- Champion Jim
This is a video of Jeff Lewis doing one of his "low budget movies". Check it out. I really like the storytelling in his songs and think its cool how he integrates his comics into his music. I love watching things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEACJF8gd24
All this crap is great!
Total cool dude - John Bender's music is unlike any electronic music I know so well, other than tapes my brothers and I made (although we were never as successful) - but what I'm saying is that it sounds like the efforts of some kid trying to be as cold and robotic as possible, and failing due to his inability to kill off his expressive element and hide his numerous imperfections, lack of musical training and, uh, the room tone of his parent's basement. This is some of the most accurate music I've heard in a long time. It reminds me of going to a yard sale and finding a black plastic piece of old half-busted electronic musical equipment baking in the sun with a masking tape price tag, buying it, and taking home to cool it down and see what it does. I should upload "Penguin Park" for you - which is the Japanese version of John Bender - randomly discovered at Fujiyama Records in Tokyo...
I'm also really into ZZPOT's music - the most successful songs are the most repetitive and absurd ones. I guess I'm not so into the humor as the noise, but it's got both, so maybe I can laugh later.
Lizzy - I like to watch things too - music should have visuals. I guess I've never really checked out the Lewis brothers, and I would not understand what they are trying to do unless I saw the video. They use an unusual combination of technology (i.e. - old fashioned guitars and using drawings in notebooks instead of projections or something, but then broadcasting it on YouTube). I guess I need to see more...
MORE CONTENT:
post-kraftwerkian psychedelic robo-kitsch - by ROBOTERWERKE (aka SUPERSEMPFFT).
http://www.sendspace.com/file/42ww5v
i'm bored and stressed out about work, so i thought i'd continue to bombard the EPN with my weird musical proclivities. this stuff, i think, has particular appeal for pizza dudes. while yellow magic orchestra cut kraftwerk's teutonic severity with a massive dose of ironic groove and cosmic kitsch, dieter kolb's roboterwerke/supersempfft re-imported said sound in '79 (all this from the axis of evil?), and further subverted robopop, amalgamizing the neon-hued rigidity with falsetto-fueled funk. the results are *literally* cartoonish.
http://www.youtube.com/v/XymcltuMRN4
lyrics actually include lines such as "i'm riding through the sky on a magic butterfly/i'm riding through the sky", and "let's beam him up, let's beam him high, let's beam him up high high through the sky". like, actually. i'm not exaggerating.
kraftwerk's techno-utopic aesthetic is, ultimately, grounded in reality - they addressed real issues, in a simple, literal fashion - 'pocket calculator', 'neon lights' - these are REAL objects, to be approacheed and described in a journalistic, documentary-like fashion. YMO injected a humor and a little fantasy into their approach, full of lounge kitsch and cheeky sinophilia. supersempfft, however, constitutes an absolute break with reality - they exist in a world of such disney-esque whimsy that it's almost pornographic. indeed, there is something positively obscene about this music and this aesthetic. i'm curious here - how do people take this stuff? is something grotesque, or even terrifying about these happy little winged creatures? or the lyrics repeatedly insisting "be a man you frog"?
im not entirely sure, but i feel like it's the possibility of utter sincerity - that these guys REALLY mean it when they say "im flying through sky on a magic butterfly"...
check the website:
http://www.wunderwerke.de/
(original lp's are available at a fairly steep price - 30 euros each. oh, and be sure to stop by the 'tiki lounge' (?))
and the amazing comic insert from the first lp:
http://www.wunderwerke.de/Roboterwerke1.htm
(click on the links labeled "seite" to advance through the comic book!)
CONTENT:
i wish i actually had some cool content to talk about...but i dont really.
bond intros
this stuf is pretty fun to watch...i got pretty into while i was watching movies. some are better than others...the best is probably "view to a kill"
also...marisa and i made lychee ginger sorbet...and its fucking so good...so if you like to make frozen desserts...then find a recipe...or i can post it!
recipe plz
What? Are you nuts? Post that recipe!
CONTENT
If we are just going to go on and on like this (just like I intended) you have to check out Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm. The craziest video that they ever allowed on Mtv. The thing is, I think there is this Trevor Horn (the producer) DVD coming out, so they always take this thing off YouTube.
that video is AMAZING. there are so many amazing moments - every shot is outrageous. i love grace jones - her andro-afro-cyber-goth thing is really hard to beat.
and trevor horn is a production genius, for sure. here's one of my favorite songs that he was involved with, propaganda's "p-machinery" (also with a pretty cool, too-knowing, overblown video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGF8ZRu2nKY
trevor horn's label, ZTT (zang tuum tumb), is pretty fascinating. it takes it's name from a line in the futurist manifesto (!).
ok...here is the recipe:
you need an ice cream maker tho
ingredients:
3 cans (11oz each) peeled whole lychees in syrup
6 Tbs water
3 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs peeled grated fresh ginger
3 Tbs light corn syrup
instructions:
drain lychees, reserving 3/4 cup of the syrup. put lychees and reserved syrup in food processor or blender, set aside.
in a small saucepan over medium heat combine water sugar and ginger. stir until sugar dissolves (about 2 min) then, raise heat to high, bring to a boil. when it starts to boil remove from heat and add to the blender and puree everything until smooth.
pour puree through course mesh sieve into small bowl. press on the solids to get as much liquid out as possible. throw away solids. stir in corn syrup. refigerate until cold (about 1 hr)
pour mixture into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer instructions. tranfer to a container and freeze until solid (at least 4 hrs). eat them up, yum!
this recipe comes courtesy of marisa...and she is pretty good at stuff...so if people are interested then she would probably post recipes and stuff...she also encourages questions and stuff!
marisa should definitely join up and post recipes and food experiments (or maybe just post them through you). it's really important to have culinary artists around. food is the best art!!!
i don't think we have an ice cream maker here, unfortunately...it sounds delicious.
grotesque grotesque grotesque
Thanks for posting all the music guys -- In the process of downloading the gigantic files, can't wait to listen to it. Total Cool Dude, that disneyesque stuff is totally grotesque. I think it's that rubberball kind of choo-choo train motion that everything's got to it. This pulsating, splashing, thing, with tubas and octopuss tentacles.
The Grace Jones video reminds me of Peter Gabriel videos -- Ok, I've now referenced him twice in a week, and I'm starting to become afraid. BUt, really I love all of the naked asses in it among other thing. Oh, and the fact that it's totally fucking bonkers (to borrow a term).. I mean, dancing palm treees- it doesnt get much better than that.
I almost feel like the jeff lewis video was taken at tent party, or no, wait, spring fling maybe. It feels like bard. I like the lewis brothers, and they get really hot girls consistently, so we should all be making coloring book music videos i guess. I mean, if you're into that sort of thing.
Thanks for the recipe! Man, i really need a blender. But, I think marissa should totally post recipes all the time if she wants to. I mean, I know total cool dude is an excellent cook, and I've been getting down lately. Speaking of food, I've been using sissors to cut pizza -- it's incredible, I think any other method is stupid. This is the way to cut pizza people. Pizza People. This is how you cut pizza people..
Wow this is a rant. Ok, better post something...
A friend showed me some videos that his friends band put together and posted on their myspace:
And here it is..
ok...well cool...marisa also says that another way to make sorbet...is to just follow all those steps and then cram it in the freezer...then just like every 20-30 minutes give it a good mix with a fork until its completely think slush...then let it freeze. "it wont be perfect, but it will be close"
CONTENT:
UBU WEB is an unending source of awesome smart stuff with almost no trash, and with super sound. It's best when you are sick of looking at meaningless trash and have the energy to consume something that actually takes a minimal amount of metal effort.
BTW G-reg, I went to Korea and scissors are like totally a normal table utensil there (at least in the restaurants I went to) along with metal chopsticks and white liquor called Jinro. Let's eat Korean food together in Queens or across from Madison Square Garden!
EFF--
When I finally get it together to fly to new york, I would LOVE to get some korean food in queens or across from madison square garden!
yeah, when the hell are you making it out here, greg?
and when are you gonna be in the city again, farley????
dudes...
CONTENT!
ive been slacking on pizza networking but i got my ass kicked last weekend and i deliver pizza all day, so you can all fuck off.
I am totally unaware of how famous David Firth is, or whether everyone on EPN is familiar with his stuff, but some of it is incredible. He is my age and british and makes cartoons- the most famous of which is Salad Fingers. His paper flash work is excellent,
here is my favorite
David Firth's website is fat-pie.com, but much of it is hit or miss, mostly due to to silliness. His drawing style is really unique, though it is obvious in certain scenes what he did and did not spend time on. He generally does all of the voices and sound, which to me makes him cooler than any of my friends. do you dig?
CONTENT
On my truly excellent and profound blog SYNESTHETIC SUPERSCAM I have posted a zip of Japanese New Wave 80's songs for your downloading pleasure. For some (H+C) these will be nothing new. It was a toss-up as to where I would post it, a real issue for me. But deal.
PS - The people who aren't my friends are cooler than the people who aren't your friends, Xtian.
Christian, that berry Flash is really well done, and very cruel, but sooo dark. All I can say is that it's probably a good thing that Edward Gorey came around before Flash did...
NEW YORK NEW YORK... me and my girl are coming on May 7th, 10:30am, JFK. woot woot. Spring time in the city.
whoo! good to hear, greg.
we should plan for some mayhem.
btw, for those interested in the john bender stuff:
http://cgi.ebay.com/John-Bender-Plaster-Falling-Minimal-Synth-Sealed-Org-LP_W0QQitemZ330095661248QQcategoryZ306QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting
still sealed! the record is covered in a thin sheet of plaster that crumbles when you open it....so coool...and stupidly expensive...
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