bloody zit, sour patch, dinner connections, flamboyant tundro, three stooges

A bunch of brain runoff:

SOUR ADVERTISING
I have been looking at candy on the internet -- prompted by a "Try our other... Sour Patch EXTREME" blip on the back of the movie style packs of Sour Patch Kids that my Michigan/Pittsburgh friends brought back for me after their X-Mas/NYear's trip home. I saw some new Sour Patch Kids commercials that were pretty good and they reminded me of a Canadian slushie commercial that I loved a while back.

Just by the name you should be able to tell if you have the stomach for this commercial -- well maybe not -- the commercial is disgusting/disturbing yet beautifully done and deeply sweet and real (again in an intense disturbing way) -- think: Larry Clark's oeuvre. The ice/sugar flavor drink (I am not saying SLURPEE cuz that's a brand and it isn't one of those) was called Bloody Zit!!! (my exclamation points - not the drinks) and I totally would have tried it. I get a real disappointing subjective time thing when I watch this commercial now. The first couple times I saw it were eternities -- all anticipation. The sound design is simple but fitting so it helps to turn the volume up.

The other unternet (that is a typo that I am keeping - can someone invent an unternet please) candy discovery of the week is UMEBOSHI HiChew. HiChew is like Japanese Starburst and UMEBOSHI is wicked good super salty japanese plum stuff that I grew up with cuz of my half hippie parentage. It's like salt licks for little macrobiotic boys. If it weren't super expensive everywhere and probably hard to find here (haven't tried) I would have inordinately high blood pressure. IN OR DI NAT LY.

BUILDING COMMUNITY (the tense drifts a bit here because it is lazily modded from the original email I sent out)
Recently I attempted to put some community building infrastructure into place in this little international student village I call "bleh" which means home in the language of disappointed people. I came home one day and took a nap and woke up a little later than I intended to and wanted to share a meal but all of the friends I could reach had already eaten. I knew there were others out there who hadn't eaten yet and who wanted company but I didn't know how to find them. I wound up having dinner with my nice new Italian roommate so everything turned out fine for that night. BUT... I decided that I didn't want to be in that position again. I sent an email to the ISU (International Student Union) email list that says most of this and posited that we didn't all have to be so poorly connected. Most of us use here Skype to stay in touch with folks at home... but we can also easily use it to stay in touch with each. I created a public chat called "MOHOLT (the name of the student cillage) DINNER CONNECTIONS". Err... I ran out of email to cop from...
Anyway it totally didn't work. People came into the chat room and just never said anything. Everyone kept telling me how much the love the idea but nobody used the damn thing. It got a bit more muddled over the next few days as other folks tried to change the tech (yes open systems/sources/structures are better) and wound up splitting everyone into multiple places right as we were first trying to form up.

Today I sent another email to the list... kind of long. About other community building idea stuff: like a "leave some stuff you don't need, take some stuff you do" space and an actual full time meeting/hanging-out/interacting space and just generally asking if people gave a shit. Basically this place bites for actually connecting with other folks. There are like 15 hours a week where you know that other people will be around in common space. 6 of those hours are movie screenings and the rest are mostly open hours at the ISU - which means drinking students being too loud and drunk blah blah blah.

I think maybe my target should not be the ISU which is mostly early 20 something students who want to party and maybe don't care to make our shared boat better for the next 20 somethings that come through to party. There is also ICoT (International Club of Trondheim) which is made up of older more family oriented folks - mostly from non-western countries - maybe they care a bit more. Maybe not.

SPROUTS
I sprouted lentils this past week. Super easy and the nutritional value supposedly goes through the roof. I should have made a nice salad but I got too lazy and didn't really have all the things I needed and they were plenty tasty with just a bit of olive oil and some salt. Ate the last few today with a squirt from my new bottle of sriracha.

SKI (whatever)
I am going to Sweden for a "ski trip" from Sunday until Thursday. I will probably not be near a computer almost the whole time. I mostly plan to sit around and read and draw and use my newly purchased embroidery hoop to put some cool stitches in something. Maybe I will try to find some rental snow shoes and I will go dumpstering in one more country. Shoot - if I don't bring my computer I will have NO MUSIC. I hope the apartments have a radio. I bought more lentils and some mung beans today and started the initial sprouting soak so I will have some decent sprouts by the second day of my trip.

PACKAGE
I got a package from Emma and Annie that has specific opening instructions which involve other people taking my picture as I open it so they can see my reaction. I will have to adapt the rules slightly because my room is a mess and I shouldn't bring people in there. I also hope there is nothing in there that can't wait another week to get freed from the package because I think I won't get it open before I leave for Sweden.

THREE STOOGES
The Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges. Funny ass old jew dudes. Huh?
I need to give The Marx Brothers a chance but I grew up watching The Three Stooges on Saturday mornings on WSBK TV38 and always planning to stay awake through the New Year's Eve marathons but never really succeeding. I have downloaded a few of the earliest ones and haven't decided how I feel about them. The shorts just seem so short -- not enough can happen in 20 minutes to make them really good. Need to watch more. So far I can only confirm that Curly's "Woo woo woo!" noises make me titter and that they were also shown in Columbia as "Los Tres Tontos" or something along those lines.

Oh and I will now go hunting for a torrent for The Herculoids - Zok and Igoo were lamest in that order. Tundro by far awesomest (I always like the charging juggernauts) and Gloop and Gleep pretty cool also. Useless human characters. To understand the supposed FLAMBOYANCE go read comments from the last blog entry. It is worth it. Nature is awesome. Real nature AND cartoon nature.

Sorry. English falls apart in there because I wanted to get this done and sleep as I have a lot to do tomorrow to get ready to go to Sweden. The Swedish Bikini Team was an american advertising scheme and nothing (directly) more.

posthumous "doh!"

I woke up this morning some time between 6:30 and 7. In the last couple years I have seen 7:00 from the "wrong side" far more often. Why? Huh? Which? Well today -- to walk through the murk to throw a frisbee with the two other dudes who had a the stuff to show up. We can't get any more GOOD practice times -- blah blah whatever.

But I am writing because I can't find a book I want. Or well I want to write about it anyway but I can't find it to read and write about. I don't mean I can't find it here in Norway. I mean it isn't on eBay and it isn't on Amazon and it isn't on GEMMBooks and I am ennå (still) curious.

The National Geographic Channel had some hour on the "science (or was it secrets?) of shaving" and a newer one called "A Closer Shave" - longer irrelevant story not bothering you here. The show confirmed (so much as TV show experts can) that hair is seen by our genes as unhealthy. Evolution shapes attraction away from health risks (in this case parasites) blah blah. Moving very slowly towards the titular point.

Mr. almost-household-name Gillette has an anything-but(-household) f'n weird name: King Camp Gillette. Neither "King" nor "Camp" would really be that cool on its own but... King Camp? Somehow it's awesome -- having nothing to do with imagining a summer camp run by or for kings? Anyway its at least as good as when I got roundhoused in my pre-adolescent nose by a little purple belt named Lord Hampton.

WELL...
That's his awesome name and he was a utopian socialist. He wrote a book. He wrote a few books. "The Human Drift" lays out Gillette's wacked (awesome) Metropolis concept. Ol' K.C. (KING CAMP!! KING CAMP!! Everybody do the KING CAMP DANCE!! ???) wanted everyone in the United States to move in together around Niagara Falls. Hydropower is good food (ref: Campbell's Soup slogan). He also somehow figured that all business could get crammed together into one ginormous publicly owned megacompany. Just so you know "megalopolis" is a much awesomer word than "metropolis".



I have skimmed some web synopses/commentaries but have avoided reading them in depth (duh because I want to read the book). I saw this picture more than once and got curious. You can read more carefully in one of those things I skimmed - but the gist is simple. Each unlettered building is a living building. Each lettered set meets some public need (education, food, amusement). Each "need building" serves the six living buildings around it. From other pictures I gather that each building is supposed to be pretty mega huge. Looking at the pattern, you share some of your life by way of snacking, schooling, and sporting with people from your own and twelve other living buildings. Some from that set you only eat with, some you only study or play with. Your direct neighbor set will be a closer bunch - overlapping on two but never all three needs. Sounds initially maybe boring (or awesome) - but I imagine there is some more flexibility worked into it (boo)...

...I could tell you more but I haven't read the book. If anyone (book lovers and friends of bookstore owners) knows how I might find a copy (even literally a photocopy) of the book (eller bare the content thereof) -- do that thing where you write down a $$$ number on a little slip of paper and slide it across the table to me.

I seem to be writing a little bit more the way I think (and browse the internet - I have 117 tabs open right now - heh heh). Stacked thoughts/subtext and some bits of referential/experiential imagery that pop into my head - but with proper paragraph form and more or less capitalization. Clearly I hate commas. I think they are ugly - especially when I write them by hand -- which I almost never do. So yeah a lot of ellipses and m-dashes and parentheses - and sadly I am tiring of all of them as well. Well let me wrap this up even though I have a bazillion other things I want to say. I think maybe I will just make another entry just as soon as I post this one.

Resolving the title - though the point of this all was more just to mention head stuff from the last couple days. King Camp is dude number one absolute most responsible for spreading the concept of disposability in product design/as a business practice. Okay... YES he worked for the guy who invented the bottle cap and that is most likely how he got the idea for his disposable blades - but somehow that doesn't quite count the same way -- the bottle cap is a packaging material (a byproduct of soda juice beer blah blah). Packaging is a different animal that had already existed for millennia. Gillette's disposable blades were the first intentionally disposable by design product (admittedly yes the packaging thing does cloud this a bit) -- use it, when it no longer helps, very intentionally throw it away.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I generally dislike waste. Most bright folks know how cluttered the world is with nigh-undecaying yet mostly no longer useful metals and plastics and bloated diaper pad mush gel cruds.
So... "failed" socialist turned world famous mega money earner (I want to read a biography and find out what he did with his money). Gillette wanted good things for society, the world, what have you and in his time made shaving much easier for the world (I consider that to be of very mixed value) BUT wound up sowing the seed for all of the above mess. "Doh"ing in his grave.

Ooh... a package.

adding, subtracting, blowing my head into conceptual little bits

this was started last thursday
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it has been a different week
i am not saying good and i am not saying bad
if you were to have watched me from the wrong angle
it would have seemed like ever other week...
i spent an inordinate amount of time sitting at desk tapping at my computer

i was doing something so totally different from my usual

i was doing this...
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Proposal for NOTAM lydkunstkonkurransen. (lyd=sound kunst=art competition)

Seth Davis

[ADDRESS and PHONE NO. STRUCK FOR OPEN INTERNET POST]


BASIC CONCEPT

For the Nov/Dec 2008 lydkunst utstillingen at Henie Onstad Kunstsenteret, I propose to develop and construct a simple radio-based sound spatialization system and to use that system to immerse gallery visitors in waves of sound from around the world.

The system will be housed in a square room constructed within the gallery space (see floorplan.jpg) - no larger than five meters per side and possibly as small as three and a half meters. A grid of knob-tuned radios will be mounted on each wall -- older-model consumer radios of various styles and vintages. Each radio will be powered but tuned to an empty frequency, emitting quiet AM radio static.

A radio transmitter sits in the middle of the room. This transmitter does the usual job of broadcasting any sound fed into its primary audio input, but has also been designed to shift its broadcast frequency based on a secondary input signal. The radio grids will have been arranged and tuned such that, as the broadcast frequency changes, the radios receive the broadcast signal in specific sequence and sound washes across the walls in controlled patterns.

I will design this system with assistance from electrical engineers here in Norway and technical contacts at Harvard University and M.I.T.. The concept is very scalable and at this approximate size can be made to work with anywhere between 160 and 400+ radios.



SIMPLIFIED EXAMPLES

Radios are arranged in a line and tuned to frequencies increasing from left to right. If a triangle wave is fed into the transmitter's secondary (frequency adjusting) input, broadcast sound will move along the line of radios from left to right, and upon reaching the end will reverse direction and travel back from right to left. So long as the triangle wave is supplied this continues. If the frequency of the triangle wave is changed, the speed of transposition changes proportionally. Switch the triangle wave for a sawtooth and the broadcast signal will move left to right and upon reaching the end will jump from the last radio back to the first and again move from left to right. Wrap that line of radios into a circle and the sawtooth response yields perpetual circular motion. (see diagrams in trisaw.jpg)

Expanding the concept to a wall of radios (adding the dimension of height) takes even these simple patterns to an impressive scale and allows for the arrangement of complex multi-dimensional patterns (simple 2d examples diagrammed in grid.jpg). Expand it to a four-walled room and the viewer becomes completely enveloped in shifting sound. Sounds can move in a multitude of patterns throughout the room -- dizzying circles, expanding spirals, oscillating rings, and sporadic bursts among others. Familiar communication technology acts in a completely unfamiliar way -- ripped from its usual role and context, the common radio must be reconsidered and its value recalculated.



RADIO SIGNIFICANCE

Radio has been connecting people since the first wireless telegraphs were put to use at the beginning of the 20th century. Radio is no longer thought to be exciting or vital by most, but it is a medium that is still developing and changing the world to this day. While broadcast radio in more developed nations is becoming ever more obsolete with newer internet communication protocols and its power as a social medium is diluted by commercial interests, it is still a vital part of communication and survival infrastructure in less developed parts of the world. RFID (radio frequency identification) chips are already drastically changing the way people interact with their environs. Radio will continue to channel human stories and vibrant music to the world and will start to carry ever more life-preserving, enriching, and easing information well into this 21st century.



ARTIST'S PHILOSOPHY/PROCESS

I am most happy when I feel connected to the world around me. I create sound and concept work to explore and encourage connections between people. I believe that art is a process that involves many. The process begins long before a work is exhibited and continues long after direct involvement of the artist ceases.

Throughout the development phase of an artwork I rely on discussion with artists and non-artists, scientists and non-scientists, friends and family to sharpen my methods and concepts and to gauge the effect of ideas. I seek to involve the general public in the artistic process through seemingly simple, non-art actions. Requests for the donation of materials lead to conversations with non-artists, increasing dialogue across the perceived "art"/"non-art" gap.

All of these interactions create connections between different sectors, carrying the flexible and open thinking of the artistic mind to fields/industries and individuals that may not have much experience with the creative process. Such interactions encourage cultural engagement in others and leaves me touched, changed and more connected with the world at large through exposure to diverse individuals and the stories and ideas they choose to share during the process.

In order to secure the required number of radios, I will need to run a steady and multi-faceted donation campaign. Print and internet elements will be necessary, but the majority of my efforts will be directed towards securing radio appearances. In the run of these interviews/appearances I will not only directly invite listeners to donate radios, but will also, through discussion of the work and its philosophies, indirectly prompt listeners to consider, among other things, their relationships to art, the connecting powers of both technology and the human capacity to help and share. By requesting used items I bring into question the values placed older objects, traditions, and technologies in our often disconnected contemporary engangsbruk/disposable society.

Radio serves as both the primary material/medium of the work's final form and a very large part of the process.



SONIC CONTENT

As I am not proposing a single specific sound work but rather a system of presentation, I also propose, with the help of NOTAM, to openly solicit original compositions from sound artists and contemporary composers around the world for "broadcast". Contributors will be invited to compose for specific patterns and variable speeds of motion. Complex positioning signals are possible and can be developed in conjunction with compositions for maximized control within the system, but contributors will be encouraged to embrace elements of uncertainty inherent in the non-synched system.

The system will be well-suited to playful live interaction between performer and environment. If it fits with the exhibition, the system can be scheduled for small electro-acoustic performances/experiments by skilled musicians from throughout Norway. Positioning can be controlled manually in instances where a musician would like to play specific spatial relationships or automated to the performers needs. The delay in a radio system is more than enough to negate the possibility of audio feedback within the system.



IMPACT

This work operates at multiple levels. As a gallery installation it provides a unique sound immersion experience, but it also reaches far outside of the gallery to non-art audiences. It holds the potential for live performance in an intimate setting. It encourages audiences to consider and strengthen their connections with the world around them.



BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Seth Davis is a cross-disciplinary artist working with concept. He gives form to concept primarily through sound, but also through performance, video, and event and social work.

He is a graduate of The Studio for Interrelated Media at The Massachusetts College of Art where he developed interests and competence in recording, composition and events production. Post-college work as a studio recording engineer brought skills and experience that serve him in the realization of his own audio concepts and compositions. An unquenchable curiosity about the world brings him ideas from the sciences and natural and human worlds he inhabits.

He is currently studying at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, working towards a degree in electrical engineering and hopes to design and build musical instruments and creative electronic solutions for himself, other artists, and the rest of the world.

[the images/diagrams don't seem to display their blacks properly in my blog - but if you click on them they are fine]





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so. yeah. gauged by how folks are responding - it is pretty cool. please give me your responses! (plz.) in a blog comment. even if they are iffy or confused. keywordØ constructive criticism. ?
i haven't done anything like this in a while or maybe ever -- propose one of my ideas in a formal professional-ish way... to people who might give me money. total budget/prize of 70 000 KR / ~$12,500 - and i get to keep whatever i don't use. yeah... never. and then i would be obligated to spend my entire summer mostly working on and thinking about this thing.
i have never had such a small obstacle course between a semi-raw idea and funding.
"propose your idea and if we like it you get money." with the stuff i think about that is not a usual opportunity. so -- not counting when my dad gave me $10 for some 6th or 7th grade scratchboard drawing of a sparrow or chickadee landing on a hand for some postcard design he sent out to promote his real estate company -- this is would probably technically be my first (notable) professional work as an artist.

it could be awesome - i could maybe get to do a little radio tour (that's dreaming) around northern europe. probably nothing more than a college station would have me.

still a large part of me doesn't want them to pick me.
some babble on the tons of issues wrapped up in here:
lots of i don't like making plans. i don't like be obligated to something.
fear of - i am not afraid of fucking up and it not all working out.
(the tech is solid but could be noisier than i expect)
(the system has some serious limitations)
what i am afraid of is being picked and given money and help and then fucking it up and it all not working out when someone ELSE could have been picked and had their little seed encouraged/nurtured. so... that breaks down to i am worried about wasting resources (time, energy, money) and i am worried about the potential damage to my never-existant-before-being-chosen-(if-it-happens) reputation as an artist.

----
week later news.
nothing on the proposal (i would hope they couldn't make a decision so quickly) but i have a new italian flatmate. his english is not so hot. finally found some fiskekaker in the dumpster and some tiny bottles of "spicy" oil and lots of the usual stuff. i have crushes on all the wrong people - in the sense of triangles and cross-wires. classes started two days ago and i am feeling pretty clever with the tongue but i use modal verbs too often which means i am more used to using the infinitive form of verbs than i should be and so sometimes i use the infinitive when i should use simple present tense - which is usually just one "r" different - but still not proper. i have to wake up in the dark but find i don't need a snooze at all which is good because my cell phone alarm has none. i go to sverige (sweden) from the 27th to the 31st for a skitrip but i have only been skiing (cross country) once in my life.