Happy Holidays!

posted by on 2009.12.20, under rise info

RV-07 Xmas expanded

Mountain Mountain

posted by on 2009.12.11, under music, products

Mountain mountain spread 1

This past weekend I finally finished putting together my latest collection of songs/audio experiments. Mountain Mountain includes tracks from 2004-2009, some are soundtracks to video or installation works, others solo guitar performances or studio sound experiments using a handmade synthesizer, various small instruments, my trusty e-bow and layered delay effects.

The CD is available as a first edition of 100, signed and numbered on the inside of the fold and made right here in the Rise Industries studios. Its super DIY, handmade music.

The CD is $15.00
with 3.00 shipping and handling
1.50 S&H for each additional CD.
(from Jeremy J. Quinn Design store)

Payment accepted from either PayPal or credit card (with no need to sign in).
I will be shipping these up until the 19th of December, then I will resume on the 5th of January, so if you order in between those dates it will take a little longer to get.

Here are excerpts from each of the tracks:
01. The Winding Path 1:20
[audio:The-Winding-Path.mp3]

02. Soundtrack to Western Descender 8:11
[audio:Soundtrack-to-Western-Descender-excerpt.mp3]

03. Soliloquy 2:22
[audio:Soliloquy-excerpt.mp3]

04. Curlicues and a Broad Marker 10:26
[audio:Curlicues-and-a-Broad-Marker-excerpt.mp3]

05. Sounds From the Afternoon (with Michael Feldman) 10:12
[audio:Sounds-From-the-Afternoon-excerpt.mp3]

06. Whale Song 8:18
[audio:Whale-Song-excerpt.mp3]

Bonus Track: Tetsuo Loses Control 5:30
[audio:Tetsuo-Losees-Control-excerpt.mp3]

MM front sml

MM open

Building a better cricket trap

posted by on 2009.12.08, under art, music, video

Lately I have been experimenting with a slew of different audio tools, both hardware and software – analogue and digital. Eventually the ideas and methods will work their way into this project, Matter Management‘s Vivarium, which I am doing sound design for. It will be constructed, birthed, and will die in the Sci-Arc Gallery, and is the creation of MM’s CEO Juan Azulay. The sound portion of the Vivarium takes on the identity of a sort of organic and machine hybrid synthesizer with many layers of interactivity.
This little test is a tongue-in-cheek software and MIDI input test (using a simple controller to alter several different parameters in how the sounds are shaped or generated) using the 80’s ballad The Captain of Her Heart by Double, a variable sine wave, and an ethereal audio track of my creation as its main audio inputs. Later on the controllers will all be sensors, and the sound will be – shall we say more brooding and insectile? The video up there was created using Akira Rabelais‘ intriguing software, Argeïphontes Lyre, which I have also been messing around with lately. Its rather difficult to get something intentional out of it (for me), but quite easy to find pleasant surprises when you just let it go ahead and do what it does (which, incidentally, is not actually obvious on the first, second or sometimes third tries).

Stay posted.. more to come.

The future is (almost) now!

posted by on 2009.12.08, under art, public art, urbanism

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What will it be like? That’s up to you!

“The history of Somerville, 2010-2100” is a community-focused art project that explores what the future of Somerville Mass. might be like.

If you’d like to participate, please let us know any of the following:

1. What do you think (or hope, or fear) you will personally be doing in the future? And when you think it will happen by? (Will you buy a condo in Union Square in 2043? Will you have twins in 2011? Will your unborn child become a famous pianist in 2074?)

2. What you think (or hope, or fear) Somerville will be like in the future? (Will there be hi-rise apartment buildings in Davis Square by 2047? Will the plague strike? Will your neighborhood be gentrified? When?)

Tell us a story! Draw us a picture! Make us a map!

All participants will receive full credit for their images, concepts, stories, and data.

We can be reached at future.of.somerville@gmail.com . We hope to hear from you!

All predictions received by December 31, 2009 will be included on our website, and in our printed timeline. Everyone who makes a prediction will get a copy of the timeline.

This project is organized by Tim Devin, and is sponsored in part by the Somerville Arts Council.

Cautionary Tales, Feral Structures at Arena 1

posted by on 2009.12.06, under architecture, art, review

Cautionary14

The weekend before Thanksgiving Michele and I went over to one of the old hangars by the Santa Monica Airport to check out the show Cautionary Tales, Feral Structures at Arena 1 gallery. Curated by Berenika Boberksa and presented in several rooms underneath the cavernous roof of the hangar building, the show consisted of works by artists and architects from London and Los Angeles. Each piece employs the cautionary tale as a narrative device which plays out in the feral structures created or proposed in the space.
Our invitation to attend a small gallery talk turned out to be an invitation to participate in a small panel giving the gallery talk… and when we finally got our bearings the conversion kept cycling around the differences between the architects and the artists, and methods each group might employ when working within a gallery context.
As we spoke, my gaze kept returning to the half-constructed or half dismantled volcano across the room. Built haphazardly out of delicately arranged fans of bass wood, and propped up on a scaffold of small timbers, it loomed large above a quaint town composed of kitsch plaster buildings of the sort my mom would put on the mantel around the holidays. I kept wondering weather these townspeople had been building this volcano, and putting themselves in immediate danger through their industriousness; or if they have been trying frantically to take it down in time to save themselves before it blew its top. For some reason the key to this work for me was held in the difference between these two methods, and what each of them might refer to in our own society. I never did decide on an answer, or ask about it, but ended up satisfied with just the question itself, and the state of indeterminacy the work left me with.

Other works included a full-scale proposal by Berenika for an opportunistic retrofit of a housing block, enabling the tenant to architecturally flirt with her neighbors. This large sculptural work took over the main gallery space, and had a line quality reminiscent to me of the restrained yet flowing drawings I had created back in school using only a compass, pencil, and some basic geometry. In the back room was a striking composite analogue projection by Zoe Hodgson (very analogue, using a couple of haphazardly taped up overheard projectors) of a salt tower emerging from the desert. Blockily reminiscent of some medieval Italian creation, its details glowed yet were infused with hairy, creepy things and bits of wood or other materials hinting at a depth beyond the shadow and light on the wall.
The whole show managed to unmistakably come at you from many different places and perspectives, while keeping enough aesthetic and narrative links to stand as a unified body of works – especially when read in the light of the show’s title and curatorial statement.
Since it took me so long to get around writing this post, the show has already been down for quite a while – so you’ll have to be satisfied with checking it out through the photos below.
The artists in the show were: Berenika Boberska, Louise Clarke, Sarah Gillett, Dominique Golden, Zoe Hodgson, Ilaria Mazzoleni and Neil Rollinson. (Sorry I didn’t manage to write down which one belonged to each artist this time)

Don’t let LAUSD cut Arts Education!

posted by on 2009.12.04, under art, design, education, music, news, performance, politics, video

This Tuesday, December 8, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education will be voting on whether or not to cut 50% of all elementary arts education, with 100% cut the following school year. We cannot let this happen!

Please sign this petition and forward it on to anyone you know. This is too important to ignore, so make some noise and spread the word!


Arts District Open Studio Tour – This Saturday!

posted by on 2009.12.04, under architecture, art, design, music, rise info, video

Rise Industries will be participating in the Arts District Open Studio Tours
This Saturday, December 5th from Noon- 7:00 pm

We are located at 837 Traction Ave. Suite 307, Los Angeles 90013 on the third floor. Traction is diagonally between 4th and Alameda, right next door to SCI-Arc.

Come on by and check out our space and some of our ongoing and recent work. We will be hanging out and perhaps rocking some impromptu sound performances with fellow Rise member Michael Feldman. Mike will also bring some of his recent works for you to check out.

We will have some prints and CDs or DVDs for sale as well.

There will be a shuttle/limo taking people around to the different open studio sites, and there will also be an after party at EAST 3RD STEAKHOUSE from 7pm to 2pm hosted by Edgar Varela and Jerico

LOFTS AND STUDIOS PARTICIPATING:
Traction Avenue Lofts (traction Avenue), Neptune Building (E. 3rd Street), Art Share LA (with group exhibition, holiday Bazaar and children performances 1pm and 5pm, Crazy Gideon store front (Traction Ave), Café Metropol (3rd Street) , 900 Building (1st/Vignes), River Front Loft (Santa Fe Ave), Toy Warehouse Loft (Santa Fe Ave), Barker Block, Toy Factory Lofts – Daniel Lahoda Fine Arts – Biscuit Lofts – 1820 Studios – LACE building (Industrial Street), Factory Place Lofts (Factory Place), EVFA (on Alameda, Seaton Street Lofts (Seaton Street)

For more info see the Facebook event page here or the LADAD website.

Debating Through the Arts

posted by on 2009.12.04, under art, culture, performance, politics, urbanism

This Saturday (12/5/09) I will be participating in an experimental performance event, organized by Jerri Allyn and Inez Bush. Debating Through the Arts is designed to explore creative solutions to cultural issues, and will be held from 9am – 5pm at the 24th Street Theater: 1117 West 24th St., LA 90007

Recommended times to attend:
9am for Artists Debates (will run approximately one hour)
3pm for Creative Proposal Performances (will run approximately one hour)
Audience members are also welcome to participate throughout the day in collaborative brainstorming workshops.

This daylong theatrical event based on the Model United Nations paradigm, includes 4 teams of artists acting as UN Delegates, while creatively debating the pros and cons of Freedom of Expression and Gentrification vs. Cultural Equity.

Participating artists include: Marjan Vayghan • Shana Nys Dambrot • Micol Hebron • Marissa Mercado • Michele Jaquis • Rosalyn Myles • Carol McDowell • Marcus Miceli • Juna Amano • Trinidad Ruiz • Beth Peterson • Jay McAdams • Portable City Projects with Jules Rochielle, Fred Portillo and Flora Kao

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