Just the word “collective” makes me shudder. Every time I hear one described, I can’t help but think about the failed experiments of communism and hippy communes. Just mention the former and you’ll get any serious right-wing American frothing at the mouth, and the latter has been a punchline almost since it was conceived. At the centre of our distrust seems to be a fundamental rule: people tend to look out for themselves.
Yes, there are and always will be plenty examples of altruism out there. But the only ones we can really be sure about require someone to toss a grenade and someone else to jump on it. If the threat is not immediate, we just have too much time to wonder about the players and the game they may or may not be playing.
So when bloggers talk about the evils of the more established media industry and band together, guest-blogging, re-blogging, etc., are we really doing it because we truly believe in the cause? Or do we believe that the established media has no place for us while new media does? Are the loudest, most eloquent spokespeople for new media talking about it because they believe it to be better, or because it’s been better for them?
Perhaps the generations that follow mine won’t have to grapple with this particular question because new media will then be the status quo. But for my generation, whose artists grew up with the notion of getting signed by a record label or picked up by a publisher as the one road to making a living doing what you love, new media ventures represent a scary new world. We see the old world crumbling around us while the new one hasn’t even fully formed and we sometimes wonder if we’re crazy to bother. Wouldn’t it be a lot more enjoyable to just sit back and watch the show?
Well Transition Generation, I’m going to make a humble suggestion that may or may not work for us. I haven’t even tried it out myself, but in the spirit of the New World, I’m going to publish it anyway. Here’s the suggestion: We should embrace collectives for what they are – a low overhead and potentially more equitable alternative to corporations. The goal of each: to reach a critical mass through which the ideas of individual members can be promoted more effectively than on their own. (more…)
Julian Beever knows how to give you vertigo while walking down the street. Check out his surreal chalk pavement drawings and see if you don’t agree. Believe it or not, these do not involve any modifications to the pavement beyond coloring it with chalk. Any sense of depth on the sidewalk itself comes from Julian’s own strange mind. I’ve always been fascinated with street artists. I’ve always seen permanence as being an important incentive for an artist to create. When I write a story or a song, I’m recording something I think is important, and even if I may never be able to quit my day job, that pseudo-immortality is enough to encourage me to continue to create in my spare time. But someone who makes a beautiful chalk drawing knows it’s going to get walked on and rained on and eventually ruined. He knows that, but he still does it. Sure Beever and others can catalog their work with a camera, but past snapshots, they have only memories of their art. It’s a very brave way to create. If you want a bit of insight into the process he goes through, check out the video of him doing his Aveeno Fountain of Youth drawing in New York:
A friend of mine used to do street art, sometimes outdoors and sometimes in a studio. I ran into a street artist today on Twitter with some really cool stuff that reminded me of my friend’s work. My friend has since moved onto other things, which I think is a shame, because some of his stuff was really good. Check out The Me Nobody Knows on his site for some great examples of street art. You can also see some of his stuff on flickr. Here are a couple of things I really like about this artist. 1. His message. From his ebay page, I found this, which I find inspiring as a fellow artist: “To you I may be nobody. Okay, then undeterred and unaffected, I say to you – Nobody did it! (and so can YOU.)” It’s so easy to lose faith in yourself as an artist, to feel that you are just one in a crowded room of many hopefuls. Stuff like this to me is like the desiderata for artists, and I’m feeling better already after just reading it. 2. The thought he puts into his pieces. The picture above that I’m linking, for example, is based on the story of Aladdin and the magic lamp. It makes me wish that every graffiti artist left a description so I could understand why he did what he did and it ought to make you stop and think a little more before you write something off as pure vandalism. And here’s another thought that seeing TMNK’s stuff provoked: street art was the original blog. Now that we have the internet, even with no technical expertise, we can sign up to a blogging site for free and have a small corner of the world where we can share our thoughts with absolutely everyone. We kind of take that for granted. Looking at TMNK’s stuff reminded me that you used to have to fight a lot harder for a space in the public dialog. You used to have to take to the streets with a can of spray paint and risk arrest. You had to believe in yourself enough to take that risk, one which didn’t provide any sort of monetary gain, only the satisfaction of being heard. And, of course, some still do have to do it that way, for whatever reason. Those of us who feel we have a legal voice, let’s be thankful for that and realize how new it actually is for almost anyone (barring those in more repressive areas of the world) to be able to broadcast to the public without fear.
My German isn’t that great, but with the help of Babelfish and this update, I gather that the reasons we are not currently enjoying the first Creative Commons licensed, full feature length HD film already are as follows: (a) The December 2008 date was intended more as an internal deadline, not an absolute release date. They now have 2009 advertised as the release year on their site. If you’re like me, and have been waiting 15+ years for Chinese Democracy (finally released this November), it’s not a really big deal to miss a release by under 12 months, so I say we cut them some slack. (b) Sounds like they still need a bit more funding, possibly via sponsorships. They also have a donation form set up on their site that is currently $9K short of their expenses for the film. So if you want to see the movie out, a donation would probably help. That said, I think if this sort of model is to actually flourish, it can’t rely completely on a donation model, so hopefully other forms of funding, such as sponsorships pan out. Perhaps they could also offer to list all the people who donate in the credits of the movie. Let’s face it. Pure altruism is hard to come by and there’s nothing wrong with trying to find a win-win situation for people donating to your project. The economic crisis isn’t helping, of course. Isn’t it a shame that we’re bailing out all these companies who have been mismanaging like crazy and yet these guys are actually making something cool and can’t get their hands on a few thousand. (c) Time needing to be spent on other projects by the same people working on this one. I imagine those other projects are likely ones that pay. Sounds like things are coming along, though, and I think we really have to give these guys props for even attempting a project like this for a Creative Commons release. I’m looking forward to more news and the eventual release.
gurj on Twitter just posted a link to a cool Jay-Z/Radiohead mashup by Minty Fresh Beats. It’s even got a kickass name! Check it out here. Now, I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think either Jay-Z or Radiohead have released stuff under any sort of Creative Commons style license, so make sure to grab this mix before the record companies and their lawyers swoop in to save the day.
Stuff like this always makes me very proud of and hopeful for my generation. I think both versions are true. The forward version gives a pretty good summary of the world we feel we have been handed. And the reverse version gives a pretty good summary of what the more hopeful among us think we can do with it.
Say what you will about the Backstreet Boys, but they had some pretty decent songwriters. Check out Matt Clark’s awesome version of “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)”. He may not appeal to your average thirteen year old as much as the original performers, but as we all know, your average thirteen year old has no taste in music. Much thanks to Matt for recognizing a good song and making it into something that doesn’t make the rest of us want to cringe so much.
I stumbled on an awesome virtual jam session today. The musician is “Danielle Ate the Sandwich” and the song is “The Wanderer”. Her virtual accompaniment is provided by fellow YouTuber Funkwurm, from the Netherlands. Now, think about what’s happening here. Someone writes a great song and webcams a performance of it. A total stranger decides to collaborate with her and posts the results. This sort of collaboration could not have happened ten years ago. What you’re seeing here is remix culture at its best. Here’s the original, which is a great song on its own:
In today’s world of increasingly fast-paced information, a good acid test for freshness is the lack of a wikipedia article. I was amazed more than anything, after watching the trailer for “The Last Drug” at the lack of information about it. This is, according to the site, the first full-length feature film, shot entirely in HD, to be released under the Creative Commons license. The company releasing it is VEB FILM, based in Germany. They previously released a Creative Commons licensed film called “Route 66 – An American (bad) Dream”, which I have yet to watch. Apparently, they did well enough with Route 66 to warrant another experiment with the Creative Commons. I find this wildly exciting, not only because the idea of the Creative Commons is so appealing to my inner utopian idealist, but also because of the quality. I can honestly say I’m more excited to see this film than any completely commercial production over the last few years. Yes, even more excited than I was to see The Dark Knight. I’m not saying it’ll stand up to Hollywood standards. But then, sometimes Hollywood doesn’t stand up to its own standards. There is a lot of crap produced every year that we’re more than willing to pay for. But make up your own mind. Check out the following trailer and see if you’re as intrigued as I am about the movie:
The site’s description of the movie is: “Three backpackers cross South America searching for one of the world´s most powerful drugs. The self-experiment turns into a race against insanity, in a world, where the mind transcends the senses.” My guess from the trailer is that we’ll eventually find out that the person hooked up to the IV has taken the “last drug”, something which probably transcends the reality of this world in an almost Matrix like way. In fact, I expect this movie to be a lot like the Matrix, without all the gratuitous violence – choosing to explore the philosophy rather than simply use it as the backdrop to an action movie. But that’s just my guess. It may turn out completely different. The cool thing about it being a CC movie is that if it does disappoint me enough, I could always remix it! Finally, I’ll note that I did eventually find a wikipedia entry about it, albeit in German. If you happen to spreken ze deutsch, you can read about it here. The entire film is supposed to be released in 2008, and we have only three days left in the year as of this post, so I’m hoping to be posting an update on the actual content of the film very soon.
I remember when short films were the boring realm of arts students and film societies. Maybe they had a government grant and some public broadcast stations were mandated to play them. Or they were simply a tool for aspiring filmmakers to practice their craft and hopefully go on to do bigger and better things. The films themselves were not all that fun to watch, at least in light of more exciting, bigger budget, feature length competition. But then there was the perfect storm. The big media players, in a never ending quest to make more for less, cut costs to the point of being insulting. The natural result of the massive increase in “reality” shows is to put the following question in everyone’s mind: why pay for something you could do yourself? At the same time, DIY culture was becoming empowered. The lowered cost of digital tools has now put the power of film making into everyone’s hands. And while that democratization may result in a lot of poor content, it also allows great artists to realize visions that would have been cost prohibitive even ten years ago to independently create and release their works to the world. Check out this creepy short about a girl who everyone forgot by artist Katy Towell. It is reminiscent of Tim Burton’s work (one of her influences) but strikes me more as the sort of thing Dr. Seuss might have produced if he had gone over to the dark side after watching “Village of the Damned” a few too many times…
You can check out more of Katy’s work at her site: Children R Skary. Be sure to also check out the merch section with lots of cool stuff, including a book version of the above video.
This Sunday, Axl Rose finally made good on promises of Chinese Democracy. It’s been seventeen years since the last batch of original music released by Guns n’ Roses and nine years since the title started floating around. Rose’s efforts to record the most expensive album ever have at the very least secured him a legendary role in pop culture. Chinese Democracy is now even defined in Urban Dictionary as: “A promise, often made more than once over an extended period of time, which the person is either unwilling or unable to keep.” While the album could never live up to seventeen years of expectations, it is growing on me. It has a ton of faults along with the scattered (yet numerous) flashes of brilliance, but at the very least, you’ve got to respect the perseverance. The pressure must have been unreal, and to release anything at all at this point shows balls. Hopefully Axl will continue his experimentation and allow videos like this to exist:
I am convinced that this post at soundmeme.com describes the future of independent music (and perhaps the future of music, period – as more and more of it transitions away from the classic record deal structure). It’s a great article that describes a very different way of thinking about releasing and making money off of music: one that my own band has been experimenting with for over a year.
A good friend of mine, DJ XS, sent me this track from 17th Boulevard, as I’ve been doing similar experiments in merging classical songwriting with elements of electronica and rave culture:
I thought it was pretty cool. After checking out 17th Boulevard’s Myspace page, I found Markus Smaller in the list of band members. So, I went to his Myspace page and heard the voice familiar from the 17th Boulevard stuff doing acoustic singer songwriter stuff, more traditional punk/rock music, etc. Here’s one of his acoustic tracks:
Gotta say, it’s great to see other singer/songwriters experimenting with everything that’s available to us in the 21st century!
Record companies are spending a lot of money these days to produce well behaved bands so that they sound like indie artists. Those of us in the indie scene find it kind of funny. Why not just go to the indie artists themselves? There are a ton of musicians out there who aren’t weighed down by big record deals producing some pretty innovative stuff. Take Caribou, for example. Great songs, great vibe. You can get a taste of psychedelic bliss without having to deal with the unpredictability of the real thing. After all, that’s the role of an artist – to explore those unpredictable and sometimes dangerous corners of the inner and outer world, and to report back, to try and communicate what they’ve found to everyone else. That’s something I haven’t seen a lot of the major players doing lately, and if that attitude of playing it safe and pleasing a bunch of corporate dinosaurs is what mainstream rock and roll has resigned itself to, then I look forward to its demise. Check out the video, and listen to a few of their tunes. Sure, there’s a hint of low production quality there, but does it matter? I think it adds a little charm when you know it’s real. Thanks to my friend Curtis, who originally tuned me into these guys a while back. I didn’t listen too closely back then, but liked what I heard, and it’s good to see they’re still kicking around.
The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
A friend of mine sent me this link, and I hope he doesn’t mind me posting it. I get a real kick out of reading biographies about people we now see as artistic geniuses because they deflate a rather shallow myth, genius as the divine blessing, and replace it with a much more nuanced myth, genius as both gift and curse, at war with everything including itself, in constant doubt. When someone gets on a real roll, of course, he has to play it up. “I was just sitting there one day, and it clicked! It just clicked, man! And I knew what I had to do!” I call bullshit. Are there those moments? Of course. But they’ll come and go many times in everyone’s life. If we knew how exactly a genius capitalizes on these moments, or if he could somehow explain it, we’d all be astounding each other. But those astonishments are rare. Because genius likes to destroy itself and doubt itself, and at times, it’s just plain lazy. This example… it’s completely unpolished. There’s stumbling over words, beat switch-overs that don’t quite match up most of the time, and there’s some slightly dry subject matter. But I listened to the whole rambling mess, and there were moments where… (more…)
Finally gave in and got the Mac Heist bundle. $19.95 for 7 apps and 3 bonus ones isn't bad. http://bit.ly/heist-it{ 03/09/10 11:44 PM }
@seanhealy highly recommend Paradise Lost for your documentary binge.{ 03/06/10 11:23 AM }
I bet Jay Leno has the best computer hackers in North America working on figuring out the password to @ConanOBrien's twitter account ;-){ 02/24/10 6:41 PM }
RT @ConanOBrien: Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.{ 02/24/10 6:39 PM }
Neat. Doubting your doubts can lead to increased self confidence: http://bit.ly/9beVEM{ 02/24/10 12:58 PM }
