Last night I experienced a sound installation at the Wexner Center by Ray Lee called Siren (Thanks to Bobby Silver for the tickets). We were brought into a theater and told not to speak during the performance, to turn off our phones and were encouraged to walk around the space during its length. After that we were ushered through an industrial hallway to this back room behind the stage.

Ray Lee: Siren Interview Video

Inside this big room were a bunch of tripods with horizontal metal arms on them. Some of these were tall and others were low to the ground. There were two guys in identical grey coats that began to arm the voltage chips in the center of these tripods with little metal tools. They would begin to make a single tone for each end of the arms on the tripods of which they would tune with their little tools by increasing or decreasing the voltage. They went around the room like this for a while creating in effect a large chord of different tuned tones. After a while they switched on these motors that made the metal arms rotate. This caused the tones to modulate and shimmer. The two men seemed to be able to control the speed of the rotations as well.

Slowly a cacophony of shimmering tonal combinations filled the space. As you moved about different melodic figures would emerge, all modulating and pulsating in different rhythms. I got mesmerized by a couple particular areas. Eventually they turned the lights off leaving you alone with the twinkling red fire fly-like blinking L.E.D. lights on the end of the arms. The humming sound filled the room. It wasn't all that loud but very dense and multi layered. You could get lost in it. You would pick up on a specific note and it would follow you around the room. It was like being in a tent in the dark and listening to the hum of a thousand different mosquitoes.

It was really soothing and meditative. I could fall asleep in there. It left me in a state of wonderment. Despite being an art work based in simple machinery, it made me wish I lived a hundred and fifty years or so ago when electricity was just emerging and things like magic still seemed real. Maybe art work like this is the only real magic we have left.

As part of the Motion Graphics Festival I did a real time video performance at the Cultural Center a couple of sundays ago along with the circuit bent musical performance of Michael Una. It was a challenging performance for me because instead of being at a party or club I had an audience of 200 plus people that were watching my every millisecond-no room for error. I was in a cold sweat and thought my set was mediocre at the time. But I just got a positive review from a blog called Unearthed Circuits!

I'm really psyched to know that people are paying attention and getting something out of the things I do. Sometimes I wonder why I have these strange obsessions/hobbies and responses like this make it all worth it. I plan on do more and more awesome stuff more often now. Here is the link:

http://blog.unearthedcircuits.com/2009/01/mgfest-video-band-event/

And the text is here:

"Tonight I attended the “Video Band” Portion of the Motion Graphics Festival. It was held at the Chicago Cultural Center and the fact that anyone showed up in this brutal cold is amazing. It was basically a showcase of digital musicians who perform with live VJ’s. There were several performers, but the one that stood out to me was the duo of Michael Una and Glen Stephani. It was unique to the evening because it seemed to have a truly organic feel. This feeling was carried throughout both video and music aspects of the performance. Rather then just having a dude sitting behind his laptop launching clips there was a live spontaneous element to it. Basically live looping of analog and circuit bent instrument paired with perfectly synced, complementing visuals. The style of music was more to my taste with it’s ambient minimal vibe. I’ll post a short video clip soon."

"all information wants to be free."

in our life time we will see that all art, music, writing and software will be free. personal expression will be freed from the corporate chains of money making that have compromised our mainstream culture. the target marketing that has gutted individual thought will be rendered ineffective. everybody is the creator and consumer.

copyleft.

Madvillian, Nouvelle Vague, The Buzzcocks, Nick Forte', Darkel, The Spinners, Kites, Telepop Musik, Belle and Sebastian, Pelican City, Gil Scott Heron, Girl Talk, The Wake, Lords of the new Church, Jobriath, Pogues, The Sound, Dj Potato Chip, Echo and The Bunnymen, Dj Danger Mouse, Vanhalen, Blondie, The Slits, Fleshtones, GoldFrapp, TV On The Radio, Ratatat, The new Roots album, The Five Stairsteps, Mr. Bungle, Queen, Art Brut, Gladis Knight, Mobb Deep, Blockhead, Megadeth, Q Lazzarus, Heiro, Seu Jorge, "It's a Rev-co world, its a Rev-co world, Spank Rock, The Cramps, Robert Johnson, Captain Beefheart, Lard, Daedelus, " "I'm A Killing Machine," Book of Love, Devo, Fuzzy Lights, Al Green, Portishead, Rolling Stones, Grand Buffet, White Snake, 3-6 Mafia, "The Dead Sea Blues" by Godspeed you Black Emporer, 16 Bitch Pileup, Teddy Pendagrass, Dan Morley, Journey, Adam and His Package, Adam Ant, Black Grape, RadioHead (that Thom Yorke CD too,) Siouxsie and the Banshees, Chris Kope, DJ SHADOW, Nine Inch Nails, The Melvins, M83, DEADSEA, Moldy Peaches, Richard Cheese, Warp Records, The Capricorns, Black Flag, Wesley Willis, RA The Rugged Man, Duran Duran Duran, RugMouth, Roy Ayers, Madlib, Mucca Pazza, Bill Withers, CockRockDisco, Prince, Black Fives, Kraftwerk, The Clash, Talking Heads, Seeping Kind, Cunning Lynguists, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Metallica, Common, Robots In Disguise, Dabrye, Henry Baker, Nobukazu Takemura, Cypress Hill, Depeche Mode, The Jam, 1000 Arms, Busta Rhymes, " Capturing The Flag" by Broken Social Scene, Caribou, Boards of Canada, Guns'n'Roses, Hugs'n'kisses, Ghost Face Killah, Sissy Spacek, KRS-One, Misfits, M.I.A., Final Fantasy, Giorgio Moroder, Madonna, Tom T. Hall, Frank Zappa, Ry Cooder, Goblin, Vincent Gallo, Serge Gainsbourge, Waiwan, Autechre, Viodiods, Ladytron, LCD Soundsystem, Berlin, The Cure, Toychestra, T.Rex, Liquid Liquid, Aphex Twin, HOT CHIP, SEVERED HEADS, GLEN OR GLENDA? BIG D, Jedi Mind Tricks, Tiffany, Gil Manteras Party Dream Tricky, pretty much the 80s, Ween, R. Kelly, BOWIE, Sword Heaven, Echos, that shit dave was doing a couple of days ago.