on my walk home from school just now and considering the sonic outlaws video watched last week. . . okay i have to start from some personal perspectives that may be pretty far off, but i think it will get me somewhere? maybe not but i guess i need to just think aloud for awhile.

i first heard negativland probably in 1991 or 1992, probably listening to the local college radio station. . . i was lucky enough to have older siblings that were radio djs in college, turning me onto things unexpected on the airwaves and at home. negativland was one of those things i didn't know quite what to make of, but i knew there was something cool about it. it didn't strike me sonically as something i wanted to listen to again really, but it had that air of bands at the time that were political in some sense. but then i probably thought that any band then using found sounds of people speaking had similar purposes. like consolidated. (is that band still around?)

but now to consider their issues of copyright, it does seem silly that they were attacked for their use of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." especially now considering this issue, i don't think anyone would blink an eye. or maybe?

I suppose if it were me i would just like to be asked permission. Personally, I would think it was great if someone considered my work to have affected someone enough that they wanted to make a comment with it, even if it were to be in a negative tone. I can think of situations that i have been in when playing music when my sound has been manipulated by others. i was just in new york over the break and my friend byron and i did one of the things that we often do together- he records me doing my stuff and then uses it for his own purposes. i don't mind at all, but i also know and respect what he's going to do with it. but then the first time i tried to play music with an ex-boyfriend of mine, i played some stuff that he recorded, then he immediately manipulated it into something else. i remember crying. . .and well, that was i think just the first of many times we tried to play music and it usually ended with me crying. possibly because i didn't like what he did, and maybe because i just wasn't expecting it.
I can think of a few situations i have been in when playing music. i was in this band called for a very long time, and this guy offered to record us. after spending some time recording an album's worth of stuff, he gave us a copy of the recording- which was a completely remixed crazy version of our music. i remember vaguely that he tried to sell it to us in this way. . something about a feature about him that was going to be in AP magazine and he was going to push the music. basically, he needed some material to present and used ours to present his own ideas. and really, he did a fantastic recording job and some of the things he did were indeed amazing. . but it wasn't our music. and the whole thing was under false pretenses. later we even let half of it be released as a split with another band he recorded. we ended up being fine with it, but it would have been nice to be asked.

so as with every situation. . it certainly depends on the specifics. i'm typically not a person who appropriates other people's work. yes i've used found things, but they were designs that were sold to be used (commercial decals) and sounds that are meant to be used as well- bbc sound effects. i'd rather just make my own stuff personally. if someone takes my stuff and alters it without asking me? well if its good and well done i'll give them props. if it sucks, i'll be pissed off.

happy lunar new year!

its the year of the dog. its my sister's year.

i sort of wish i had planned an event.
but thoughts of the new year flashes me back to memories of new years in taiwan two years ago. my cousin's wedding, all the family, the food, my uncle asking our ancestors to find me a good husband, going with my mom and my aunt to the temple where my grandparent's ashes are kept and paying respects to them with a lot of food and incense, hanging over the railing outside and asking my mom if she wants to the same treatment when she goes, going to my other grandmother's temple to eat their fabulous new year's feast. . .

so here. . . respects to my deceased grandparents. . . and goodbye to my deceased grandparents beautiful house with the large snail on it- just got sold. on the upper right that's my still living grandmother with my sister and niece. they had matching hairdos.

this turned into a sentimental post. i don't know what happened.

My other technologically saavy class this semester is Intro to Music Technology with Lyn Goeringer. Our first project is actually to create a website. This is great for me because I have always wanted to make one but just have never gotten around to trying to learn this. I just find it ironic that i had to venture outside the art department to get an assignment on this! Regardless, our first step in this is to research some websites, using an electronic musician as way to learn info. and examine good and bad parts of non-commercial sites. My research took me to a very interesting composer and performer Laetitia Sonami. She is most known for this work called the "Lady's Glove," a wearable instrument that controls sound and light.

Anyway, I think this will be a great class for me, not just because I have been wanting and needing technical help with my sound recording (pretty lo-fi right now), but also as a way to learn more about the history of electronic music and get me back into these types of musics that i have neglected since moving here and since the days of my old radio show in undergrad, tintinabulary.

Yay for school, right? Now if i can just get a handle on my many work-jobs. Need to quit one. I have to write that down to remind myself because i somehow keep forgetting.

hyperoriginal metaauditory experience

Riot is the website in question.

Who is the artist? I say it is Napier, the creator of the site. But everyone's always got a different take on it and I'm open to other suggestions. Napier's the one with the concept, the idea-maker and organizer of what you see in front of you. The website designers and such are contributors to what he is doing, but we are all contributing too. We're just all pawns, little bits and pieces to this project, but Napier's got it figured out before we get to it, realize that we're part of it. They say that all art is thievery right? i'm not sure if i agree 100% with that, but maybe 98%? or not. again, you can change my mind. (in actuality, i'm an idealist and i want to try to make, or assemble things into a new thing at least). but yes, i do think that most things and ideas came from somewhere else but are just assembled in everyone's individual way. its just like ideas themselves. everyone's got great ideas, but the execution is what counts right? how and what you do with those ideas are the aspects that are going to make people stop and say hey, what's going on. in the case of RIOT, Napier has clearly stated this by something that's obviously a collage of things that aren't his.

The art for me is the end result here and the ideas behind it. an everchanging collage never the same. the thing that you look at that makes you wonder, okay, what is that and why is it there? but it also turns into a little game. . . what will it do next? what if i. . . what about this? the children in us want to play around, make it do different things. i still like bright and shiny things. would my nephews like it i wonder? since i do, i suppose i expect them to as well.

what we have here is a place for thoughts regarding things going on in one graduate art seminar class. and more.