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I will be experimenting with the google api's in the coming months. Hence the generic google map here, the 'hello world' of the maps api.

posted: 20 11 08

Welcome to my minty fresh test page!

I've posted this site as is for now (adding audio and video streaming content in the next weeks) If you need to find something, goto the old site, the link is in the footer. I'm trying out a purely visual/data-driven interface in the spirit of Edward Tufte, the color watch and candy dots. You get to be a guinea piglet!

Work spaces are color-coded. General topic entries (like this one), are green.Videos are blue. Audio is pink. Events are yellow. To select an entry click on a small dot in the panel above. To close a section click on a big dot in the lower panel. The small dots are ordered chronologically starting with the newest entries on the top left.

posted: 28 07 08

Altercations (excerpts), 2007, 11mb, 6min

11.mp4
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A Live Oscilloscope set from the Spring of 2007. A fully non-scored approach is used, whereby only the process audio is broadcast through delayed feedback and distortion. The images are generated pre-fx. The sound in this recording was unfortunately distorted by the camera.

seven-nineteen, 2007, 7mb, 6min

719.mov
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Video Synthesizer explorations from a residency at Experimental Television Center. A Sine Wave is driving a CV Step sequencer. The Sequencer steps through several video channels running through the Sandin and Video Colorizer. The sound is mostly the Sine Wave.

Stalk Attache, 2007, 11mb

stalk.mp4
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Oscillator-driven video feedback from a residency at ETC. A sine wave drives the step sequencer. The sequencer cv out controls several other oscillators which generate the ostinato as well as several attributes of the video colorizer being fed into the video feedback circuit.

CRT Two, 2007, 13mb

Exp2.mp4
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Oscilloscope improvisation with the early 'Synthiscope' prototypes.

Wobulator One, 2007, 6mb

Exp4.mp4
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Everyone has to (or should) use Nam Jun Paik's Wobulator at least once at ETC.

Fairlight Feedback, 2007, 5mb

Exp1.mp4
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Also produced at the Experimental Television Center. Another feedback loop with fairlight video synthesizer mixed into the signal.

Free to be. . . You and Me (reprise), 2006, 6mb

Free.mp4
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Curated for the Free to be.. You and Me Invitational. This is the last chapter of 70's sex-ed phenom of the same name (not including 'Invitational') randomly chopped up and run through an oscilloscope. The H-sync resolution is partially controlled by sine waves, which also form the score of the exercise.

Void Ratio pt.1, 2006, 11mb

vRChap.mp4
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Earlier scope and feedback, still using a 'scored' approach, but utilizing more of the process sound (the audio that's used to generate the image).

Void Ratio : Scope Tutorial, 2006, 15mb

vr.mov
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A quick, cheery tutorial on the basics of lissajous patterns.

Vatican Satellite, 2005, 34mb, 13'

Vatican.mp4
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Oscilloscope piece produced for Transparent Processes, an 'extended cinema' program curated by Nick Hallett for The Kitchen. This uses little to no process audio to emphasize the quasi-narrative quality of the image.

Pylon Form, 2005, 15mb

Pylon.mp4
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This set was first performed at Ocularis in the Spring of 2005.

NowThenAfter

Fri, June 19 05PM (2009), free
Harvestworks
596 Broadway, New York, NY USA

Presenting the Nowthenafter album in SurroundSound

Ikue Mori & DJ Olive
Judy Nylon & SA
David Linton & Charles Cohen
Marina Rosenfled
Ray Sweeten
Treyce Warren
Mark C
Mal Torrance
Stuart Argabright

Nick Hallett: Voice & Light Systems, Part Four: Auroville

Thu, May 28 07PM (2009), $12/$15
The New Museum
235 Bowery, New York, NY USA

Nick Hallett—singer, composer, and downtown impresario—creates a four-part series at the New Museum theater connecting the human voice to multimedia ritual. In collaboration with a rotating cast of performers and artists, Hallett presents original music and performance alongside new interpretations of celebrated vocal works by Meredith Monk and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The singing voice is seen here in its rawest state, stripped of its language-based sensibilities, and more as a flexible instrument of sound, capable of producing protosemantic, acoustic phenomena. As such, concepts of drone, repetition, and improvisation prevail over the tropes of traditional song. Each evening is staged using pure light, illuminated objects, and projection methods derived from structuralist film and the psychedelic lightshow to create a live, interdisciplinary synthesis of sound and image. Taking from John Cage’s maxim that “art should not be different than life, but an action within life,” Voice & Light Systems revisits the Zen-Buddhism-inspired methodologies popular among Western artists during the 1960s and ’70s as ritual practices in and of themselves, envisioning their scores much as sacred texts in a pre-literary culture, to be rendered as expressions of devout “art consciousness.” With this experimental tradition as a starting point, Hallett begins to develop new work for contemporary contemplation, with the voice—the most basic instrument of artistic expression—at its core.

Hallett’s monthlong residency ends tonight with a new multimedia ritual created by Auroville, a “tribute band” to the experimental community dedicated to the guru Sri Aurobindo on the southeastern coast of India, founded by his spiritual partner, known as the Mother. Auroville is performed as an immersive, audiovisual travelogue by a collective of musicians and multimedia artists, featuring Hallett, Ana Matronic, Seth Kirby, Zach Layton, Brock Monroe, and Ray Sweeten. A wraparound projection design will set the stage for Hallett’s chanting and electronic music while Matronic performs on the glass armonica, an integrated series of glass bowls, popularized as a musical instrument by Benjamin Franklin. Hallett and Matronic, alongside performing artists Caitlin Kirby, Renée Soucy and Juan-Carlos Castro, act as celebrants for a universal ritual of art, devoid of specific icons or dogmas (much like its namesake in India). Sound design and electro-acoustics by Jeff Cook. This performance will make heavy use of stroboscopic imagery.

Nick Hallett: Voice & Light Systems, Part Three: Whispering Exercises Premiere

Thu, May 21 07PM (2009), $12/$15
The New Museum
235 Bowery, New York, NY USA

Nick Hallett—singer, composer, and downtown impresario—creates a four-part series at the New Museum theater connecting the human voice to multimedia ritual. In collaboration with a rotating cast of performers and artists, Hallett presents original music and performance alongside new interpretations of celebrated vocal works by Meredith Monk and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The singing voice is seen here in its rawest state, stripped of its language-based sensibilities, and more as a flexible instrument of sound, capable of producing protosemantic, acoustic phenomena. As such, concepts of drone, repetition, and improvisation prevail over the tropes of traditional song. Each evening is staged using pure light, illuminated objects, and projection methods derived from structuralist film and the psychedelic lightshow to create a live, interdisciplinary synthesis of sound and image. Taking from John Cage’s maxim that “art should not be different than life, but an action within life,” Voice & Light Systems revisits the Zen-Buddhism-inspired methodologies popular among Western artists during the 1960s and ’70s as ritual practices in and of themselves, envisioning their scores much as sacred texts in a pre-literary culture, to be rendered as expressions of devout “art consciousness.” With this experimental tradition as a starting point, Hallett begins to develop new work for contemporary contemplation, with the voice—the most basic instrument of artistic expression—at its core.

Tonight Hallett premieres a new composition, Whispering Exercises, for women’s voices (Katie Eastburn, Rachel Henry Rachel Mason, Daisy Press), harp (Shelley Burgon), and electronic pulsations generated from customized software created by Ray Sweeten, with sound design by Zach Layton. This is a concert version of music currently being developed for a new opera created by Hallett and the video and performance artist Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines 10, to premiere at The Kitchen in Spring 2010. Folk song forms such as rounds and hockets are layered over electronic arpeggiations, in addition to acoustic phenomena such as Shepard Tones (a series of rising pitches which elicits feelings of weightlessness), while lumia and oscillographics float throughout the space.

Issue Project Room Fundraiser

Tue, May 19 08PM (2009), $20
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main St., Brooklyn, NY USA

Loosely inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 masterpiece of psychedelic cinema The Holy Mountain, ISSUE Project Room and Galapagos Art Space will collaborate to host a sumptuous event for the senses. Marking ISSUE’s sixth anniversary, the event will be part costume party and part benefit, with raffles, prizes, photobooths, auctions and some wild performances.

The evenings Delights and Highlights:

JG Thirlwell (FOETUS) with Ed Pastorini and Owen Bloedow
Ray Sweeten – live video and performance
Brock Monroe – live visuals (member of Joshua Light Show)
"Straight and Narrow" (1970), Film screening by Tony Conrad with soundtrack by John Cale and Terry Riley
Films by Martha Colburn & Marie Losier
Elysian Fields
MV Carbon
members of Excepter
DJ Fabio from WFMU's "Strength through Failure"
And others TBA

Unity Gain

Thu, November 06 07PM (2008), $7
Monkeytown
58 North 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY USA

Another Unity Gain approaches. I don't know what this one will have in store, but I don know I will be doing a duet with Zach Layton. As usual there will be two show times, 7:30-ish and 10. Reservations are recommended!

Darmstadt - Classics of the Avant Garde

Wed, September 24 08PM (2008), $10
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street, Brooklyn USA

This one is something of a homecoming for me, since I used to work as a 'sound guy' at Galapagos and also bartended EVERY Darmstadt show since its inception back in... 2005? 4? ..when the big G was on North 6th. I have not been to this new Galapagos, but I hear it's actually pretty cool. It probably doesn't even have that New York bar smell yet which, depending on your inclinations, is great or terrible. I will be performing scope and video feedback jams fresh from playing at the SFEMF. Possibly with guests. Possibly not.

San Francisco Electronic Music Festival

Thu, September 04 08PM (2008), $12-17
Project Artaud Theater
450 Florida Street, San Francisco USA

I will be doing an extended Oscilloscope performance for the first time ON THE WEST COAST. I have to say I am very excited about it. I share the evening with Edmund Campion (with Thomas Buckner) and Tujiko Noriko.

Lux 2008

Fri, June 27 11PM (2008), 12euro
Fundacion Tres Culturas
Isla de La Cartuja, Sevilla Spain

Sevilla was rad.

Improvisations for Piano and Oscilloscope

Fri, May 09 08PM (2008), $10
The Stone
corner of avenue C and 2nd, NY, NY USA

Unity Gain

Thu, April 24 07PM (2008), 7
Monkeytown
58 Norht 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY USA

Andy Graydon + Ray Sweeten

Fri, April 04 08PM (2008), $10
Issue Project Room
232 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY USA

What the Dormouse said

Sun, July 29 06PM (2007), 7
Monkeytown
58 Norht 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY USA

Matt Welch performs Bhima Swarga (Balinese Journey of the Soul 2006) with Ikue Mori* and 6-piece gamelan ensemble. This collaboration is a modern spin on the Balinese Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppet theatre. Ikue Mori has added image processing to her unique sound manipulations to create a brilliant audio/visual performance animating characters from traditional Balinese paintings. Welch's accompanying compositions for Balinese gamelan are based on bagpipe laments. Utilizing a revolutionary new gamelan species called Semara Dana, Welch is able to take his starting material of excerpts and arrangements of pibroch, the classical music of the bagpipe and completely map it onto the pitch spectrum and idiomatic rhythmic, formal and textural practices of the Balinese gamelan.

New York Independent Film and Video Festival

Sun, July 22 12PM (2007)
Village East Cinemas
181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, NY, NY USA

What the dormouse said

Thu, July 12 08PM (2007), 5
Monkeytown
58 Norht 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY USA

In this, the very first installment of What the Dormouse Said, Ray Sweeten and Zach Layton perform new and old takes on sound/image generation. Using the OpenGL protocol, Layton produces dimensional wire-frame geometrics and extracts lush sound abstractions from the visual field. Approaching at 180 degrees head-on, Sweeten digitally synthesizes two sets of waveforms which are graphed to XY coordinates on a pre-pc era analog oscilloscope. Joining us this evening, the live circuit building stylings of Loud Objects.

Zach Layton, Ray Sweeten, Vito Acconci

Fri, June 22 06PM (2007), 15
Roulette
20 Greene Street, New York, NY USA

Monkey Town Semiennial

Fri, June 15 08PM (2007), 5
Monkeytown
58 Norht 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY USA

We offer a twice-yearly video art program - a semiennial - of the high water marks, the standouts, the stuff that made an impression. The immersive video equivalent of \"come hang out a my place and listen to some records.\" The curatorial criteria is no more complicated than this is the best new stuff we've seen. We've continued to be turned on to great work and we're just itching to pass it along.

A lab is a lab is a lab

Thu, May 24 08PM (2007), 10
The Kitchen
512 West 19th St., NY, NY USA

Free to Be You and Me Invitational

Fri, May 04 08PM (2007)
Aurora Picture Show
800 Aurora St, Houston, TX USA

Inspired by a film artist´s recent discovery that his 16mm film collection included copies of the 1974 film Free to Be ....You and Me, more than twenty artists were invited to rework, restage, and respond the original´s all-too-memorable segments.

FlimMakers Coop 3rd Annual Benefit Concert

Mon, April 23 08PM (2007), 5
Angel Orensantz
66 East 4th Street, NY, NY USA

The Film-Makers’ Coop held its third annual Film and Music Benefit on April 23rd at Angel Orensanz Center in the Lower East Side. Within the beautiful, gothic surroundings of the former synagogue hundreds of the Coop’s friends met up to celebrate the art of the experimental avantgarde while enjoying themselves, each other, and the mesmerizing film and music performances. An immersive evening of live music by Philip Glass, Bill Frisell Trio, Pedro Soler, The Clogs, Irena and Vojtech Havel, Dorit Chrysler, Benoît Pioulard, Ray Sweeten, members of The National, and Now We Are Here feat. Jonas Mekas, performing to experimental films by Robert Breer, Marie Menken, Maya Deren, Harry Smith, Bill Morrison, Bradley Eros, Jonas Mekas, Lynne Sachs & Mark Street, and Paul Sharits.

Media Archeology

Thu, April 19 07PM (2007), 10
Aurora Picture Show
800 Aurora St, Houston, TX USA

Media Archeology is here! Get ready for three mindbending days of audiovisual kinesis featuring hackers, benders, builders, and overall enthusiasts of the analogue aesthetic. These artists invent their own instruments of sound and light, and find new uses for technologies of the past to create future-forward entertainment. Thursday night features Bruce McClure and Ray Sweeten at Aurora Picture Show