by tomtenney on March 3, 2011
Were I one of the lucky ones gifted with time for fun on the weekends (instead of school work and RE/Mixed Media Festival meetings, which are now in full swing) I would definitely do one of these:
Tomorrow, March 4th, at midnight the Spectacle Theater in South Williamsburg is screening the rarely-seen 1971 grindhouse classic The Big Dollhouse. This film – about 5 women escaping from a Philippines prison – was Pam Grier’s first role after her walk-on in Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and as far as I know is not available on DVD. Also, is just one of those movie’s that’s WAY more fun to see at midnight in a room full of people.
On Saturday night, my friend Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) will be spinning – along with Joro Boro and Brian Degraw – at “Six Planets in Pisces” an Evolver.net Dance Party at:
WIP (Works in Progress)
34 Vandam between Varrick and 6 Ave. NYC
9pm-late, $15.
Proceeds support the Evolver Social Movement
If these six planets happen to align in my favor, maybe I’ll see you at one. Have a great weekend!
Tagged as:
film,
Music,
NYC Events
by tomtenney on February 26, 2011
Today Ashleigh and I took a trip to the Gowanus canal with my field recorder and a homemade hydrophone that I attempted to construct out of a toy mic, a balloon, vinyl tubing, K-Y and modeling clay to see what kind of underwater sound magic could be mined. Well, suffice it to say that there’s a reason that good hyrdophones can cost several hundred dollars, this one made out of children’s toys and lube didn’t last a hot second in the toxic depths of the Gowanus. However, just as we submerged it for the first time – and right before it crapped out completely – I suddenly got a cacophony of craziness over the headphones – it was like the mic was picking up every radio transmission in the tri-state area simultaneously. It didn’t last very long, but it was super cool and luckily caught on the recorder. Have a listen.
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Tagged as:
Brooklyn,
radio,
sounds
by tomtenney on February 14, 2011
At the risk of saying too much about the ‘intent’ of this piece (something I usually steer clear of), I feel as though explaining a bit about how it was constructed might enhance the listening. As a production project for a class in ‘Audio Experiments,’ I tried to find screams that were as “authentic” as possible – some of my sources were CVR (cockpit voice recorders) from plane crashes, phone calls from WTC on 911, and sounds from the Haiti earthquake aftermath to name a few. In other words, screams as media that were never meant to be media, the most unwilling participants in art you’ll ever find. Pulling these together and listening to each one was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever worked on – just completely draining emotionally.
There is one scream of my own, made by taping a homemade piezo transducer mic to my throat and screaming into my pillow. The scream was 4 seconds long, but I time-remapped it to 5 minutes, the length of the piece. Then I remapped the other screams at various lengths and used these to form the backbone of the “symphony” – the underlying rhythm and melody – trying to layer them in a way that was eerily musical. Other layers were then added, including many of the screams heard at their original speed.
WARNING: Some have found the content of this piece disturbing. Proceed at your own risk.
Listen with a good set of headphones if at all possible: [Runtime: 5:00]
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Tagged as:
audio,
Remix,
screaming,
sound art
by tomtenney on January 28, 2011
Art by Liz Maher
If anyone’s out in the BK this evening and is looking for something that’s cheap, fun, cultural and intellectually rewarding – come see me perform tonight at
Storyscape Journal’s Issue #6
Launch Party at the
Brooklyn Historical Society. Well, I guess technically I won’t be “performing,” but rather presenting an audio piece I made last summer entitled “Reunion.” I’ve been working on a new piece called “Hard Luck,” and I’d hoped to actually perform that one live on stage using my new
Ableton software, but alas technical snafus got in the way and so I’m falling back on something older.
There are a ton of other great artists and performers on the bill, including Ken Cormier, The Roulettes, Stephen Massimilla, Amber Boardman, Liz Maher, and Nate Pritts and Jennifer H. Fortin. Should be fun, hope you can make it!
Tagged as:
Brooklyn,
performance
by tomtenney on January 7, 2011
Over the Christmas holiday, some pre-pubescent boy from the midwest apparently called the Viacom switchboard (or automated directory) looking for Tom Kenney – the voice of Spongebob Squarepants – and got me. I’m guessing he posted my number to Club Penguin, Weeworld or some other kids community because when I returned from the holiday break I had several (well, ok, 4) messages from different boys inviting me to birthday parties and baseball games. A friend on Facebook asked if I would post them, but unfortunately I deleted all but one. Here’s the one I randomly kept – it’s not the best of the lot, but it’ll do.
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Tagged as:
audio,
spongebob,
voicemail
by tomtenney on December 29, 2010
This is the final paper written for my ‘Media Studies: Ideas’ class at The New School, Fall 2010.
Today’s artist – like Donna Haraway’s cyborg feminist – moves beyond both traditional limitations and modernist ideas about art, and enters into a hypermediated relationship with society and technology in which technological methods and mediated collaboration across networks are common. Art has always been a carrier of cultural information. Cybernetics as a theory of communication has been influential in the arts, as both metaphor and model for the process of artistic creation. Understanding how art and artists are influenced by Norbert Wiener’s cybernetic theory and Haraway’s cyborg theory – and in some cases how certain artists are claiming to actually “become” cyborgs – requires us to look at how Wiener and Haraway’s theories differ, as well as to delve a bit into art’s long relationship with technology and the larger artistic traditions out of which today’s artists have emerged.
In this paper, I will argue that artists calling themselves “cyborg artists” represent only a small fraction of the ways in which cybernetics has infiltrated art and ideas about art. I also hope to demonstrate that, in fact, their work often isn’t cybernetic at all, if we adhere to Norbert Wiener’s definition. The “artist as cyborg,” I will contend, can refer not only to the materiality of the forms used to create art (i.e. machines and/or new media technology) but also to an aesthetic which is modeled on the core principles of cybernetics: negative feedback used within a system to achieve a goal. Soraya Murray calls this “Cybernated Aesthetics,” and in her analysis of Korean artist Lee Bul, explains that “while [Bul is] calling upon an array of technologies that include (but are not limited to) media arts, [her works] are nevertheless fully engaged with cybernated life.” (Murray 47) This is a perceptual shift away from thinking of “cyborg art” exclusively as those that utilize new media technology, and towards a more holistic theory that situates art in Wiener’s more inclusive theory of cybernetics. [continue reading this post...]
Tagged as:
Art,
artists,
cybernetics,
cyborg
by tomtenney on December 15, 2010
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.
References:
Barbie Dolls, Love Story, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, KC & The Sunshine Band, Jaws, Queen (the band), Barry Manilow, Pong, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Google, Woody Woodpecker, Altered States, True Red, Run Lola Run, The Shining, Dead Alive, The Six Million Dollar Man, ET, The Elephant Man, One Got Fat, The Wolfman, Age of Turbulance, An American Werewolf in London, Physical Aspects of Puberty, Olga’s House of Shame, Carrie, 70′s Bic Commercial, 60′s Wilkinson Sword Commercial, Frankenstein, La Belle et La Bete.
& special nods to Todd Haynes & Bruce Conner
Tagged as:
Remix,
Video
