The Trap is a kaleidoscopic BBC documentary by Adam Curtis that examines the perilously flawed evolution of social theory underpinning Western foreign policy since the 1950’s. Curtis’ amazing use of archival footage– reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s combine paintings– blend with carefully organized narrative and interviews with key players to make highly instructive viewing. The 3-hour journey moves through game theory, nuclear deterrence, market incentivization, R.D. Laing’s theories of family repression and on to genetic determinism, meritocracy, Prozac and finally neo-conservative interpretations of positive and negative liberty.

The program makes a compelling case that these flawed theories have been consistently embraced by both liberal and conservative ideologies and stand in the way of moving beyond our current state of peril.

The Trap - Part 1 Fuck You Buddy Part 2 The Lonely Robot Part 3 We Will Force You To Be Free

When working on SonicAnta in the Sonoran Desert, Glenn Weyant is closely watched by armed US border patrol officers, The Department of Homeland Security and the Police Department of the City of Nogales, AZ. Despite all the authoritative attention, Weyant keeps his cool and continues drumming modified chop sticks against the steel wall of the US-Mexcican boarder. Slowly moving along, he takes a cello bow and begins to play the barbed wire fences and other landmarks and objects separating Mexico and the United States.

Weyant is a visionary- a sonic visionary to be exact. Carefully recording the ambient noises produced, he converts these experimental performances into mixed sound collages that set new standards for the realm of experimental sound recording and align themselves artistically with other groundbreaking sound design experiments, such as All Ice Records from Norway.
The Anta Project blurs the lines between sociopolitical art and experimental music. By reinventing the barrier fence into an electro-acoustic instrument, Weyant breaches on the controversial issue of US boarder control. His comment: “It’s an easy way of galvanizing the tension. We don’t have solutions, but at least we can have a focal point for our fear: ‘We built a wall, we’re safe.’ But if the border has become a symbol of national insecurity, why can’t we take the symbol and turn it on its head? Let’s transform the wall, reconceptualize it as a bridge between two worlds.”
I also urge you to check out on the website what the US and the Mexican government both had to say about his artwork.
A solid piece of work- thank you.

Julius Popp’s installations, a crossover of art and science, explore the interactive relationship of highly complex system such as the natural, social, and cultural processes of our everyday lives. One of the most breathtaking installation I have seen in a while is titled “Bit. Fall”. Popp managed to create a computer program which translates words into a sequences of falling water drops. The words pouring from the ceiling are selected from the Internet according to their importance and frequency, simultaneously reflecting the active vocabulary of current global culture. The cascade of information collapses shortly after the very moment of their creation, highlighting the fugaciousness and vicissitude of our everyday lives and information streams. The brilliance resonating in this work is the audiences highly emotive reaction to the installation, which in itself is entirely made up of autonomous, cold, lifeless media. See here for a short video interview with Julius Popp introducing his work.

Eyebeam’s expansive exhibition FEEDBACK brings together a wide variety of artists, designers, architects and engineers on the topic of “sustainability”. Projects range from public art projects and industrial design to DIY energy solutions and software tools, to inspire discussion and action around a topic that is becoming increasingly meaningless and overused.

The works on display are intended to enlighten and entertain, and ultimately compel viewers to move beyond passive spectatorship. Some of the projects explore civic engagement: Lean Gauthier’s Sow-In (see image above) activates the public, in partnership with local community gardening groups, to sow the seeds of those food plants most in danger of extinction.

Rebecca Bray and Britta Riley’s DrinkPeeDrinkDrinkPee questions the role that our bodies play in larger eco-systems. The project includes an installation and a DIY kit for turning your pee into fertilizer. Other ones, such as Andrea Polli’s Queensbridge Wind Power Project, offer conceptual proposals. Polli investigates how clean renewable wind power might be integrated into the landmark architecture of the Queensboro Bridge.

FEEDBACK is there to challenge and inspire, and while doing so offers pro-active but critical alternatives to the unsustainability of our way of life and culture in general.

Here for Eyebeam.

Brian Boyko did a short-subject documentary (27 minutes) exploring the DIY/Maker movement via last Fall’s Maker Fair Austin.

The third annual Bay Area Maker Faire will be held May 3-4 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. If it’s anything like last year’s, it should be a spectacular event. I’ll be there. Here’s what I had to say about last year’s Faire: Makers vs. The Blob.

Here to watch the documentary.
Here to find out more about Maker Faire.

In general, our daily lives seem to be dominated by our visual senses more than by any other. This may be because we tend to rely on the sense that provides us instantaneously with the most detailed and reliable information – seeing is believing- yet sometimes our visual judgment deceives us and distorts our spatial perception of our auditory and tactile surroundings.

Several members of The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology have come together and created the NYSoundmap project. They were interested in sound and its connection to places and spaces, specifically in New York City. Considering the visual overflow of information that the city has top offer, their projects deal exclusively with the audible experience of various places throughout the five boroughs. One of my favorite projects was created with the help of Google-Maps and is called Sound Seeker.

“Sound-Seeker is a map that privileges the ear over the eye. The project reaches across the city’s geographic, economic, educational, cultural and racial divides. It is at once a historical record and a subjective representation of the city. It is what each user wishes it to be and it is ever growing, ever changing and totally interactive.”

I would encourage everybody to visit this sight and also check out the other projects featured on the NYSoundmap website. So next time you are waiting at a red light, why not just close your eyes and listen…

Taboo Theater 2.0 is an Internet/Theater project by media artists Ursula Endlicher, Ela Kagel and Anke Zimmermann, focusing on the question: How much taboo does art need? On a blog people are invited to submit images, sound files, texts, videos or comments on taboos in art, theater, literature, or on the Web. These posts will then be incorporated in a week-long theater production at Theater am Neumarkt/Chorgasse in Zurich from May 19-24, 2008.

The current issue of Kunst Magazin Berlin is dedicated to Taboos. Eugenia Ilion writes:

“Discussion of the term taboo is complicated from any perspective, because it is a term that is, in reality, empty. Every society, every age, and even every individual attributes to the term another meaning, and for that reason taboo has no consistent content. It serves, rather, as an umbrella-category for an ill-timed subject. As an open code, taboos allow room for interpretation, but the urge to use the term grows with its lack of clarity. This margin of play seems to be predestined for art’s license to do as it pleases. But does art need taboos? What is a taboo?”

With the Internet as a global stage, the artists hope many different points of view will be conveyed. The structure and functionality of the blog will be translated onto the theater stage, where the collected content will be further worked on.

More info and to participate: here.

I love the ingenuity that folks frequently exhibit online and how a simple and effective solution to something can get scooped out of the Net and passed around the blogosphere so that thousands, even millions of people can benefit. Today’s example of that is a macro lens a guy bodged together for his iPhone camera from a lens off a dead digital camera. Add a paper clip and some tape to hold the lens on and protect the iPhone body, and he had a clip-on lens. The second picture above shows the results. And probably in the time it took me to post this item, 100 more such small hacks were likely posted… to Flickr alone.

Here to read the initial blog item.

This short film was written, produced and directed by Charles and Rae Eames for the IBM Pavillion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Animated by John Whitney and scored by Elmer Bernstein, this cartoon animation traces the history of storing and analyzing information from the days of the cavemen up until 1958, placing the computer in the context of human development.

One of the cooler trends to come out of the high-tech DIY/hardware hacking movement has been the creation of a bunch of cottage-industry electronics parts and kit sellers, many of them run by couples. The products these people sell are frequently designed and assembled by them and have a quality and an attention to detail that betrays their labor of love status. Here are some of my favorite such home-grown Radio Shacks:

Solarbotics: Dave and Cheryl have been selling robot kits and parts for at least a decade. I’ve bought from them for as many years and am always impressed by everything they do. As the name implies, they specialize in solar cells, solar power circuits, and robotic parts and kits. The kits are amazingly well-made, fun to build, and very educational.

Evil Mad Scientist Labs/Evil Mad Science Shop: Lenore and Windell’s blog, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, is always a treat to visit as they thoughtfully explore their world, hack its contents, and share what they find, and what they make, with the rest of us. They sell a number of LED-based kits, including an amazingly cool motion-triggered LED coffee table. These kits and other cool stuff are now sold through their new online store: Evil Mad Science Shop.

SparkFun: The folks at SparkFun sell all sorts of microcontrollers, sensors, robot parts, and electronics tools. What started out as a pet project for a couple of college students has turned into a full-blown business.

Adafruit Industries: Limor Fried, AKA Lady Ada, is an MIT-educated engineer who’s become something of an icon in the open source hardware hacking movement. She makes and sells amazing kits and microcontroller boards and parts through her store Adafruit Industries. Above is pictured her extremely popular x0xb0x synth kit.