Reading:
Robin James – The Sonic Episteme
William Gibson – Neuromancer
Listening to:
Beatrice Dillon – Workaround
Tony Allen (RIP) & Hugh Masekela – Rejoice
Watching:
Sam Keogh – If you are reading this, get ready to meet me in your dream TONIGHT
Working on:
Just before lockdown I presented at Transmediale in Berlin and was lucky enough to be part of the Adverserial Hacking workshop run by Matteo Pasquinelli, whose work I have been reading over this period. He presented a new project in progress with Vlad Joler, which was published last week, here: It is a cultural critique or re-perspective of emergent artificial intelligence and machine learning practices. Well worth a read. The bulk of the work in this area focuses on the optic, the visual. At the workshop, I presented my research in the sonic space as part of one panel that looked at sound and music.
Like many artists, musicians and researchers, the pandemic means much of upcoming events, gigs and odd jobs are either cancelled, postponed or suspended in uncertain limbo. I was due to perform with Valentina Vuksic at BOM (Birmingham Open Media) as part of BEASTFEaST 2020. While the festival could not happen, they did manage to present a virtual programme of which our improvisation was a part.
That’s really it from my side. Has also been a full time job trying to not let myself get furious at the news, our ‘dear leaders’ and the way in which the pandemic has been handled from the corridors of power. To make matters worse I got accused of looking like Matt Hancock! But, we can’t end on that, so…
I also built a robot, and took apart a laptop with my daughter. This was, in her words, ‘like, the coolest thing ever’