I interviewed Dianna Dilworth for Rhizome.

“Reproduction, appropriation, and automation are three major ongoing concerns within contemporary music and art. It’s strange then that relatively few people know about two mid-20th Century musical instruments that embodied all of these methods: the Chamberlin keyboard and its offshoot, the Mellotron, the first instruments built on taped samples of the sounds of others.

In Mellodrama: The Mellotron Documentary, filmmaker Dianna Dilworth takes measure of the many players in the story behind these unruly sound machines, whose very existence ultimately shaped much of popular music. The film is a study in the unpredictability of innovation, and how each extension of the same technology can conflict with the intentions of those that came before it.”

I just started writing for Rhizome. My first piece is  a look at Philip Ross.

It’s easy to see Philip Ross as a recent embodiment of an age-old spirit of inquiry, where aesthetics, personal discovery, and scientific knowledge are linked, and all seem to tap into the fertile edges of local industry. In San Francisco that means computing and biotechnology, and Ross’s work makes use of both. The transplanted New Yorker has a body of artwork that centers around human interaction with biological materials like fungus, plants, and mollusks. Ross was also curator of the BioTechnique exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and frequently teaches classes and gives lectures, such as one he delivered December 2 to amateur mycologists at the Oakland Museum of California.

Read the piece.

Oops: The transition seems to have added strange characters where I had quotation marks and apostrophes. It’s possible that it may have been a “smart quotes” issue, but I’m not sure. I need to go through and check.

I just got the new Japanese copy of Core Memory. They did a really good job — it looks fantastic. Of course I can’t comment on the translation exactly, but for all of his diligence and attention to detail, I’d say that translator Masao Kamosawa must have really done a great job. Thank you to him and editor Hideo Tamura (and of course the original editor, Alan Rapp).
I’m going to Japan next week to give a few talks. I will try to take pictures, and talk with all the interesting people I know I’ll meet.

Here’s the schedule:
Title: Kakkoii Kikai Night (the night of cool machines) Vol.2
Date: March 20th (Japanese national holiday — Equinox) 14:00 - 17:00

Address: Hayashi Bldg B2, 1-14-7, Kabuki-cho,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-3205-6864
Host : Katsuya Terada (Illustrator, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsuya_Terada)
Gabin Ito (Editor, Game Designer)
Takumi “Sentou-ki” Funada (Engineer, Writer)
Guest: Mark Richards, John Alderman, Masao Kamosawa

——

Title: Author’s event - “Core Memory”
with Mark Richards, John Alderman (Interpreter: Masao Kamosawa)
Date: March 21st, 19:00 - 20:00
Venue: Junku-do Shoten Shinjuku-ten 8F, tea room
Address: Shinjuku Mitsukoshi Alcott 6, 7, 8F

Tel: 03-5363-1300
Capacity: 40 people
Fee: 1,000 yen (with 1 drink)

The first, Amagatana, is an umbrella that when used like a sword sounds like one, even recognizing different patterns and special techniques. The second, most recent addition is the fetching, is Fula, a silky muffler that flutters dramatically when its wearer makes special gestures.

Driven by motion sensors, the two can be used on their own, or in combination. Evidently, in combination the “secret final special move” of Amagatana is unleashed.

Sounds awesome! Watch the video to get a better sense of these cool devices.

“I was bored with the old record company’s jaded view,” McCartney says, plopped on a sofa in the large, comfortable farmhouse that doubles as a rehearsal studio here in the rolling, tree-studded hills of rural East Sussex. Outside, there is an old windmill, and in the near distance, the hazy blue carpet of the English Channel.

“They’re very confused, and they will admit it themselves: that this is a new world, and they’re a little bit at a loss as to what to do. So they’ve got millions of dollars and X budget … for them to come up with boring ways — because they’ve been at it for so long — to what they call ‘market’ it. And I find that all a bit disturbing.

“I write it, I play it, I record it, and that’s all fun. And you go to the record company, and it gets very boring. You sit around in rooms with people, and you’re almost falling asleep” — he rolls his head down midchest —”and they’re almost falling asleep.

And after that, he decides that Starbucks is the way to go. Not falling asleep at all.

We had a fun party at the Computer History Museum for the release of Core Memory! That’s photographer Mark Richards (who really drove the project) distracting me with an inscrutable gesture as I diligently try to move books.

Yahoo’s new celebrity site, OMG! just launched (in beta). Giving all that celebrity material a sparkling new home. Notice how the interactions reflect the brand? Well, hopefully they do, anyway. I was part of the team that worked on this. And despite the anxiety that celebrity culture sometimes gives me, I think we did a good job.

In other celebrity news, the photographer who snapped the Paris Hilton pic, crying in the car as they took her back to jail, is the same guy who took the famous picture of the crying, naked girl running from her napalmed village in Vietnam. Read about Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut in the Online Photographer.