skynoise

*Eyelashes lightly fluttering on the cheeks and temples of friends will take off as a wildly popular new form of greeting.

*Ringxiety disorder will leave vast numbers of people twitching as it becomes increasingly difficult to find a unique ringtone in their urban surrounds.

*The War on Moisture (carried onto planes ) which superceded The War on Toenail Clippers, will in turn be superceded by The War on LeftHanders, Redheads, RollerBladers, Taxidermists & People Wearing Reflective Sunglasses.

*GooTube to get sued for a new viral video worm that enters then eats the spine, travelling inside the host body for 9 months and growing up to a metre in length, before finally exiting through the optic nerve at 1cm per hour.

*Having decided that growing older and colder is best avoided, humans will for the most part endeavour to keep their hearts and minds flexible in 2007, another step as natives into the solar century.

Cu on the flipside, may your internal cup of radness overfloweth in the new year.

Am going on a 3-4 day solo bike-ride through the Grampians + down to Port Fairy, then Warrnambool on the Victorian SouthWest coast, which seems the perfect thing to be doing right about now. And so I leave tomorrow, should be back by Wednesday night, and doing the audiovisual thing @ Plug N Play on Thursday 28th. Which I wouldn’t usually mention, but in light of recent tragic lost-in-wilderness stories, feel compelled to leave at least some evidence of wanderings. Can’t wait… 269km of lungs not in the city anymore…

UPDATE : That was rad. Photos of the ride upped here.

How many species died their last death in 2006? Hard to uncover, but a decade ago, Edward O Wilson, the Harvard naturalist, estimated that about 30,000 species were going extinct each year – an extinction rate of about three an hour. So let’s say 30,000 species disappeared in 2006 – including the Yangtze River Dolphin & the Western black rhino – nobody will be seeing them ever again. Fun headlines from reputable sources are all systems go at David’s Extinction site:

One Third of Primates Face Extinction (BBC—2002)

One quarter of mammals face extinction within 30 years (United Nations—BBC—2002)

Mass Extinction of Freshwater Creatures Forecast (WWF Report)

90% of all large fish gone from world’s oceans ( Nature 2003 )

World’s amphibians face extinction (Chicago Tribune—2006)

Half of earth’s plant species face extinction ( BBC Science)

Etc etc….. And if present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years, as a result of habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.

No doubt other species / nature / lizard-people overlords are praying for the likes of Bird Flu, AIDS, Mad Cow Disease & Ebola to get together and mutate into some kind of ravenous, unstoppable salvaging beast.

Turns out we added around 200 million human nipples to the planet during 2006 ( www.xist.org/earth ), which means we now have another 100 million or so people that need feeding. Still another 2500 million to come before our little spurt plateaus out in 2050 when we’ll have 9 billion people. And just to re-cap, to contextualise this spurt, we hit 6 billion in 1999, 5 billion in 1987, 4 billion in 1974, 3 billion in 1960, 2 billion in 1927 and 1 billion in 1804.

To the left, the many nippled ‘Madz’ @ the recent Manhua Wonderlands festival in Brisbane, in the Karaoke Bedlam event, where each of 10 karaoke rooms was taken over / reinterpretted by various artists. I had a video karaoke room nearby, and was also visiting because of my Kaiju Noodles video clip produced for Potato Masta & 2 Pants Rotation. Latex breast costume built by Madz herself, with individual breasts modelled from various Brisbane artists.

Hazily through the smoke we can already spy 2007. Another lap of the sun almost done. Only 94 more years until the 22nd Century. 2010 seems strange enough. And what did we learn in 2006?

Decentralised, Diverse Media = Good

TIME magazine named “YOU’ their person of the year for 2006 – for seizing the reigns of global media, and generating your own passionate content. And indeed, any techmagazine’s end-of-year list of the tired, wired and on fire will no doubt be championing the likes of Wikipedia, Flickr, MyTube & YouSpace etc. Give people more ways to connect, more ways to discover, more ways to communicate – and they’ll run with it in ways previously unimagined. These are just embryonic days though, the above sites mere catalysts for introducing people to the joys of being active media participants rather than spectators. The fun to look forward to is when a media literate and active population is carving out ever more of their own niches, nooks and crannies well away from any overarching profiteers.

Music Continues To Mutate

So many ways to find new music now, deliriously good. That’s all that matters, the business models will catch up eventually. Soundtrack for my year? Well, the last few months have been especially blessed by the likes of Tim Hecker, Casino Vs Japan, Skream, TTC, Ghislain Poirier, DJ C & endless gems found on the blogs of DJ Rupture, Wayne & Wax, Drty.Shdw.Prjkts, Analog Giant, Fluo Kids and half a million others. Typing, Tim Koch’s ‘Faena’ blares wonderfully and demands to be added to the list. Local shout-outs to Suckaphish P Jones, Aleks & The Ramps, Potato Masta & 2 Pants Rotation, & Flying Scribble.

No, this is not from a Cheech & Chong movie. I have no idea if Michael Jackson is involved. We Are The World however, and we are encouraged for anti-war purposes, to simultaneously orgasm on Dec 22:

“WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy a Synchronized Global Orgasm. There are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, so the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

WHEN? Winter Solstice Day – Friday, December 22nd, at the time of your choosing, in the place of your choosing and with as much privacy as you choose.”

Science will tell you there is no centre of the universe, that the universe is expanding in all directions from every point. And so at the time of writing, Dec 14, 2006, this makes the left earlobe of the organist / accordionist / guitarist / vocalist of Melbourne’s ‘Flying Scribble‘, just as important, and expansive as any other square centimetred patch of multi-dimensional vibrating space. Below, some of what tickles that ear.

Space Lady Vs The Sonic Manipulator

‘Kooky space-a-delic busker of the year award’ could only ever be tied between these two buskers, were they both on the same continent or in the same competition. The Sonic Manipulator = Claude Woodward, ‘Urban Spaceman and Planetary Citizen’, subject of a recent documentary “Ground Control to Major Tron”, and self described as ‘Fred Astaire meets Neil Armstrong’. What this translates to on the street (often in Melbourne’s CBD ) is a tinfoil covered astronaut making ethereal wailing noises with a wild range of custom-made musical inventions, designed to allow body motion and gestures to control aspects of his songs, eg THE CLAUDE-A-TRON: controls a synthesiser’s pitch by a 190mm rod moving in an arc, and the synthesiser’s volume by the swivelling of the rod, or THE SHOE: a 7 AXIS continuous controller pedal used for modifying synthesiser timbre in real time, which allows emulation of various trumpet mutes or cross fading between different vocal samples. Sample tracks – such as ‘Robot Wars’ and ‘The Martians Are Coming’ are available to download at : sonicmanipulator.com.

San Francisco’s ‘Space Lady’ (free tracks at myspace.com/suzysoundz )is another ‘street level superstar’ who plumbs the depths of outerspace to bring haunting, humorous and ethereal sounds to those passing by. Donning a steel helmet with angel wings, The Space Lady’ll carve out her very personal renditions of songs such as ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’, or ‘Major Tom’ with a range of FX pedals, an accordian, vintage casio keyboards and an array of lights.

“My whole approach of playing on the street was to make my music available to as many people as possible for free. Now the Internet has the potential to dwarf the persistent and diligent efforts I made over 20 years … and keeps my music alive without the wear and tear on my poor aging body! “

Feline Accordionists

Kittens can trigger the cute overload, but none more so than the musical pawed beasties who channel their inner meow through instruments and choreographed sound. Flying Scribble are known to have at least one grumpy sonic genius who can make the other alleycats weep with the tender sounds of his late night accordion melancholy.

Jim Avignon

“I’d rather sell a thousand images for one dollar, than one image for a thousand dollars.”

http://jimavignon.com/

Berliner Jim is a whimsical, relentlessly creative artist, who is equally at home painting giant canvasses everyday at a festival and jumping through them at night, building snowsculptures, making giant murals, creating installations for parties or …Flipping through his ‘Attack Delay’ book, you’ll find the Mona Lisa painting with the background crudely photoshopped over her head, a keyboard covered in honey, extra fingers photoshopped onto Jim’s hands to allow his fists to pumped at the camera with the letters ‘a’ ‘t’ ‘t’ ‘a’ ‘c’ ‘k’ & ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘l’, ‘a’, ‘y’, fake tattoos painted onto pornstars, biscuit sculptures, animal languages vs machine talk and on it goes, near every page a winner. Tagline for the book – “Have you ever had the best time in your life?”. But wait there’s more: playing as Neoangin ( http://neoangin.badtaste.ru & myspace.com/neoangin ) Jim keeps pumping out the tunes, super-crafted pop tunes with funny insightful lyrics, like some lo-fi electronics alt-cabaret-sitcom soundtracker from the 80s with beats from now.

Michel Gondry

“It has always been my goal to make people feel alright when they watch my work.”

Endlessly inventive as a music-video maker, Michel made a wonderful transition to feature films with ‘Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’, and has a current follow up to this : the ‘Science of Sleep’. There’s a pretty cool 50 minute video interview with Michel, discussing sleep, dreams and ‘the science of sleep’, over at Seed magazine.

2007? ‘Be Kind Rewind’ - comedy film directed by Michel Gondry and starring Jack Black, Mos Def, Sigourney Weaver and others..

2008? ‘Master of Space and Time’ – Gondry’s adaption ( with Daniel Clowes*) of a 2005 novel by sci-fi author Rudy Rucker that centres on an inventor, Harry Gerber, who discovers a way to create his own tailor-made universe. Also to star Jack Black.

Flying Scribble

As well as being fantastic musicians, the Flying Scribble girls are of course also vivid animators and innovative theatre performers. And so Gondry gets a definite nod in as an inspiration. As for the Scribblers themselves, their music best speaks for them, also available in live doses along the East Coast of Oz over summer, Northern hemisphere tours to come. Say they :

“Neo-soul / Freestyle / Ghettotech – mischievous beats, broody organic keys, sampled textures all loving together with ethereal vocals, wak effects and all new atmospheres. We sit on a little boat together rocking on sound waves that come from the pits of somewhere deep down the waters – our music got bell soul and wood worms.”

“I don’t want your spare coins. I want change.” – Melbourne graffiti.

Mad World Statistics

Who wants to compile them, let alone digest their brutal shapes? We’re awash in all kinds of cruel numbers : the species disappearing daily, the football fields of forests getting razed, the masses of people starving, suffering preventable disease, the enormous military budgets that could be spent elsewhere. And sure, these facts can be amassed and distributed in the hope that an informed population will help bring about change for a particular issue, but that’s a dirty job, examining and detailing our big, sloppy footprints.

And in the end, even with the information, people mightn’t necessarily feel empowered to make any difference about an ever growing list of societal and environmental problems. Jessica Williams is an optimist however, believing that an aware public will choose the more responsible paths available to them, and so she used her journalist and BBC television producer skills to compile a book of key facts, each supported by a mini-essay, lots of references, resources. To her immense credit, ‘50 Facts That Should Change The World’ doesn’t come across as a nightmarish depressant, but invigorates a sense of unfairness, and a sense of possibility for change. These ‘facts’ are malleable, susceptible to change over time. The facts chosen are often counterintuitively provoking, something discovered as early as flipping through to:

Fact 2 : “A third of the world’s obese people live in the developing world.”

Not only does the developing world suffer such high levels of malnutrition, but large portions suffer obesity thanks to a shift from diverse traditional foods to monocultured farms, cheap imported junk foods, and lifestyle changes. Admittedly, the essay supporting this fact, and outlining some of the trade practices which sustain this trend, didn’t offer as much tangible actions or ideas as the essays for other facts.

Fact 8. “Every cow in the European Union is subsidised by $2.50 a day. That’s more than what 75 per cent of Africans have to live on.”

Globalisation is inevitable, is happening, and much of it can be good, but many trade subsidies in wealthier countries are hammering poorer nations.

Fact 27. “Every day, one in five of the world’s population – some 800 million people go hungry.”

We are actually making enough food daily for all of us to eat, but massive inequalities with the distribution of wealth mean that a significant portion of the people alive on the planet today go to sleep hungry each night. We are all dimly aware of this on some level, but another lucid 4 page summary of its scale and impact is perhaps a good motivator to do something about it.

Fact 32. “More than 70 per cent of the world’s population have never heard a dial tone.”

This was the case in 2004, and a useful reminder of the digital divide for those who complain when their broadband drops speed. Mobile phone technology seems to be leapfrogging over traditional phone lines however, and it seems that much of the developing world is rapidly embracing these possibilities, with the number of mobile users worldwide expected to reach 2 billion within a few years, that being one in every 3 people.

Fact 33. “A quarter of the world’s armed conflicts of recent years have involved a struggle for natural resources.”

Humans like to draw maps, and draw lines in maps. Natural phenomena like rivers don’t tend to care much for these though, and when they go across several borders and someone upstream is either polluting or steering the river elsewhere, trouble follows.

Fact 34. “Some 30 million people in Africa are HIV positive.”

That’s every single person in Australia, and quite a few million more. Intense. Epic. Tragic. And more, all in 4 pages.

Fact 43. “In 2003, the US spent $396 billion on its military. This is 33 times the combined military spending of the seven ‘rogue states’.

The US also spends more on the military than the next 20 highest national spenders combined. Uhuh.

Fact 48. “A kiwi fruit flown from New Zealand to Britain emits five times its own weight in greenhouse gases.”

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing supermarket shelves filled with all manner of foods all year round. Never mind that particular foods aren’t in season, or that the cheese came from France and the biscuits from Japan. Extravagant banana prices in Australia recently, due to crop damages, are perhaps a reminder that perhaps we should be more considerate of how seasonal the food we eat it, and how far it has had to travel.

Fact 49. “The US owes the United Nations more than $1 billion in unpaid dues.”

Guess who is the worst International citizen when it comes to supporting the United Nations? Mind you, this is chump change compared to their overall debt. As of September 21, 2006, the total U.S. government debt was $8.500 trillion. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.publicdebt )

Sample Resources

Oxfam – UK based development campaigning group

Human Rights Watch

World Watch Institute Much good reading.

Slow Food movement

World hunger, its causes and effects, what is being done.

Global Fund- to fight AIDS, Tuberclosis & Malaria

Save The Children – international perspective on child poverty

50 Facts That Should Change The World by Jessica Williams is distributed in Aus via allenandunwin.com, $19.95.

Quite a few of these better-than-a-poke-in-the-eye-with-a-stick things going on at the moment.

Eyes, Lies & Illusions

2 Nov – 11 Feb 2007, ACMI Melb.

Awesome exhibition freshly loaded up with a giant collection of pre-cinematic optical inventions and illusions. This means lots of actual weird mechanical devices, tilted rooms with false perspectived viewing holes, and other settings designed to fool the eye. Much of the vintage gear has been gathered by collector and German experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes, and is as delightful to observe as the effects it produces. Some device words to google? Zoetrope, praxinoscope, phenakitascope, thaumatrope, kinetoscope, mutoscope, chronophotography.

A few contemporary artists and visual inventors have work integrated into the show, and a highlight of these is the
stroboscopic thriller dancers built by Sydneysiders David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton, within a piece called
‘The Sound Before You Make It’ ( 2005 ). A large circular spinning plate hosts about 10cm high dancers around the perimeter, each of the hundred or so dancers modelling a sequential pose from Michael Jackson’s zombie thriller dance. With beats blaring, the giant overhead strobe transforms the display into a scene of zombie re-animation – each of the dancers appearing to be physically moving – dancing – as the combination of strobe and spinning plate bludgeon the brain into a grinning awe at the spectacle of these little dancers, a sight heightened by their flickering dancing shadows on the nearby walls.

Tezuka : the Marvel of Manga

Melbourne : 3 Nov 2006 – 28 Jan 2007, Ground Level, NGV International.

Sydney : 23 Feb – 29 Apr 2007, Art Gallery of NSW

Astro Boy & Kimba the White Lion are the west’s gateway into the world of Tezuka Osamu, heralded as an icon of the Japanese manga movement. As well as these popular works though, he has an enormous body of illustrative work which straddles both youth-oriented and more seriously-toned adult narratives. Visual culture fiends can get up close, with this exhibit of original drawings, designs for manga covers and posters, and see the liquid paper spots and careful re-workings of many original images, quite a gorgeous and inventive collection, even if necessarily only a fraction of a fraction of his output. A special cinema retrospective ‘Focus on Tezuka’, is being held by ACMI alongside the exhibition, from 7 to 17 Dec 2006.

Robin Fox’s Rave-A-Licious

Oscilloscope laser performance projects are rarer in the 21st century than the nineties warehouses would’ve had us believe. Undoubtedly all roads in this terrain eventually lead to 1 x Robin Fox, a Melbourne based electronica / noise / experimental music performer who has gradually shifted his soundmaking to become servants of a giant green laser. In practice this means he tweaks specific frequencies and patterns onstage with a laptop, which in turn cause a very responsive laser to carve out surprisingly dimensional shapes in a cloud of smoke and inevitably leaves audience jaws on the ground for the duration of his show. Very much something that needs to be experienced more than described, but is also well documented online:

Video of panel @ Electrofringe 2006 : with Robin discussing his work – the technicalities and creative processes.

Synrecords(.com) – where Robin’s Backskatter DVD of green-lasered 5.1 surround sound can be purr-chased.

Rob gets down with the academic peeps too, having submitted a “PhD in composition, at Monash University, focussing on the development of multi-channel performance ecologies and the design of interactive electro-acoustic situations that explore the dynamic between performer, space and computer.”

Pretty Flickr photos of shiny green lasers on a hypnotised crowd.