Ten years after launch, it seems that the Koan generative music-making system has finally been binned by owner Tao. All links into download sites for the browser plugin, Koan X, or the Koan Pro version now redirect to generic Tao pages, and all but one archive (for the koanplugin.exe browser plugin) of the old executable […]
Archive for April, 2007
“Koan on down the road”
29 Apr 2007 at 20:18
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative software, Entertainment
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Professional poverty
29 Apr 2007 at 13:51
David Haden
Artist(s), Comic art, Creative industries, Photographers
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The Sunday Times, on Britain’s downwardly-mobile upper-middle class professional graduates. His article seems to imply (but never really states outright) that for a new graduate to enter a creative profession is almost a guarantee of life of renting and genteel poverty. And, this week, several specialists bemoan the newspaper industry’s wholesale sacking or casualising of […]
2057
The Discovery Channel has three new documentaries online about life in the advanced world in 2057, based on science fact and interviews with… “the world’s leading scientists and research institutes”. There are online videos but, sadly, 2007 web technology is not working properly (who knew?); and so the “skip this advert” front page loops back […]
Hello to Berlin
28 Apr 2007 at 11:29
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries, Regeneration
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The Sartorialist is highly impressed with the depth of the creative scene in Berlin.
Weasel Forest Council
28 Apr 2007 at 11:13
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries
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Pithy reactions to the weasel words of Waltham Forest Council, over the severe cuts at the William Morris Gallery in London.
Alice in Reviewland
CBR News offers a detailed and illustrated review of the Alice in Sunderland exhibition at the London Cartoon Museum.
We Love Magazines
PingMag interviews the editor of We Love Magazines, a new 400-page appreciation of over 1,000 ‘pop culture’ magazines, which was officially launched at the Colophon 07 international magazine symposium.
Invisible Cities
There’s now an archive for the Invisible Cities project. This British Council event was held in late 2006 in two European cities which survive as ideal town plans (Potsdam, Germany and Zamosc, Poland), and invited 40 artists to make walking-audio artworks based on the ‘Ideal City’.
Agatha Katzensprung
Neu-real photography by Agatha Katzensprung.
Melvin Sokolsky
Interesting neu-real bubble-flight-fashion photographs, by Melvin Sokolsky, from 1963.
Comments overboard
Wow; spamtastic! “Akismet has protected your site from 32,265 spam comments” warbles my WordPress control panel. Which implies that a tidal wave of xx,000’s of spam comments on D’log in the past 12 hours is why the comments table in the database has crashed, and why an automatic repair of it has failed. In short; […]
Cult Fiction
24 Apr 2007 at 19:22
David Haden
Artist(s), Birmingham, Comic art, Reading
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London’s Haywood Gallery is to tour the Cult Fiction comics exhibition outside the capital, and the first stop will be Walsall’s New Art Gallery. One of the good things about Walsall has been their willingness to show the best of popular culture (notably the Harry Wingfield show in 2001), and also to try themed shows […]
Dalekmania
Lew Stringer’s excellent Blimey! blog just keeps on getting better. Which is perhaps to be expected, since he’s based in the Birmingham area 😉 His long post on Saturday, about the Dalekmania of the 1960s and early 70s has finally tipped Blimey! into my blogroll, something I’d been meaning to do for ages.
Adventure Game Studio
Blue Tea profiles the old-school “point and click” adventure games that are being made with the free Adventure Game Studio. I’m not sure it’s a suitable platform for digital storytelling using photographs; but it’s interesting that it’s free, offers a plug-in that enables parallax scrolling, and has a sizable user-base.
Pirates of Silicon Valley
23 Apr 2007 at 22:30
David Haden
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The brilliant 96-minute Pirates of Silicon Valley, on YouTube. It’s a highly enjoyable dramatisation of the early days of the personal computer, and the epic Apple vs. Microsoft nerd-skirmish that shaped our world.
Day Of The Figurines
20 Apr 2007 at 12:37
David Haden
Artist(s), Birmingham, Gaming, Mapping
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“Day Of The Figurines“ sounds like an episode of Dr. Who, and given the setting you wouldn’t be far wrong. It’s a mobile phone-based city-wide wide-game, to be part of Birmingham’s Fierce Festival during May/June 07. “Set in a fictional town that is littered, dark and underpinned with steady decay”, it’s previously been to Berlin […]
Last Dream
19 Apr 2007 at 18:13
David Haden
Artist(s), Comic art, Photographers, Plucked
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“Last dream” (Flash, broadband required) is a new interactive storytelling-artwork by Dreaming Methods. For those who are stumped by the way to step through the screens, the author has some slight spoiler-tips on his weblog, to help you work through the dream-logic.
Beautiful & Useful
Beautiful & Useful: supporting the arts and crafts in the 21st century is a conference at the University of Gloucester, England, on 4th – 6th July 07. It’ll… “explore the role of librarians in supporting, not only research into, but also the making of, art and craft in the new millennium”.
Voices of Vision
I always cast a fond eye over books of long interviews with creatives, and especially those featuring photographers or those in the field of science fiction and intelligent comics. So a 2005 book of interviews from the University of Nebraska, Voices of Vision: Creators of Science Fiction and Fantasy Speak seems especially interesting. With human-done […]
Nerd crafts
Hmmm… I’ve been musing recently on nerd arts & crafts, but I’m not sure I realised just how far it’s gone. Or should that be “how too far gone it is already”? Meet the Darth Vader hot-air balloon… Before you know it, we’ll have steampunk s flying around in personal zeppelins.