An extensive bibliography of writings on photocopier art.

I've been continuing to use Photoshop to manipulate the random noise-patterns generated by photocopier processes, experiments I began last year around this time. A successful recent experiment can be seen on the cover of the new Number None record (to be released this Friday).

Labels: art, xerography

Saturday, April 26, 2003
11:27 AM
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I can't wait until June 27, when this film Decasia, composed of decaying archival footage, comes to the Facets Cinematheque.

From the Village Voice review:

"[Over the course of the film] the calligraphy of decay grows increasingly hallucinatory and catastrophic. The sea buckles. Flesh melts. A boxer struggles against the disintegration of the image. Wall Street is half consumed in flames. A dozen little parachutes dot the cracked sky. ... Decasia seems ... Hindu in its awesome spectacle of violent flux. The film is a fierce dance of destruction. Its flame-like, roiling black-and-white inspires trembling and gratitude."

This description reminds me of William Basinski's recent CD The Disintegration Loops:

"The Disintegration Loops is comprised of elegantly beautiful orchestral tape loops that [Basinski] had recorded in the mid-'80s and recently rediscovered. However, as the tapes were being transferred to a digital master, the analogue spool began to disintegrate which ended up further enhancing the already spectral quality of the music. These events unfolded concurrently to the destruction of the World Trade Center. Basinski witnessed the Twin Towers' decimation from his home and decided to release this music as an elegy to that moment, and indeed, he succeeded in creating a very fitting pastoral landscape that admirably does not diminish or trivialize that tragic event in any way. The music uncannily transcends time as the loops swell and fray into seeming infinity."
--Michael Klausman, from the Other Music New Release Update of September 12, 2002

Possible parallel: Yve-Alain Bois' Formless : A User's Guide?

Friday, April 25, 2003
3:19 PM
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Thursday, April 24, 2003
3:17 PM
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I'd love to get a look at the entire Office Orchestra, but it's pretty unlikely that I'll make it to the San Francisco Center for the Book before May 30. A shame.

Thanks to Weather Head for the link.

9:35 AM
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Last week I completed F_cked Voice, a mix CD of songs that make some kind of "avant" use of the human voice (both augmented by technology and un-augmented).

alejandra and aeron - end i guess
john cage - she is asleep (jay clayton, vocals)
elliott sharp - skram (kj grant, vocals)
yoko ono - greenfield morning i pushed an empty baby carriage all over the city
nuno canavarro - untitled
agf - zwangsam schweirig
cosmos - tears (excerpted)
number none - simple men invoking angels (from the new unreleased record, yo)
maja ratkje - dictaphone jam
boredoms - super coming
deerhoof - no one fed me so i stayed

This inaugurates the hopefully bi-monthly Raccoon Mix Exchange, wherein I swap you a copy of my latest mix for a mix that you've made, gentle reader. Just send 'em along. If you don't have my address, e-mail "jeremy" at invisible-city.com.

Monday, April 21, 2003
5:02 PM
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More on naming, this time from Gertrude Stein's "Poetry and Grammar" (from Lectures In America):

"[A] noun is a name of a thing, and therefore slowly if you feel what is inside that thing you do not call it by the name by which it is known. Everybody knows that by the way they do when they are in love and a writer should have that intensity of emotion about whatever is the object about which he writes. And therefore and I say it again more and more one does not use nouns. ... Now actual given names of people are more lively than nouns which are the name of anything and I suppose this is because after all the name is only given to that person when they are born, there is at least the element of change and anybody can be pretty well able to do what they like, they may be born Walter and become Hub, in such a way that they are not like a noun. A noun has been the name of something for such a very long time.

"That is the reason that slang exists it is to change the nouns which have been names for so long. I say again. Verbs and adverbs and prepositions are lively because they all do something and as long as anything does something it keeps alive."

Friday, April 18, 2003
1:39 PM
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Iraq's National Archives and Koranic Library burned in apparent arson.

"[F]or Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then the Koranic library, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased."

This history of Islamic libraries outlines a timeline of similar catastrophes:

1499: Christian conquerors of Spain, led by Cardinal Ximenes, burn over a million Arabic books, "including unique works of Moorish culture" as part of Spanish Inquisition

1099: Christian Crusaders burn the Muslim library of Tripolis (modern-day Syria)

391: Christian mob led by Emperor Theodosius of Constantinople destroys Library of Alexandria

From Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III:

[W]hen a sentence of destruction against the idols of Alexandria was pronounced, the Christians set up a shout of joy and exultation, whilst the unfortunate Pagans, whose fury had given way to consternation, retired with hasty and silent steps, and eluded, by their flight or obscurity, the resentment of their enemies. Theophilus proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis ... to make room for a church, erected in honor of the Christian martyrs. The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice."

Thursday, April 17, 2003
11:14 AM
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A lesser banishing ritual, which features a discussion on the use of god-names in ritual. Intriguing. Thanks once again to Brian.

As for the side of myself that's received a new name? Well, I've been working lately, with Chris, on assembling the new Number None CD-R (Chicago readers stay tuned: we may be having a CD release party in the very near future). But in culling through the recordings we put together over the last year, I noticed that I had amassed a sizeable body of ecstatic noise experiments that didn't fit in any obvious way with the Number None project. I decided that the side of myself that was producing these pieces deserved to have an identity of its own (and thus a name).

Hence: Noah Opponent.

(Those of you who participated in the dream-recording project should be receiving a copy of the disc very soon; the rest of you can download an MP3 version of the completed collage of dream narratives and somnolent noise from this page (the track title is "in the lake of dreams").)

Labels: personal, spirituality

Tuesday, April 15, 2003
10:08 AM
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Regarding yesterday's post on the power of naming, longtime associate Brian Sherman writes in to say:

"I see this in the martial arts as well. ... Hatsumi Sensei [the current head of the Bujinkan Dojo] has announced the change of his Bugyo [martial name]. Originally it was Byakuryu, which means "white dragon." Most recently, he has been referred to as Tetsuzan, which means "iron mountain." The new name that he has taken is Hisamune. He explained that it is made up of the characters from Takamatsu's names and the character of So from soke. His reasons for the change is that Tetsuzan represents an image of strength - which is fine for a younger man, but as Sensei gets along in years (he's now in his 60's) he feels that a softer image and one that relates to nature and naturalness is much more appropriate at this time. I can't help but note that one of the ideas from our art is to act or move appropriately to deal with an opponent's attack."

And Brian also pointed me to this page, where another martial artist discusses his name selection.

This may be related to kotodama, the esoteric Japanese belief in the mystical power of words.

"[D]epending on one's inclination, one can see kotodama as representing a) a unique correspondence between (Japanese) words and that which they signify, b) a unique correspondence between the grammatical structure of (the Japanese) language and the structure of the world, c) the general blessing of the Gods which has been granted to (the Japanese) people, d) the notion that (Japanese or other) words are "alive" and have distinct souls, e) the quality of intentional ritual speech and action necessary to approach the divine, f) the use of intentional ritual speech to produce effects in the mundane world."
—Fred Little, "Mantrayana and Koto(dama/tama): a suggestive mapping"

"All of my group names, including the Boredoms, have a meaning ... When we still spelt it with a B— now it's V —it linked to 'boa,' the huge snake you find in South America. There was also the idea of 'bore' and boring, but primarily I think I wanted to access the power of the serpent and the power of the earth."
—Yamataka Eye

Thursday, April 10, 2003
3:12 PM
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Last week, I finished re-reading Snow Crash. Those of you who have read it will remember Stephenson's interest in the "nam-shub," a "speech with magical force."

That fit in with something I'd been thinking a lot about, the act of naming, and the magical power of names.

"A whole series of comparisons would be necessary to account for the magical powers proper names enjoy."
—Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

I believe that magic is essentially a set of rituals designed to generate particular mental and physical states. Naming qualifies as such a ritual: it enables you to interact with the thing that is named using a new (and powerful) set of conceptual tools. Ritually designating a new name for some aspect of yourself can have uniquely potent effects. I was reminded of this idea recently when I was re-reading my old Industrial Culture Handbook, in which "concussion musician" Z'ev writes that he began using "different names to signify different creative persona."

I've noticed recently that a new creative persona has been emerging from the depths of my own psychology, and it has, in fact, been named. More on this soon.

Tuesday, April 08, 2003
11:30 AM
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CDs I acquired during the month of March (2003 releases are denoted with an asterisk):

Various artists, April (surprisingly tepid compliation from Chicago's Boxmedia label)

Carol Genetti, The Shattering (noisy vocal improv recorded at Baltimore's High Zero festival in 2000)

Supersilent, Supersilent 6* (chilly electronics from Norway's superlative Rune Grammafon label)

The Boredoms, Super AE (awe-inspiring electronic tribal noise)

and A Band of Bees, Sunshine Hit Me* (eccentric pop, staking out a terrain somewhere between Brian Wilson and Syd Barrett)

Monday, April 07, 2003
8:33 PM
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According to Umberto Eco (quoted in the new issue of the Paris Review), Italo Calvino's dying words were "the parallels, the parallels."

Sunday, April 06, 2003
8:31 PM
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The thing about steel is
that it tends to remain in its original form once it leaves the foundry.
steel will bend but it will not break.
for single note playing it’s so powerful - it just soars.

The thing about glass is
that you can see through it
you can use it year round, just take the holiday decorations out.
it persists.
that it's so tempting and seductive
that volcanic glass over time devitrifies.
that once you see how it works and see what you can do with it, you get this glass bug. And it doesn't go away.

Wednesday, April 02, 2003
7:00 PM
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