Wednesday, April 26, 2006

my computer

i got this picture by email today. what incredible foresight these scientists showed in 1954. it looks exactly like the computer i had in 2004 (see caption, click the image to see it full-size)...

on the headphones: 'the sicilian' by bonobo, from the album 'one offs ... remixes and b-sides'. www.bonobomusic.com

Friday, April 21, 2006

stuff all crammed together

hello. after another hiatus in posting, i have again accumulated probably more info than you'd normally squeeze into one post.

pt 1: we've just had the easter jazz festival here in tauranga. my father came down and we caught a couple of great concerts. firstly, the nathan haines show, and then a tribute to miles davis with some of the best jazz musicians in nz. some brilliant virtuoso playing all round.

pt 2: my mate malcolm dunn is working on an ep under name 'colm', and you can check out the post-rock niceness at his myspace site.

pt 3: i've completed my art project - a6 cards of my work, printed and cropped and then arranged into a montage with fotoclips that now hangs in our lounge. the cards are starting to curl and i don't suppose that will stop - i really needed to add more clips, but for now i am telling myself that the slight curling is part of the appeal of the medium. i've taken a somewhat nasty picture of the montage with my cheapo digital camera and you can see it by clicking here.

pt 4: don't forget that if you're so inclined you can subscribe to this blog over there on the righthand column, and get newsfeeds as i post new stuff.

pt 5: i'll be putting two new book reviews and maybe a film review on intraspace very soon.

pt 6: the film 'noi the albino' is great.

pt 7: next week i'm off to the noise conference in auckland. last year this was brilliant - a two-day conference for musicians with a little thrown in for creatives in general. inspirational and exciting, it's the main thing i've been looking forward to so far this year. stand by for a report on that in a couple of weeks.

on the headphones: 'could you be loved?' by bob marley, from the album 'legend'.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

projects, concerts and innovations

another long delay between posts. so what's new?

well, for a start you can now subscribe to a news feed from this blog - meaning that whenever i update you will get the new content sent to you. you can subscribe to this (free) by clicking here or on the link to the right. i also have a subscription service for my reviews blog, intraspace. subscribe to that one here or by visiting intraspace.

speaking of intraspace, there is a new review on there - a review of the book 'bono on bono'. well worth checking out.

in my creative world, i am working on a project to help me better visualise my aesthetic approach, and to see some of my artwork functioning away from the computer screen (ie on the wall). at the moment i am using quite a few different visual styles. there is a common thread in that they tend towards 'pop art' but in some cases they are in very different areas stylisitically. so, i'm in the process of turning some of the pieces (including some of my photography) into A6 pictures (partly also in preparation for my postcard project) printed on card. once i have a few of these printed out, i'm going to crop them and then put them together with photo clips to create a montage which will then hang on our lounge wall. i've always seen my visual work in terms of groups of images displayed close together, so apart from this being a learning experience it will also help me realise that aim. the process has already helped to stimulate my creativity and last weekend i made four brandnew pieces as well as polishing some existing ones. the finished montage will evolve and grow as i create and print out new pieces. i'll post a pic of the montage when it is ready to go.

in other news, rob and i went to the bic runga concert at tauranga's holy trinity church. the whole thing was brilliant. she played a lot of her new material which is very atmospheric. her band included neil finn, shayne carter (dimmer) and anika moa plus the guitarist from pluto (tim arnold). they were supported by flight of the concordes, a brilliantly funny musical duo (sold out concerts at the edinburgh fringe festival etc). i don't normally go in for joke music but these guys are great. if you get the chance to see bic or flight of the concordes then get to it.

on the headphones: 'lsd partie' by roland vincent, from the 'ocean's twelve' soundtrack.