A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Technology
After less than a week of stability I again find myself without a functioning phone line. The company responsible assures me that it will be repaired by June 2nd. I’ve been rewatching Deadwood recently so rather than pen a useless rant you may imagine me fulminating à la Al Swearengen. Service may be restored sooner than the 2nd, of course (although knowing BT I wouldn’t bet on it), so stay tuned. Again.
Update: Phone line is back again so normal service will resume.
Ho hum. Internet problems here mean posting will be sporadic for the next few days. My apologies. In the meantime the archive feature has been activated to bring up posts from the past. Stay tuned.
Update: Still contending with a week of All The Technical Problems, not only internet-related but things like my main work computer throwing kernel panics like they’re going out of fashion. Consequently I’ve been rather preoccupied while I attempt to get back to the usual operational status and do important things like attend to deadlines. It’ll still be a few more days before there’s further activity here, I’m afraid. Stay tuned.
Update 2: UK residents will tell you that the iniquities of British Telecom are like Walt Whitman’s contradictions: vast and multitudinous. All being well, however, normal service should be resumed here on the 20th.
OMG Particles II.
From the Algorithms Are Fun Dept., some of the more colourful examples of script pyrotechnics and coding samples at mbostock’s pages. Many of the routines have data-crunching applications but a few eye-candy pieces may be found among them. What’s most surprising is how many of them work immediately, and also operate at great speed which makes them difficult to capture in screen grabs. Via Coudal.
Lorenz Toy.
Transform Transitions.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Eyecandy
• The Kaleidoplex
• Colorscreen
There’s been a resurgence of interest recently in Afrofuturism (see this recent newspaper article, and this site), not before time when the term has been around since 1993. The concept itself goes back a long way, at least as far as the remarkable body of work produced by Sun Ra (1914–1993) whose vast discography dates from 1956, and has to be considered the first concerted attempt to craft an expansive cosmic/futuristic mythos in music.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra make fleeting appearances in The Last Angel of History (1997), a 45-minute documentary by John Akomfrah which looks at Afrofuturism via its manifestations in fiction, contemporary music, and in space travel. The connecting tissue is a somewhat dated bit of cyperpunk fluff but it’s worth sticking around for the cast of interviewees. On the musical side there’s George Clinton, Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, DJ Spooky, Goldie, and A Guy Called Gerald; on the writing side there’s Ishmael Reed (whose early novels would have been published by my colleagues at Savoy Books if the company hadn’t gone bust in the early 80s), Samuel R. Delany (Savoy did publish one of his novels), Octavia Butler, Kodwo Eshun and Greg Tate; Nichelle Nichols has a chance to talk about something other than Star Trek for once, since she helped with NASA’s recruitment programme. There’s also Bernard A. Harris Jr, one of the first African-Americans in space. The techno-fetishism seems overheated now that we’ve all calmed down about computers and the internet, but that doesn’t negate the important points: SF as a reflection of the present moment and a means to imagine a different situation or way of life. With 2014 being Sun Ra’s centenary year I’m anticipating a lot more of this.
• The Last Angel of History: part 1 | part 2 | part 3
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Rammellzee RIP
Two cover designs from Eliash Strongowski’s 30 Days—30 Covers project.
My thanks once again to Dennis Cooper for placing this blog on his end-of-year lists. Meanwhile. one of the albums I designed earlier this year, Cold Mission by Logos, made the 30 Best Album Covers of 2013 list at FACT.
• “Many of their more outlandish ideas never saw fruition: an organ powered by an entire factory, an electro-acoustic orchestra mounted on a fleet of airplanes.” Colin McSwiggen reviews Sound in Z: Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th Century Russia by Andrey Smirnov.
• Queer Pagan Punk, a major film retrospective of the work of Derek Jarman, will take place in February and March 2014 at the BFI Southbank, London.
• “For over forty years, Iain Sinclair’s work has combined obsessive myth-making with urban despair. But what do we know about him?” asks Fatema Ahmed.
• “Rather than trying to intercept alien communications, perhaps we should go looking for alien artefacts.”
• Mix of the week: Radio Belbury Programme 12, and Winter Hours, the Cafe Kaput 2013 winter mix.
• BEEP BEEP. BLOOP BLEEP: Road Runner cartoons soundtracked by a Eurorack synthesizer.
• Historia Discordia: Documenting the Origins, History & Chaos of the Discordian Society.
Pink Boy by Melinda Gebbie.
• Suffered From The Night: Queering Stoker’s Dracula edited by Steve Berman.
• At Dangerous Minds: An interview with soundtrack composer Cliff Martinez.
• Sarah Schoenfeld puts recreational drugs under the microscope.
• Powerplant Art-déco, a set of photos by Romain Veillon.
• Adrian Curry chooses the best film posters of 2013.
• Portent’s Content Idea Generator
• The Sea Named Solaris (1977) by Tomita | Is That What Everybody Wants? (2002) by Cliff Martinez | Reyja (2011) by Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason