April 29, 2004
New York City
I'm going to spend a week in New York City. I have a couple of public appearances lined up. Please come if you can!1) Parsons School of Design with Alex Galloway Friday April 30th at 6:30 - 8:30pm in 2W13th Street 1006.
2) That night performing live video at The Bunker at ))sub((tonic, 107 Norfolk Street.
3) Dorkbot, Wednesday, May 5th, 2004 at 7pm at Location One in SoHo
4) EyeWash at the Remote Lounge at 327 Bowery between the East Village and Noho. This starts at 9:30pm.
and I'll be attending Golan Levin and Zach Lieberman's performance at The Kitchen on Saturday the 31st. There are some openings in my schedule. If I should meet you please let me know by email.
April 27, 2004
April 24, 2004
Growing a Language
My friend nix sent me a link to Growing a Language, an old paper by Guy Steele. The paper has a very clever self-referential construction, and make some deep points about language design and programming to boot. It also touches on why open source works, Christopher Alexander, and writing prose in general. It does however make an unfortunate and unexplained assertion that for Java, a "mall" model of development is preferred over a "bazaar" (as used by ESR in his famous essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar). The paper has a slow start. The first time I started reading it I gave up after the first couple of paragraphs. It gets going on page 4, but you can't just skip to it. There's a method to the madness.Google Ads
The ads have been up for 40 hours and I have made $3.21.April 23, 2004
antigooglebomb success
google on "jew" now returns the wikipedia in the #1 slot, and the evil one is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps google has been pursuaded to censor their index? It seems there has been an ongoing war on this search, with at least two flip-flops in the past.April 22, 2004
NewFangle!
Well, it's official: Electric Sheep got into NewFangle, an "annual exhibition of the Bay Area’s most talented emerging new-media artists"! The preview benefit is June 11th, the panel is the 16th and the artist's reception is the 24th. The exhibition is open the the public from the 12th to the 24th.AVIT is also the weekend of the 11th. It's going to be an busy month.
Google Ads on my pages
A couple of months ago I applied to join Google's AdSense program and was rejected because they don't do home pages. I had planned to put the ads on the flame/fuse/bomb/sheep pages more than my home page, and the submission form said you can change it later. I just used my home page because it represents the quality and style of all my pages. It was a lark so I didn't try again with a more accurate example.Well today I got mail from them and they said they have expanded their program and they would have me. So I put ads on a couple of my pages. No idea what will come of this. It seems likely it's going to bother people more than any money I make from this. Hell, it bothers me already. It's just an experiment. If you have any feelings about them, please let me know. Thanks.
word for the day: athame
A poster with a photo of a very attractive man wearing only a flower
caught my eye. It was a ad for the San Francisco Gay Men's
Open Wiccan Coven. They will be celebrating Beltane, and the small print
said to "bring your athame or wand". Well I know what a wand
is (ahem) but what's an athame? A couple of google searches
later I knew that an athame (pronounced ATH-ah-may) is a
ritual black-handled dagger used for casting spells, especially for drawing a pentagram.
It is associated with the East, element of air, and the intellect.
Now I know.
antigooglebomb on "jew"
Jew.Why? Antisemites are bombing their own stupid page. New to bombing? The wikipedia explains all.
April 20, 2004
v2.4 sheep server retired
After birthing 62303 sheep in flock 155 the v2.4 server has been retired. It's final state will be preserved for perpetuity in its normal location. It is currently returning an error message to clients asking users to upgrade. After a while it will disappear completely (to the clients, not the link above). The v2.5 server is on sheep 1900 of flock 161.April 19, 2004
electric sheep #1 googlehit
Well I never thought this would happen, and I feel a little bad about bragging about it. Back in the day, there were three main "electric sheep" sites as reported by google: #1 was the Electric Sheep Comix drawn by Patrick Farley. #2 was the electric sheep screen-saver by yours truly. and #3 was the evil electric sheep news clipping service which I will not grace with a link (why is a story for another day).I am a fan of Patrick's comix and I have introduced his work to many an eye. Not only is his visual style stunning (see Delta Thrives) and innovative, but he manages to capture those most delicate and fleeting thoughts that, um, well, you'll just have to see for yourself. He's also got satire out the wazoo for the more poltically and culturally minded.
Anyway, I just noticed that the screensaver is now #1. It amazes me that something so abstract is now reaching such a large audience. Amazes and pleases. Thank you for your links, and your attention. You have called me into existence. Now suffer the consequences ;)
spotworks top seller on cdbaby
I was studying my referrer logs and just noticed that SPOTWORKS was on the CD Baby top-seller list for the week ending 4/6. Looks like that position doubled traffic to my CD Baby page.April 17, 2004
spotworks on amazon
SPOTWORKS is finally available on Amazon.April 16, 2004
Opium next saturday
I'm doing visuals for this cool event next saturday:
April 15, 2004
Kandid supports Flame
The new version of Kandid (0.3.0) supports fractal flames. Since it's written in Java, it just calls out to executables compiled from my sources. I like the approach of combining disparate algorithms under one roof. Thank you Thomas Jourdan.SPOTWORKS reviewed by Earplug
Joel of Microcinema got me reviewed in the Earplug electronic music newsletter. Here's what they said:As a literal focal point at raves, parties, and clubs, video mixing and composition has become almost as integral a component of the experience as the music itself. Some VJs function like graphic designers, cutting and pasting layers of prefabricated imagery along with the beat, while others act more like scientists creating pixilated cultures that evolve according to the rules of complex algorithms. Count San Francisco VJ and software artist Spot, aka Scott Draves, among the latter. Spot surely looks at the synthesis of art and science as source material for his ornately mutating and highly organic video ecosystems. With Spotworks, his new compilation DVD containing over 87 minutes of video art and commentary, he provides not only mind-blowing hardcore psychedelics, but also a visual theory of evolution applicable to a manufactured artificial life (A-life). "Dub Visuals" brings the resonant world of exoskeletal aesthetics to the screen as if an electron microscope was hardwired to a video projector, while "The Bomb" represents a coded software system that produces, as Draves notes on the DVD, "organic visual music creating a video stream that is fluid, textured and rhythmic." Although much of the heady theory behind these complex pieces may seem more suitable for a doctoral dissertation than a night out, the intricacy and artistry of Draves' work is something that will delight both sets of NASA enthusiasts — those who work for the governmental space organization and the others who reminisce about the legendary New York party. (SM)
April 13, 2004
whitebox tomorrow
Tomorrow I'll be performing live video for the Drum Machine Museum's Whitebox VIP Lounge Act XII. Headlining the night is Joan Jeanrenaud of Kronos Quartet fame. Also on the play-bill are Kenji Williams, DJ Vordo, and Scott Pagano. Installations by Dr Friendly and Maribeth Back. The show starts at 7:00pm.
April 12, 2004
April 11, 2004
2.5 for windows
get it here. this should fix the cache-clear bug.April 08, 2004
sheep 2.5b1 released
A new version of Electric Sheep, v2.5b1 for Linux and Mac OSX, has been released. Windows should be forthcoming. Download here.The most important change is the fix to the download timeout bug. That should take a load off the server, and also allow me to increase the duration and quality of the sheep. There's also 3 new variations, including one from Mark Townsend of Apophysis fame.
The OSX version has some Altivec optimizations contributed by R.J. Berry of warwick.ac.uk that purportedly double its rendering performance. Thanks to Eric Fung for fixing numerous bugs and making the OSX release.
April 05, 2004
SS Vallejo
My fine friend Laura invited folks over for a 04/04/04 04:04:04 party. This sacred synchonicity will happen once per year until 12/12/12 12:12:12, just a few days before the end of the universe according to the mayan calendar, and hence the final days before the Eschaton in the cosmology of Terence McKenna.Ahem. But anyway. In the present, there is still time to barbecue and hang in the sun on the funkiest houseboat in Sausalito, the legendary SS Vallejo. This retired ferry was once the home to Alan Watts, Jean Varda, and Onslo Ford. Their tradition is ably kept afloat by current residents Laura, Ammon, and friends.
Paragliding
My friend Jeff Wishnie has started a paragliding school, Pacific Skyways. This fine Saturday was their launch party. We hauled a sound system and shade structures out to the Pacifica cliffs, then took turns getting taken up on tandem flights. I felt completely safe and the experience of flying is wonderful. The launch was the trickiest part, but once up I felt like we were just floating. On the ground we chilled to the sounds of vordo, giamma, chakka, and brian. Awesome.
