Disco Infernal

Once the synthesizer was brought into existence through the Moog devices, experimentation in music exploded, leading to thousands of experiments in music and sound. One such result was disco. Not only a pioneering land-mark of the colorful and creative applications of fashion and hair conditioning, the sound became very distinct. A twangy guitar, dancing bassline, and the occasional violin characterized the movement. Giorgio Moroder was the first to dabble in these new noises, and not long after, nightclubs and bands and even a movie starring the unique, new musical movement began to appear.

But it quickly, all at once, died away with a violent backlash. What could have caused disco, which started as a fun-loving, intense, colorful era of music, to become one of the most despised, hated, oppressed musical movements of all time?

The pressure outside of disco is greater than the atmospheric pressure inside of disco, causing a rapid movement by molecules in the air in the exo-disco area into the disco

As any interesting noise pattern, sound, or creativity, everyone with a microphone and a recording label will soon overdo, overkill, and overuse it. Songs would include a little violin, and people would go "Oh, that's gotta be disco!" The genre became everything, and it was kind of annoying to people.

Not to mention, disco clubs were popular with the crowd of non-traditional sexuality. Occurring soon around the AIDS crisis, which is renown for killing thousands and thousands of homosexuals (not exclusively, but most notably), anti-gay tensions were growing. And so, the anti-disco movement was fueled in part by tension from opposing views of more personal things, as well as the fact that garbage like "Disco Duck" was being fired into the ears of the innocent.

"Kill me" -Disco Duck

But thank goodness for the death of disco, because without it, we wouldn't have house music, where Disk Jockeys would mix the good parts of disco and rock music at clubs, live. And from that, stems nearly every pop song now.

An article explained how annoying disco once became. It pointed out that, like nowadays, a certain noise or beat will be absurdly over-incorporated into songs to the point that the music being produced loses artistic value, and just becomes a noise that was once interesting, put on a 3-minute loop.

And the same thing is going on today, and it really pushes my buttons. Like dubstep and most pop songs, a little "bassy" wubbywub or grinding noise will be inserted into a song. But it isn't there because it enhances the song, it's there because someone said "Oh, when I drop a toaster and play it in slow motion, it makes a funny noise. Everyone is doing it! Let's stick it everywhere!"

-insert noise of king bass falling onto the face of the earth at the press of a button-

If a similar thing isn't happening right now, it's coming. Just you wait, America.

Just you wait.

I Xerox'd myself in the name of art.

Making cutouts of my body parts, fetched from a scanner and hit gluing them to a homemade book cover created this. I wanted to show how people are a part of their writing and reading, and in the middle of creating or indulging in a book or electronic wordspace, it occupies us as we occupy it and we become a symbiotic entity.

The hot glue strings and lines at first were messy and unappealing to me, but the more I looked at them, the more I like them. They look like hollow hairs and pulsing veins, further convincing me of the illusion that our works are "alive" beings, interracting in a very real way with us.

Archetypes

People like to classify people and personalities as "archetypes", or "dominant psychological traits", such as with personality tests, zodiac signs, horoscopes, "dog people" and "cat people", Apple and Microsoft, etc. However, archetypes tend to be more innocent in nature than outright saying "You're white, go away." Instead of labeling people, which is "bad", intended to separate people, archetypes are more focused on identifying people in an effort to better understand them.

Take for example, the Myers Briggs test, an imperfect description of archetypes. The test breaks up most personalities into 16 combinations of introversion and extroversion, knowing and sensing, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving. It isn't made to cause people to say "Oh, ew, you're a ____", but rather to help people identify how best to relate to people, labeling people based on a symbol that typically embodies an exaggeration or pure form of someone's personality. A lawful, logical person, for example, is a "judge". An avid learner and creator is an "engineer", and a thieving, lying person is a "senator". That was technically a stereotype, my bad.

I, personally, like archetypes. i think there's something important in recognizing differences and trying best to create coordination in people groups, taking into account the differences of how people operate. "It takes all kinds of people", they say, and... 

Tangential rant, I hate when people take the definition and identification of race, gender, skills, and differences in general as something that is always negative because "labels are bad and do nothing but destroy humanity all the time without exceptions". I find that labels are a tool, and when utilized, create a more cognitive environment. I mean, I get when people want to try to treat everyone equality, but... Doctors don't prescribe the same medicine to every patient. Food stores don't throw everything on one shelf, uncategorically. And we don't all dress the same. We wouldn't normally ask a music teacher to build us bridges, and we don't go to Disney World for gasoline to fill our vehicles. Things are different, and if (I say "if" because it'll never happen) we learn that our differences are beneficial to the community, then we will achieve a peace that is not possible to acquire if we just ignored our differences. I'm good at math, and someone else is good at writing, so obviously, someone who wants help in writing wouldn't come to me. That's ineffective and impractical. People are different for a reason, we have different heritages to give us a space that is uniquely and comfortably our own, and people are different for the good of others.

Anywho, archetypes help us better understand how to relate to eachother. I won't ask an introvert to help me give a presentation because they are truly, truly, inconfident and uncomfortable in those situations. It's nice to be able to find other people that are genuinely like me and relate to them, and archetypes help me do that.

I remember a video game I loved to play, Spore. In that game, you evolved from a cell, to an animal, to a tribe, to a civilization, to a space-faring super-race. The decisions on how you interract with other cells, packs of animals, tribes and cities throughout the game will give you an "Archetype", giving you certain bonuses and dialogue options for your race and character. Certain archetypes get along better with other ones, and lots of archetypes are distrusted. For example, a race that blows up planets and turns air into lava isn't really "best friend" material.

I'm not sure how this relates, but... Spore.

Dream Machine

Brion Gysin is responsible for creating a super psychedelic, kind of freaky instrument called the "Dream Machine". It's a tube with holes punched into it and a lightbulb inside, spun around quickly at a certain speed. If you are to sit in front of it (or stand, lie down, do whatever, it doesn't matter) with your eyes closed in front of it, the mathematical patterns and light frequencies would alter your vision and you'll effectively get a high. Only sensory, though, you won't actually feel any different. Maybe. I've never tried it.



It seems pretty scary, though, I wouldn't try it. One of the reasons I don't do drugs is because I'm scared of my brain. Like Salvador Dali said, "I don't do drugs, I am drugs."

The drug in question probably wasn't "Ibuprophen", too.

This was created in the era of when drug usage was less than optional and was more than common in creating less than usual art, most of the time. So, this was pretty much a renewable resource, so long as a power outlet was at hand. It was also legal! And it didn't set off any smoke alarms! Imagine that! It was a hit among rebellious teens, rebellious adults, and rebellious kids (i.e. artists). Its effects were sub-par, making only complex colors and patterns, as opposed to the possibility of entering the realm of Tapirs with chainsaws for eyelashes, accessible via other things considerably more costly. But the ease of usage and legality of it made it inspiring.

Anywho, I also like to think that I'm darn-close to my potential of creativity, already. People say hallucinogens "open your mind", which I'm pretty sure is accurate, with letting your imagination getting rerouted directly to your nervous system, and being able to taste colors and smell emotions, or something. However, I like to think that my mind is pretty free flowing as it is, and I'd like to create a lifestyle that's independent of the need of outside, chemical influences when it comes to my creativity and emotions (Dr Pepper excluded).

Also don't wanna end up like this.


Team Fortress 2 is always applicable. Even when it comes to hallucinogens.

Grid Art Project

We are learning about how the introduction of the screen created incidental disassembling of images and videos, as pixels are not as defined as the real world. Pixels cause the loss of detail. So, to reproduce this idea, I decided to reproduce an image of my hand holding a $20 bill.

Then I used a little Photoshop-magic to pixelate it into a grid of solid squares of color. After the picture was edited and ready for construction, my father delivered to me several keyboards (for the computer, like, typing) and I popped the keys off of several of them with a screwdriver.

Then I cut out cardboard and glued all the keys to it, then painted them one-by-one

Stanford iAddress

Steve Jobs once gave a speech to a graduating class at Stanford College, and in that address, he gave his life story, essentially, and revealed his inspirations for his aspirations. He spoke on being fired from his own company, company failures, and overcoming pancreatic cancer (eerily enough). He talked about how he had many challenges in building his empire, and talked a bit about his reasons for leaving college, and how that gave him room to be successful. That was interesting, considering he was talking to load of graduates.

He encouraged the group to keep experimenting and doing things that others advise against, if their hearts were in the right place. He spoke about how the company Apple was made up of artists, historians, poets and writers at first, and greatly commended studies in aesthetics and humanities. He believe, as do I, that people with a more cultural exposure make the products. I, too, endorse artsiness.

I'm a fan of Microsoft, to be honest. Apple stuff bugs me a bit too much, but still, I think Steve Jobs was exceptional in what he and his company made.

War of the Hypochondriacs

In 1938, October 30th, the night before Halloween, Orson Welles made a radio performance to the nation. He began to read-off an adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds", mentioning that it was fiction at the start, but it was read as if it were a news broadcast, from the perspective of a reporter in the midst of a Martian invasion. It was a very convincing and involving radio show, here it is, if you have an hour-ish to spare.



In fact, it was so convincing, that people flipped out. They ran amok, most of the radio-owning population was convinced that the staged radio performance was an actual announcement, and fearful that martians were taking over humanity. Suicides spiked and marbles were lost (metaphorically, and maybe literally).

It may seem kind of silly to imagine this, as people are going nuts over a little piece of show. But, like I mentioned in the "Great Train Robbery", this was the first time anyone had seen of heard anything like this, and so, madness ensued.