URF Youtube channel--concerts and art projects for readers!

Hi all. First--everyone come to Rocky in Weis tomorrow (friday) at midnight, ya hear?

Second, I am now publicizing the URF Youtube account. It will serve two functions. The first is an extension of our general principle, which is helping YOU guys (Bard people of all sorts) use new media to make art. Log on and send us your videos, existing or new, animated or live, serious or silly, ten minutes or ten seconds. We're openly inviting you to contribute to a digital exhibition--make it private and share with other URF readers, or make it public and share it with everyone.

Log on with:

Username: URFreader

Password: VillageJ

Our goal is to make art. Though we will not be censors and provide specific rules and guidelines regarding acceptable content, please use your judgment and respect and don't just post stuff for the purpose of being offensive.

Second purpose: Perks for reading us! I've uploaded two videos to the account as an exclusive for URF readers, and I'll be uploading more periodically; you're essentially subscribing. The current two are boots from two different acts of a super-cool concert. (I'll be checking periodically to make sure no one sets them to public, but the first twenty-five people to send themselves the invite are welcome to it!) Currently I've put up Andrew B1rd's Beatles cover and a Low Anthem/Swell Seas0n collaboration (leetspeaking a little to make it less google-able). I have better ones on the way.

Go nuts! See you tomorrow at Rocky!

Contemporaneous tomorrow!

8pm in the chapel for a fantastic program of new music by living breathing working composers. Among many other wonderful composers, there will be Phillip Glass and the world premiere of my favorite piece of Dylan's, "Lighthouse," an amplified string quartet. You won't want to miss it.

Connection: Fictionpress

Since Bard URF has so many writers, we now have a collective Fictionpress account to publish in-progress or completed works. Short stories, poetry and even novels will wander online from time to time, with updates being posted here on the blog!

Check out the first story, a novel called Runaway Sky, that is being serialized for us to completion by S.B. Sorajo >>> Click Here

All stories allow anonymous comments, so go ahead and make your mark!

Otherwise, if you want to get your work up and online, just poke me at jn8828@bard.edu and we will do so ASAP.

Jono

Connection: AndJono

Hey guys, I will be taking and posting videos of our crazy shenanigans on the AndJono YouTube channel, as well as the BardURF dedicated YouTube account. The videos on the BardURF channel will all be more focused on recapping or showing original work, while my channel will be just the flight of fancy maybe has a point stuff that I don't quite plan, but do make.

One video is already up: URF and Jono Get Acquainted, so go look at it! >> URF is for YOU

Unionized Chaos 9/18

Yup--we had a great time. Here are some of my pics from the night. Watch for video later.

The orchestrators (ba dum chh) of the event, David Bloom and Dylan Mattingly

The setup

Ready, aim...

Fire.

Saturday Night "In C" Jam Session

Saturday night, or, if you are reading this after I go to sleep, tonight, will be a different kind of jam. Show up, with or without your instrument, at the Parliament of Reality (the glowy fountain pond thing up by Fisher, for the six of you who haven't been kicked out of it by security after dark) at 6 pm tomorrow. You'll meet our buddies in Contemporaneous, who are extending an open invitation to play with them. The piece: Terry Riley's "In C."

Composed in 1964, "In C" is considered the first and greatest minimalist masterpiece. It's composed in 53 short, numbered sections; some are only one or two notes. With an endlessly repeating C serving as a metronome, musicians begin together playing section 1. At the time of your personal, individual decision, you move to section 2. Your neighbor moves a few seconds later, if she feels like it. Then, when you want, you move to section 3, and on and on until everyone ends up on section 53. Because each musician decides at a given time to move on, the piece can never be performed the same way twice.

Photo credit Jenna Galka

Pictured above: last year's "In C" jam in SMOG. Lasting an hour and two minutes, the session attracted many musicians outside of Contemporaneous and a crowded audience of several dozen. Tomorrow's, in the elements and the glow of the Parliament, is much, much bigger.

It will be followed by a performance of "Workers' Union," in which the rhythm is unison but the pitches are all relative to one line. People who want to play in this piece, which I'm told should be everyone, should come to a rehearsal at the Parliament at 4 pm.

Every performance of "In C," a one-page piece with very few different pitches, is absolutely inimitable. The one-time experience of that night's In C is a mosaic of the momentary fancies of each of its creators. From a small and tightly ordered little piece comes a chaotic experience that will be one of the coolest hours of your year.

So bring your instruments, your voices (speaking from a biased perspective, choir sections for In C are not to be scoffed at), or just your ears to the Parliament at 6. You'll have a blast.

Media Meal Recap: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Q: If slam poetry and jazz had a baby on the internet, what would it be called?

A: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (yhchang.com)

Q: Why should I care?

A: You won't care until you see it. Go to yhchang.com. Watch "ARTIST'S STATEMENT N0. 45,730,944: THE PERFECT ARTISTIC WEB SITE". Come back here when you're done. Go. Like now.

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You're back? Doesn't your question seem silly now?

Q: What the fuck did I just see?

A: Just text and music, no more and no less. Surprising what can be done with a few simple elements, no? The internet doesn't need to be all flashy and colourful and complicated and interactive to be beautiful, or to make a statement.

Q: Why not make it flashy/interactive/etc.?

A: You could ask the same question of black and white vs. color photography, and the same sort of pretentious answers could be given. But in reality, the format comes from the challenge of keeping bandwith small so users with primitive internet connections, like the 56k modems most users had in the late '90s (or the similarly slow connection currently in place here at Bard College) wouldn't have to sit through interminable loading screens. The result has been a focus on the "art" part of "web-art", rather than an obsession with all the cool shit you can do with the internet.

Q: And this makes YHCHI special, how exactly?

A: Since the art is made for the internet, and more importantly for the sort of audience that exists on the internet, YHCHI's work is subtly, but radically different from off-line art. Consider: Although there are many references to life etc. in S.Korea, the work has international appeal, especially with translations into 14 different languages. The impact of technology, and more importantly the commercial aspect of technology, on not just the behavioural side of life, but on thought itself is a major topic. Although this has been a topic of focus in academic circles, internet users see this issue played out every day, from the moment they log on to the moment they close their browsers. Far from being an abstract and remote issue, how commercial technology -- or technological commercialism -- effects thought is an immediate and inescapable concern for internet users. Finally, since the internet has given all users an essentially level playing field for commentary, YHCHI is highly aware of reactions to their work, not from the institutional art world, but from ordinary people. This has enabled the art to hold a mirror up to itself. Take "METABLAST" as an example. It's text is a forum thread discussing their previous piece, "OPERATION NUKOREA".

Q: So the art creates a reaction, which in turn becomes more art?

A: Exactly.

Q: And YHCHI does this without becoming trite and infinitely self-referential?

A: Sure! Just because there are a lot of un-serious (read: stupid) people on the internet, doesn't mean people can't do serious things on the 'net.

But I'm sick of interviewing myself. I've got personalities showing up with press passes, asking if they can shoot video.

Now it's your turn. Watch some more. Post your ideas/thoughts/rants/etc. in the comments.