[-empyre-] [copy/hack/bend] it right

[jon.satrom <jon@selectall.org>]

On May 22, 2004, at 4:04 PM, Barbara Lattanzi wrote:
> Then it occurs to me that the technique I saw was "copied right".   
> This means that not only was the technique treated as "copy left",  
> open source material, but that the videos made with this appropriated  
> technique (updated on 1990s analog equipment) did not bother to point  
> to Woodstock Community Video as the source and inspiration.

// jon.satrom writes //
this happens quite often in an art_world focused on forward momentum.  
as we have already defined {as a global} : criticalartware strives to  
[pull/link/bring.awareness2/rmx] these [events/occurrences] to bring a  
history to this (often) non-historical discourse.

i was hoping to drop some more [hardware hacking/circuit bending]  
relations on empyre this month. it is an interesting community that is  
gaining art_world attention; more and more planz are available on the  
globalinterweb for copying. it seems that when the art_world and  
communities like this re:mix the history is [stripped/denied/rejected]  
in leu of opportunism. this community in particular has very close  
_roots to the early dayz of video where ppl konstructed their own  
hardware to xperiment+develope+use, however it is not often noted.

<--- [excerpt] of Sherry Miller Hocking interview [savegame:291] --->

Sherry Miller Hocking interview
Uploaded by liken itself on 1/30/2004 at 8:08 pm.

We continued to work with Nam June in terms of designing and building  
tools and systems for people to use, but also engaged David Jones, who  
to this day continues to be associated with the Center. He first of all  
come in to repair and maintain the equipment, but David is not someone  
who wants to stay in a small kind of niche, so he was immediately was  
drawn to the idea of creating tools and tool sets. So we did that kind  
of work starting really, I think at first taking existing devices such  
as the switcher and a keyer, which today I mean it sounds ridiculously  
simple, but those were fairly radical tools at that point. So David  
began by looking at the existing SEG that you could buy and the  
existing keyer that you could buy, took them apart understood how they  
worked and then started to kind of jam on that idea from an engineering  
point of view in creating his own circuitry that he would put into  
existing boxes and from there it progressed as the years went buy into  
designing and building his own systems and tools. Artists would come in  
to work at the Center and say 'oh gee, I really want to do this, can  
you do it.' and some of the equipment that was eventually designed and  
built by the people working at the Center came out of that kind of  
collaborative working relationship with people working on the system.

<--- end excerpt --->

<--- hardware hacking + circuit bending rsc --->

[ cut from : http://anti-theory.com ]
Reed Ghazala is now known internationally as "The Father of   
Circuit-Bending", a self-discovered and amazingly simple electronic  
process of  creating experimental musical instruments from pre-existing  
audio circuitry. Reed's first bent instrument was the original Odor Box  
circa 1967.

[ cut from :  
http://www.i10.org.uk/pooled/articles/BF_NEWSART/view.asp? 
Q=BF_NEWSART_87848 ]
 Nic Collins, an internationally renowned composer and performer of  
electroacoustic music, has helped to pioneer the quirky use of  
technology in live and recorded performances and has set up a workshop  
at the University to teach students his particular art - Hardware  
Hacking.
 By soldering, cutting, scraping, bending and bashing, Mr Collins is  
showing his students how to modify an electrical item to distort and  
mangle its sounds to produce particular, and often completely  
unexpected, results.
 Rules on the Hardware Hacking course include: 'if it sounds good and  
doesn't smoke, don't worry if you don't understand it' and 'it is  
easier to take something apart than put it back together'.
 'Hardware hacking is an antidote to the use of computers - a lot of  
electronic music in America in the sixties was made in this way because  
of lack of money and because electronic instruments were far too  
expensive for anyone but rock stars,' said Mr Collins.

<--- end rsc --->

i am glad Barbara Lattanzi brought up the copy it right again --  
criticalartware has been digitizing Dan Sandin's Image Processor Plans  
and i thought that it would be pertinent to copy/paste Phil Morton's  
(the first copier of the IP and one of the early forces in it's copy it  
right attitude) Letter enclosed with the plans . . .

<--- [copy] of Phil Morton's Invite to Copy Right --- Dan Sandin's  
Image Processor --->

Being a 'copier of many things, in this case the first copier of an  
Image Processor, I trust the following notes to find meaning to future  
copiers of Image Processors:

First, it's okay to copy! Believe in the process of copying as much as  
you can; with all your heart is a good place to start - get into it as  
straight and honestly as possible. Copying is a good (I think better  
from this vector-view) as any other way of getting 'there.'

The more you 'buy' the 'copying' of Sandin's encoded intelligence in  
the I-P, the more you will learn about the man-and-machines. Don't try  
to make improvements; you'll make it only worse if you modify what  
already is best, even if it doesn't appear to be the 'best' to your  
mind's eye. It bothers me very much to see 'folk' laying onto Dan,  
suggestions of improvement (supposedly) without a thorough giving-in-to  
understanding of the I-P design. Please realize, that if you 'had-it'  
to do it you would not be building (copying) an I-P to begin with; you  
would have done it yourself along time ago . . . so get to work  
copying-as-usual.

Dan's evolutionary design of the I-P comes from a very high and  
thorough CONSCIOUS systems--design-intelligence-level. If you deviate  
in the process of 'copying' and then Dan makes an improvement on his  
I-P, you will most likely find it quite frustrating in updating your  
instrument due to your I-P being incompatible in detail to the  
original. If you get yourself in a jam, then you have to go to Dan and  
"$PEND' his time getting you out of it.

So . . . after all this: the Art of 'copying' is a good form to try on  
for a year or so while you get into building your Image Processor . . .  
enjoy.

PEACE/ASCESIS (love) :

Phil Morton

<--- end copy--->

it has been an interesting month and i would like to thank the empyre  
community and Christina McPhee for critical_xchange. Liken will absorb  
our xchange and continue it via http://www.criticalartware.net .
you are invited to ping us ++ make likis.
... discourse enabled ...


PEACE/ASCESIS (love) :
jon.satrom
[*=*]
criticalartware coredeveloper