‘Sometimes I think academics are so busy classifying our surroundings that the surroundings move on and leave them behind.’
-Eliasson in conversation with Doug Aitken

Popularity: 100% [?]

This long strand of construction webbing billowed in strong winds all day, painting the sky in orange ribbons. To the left is Asymptote architects’ new building under construction, to the right Richard Meier’s towering Perry St. apartments on the Hudson River.

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Sun, vineyards, mustard, blue skies, fresh air

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Author’s Note: This is a republished historical post after the Feb08 relaunch of Soulincode:

The Revolutionary Voices panel held February 26 @ NYU:

The panel included:

Chuck D, Hank Shocklee, Daddy O, Fab Five Freddy, Vernon Reid and Will Calhoun (Living Colour), two S1W body guards

Some rough notes (these are not direct quotes):

Play your lane.
-Daddy O

He was outlining that the key to making our way in life is to make sure you are focused on doing what you are naturally here to do. Surround yourself with people who will call on you when you’re swaying out of that lane. This is not to say you do the same thing for your whole life, only that in any given moment of time, there is a natural lane in which to travel, both for the individual and groups that individual works within.

How do you sell your soul to a soul-less nation? Give it away.
-Chuck D

When everything is commodified before it can mature, where the soul is sucked out in consumption economy, how can you sell without selling out?

Smart people figure out how to survive in everyday society, they become silent…but you have to reveal everything that comes your way.
-Chuck D

Survival and profit instincts of an intelligent but less activist human being will suggest silence in the face of wrongful actions. Bystander apathy. Speak out, cuz the next one taken away might be you.

Once we move beyond thinking of ourselves first, a higher plane of consciousness is possible.
-Hank Shocklee

This quote may seem self-evident, but a few notes…first, a major percentage of humans never truly come face to face and attempt to address this idea in true sense of action and thought. Second, how many hip-hop artists speak or create songs in these terms today?

The real estate of the millenium is minds. The real estate is in you.
-Chuck D

Protect your dome.
-S1W bodyguard

Commenting that back in the 80s, it was about forming your own dome around you in terms of your friends and society, to fight against encroaching powers taking over culture. Now those forces are moving into the last frontier, your own mind. We have to learn how to protect the dome of our mind and senses from the onslaught.

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[sic] * 2004

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Author’s Note: This is a republished historical post after the Feb08 relaunch of Soulincode:

Graphic Novel:

A graphic novel is a novel or novella done in the medium of comics. It is typically a long-form work rather than a short publication such as an individual comic book, analogous to a novel rather than a short story. A graphic novel need not be a complete work unto itself, much as some novels are merely installments of an even longer work. When a graphic novel is a reprint of stories from a periodical publication, it is referred to as a trade paperback.

The term is also used by creators and readers who want to differentiate their work from lighter works intended for children.
Source: Wikipedia

At the time of the pioneering graphic novelists, I was still a child, an avid comics fan with a monthly subscription to many titles. Back then, I paid more attention to my favorite illustrators than writers: John Byrne, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane. Neal Adams, Norm Breyfogle. My focus on writers rested mostly on the rule that they better provide enough story opportunities for my artists to shine.

Then I began to notice that some of these illustrators were also writers, and more importantly, that a even a great illustrator cannot hide a bad story. And then a bomb dropped within my understanding of the world: Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. In this radical Batman story, an aging Bruce Wayne brings his alter-ego out of retirement to face a more deadly and violent Gotham City. Gotham is a seedy pit of apocalyptic despair, Superman a tool of the state who eventually abides by the powers-that-be to do battle with his old friend Batman…for a kid who grew up a big fan of Superman as the purest hero of mankind, this kind of writing is an absolute shock. In Frank Miller’s Gotham, good and evil exist in the grey zone, characters age and die spectacularly, and reflections of real geopolitics are integral to the plot. For older fans, this comic, along with Alan Moore’s “The Watchmen”, are the seminal works which provided the foundation needed for the steady rise and advancement of the graphic novel genre.

This post explores the current place of the graphic novel in our media culture and mythology, with a particular look at the way the graphic novel and comics are affecting Hollywood.

Whereas traditional novels rely on letters and words within sentences for symbolic representation, graphic novels and comics use a richer visual language which smoothly combines pictorial and textual symbols in a unified narrative form. The best graphic novels are a cross between poetry and graphic design, mixed with an understanding of novel and cinematic story principles. As poetry, a graphic novel’s textual story elements must be condensed, controlled, and rhythmic within a limited page space. As a graphic design, care must be taken to integrate panels, characters, landscapes, and the graphical symbols into a unified story design across time. What leads to what, where does the audience eye move on the page, how does the “reading” relate in terms of text vs. images?

In terms of book meets cinema, words, graphics, panels, dialogue, and action blur and merge in a reader’s head as the pages turn; frame to frame, the authors (writer and artist) create a continuous understanding of a visual/textual story in motion. Some graphic novels, such as Alan Moore’s infamous Watchmen, or the stories and graphics of Moebius, read cover to cover like a film storyboard sequence. At the same time, unlike cinema, the graphic novel explodes the frame/screen at times. Graphic novel panels and subpanels can be fractured, overlaid, the “frame” or “window” expanding and contracting to fit the flow and scenes. In addition, whereas the viewer of a film is locked into a 24 frame per second timecode lockstep of images, a graphic novel reader only sees keyframes of action, his/her mind filling in much of the implied motion and action of the story.

Graphic novels, comics and Japanese manga/anime represent a significant contribution to the postmodern conception of hero and myth. Only in the past few years has the entertainment market brought the more traditional aspects of this subculture to the mass market: Spiderman, The Hulk, Daredevil, The Punisher, Hellboy - all comic book characters and stories brought to the big screen. The more mainstream titles fit well into traditional epics, clear black and white divisions of heroes and villains, storylines that reinforce the American definitions of good and evil.

But there is a more complex, eye-opening underground within the graphic novel sphere, with its writers and artists overtly and covertly affecting postmodern culture. Artists like Moebius are long-time contributors to core visual and story concepts in Hollywood films like “Alien”, “Tron”, “Dune”, “The Fifth Element”, “The Abyss”, and “Blade Runner”.

Matrix creators, the Wachowski brothers, who used to write for Marvel Comics, hired Geof Darrow to create many of the visual designs for the movie. As well, the entire Matrix movie was storyboarded by comic book artists in a graphic novel style, where the panels represented keyframes of the script’s beats. This comic format not only served to inform the way the story and cinematography made it on-screen, it at first provided a strong sell-point to Hollywood executives who needed a clear easy-to-understand vision to help them visualize and understand such an ambitious film project. Later on, the brothers went on to make Matrix off-shoots that harken back to their comics and anime passions: Animatrix, animated shorts by top Japanese writers and animators that expand Matrix story, and Matrix Comics under the Burlyman label. Example of storyboard vs film:

Darren Aronofsky, writer and director of “Pi”, modeled his film’s aesthetic on Frank Miller’s “Sin City” graphic novel, a noir design with black and white, no grey tones whatsoever. A big fan of comics, Aronofsky eventually partnered with Miller to develop a film version of another title, “Ronin”. Later in his career, Warner Brothers signed Aronofsky to rework the Batman franchise along with Frank Miller, something that excited fans greatly. Unfortunately, both Ronin and the Batman collaboration have not yet yielded results onscreen, but Aronofsky is rumored to be the current director on the film adaptation of Alan Moore’s “The Watchmen”, one of the most amazing cult favorites within the graphic novel genre. Check it out:

Why are so many filmmakers, designers, writers, animators, and artists moving in these same circles of thought? The answer is easier explored via direct experience exploring the vast intellectual and story reaches of these productions. In particular, with the titles I link to via the cover images at the top of this post, there is a focus on fantasy, science fiction, cyberpunk, sociopolitics, and ways of seeing.

Much of these art forms harken back to archetypal mythologies; comic characters are complex yet graphically more simple than film or video. In this space between reality and symbolic representation lies a more fluid space to explore conscious and subconscious, where viewers have an easier time looking at drawings as a mixture of fantasy and reality. Only video games can come close to representing a form of story and media as deeply entrenched in this postmodern experience of reality.

In addition to the wide creative palette of graphic novels, the form, medium and distribution via print follows a long history of propagating fringe cultural ideas ahead of their time. The fact that this artform is relegated by most cultural critics to kids pulp fiction acts as an advantage for its subcultural camoflauge. In terms of guerilla semiotics, comics exist beneath-the-radar as coded narratives embedded within the product streams of capital. They are collectible items in the form of serials, relatively cheap and are readily accessible to youth populations. The graphic novel thus exists as a sort of cultural cryptography, replete with revolutionary ideas hidden within amazing comic book stories fit for children and adults alike. Comics are no longer just fun and games.

The header image of this post shows a cross-section of major titles to check out, from authors Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Scott McCloud, Warren Ellis, and Grant Morrison. The links lead to Amazon entries for each title, where you can learn more. Below is further reading on the topic of graphic novels:

Wired Article: Moebius : Jean Giraud’s stunning cartoons scan like movies

Ugo.com : Interview of BurlyMan Matrix Comics Spencer Lamm interview with

Integrative Arts 10 : Post-Modern Graphic Novels

New York Times Magazine: Not Funnies, a look at the more novelistic and less hero/myth oriented graphic novelists like Art Spiegelman, Seth, etc.

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Author’s Note: This is a republished historical post after the Feb08 relaunch of Soulincode:

As a DJ for the last 10 years, I have spent many hours listening to music, imagining mixes, getting songs and melodies stuck in my head, and most important of all - hearing things in my daily life that make me imagine new music altogether.

So much of our influences and inspirations come from the act of moving around and interacting with people and our environment. This is why no great writer or inventor leaves his/her house without a pen and paper… as my colleague Chris and I used to jokingly yell when we were out somewhere and an idea hit w/ no recording tools handy, “Writer without a pen!!!!!!!”. We never know when inspiration will hit through any of our senses, and with movement through space and experience triggering so many thoughts, it’s nice to have any aid handy to keep the fresh energy of those ideas for further development.

This dynamic of creativity and remix, where the digital consumer and author merge into one within a growing mix culture triggers the synthesis of this Open Source Idea: a portable multi-track MP3 song production tool.

Apple’s iPod is a perfect stepping-off point towards envisioning this idea. I have always considered the iPod as a finely designed tool to help me play the soundtrack of my life while on the move. As opposed to relaxing in a controlled environment at home or work with the HiFi, with the iPod I am cruising the streets, watching the city and nature do its thing as if moving in synchronicity to my music, and more importantly, my mix. In this sonic enclosure blossoms an experience so special and exciting…think of this while watching the iPod users spacing out as they walk down the street. They are in another world based on just one different signal through their hearing sense.

The iPod points to an important division that is beginning to disappear in the growing audience for digital equipment and content, thef digital consumer versus author. Today’s iPod buyer and listener is a digital consumer in that the iPod and its songs are bought, and these tunes played through the device play through in their original form. There is no way to adjust or tweak much of anything on iPod and its songs.

We are now entering a more interesting interactive phase of the digital age, as the digital consumer and author begin to merge as technology advances beyond a “player” of experience to be “facilitator” to live, record, and remix experience, new and old . Our dreams and ideas will soon be instantly recordable as digital notes, then available to further mix and remix, due in part to technology innovation but also the new way we think and develop ideas.

So rather than simply walk down the street listening to your iPod, walking around recording sounds for later use, or trying to remember the sound of birds or a passing piece of a tune from a car stereo zooming by, we will be able to record and layer the inspirations and ideas from these experiences in realtime. These layers of experience are the source fuel for original new ideas, yet its use must be quite easy and non-intrusive, for the technology and pauses to play with recorded reality should not intrude too much on its experience in general.

In terms of music, I can think of no better tool to show the possibilities than a portable multi-track MP3 song production tool. I am not sure how many people out there share this experience with me, but among my musically minded friends, we’re always talking about the many musical inspirations that come from just listening and experience in daily life…we think of some great lyric or bassline, perhaps a beat or melody, and you’ve got it in your head. And not only do you want to remember it, but you are also wondering what else it might go with…like a dancehall or hip-hop lyric…and you’re thinking of whether it might go over some kind of salsa type sound you hear coming out from a window above you…on and on..sounds, colors, movement, inspiration.

If the device imagined in this post is in your hand, all you need to do is whistle, snap, hum, or just sample/record your surrounding sounds and you are pretty much ready to roll in making all of these ideas into a song. Each “sample” or sound layer you create becomes a sonic digital note. You can then layer one idea on top of another and play them back with each other.

With multi-tracking ability and a way to sequence and make basic loops, plus pitch adjust and time stretch on each layer, you have the means to make a simple but amazing layered song just by tapping, humming and recording sounds straight from their source. If you don’t know the terms above, don’t worry, it just means you can layer one sound on top of the next and then play around with them until they fit and sound right together. By adding ability to turn layers on or off while recording your next layer, you can make it so it’s easy to hear the tempo and key that your song is built upon, which makes recording much easier, kind of like recording a layer as if it’s karaoke.

In fact, for all those strictly singers out there, you could just pack this tool full of karaoke instrumentals or if you’re more hardcore, instrumentals from hip-hop, dance music, or any other genre, so you can practice freestyling, singing, or singing other songs you know over new beats. It’s pretty much an endless practice and creation tool.

Dropping back in reality from dreamland, I have played with enough software and hardware out there to know this idea is very possible. There are many software programs to create layered soundtracks and songs, Apple’s GarageBand being a recent entry on the market. The iPod shows there is a way to make music listening and navigation a breeze, and while a multitrack recorder, playback and editor is more complex, I have ideas on how to make it easy to make simple layered sonic notes, which is what this tool is designed to be. These notes are recorded as MP3s to save disk space and because they are rough notes, and they can then be downloaded to your regular computer for import into more complex and multifaceted song production and mixing tools.

Like the iPod, such a device is built in the form of simple computer on a large capacity hard drive. It should also feature a huge dedication of R&D to a good design and interface, much like Apple product development under Jonathan Ives. This is the essential failing point to so much technology, that it’s not intuitive to use.

The user should be able to walk down the road, even using this as an MP3 player in interim times between using it to author new songs and song notes. How good the the device is designed will be reflected in how quickly the user can switch between digital consumer (MP3 listener) and digital author (multitrack MP3 creator).

Yeah, I know…sounds great on paper. This project needs the right team to make a tool that sticks. The iPod is a perfect example, where there were many MP3 players on the market before its introduction. Its design is what sets it apart and caused its huge emergence and impact on the music industry. This project requires great interface designers, both software, hardware, and particularly human-machine interface designers. Musicians and DJs are also key to developing a tool meant for their needs as early adopters.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Author’s Note: This is a republished historical post after the Feb08 relaunch of Soulincode:

This one’s simple and worth millions, yours frizee! on Soul In Code (though I do not know too many Detroit auto magnates reading this on the daily Note there is some degree of self-loathing in coming up with this coolhunter type idea…beyond escaping urge to consume, what about escaping thoughts of products and marketing tactics?

So we hear that the end of history is nigh, or maybe this is just a lull in originality…in any case, it’s clear that a lot of companies across the style spectrum are profiting from product focused on the retro past. Nike and other major shoe companies reproduce and re-release famous old shoe models, Izod and Ocean Pacific come back with their old 80s clothes for nostalgia seekers.

Yet nothing of the sort happens in the automotive industry; we see a few nice concept cars, then a massive majority of cookie cutter, wind-tunnel designed models on the market, plus a few designs derivative of classics like the popular Chrysler PT Cruiser. America’s car culture is strong; a Google Image search for “classic cars” shows what’s going on out there in terms of these car fetish people keeping up their old roadsters.

THE IDEA:
Car companies should produce remakes of their most popular historical models, same shell design, same interior with a few updated core materials, and update all the internal machinery and electronics so it’s road-ready for current state of the industry.

Oh yeah, and a derivative idea is to “lifestyle” them for all those vicarious livers out there who want the hip-hop mod car like see in Dub, or retro style like Ford Woody surf car seen in the pic above. This trend is already underway, where Detroit is starting to offer bling upgrades upon purchase, 20″ chrome rims and such.

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