A software art project that remixes the skylines and sights of cities I’ve lived in and visited. Download at: NYLONCityBlob
Awhile back, in 2006, I put my lifelong obsession with New York City’s buildings to good use. 2006 was the year my wife and I moved to London to start a new life as expatriates, reversing the colonial journey that started our home country in favor of the old country on the edge of a new, powerful-again Europe.
Leaving New York, I felt like a traitor. New York is in my family’s blood. My grandfather loved nothing more than to take us around the sights - the Empire State, the Twin Towers, Macy’s, the countless delicatessens shining as culinary diamonds in the rough preserve of Mexicans making Chinese food and Chinese baking Pizzas. My grandfather spent all his years in New York, knew every inch of the serpentine BQE (Brooklyn-Queens-Expressway) slithering over and through industrial Brooklyn on its way up north to upstate and sweet oblivion, finally exploding into the Hutch, the Cross-Bronx, and the Bruckner.
Not that he would have ventured that far north - he hated grass, and crickets. Especially crickets.
I don’t want to give the impression that my family is parochial; they’re well-traveled and world-wise, but they always come back. I still haven’t returned.
I ‘ve turned my world travels into an art project - just as the skylines of all the places I’ve visited and lived get jumbled in my head over time, this software remixes them and rescales them and blends them into a chimera of a city. I’ll add to it over time but right now it is NY (New York City) LON (London). Sometimes it gets intimate, and small places crowd out the big, important, impersonal ones. Use the mouse to navigate. Mac-only (for now). Enjoy.
If you’d like to show it somewhere, please contact me at pixelpusher@flkr.com, I’m open to the idea.
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tonight they banned alcohol on the tube
so, as good citizens, we organized (via facebook) a massive party to drink on the circle line all night until they kicked us off
so they kicked us off
but not before
i got an entire car of the circle line singing
“the final countdown”
cheers to that
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Hi there pixelistas and pixelisimos, in order to make my videos more accessible I’ve created a channel on Blip.tv: http://pixelpusher.blip.tv/
Why Blip.tv, and not Youtube or Vimeo? (I have accounts on both of those, actually). Blip.tv has a better license for content, which allows me to use Creative Commons to distribute my (and others’) work, as well as better tools for sharing videos. Plus, I like the way it looks.In the future I’ll post videos there and link to them from the blog (this site). That way you get the best of both worlds - easy-to-watch video and my witty rapport.
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A few years ago, my alter-ego did some work on this film while he was a semi-starving graduate student living in NYC. Paul H-O took me under his wing and showed me a world of art Tribeca lofts, Manhattan Special soda, art celebrities, how to sit and shoot the shit about art and sound like I knew what I was talking about, and most importantly, how to get properly thrown out of a gallery. We did some websites, blogs, test animations, and talked art, abused interns, and it was a generally a good time.
Now the result of all that, culminating in a few years of monk-like dedication by Paul and Tom Donahue, has produced a feature film for the Sundance Channel, currently screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. Rising to the occasion, Paul has an interview out on Salon.com.
Personally, I haven’t seen the (finished) film but what I’d seen before was compelling stuff. Certainly worth a look if you’re in New York City, and hopefully we’ll see it on Sundance soon enough.
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The Beardos at Re:Boot at Peckham’s Area10 Medialab launch party. Read on for images and video and more
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Originally uploaded by yaxu
Yaxu (Alex McLean of http://lurk.org) captured this great shot from Area 10 Medialab launch gig this weekend. I have a nice hi-res video of the event, plus some of the other performances, which I’ll upload soon. I also have some great audio and video (audio straight from the soundboard, really clean and clear as a mountain spring) from the last Immersion that I’ve been meaning to post. My computer had a Quicktime meltdown, but is back in fine working shape again and ready to spend hours rendering quality video once more.
UPDATE: Oli (yesyesnono.com) has some more photos
Some video and more can be found here
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My first thought after (and during) this past Immersion at The Flea Pit, London - Where did all you people come from?! People were queued up in the hallway leading to the performance wing of The Pit for almost the entire night. It got so crowded that I had to stop videoing the event, people were in the way of my camera. We had to trust our laptop screen in the back while doing visuals because we couldn’t see past the crowd to the screens!
Of course, this is a good thing. Thanks to everyone who showed up! Your enthusiasm and energy makes these (free) events worthwhile.
PixelPusher Set 1 with Gabrial Da Piaz (Quicktime divx, 19MB)
Read on for videos and images and more
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Energetic and and intense set from PixelPusher (visuals) and 0 > 1 (sound). Dang it, there was such good bass in the room when I recorded this track, but my camera microphone didn’t pick up any of it. To get the full experience, get out a large metallic drum and give it a good whack whenever you see the visuals in the background flicker (they were working off the bass volume). I might have 0 > 1 re-do this track if/when we decide to put out an Immersion DVD.
more pics:
