connections
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Video: last week’s show with DJ Olive
Posted on February 5th, 2008 by dan.
Categories: video, musician, performing, nyc, improvisation, live visuals.
The video below is a brief excerpt of my 35 minute set with DJ Olive at {R}ake last week. Olive played a beautiful ambient set. I did live visuals on all four screens, mixing together new HD footage (@800×450) shot with my new HV20, mixed in a custom application built in Jitter with the v001 system. vade graciously recorded my set and I’ve posted the whole thing to the Internet Archive.
Alternate versions and downloads
Upcoming show: visuals with DJ Olive at {R}ake
Posted on January 23rd, 2008 by dan.
Categories: performing, nyc, music, live visuals.
I am excited to announce that next week I’m doing visuals with DJ Olive, a genre-defining and -defying musician, at {R}ake, a performance series that brings together musicians and visualists in novel collaborations, in the intimate, delicious setting of Monkeytown. All the details are at rakeav.com and below. Reservations are highly recommended as {R}ake always sells out.
{R}ake at Monkeytown
Weds, Jan 30, 8 to 10:30 pm
58 North 3rd Street
(bet. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718 384-1369
tickets $7 ($10 minimum — the food and drinks are great)
DJ Olive
listen and download tracks at
http://www.myspace.com/theaudiojanitor
-and-
http://www.theagriculture.com/store.html
More Brother Islands pics
Posted on January 11th, 2008 by dan.
Categories: performing, connections, nyc, music, theater, live visuals.
Happy New Year! Sorry things have been so quiet — I had a very relaxing holiday, followed by a slow return to irregular life.
Eyebeam has posted some more pictures of the Brother Islands show, taken by the great Christine Baker. The one below shows me as a ghost, walking in front of the hole I had just pounded through drywall with a five foot, forty pound wrench.
;performing; visuals with Lance Blisters tonight
Posted on April 14th, 2007 by dan.
Categories: politics, connections, performing, nyc, war, music, live visuals.
I forgot to mention that I’m doing visuals with Lance Blisters tonight at the after-party for the 1st annual Anarchist Book Fair. 
LANCE BLISTERS: LIVE Jungle, Breakcore, Punk, and Noise performed with MIDI Guitar and Microphone, using custom software to create cutup political anthems. LIVE synchronized visual transcriptions of the songs’ subjects. LANCE BLISTERS was initiated in 2003 to SMASH THE STATE with a show which will ROCK YOUR FACE OFF! LANCE BLISTERS is a live multimedia band currently comprising Lance Blisters (music) and Ilan Katin (visuals), with special guest visual performer Dan Winckler for this show.
This Saturday, 14 April 07, LANCE BLISTERS will perform at the Anarchist Bookfair Afterparty with bands VIC THRILL and SATURN MISSILE, MOURNING GLORIES, ZEMI 17, and DJ’s CX KIDTRONIK, PETER GUNN, SHAKEY, AMOK, EMMIT BROWN, JASON BK playing a mixed bag of breaks, hip hop, d and b, techno, rare grooves, dubstep, breakcore, and…
Expect LANCE to play at 10:30pm
9pm-4am, Saturday, 14 Apr 2007
The Creek in The Cave, 10-93 Jackson Ave. (Long Island City, QueenS)
7 to Vernon/Jackson -or- G to 21 St/Van Alst.
$3-6 w/ ID
Google subway map from onnyturf.com
No Water
Posted on August 10th, 2006 by dan.
Categories: politics, nyc, war, america, history.
“Terrorists can be defeated simply by not becoming terrorized — that is, anything that enhances fear effectively gives in to them.”*
This moment in history will be remembered as a high-water mark of fear and hysteria, a time when small groups of men successfully bred fear around the world, a fear which politicians encouraged and manipulated to secure their control over government. Today I called my Congressman and Senators’ offices to ask them to speak out against this “no liquids” policy on airplanes and the manipulation of this foiled act of terrorism by the party in power to make people more fearful, and thus, more easy to control. The response by our government to acts of terrorism is turning our country into a fearful, reactionary monster. I hope you’ll call or write your representatives, too.
http://house.gov
http://senate.gov
* From “A False Sense of Insecurity?” (alternate link), an essay by John Mueller from the Cato Institute’s Regulation magazine.
thesis tidbit
Posted on August 9th, 2006 by dan.
Categories: politics, secondlife, nyc, education, structures, Grad school, philosophy.
As I said earlier today, I’m writing, writing, writing my thesis paper stuff, which, thank god, is not as painful as my writing process used to be just a few months back. It’s an engaging challenge putting my motivations for Kids Connect as clearly as possible…without using bullet points. 
Here’s one of my objectives, which will form the template/questionnaire for the thesis paper itself. Your feedback would be much appreciated. Here are some guiding words on clarity if you need them. If you prefer, add your thoughts on my page on the ZoomLab wiki.
Objective [1]: teach read/write media literacy and cultivate a critical stance to mass media
Why: One of the primary goals of Kids Connect (KC) is read/write media literacy. What does this mean? To be literate is to be able to read and write. A full understanding of media (new, mass and otherwise) necessitates practical know-how of audio and video recording/editing, creation and synthesis. [Quote Mark Twain about reading the river]. In order to be critical of media, you must be able to distance yourself from it. A practical understanding of the craft of media creation and manipulation cultivates that distance. Moreover, a one-sided conversation is a lecture. Few young people are learning how to master the written word, to produce a compelling argument in nouns and verbs. It is vital that young people learn to write media, to raise their voices over and around the constant shouting match and join the discussion.
How: In the first two weeks of workshops, students learn to shoot video with cameras of various quality, record audio with a variety of microphones, go on sound walks and video walks (experiential exercises in listening and seeing), composition and framing, editing and compression. Each technology is approached through exercises with storytelling, improvisational and/or experiential frames. For example, convey a given emotion through a sequence of still images. In the subsequent weeks, these skills are built upon in exercises exploring expression of identity, neighborhood and community experience. Example: take photos, audio and video of your home in your neighborhood, edit together a gestalt, share it through Second Life. Furthermore, we introduce our students to the world of live visual performance. They learn the techniques of live visuals and VJ-ing: how to mix and synthesize live, streaming, and pre-recorded media, how to express emotion and narative through abstracted light and sound, and to do this collaboratively over networks. They’ve [Some have] already given up on the written word [for formal purposes, e.g., an argument –thank you, Anton]: we teach them the new multimedia communication skills they passionately desire.
Evaluation: How can you tell if someone has developed read/write media literacy? By seeing what they’ve expressed through various media. At the end of the workshops, we will have a large collection of work by our students to examine, as well as many hours of teaching experience to consider. We’ll sift this for patterns and I will write it up in my thesis paper.
Done, wow.
Posted on August 8th, 2006 by dan.
Categories: performing, secondlife, nyc, education, live visuals, Grad school.
Wow, done.
Eight 13 - 15 year old New York City students + five 19 - 21 year old Amsterdam students + 1 co-director + four assistant teachers (later, two and a half) + nine guest teachers + two Amsterdam teachers X (five weeks here | eight days there) + three-ish administrators + a whole lot of help from other people, especially Andres :), == quite a lot of work. Kids Connect workshops concluded on Friday. I’m stunned and delighted at the relatively huge quantity of free time I have now. Back to three squares + eight hours sleep + a social life (! surprise) + a whole lot of thesis writing to do, not to mention the proposals for the next Kids Connect workshop ~= relatively not as busy but quite busy and it’s a good thing I like being busy. 
I gave Carl and IDMI a little posable man as a token of our thanks (I find it amusing that his IKEA name is “Gestalta”). Carl got quite a giggle out of it. I’ve got three minutes left on the remorseless Pester before it’s back to writing thesis stuff…what to say. Hmm. My friend Adam Kendall gave me a DVD of some of his work the other night at the Speigel Tent EyeWash show. I have yet to watch it but it’s a beautifully crafted CD and jewel case so it allures me. Perhaps in 10 minutes or so Pester will give me a break to check it out….au’voir.
in direct line with another and the next
Posted on July 21st, 2006 by dan.
Categories: art-making, teaching, secondlife, nyc, education, art.
Things are going very well.
We students and teachers are making lots of stuff for the island.
I made something today that gives me great pleasure. I took a photo of one of the Lawrence Weiner manhole covers and made it a 3D texture in Second Life. Click the pic for full effect.
Games 4 Change
Posted on July 4th, 2006 by dan.
Categories: 06-G4C, secondlife, nyc, education, Grad school.
Last week, Josephine and I attended the Games 4 Change conference, put on by the Serious Games Initiative (among many) and hosted at Parsons. It was an energizing experience that gave a definite boost to Kids Connect. We met other educators (many from Second Life), program directors, game developers, and one futurist; saw several really good panels on serious games, funding of, grassroots organization with, benefits of, big media interest in, building alternative spaces in, and reaching new audiences through; and — a subject I’m keenly interested in — the realization/evolution of the 3D Web through virtual worlds like Second Life. We met Barry Joseph et al from Global Kids (the first educational initiative in Teen Second Life) who not only gave two excellent presentations on panels but also gave generously of their time to share their learning experiences in Second Life with Josephine and me. A lot of this is covered in one their Holy Meatballs’ stories, which I’ll call What (Not) To Do When Starting an Educational Island in Teen Second Life (pdf) and it’s an essential read for anyone starting to teach in SL. We’re going to ask the Lindens to put our island next to theirs so our students can skip right over without a teleport. We may collaborate on some projects in the future, too.
Tomorrow is the first day of Kids Connect workshops in New York. It will be a somewhat messy start because of some typos in the mailing but no matter — most things start messy.
Today’s Second Life recommendation: check out Svarga (teleport link), an artificial ecosystem where all the plants, animals, rain, clouds, sun and terrain communicate with each other, grow and evolve procedurally a la The Game of Life. See Pathfinder Linden’s photoset of Svarga and the New World Notes post about it.
piano stream
Posted on June 27th, 2006 by dan.
Categories: performing, nyc, music.
2006-06-27 01:08 am.
this is something i’ve been meaning to do for a while: stream audio from my home while I play piano. Right now, I’m sitting at my piano practicing, playing pieces and improvising. Listen to me play if you like. Requires Quicktime (free download, iTunes install not required — look for a ’standalone’ link)
1:45 am
That’s it for now. Here’s what I played (times approximate):
- 1:08 - 1:19 am: improv
- 1:19 - 1:27: Schumann’s little study
- 1:27 - 1:29: Mendelssohn’s song without words
- 1:29 - 1:31: Chopin’s prelude (Op. 28, No. 4)
- improv
- Enrique Granados’s valses poeticos
- improv
- Schumann, about strange lands and peoples
Let me know if you listened, please, and if you had any technical problems.