.acro

España y Italia

2010-06-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

2010 vacation: Spain and Italy. Go.

Having a blast and taking way too many photos. I'll post the albums when I get back.

mountain towns in Catalonia
(Click for image)

Tarragona
(Click for image)

Piazza della Signoria
(Click for image)

-Juan

Late Night Tales - a mix by Four Tet

2010-05-25T11:15:00.001-07:00

Warm weather music. A fantastic mix by Four Tet, volume 12 of the Late Night Tales series.
If you have a short attention span, bear with the first track...

-Juan

Backseat Photographer / Car Windows

2010-05-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

falling asleep in a car

From Backseat Photographer / Car Windows

AMBIENT mixtape

2010-05-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

"Moment in Time" project by the New York Times

2010-05-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

My friend told me about the NY Times' "Moment in Time" project. They want to create a "timely global mosaic, created by all of us", of images from an exact moment in time. That time was Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 hours (U.T.C.), or 10AM Sunday morning for me. So I thought it'd be fun to submit something. Thanks, Keihly!

(Click for image)

Bongo managed to sit still for a few seconds during the global "moment" for the photo. Good job, Bongo! Who's a good bwoy!

-Juan

Directions

2010-03-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

(Click for image)

Max Richter - Maria, The Poet (1913)

Gotta get out of my own head.

Current directions,
forever in progress.

-Juan

ELECTROACOUSTICS mixtape

2009-09-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Some music that blends electronic/digital characteristics with acoustic elements (whether performed/recorded or sampled) in interesting ways. It's a pretty good cross-section of the stuff I've been listening to at work, as of late.

(Image: Sigma Bluetribe Bluetooth Headphones

Note: audio widget won't show on RSS readers.

-Juan

done done done done DONE not done

2009-08-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

Triangulation
21" x 24"
Acrylic on masonite

Indecisively teetering between drawing and painting...

Update: Brian convinced me that I'm too scared to do anything else to this, and that that's not a good reason to call a painting "finished".
I'm trying other stuff out, so it'll probably be a bit before I jump back on this.

-Juan

Photoshop CS3 Icon Pillow!

2009-07-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

This stupid thing deserves a post of its own, and that's final.

This is, of course, the computer icon for Adobe Photoshop, part of their Creative Suite 3 line:

...in pillow form.

Just bought one from Craftsquatch's Etsy Store... and in doing so, I have unabashedly breached a new threshold of geekiness.

I mean, I love Photoshop. Haven't YOU ever wanted to hug Photoshop? Seriously.

-Juan

sampled to ribbons

2009-06-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

(Click for image)

Gescom - Megamix
(or if that link is dead, Bleep lets you hear it 30 seconds at a time...)

I'm excited for tomorrow - I've enrolled in a weekly art class. I guess I felt like hitting the charcoal again. We'll see how it goes.

-Juan

Bjork vs. Frou Frou

2009-05-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

I'm pretending to be cool enough to submit content to Vimeo. Shh, not so loud! They might kick me out if they find out.

Bjork vs. Frou Frou from Juan Suarez on Vimeo.

A simple audio/visual comparison/juxtaposition to reveal a connection.
Top: Frou Frou's "The Dumbing Down of Love"
Bottom: Bjork's "Unravel"
(Click to listen individually)

Besides subtle volume adjustments, both tracks are completely unedited. I'm playing them simultaneously to highlight their similarities:
-same key
-share the exact same chord progression
-similar mood
-very similar overall structure (verse/chorus/solo/etc.)
-both exactly 52bpm! They line up beat-for-beat!
-both apparently co-written by Guy Sigsworth...

I really can't see this as a coincidence, but I don't even think of it as copying/plagiarism - they're both well-written songs by the same person (at least in part).

Beats and measures are numbered at the top, and song sections are labeled.

All credit obviously goes to the respective artists. I'm just here to illustrate a point.

-Juan

Sweets Catalog

2009-05-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sweets Catalog.

Helping your interns glue your topography layers since 1996.

*ding*

-Juan

Your Life in Wireframe

2009-04-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

(Click for image)

-Juan

Windfarming

2009-04-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

I decided to throw some clips from my old digital camera into a YouTube video. I'd been meaning to get acquainted with the iMovie software that came with my computer...

One of my favorite memories of the end of college.

This is the High Trail Wind Farm (I think) in central Illinois, east of Bloomington / Normal. We decided to take a detour through it during a trip with the Solar Decathlon team back in late May of 2008.

-Juan

Frou Frou & Brian Eno

2009-02-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to a whole bunch of music that a friend of mine kindly gave to me a few weeks ago, among which is Frou Frou, who everyone's listened to since the Garden State soundtrack appeared. I hadn't heard their songs until now, but having liked some of the singer's solo work before, I was curious. As it turns out, Details is a really catchy album.

I was listening to "Hear me out":

Frou Frou - Hear me out

I heard it three or four times before noticing that it's channeling Brian Eno!

Brian Eno - An Ending (ascent)

It's hard to hear at first, but I think you can really hear it, especially during the chorus in "Hear me out", if you listen closely to what's happening behind the vocals.

"An Ending (ascent)" has been in my music library for years as one of my favorite songs, ever since I heard it during a beautiful scene at the end of the movie Traffic. If you like zombie movies, I think it's also used in the end of 28 Days Later.

I'm sleepy.
-Juan

Cad Cad Revolution

2009-01-28T10:10:00.001-08:00

I take the "Guitar Hero" approach to organizing door & frame schedules in AutoCAD:

(Click for image)

(If you don't know what I'm talking about)

If only CAD was this exciting!

Construction schedules, tedious? Never.

Alright, enough goofing off. In a few hours I'll be driving down to Champaign-Urbana (Shampoo Banana?) for the Passive House Institute US training session! And the drive is gonna SUCK!

-Juan

Christmas Music

2008-12-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

There's only so much holiday music I can take, and I guess that makes me an asshole.

Be proud, assholes. Don't give up!

Here's my holiday music. I admit it still mostly revolves around the cheesy themes of glockenspiels, plucked strings, harps, toybox melodies, and nostalgia, but, uh, well, oh, would you look at the time.

Fauré - Pavane
One of my favorite melodies. And plucked strings.
(Hubert Laws did an astounding jazz take on this, but I can't link it...)

Boards of Canada - In the Annexe
Nostalgia. These guys make the pitch of their samples wobble up and down slowly, like it's being played on an old record player that can't keep a steady speed.

Autechre - Pir
Toybox melodies.

Amon Tobin - Nightlife
Orchestral/choir samples from the 60s, plucked strings, glockenspiels, etc...

Imogen Heap - Headlock
Toybox melodies, harps.

Jose Gonzales - Teardrop (Massive Attack cover)
Not so much the music, but the bizarre video created for this haunting cover...

Aphex Twin - Girl/Boy Song
Plucked strings, nostalgia.

Ms. John Soda - Solid Ground
Plucked strings!

Squarepusher - Massif (Stay Strong)
The sample used in the intro & at 4:44 seems like a toybox played at half/(quarter?) speed, and has a knack for digging itself into my brain for days.

Eric Whitacre - Sleep
Nostalgia.

Boards of Canada - Zoetrope
Nostalgiaaa. Click here if you don't know what a zoetrope is, the song makes more sense if you do.

Happy holidays. My sincerest best wishes.
Luck, love, happiness, and prosperity.
Take care.

-Juan

Pretty song

2008-12-21T18:10:00.000-08:00

You've probably heard this song before.
I just heard it recently.

The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect

Jeez.
-Juan

atmospheric phenomenæ - mental sequence

2008-12-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Think graphically.

(Captions at the bottom).

Atmospheric phenomena diagram
Atmospheric phenomena diagram
Sprite
Molar
Fireworks
Neuron
Neurons
Giant squid
Roots
Mangroves
Oil drilling diagram
Carbon nanotubes
Arteries
The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo
Building plumbing diagram (Riser)
Riser diagram
Flow chart/information hierarchy
Fractal
Fibonacci Sequence
Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson
Crop circles
Particle accelerator site
Particle accelerator
Particle accelerator
Particle collision spiral patterns
Hiroshima
Mushroom cloud
Jellyfish
Jellyfish
Sprite
Sprites
Sprite
Sprite
Sprite

-Juan

Instant "remix"!

2008-12-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

Guess it's not a "remix" per se, so much as a 'mashup' - is that what they're calling this type of thing these days?

Here's two songs. Both are very good by themselves, so I recommend listening to both independently. At the very least, give each a short listen.

The two songs are:
-DJ Shadow - Six Days
-Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian- World Citizen (I Won't Be Disappointed)

Then, try this:
Listen to them together.

(Click above for the "YouTube doubler", which plays both videos side by side).
(If the videos don't start together, refresh the page and try it again).

Don't expect a masterpiece. They both have pretty different tempos, so the beats don't line up. However, they're both in the same key, share similar chord progressions, and have uncannily similar melodic gestures.

I couldn't help but think of one whenever I listened to the other, and I finally decided to play them simultaneously. I think that, for two songs created completely independently, it's kinda neat how they complement each other right out of the box. If you try this with any two random songs, it'll probably sound pretty bad. But try it anyways, it's kinda fun.

There's also a cool remix of the Sakamoto/Sylvian song by Hybrid, but I can't find where to link it for you to listen to. Sorry.

Oh, almost forgot. I wrote about Sakamoto in October, when I was gushing about his composition, "Bibo No Aozora", like an overexcited schoolgirl at a Hanna Montana concert. Both "World Citizen" and "Bibo No Aozora" were used in the spectacular 2006 film, Babel. A lot of Sakamoto's work has strong intercultural themes. In the abovementioned October post, I (try way too hard to) explain my interpretation of "BIbo No Aozora".

I want to be a world citizen.
-Juan

3rd Annual North American Passive House Conference

2008-11-06T08:24:00.000-08:00

I'm at work, so I'll do a stealthy post.

I'm flying out to Minnesota tonight for the 3rd Annual North American Passive House Conference this weekend!

The Passive House Institute US (PHIUS), based in Urbana, IL, is the North American representation of the German Passiv Haus Institut, who has pioneered a method/strategy of designing buildings that reduces their overall energy consumption by about 90%, using predominantly "passive" methods (i.e., without solar panels). This includes winter heating and summer cooling!

PHIUS, the US institute, has been researching the opportunities of incorporating the strategy to North American climates and markets. Also operating as the Ecological Construction Laboratory (e-co lab), they've been developing and adapting the strategy for low-income residential applications with great success.

The Passiv Haus Institut, as well as the entire Passive House movement, takes great pride in the fact that we are not a "prescriptive" strategy of sustainable building - meaning we're not simply "prescribing" sustainable building practices (ie. L.E.E.D.) without having a complete quantitative knowledge of how and when those practices will make an effect. Instead, we take a much more analytical approach, studying local and global energy consumption rates and calculating just how much we need to cut back now to reach a predetermined goal.

Furthermore, we denounce "incrementalist" goal-setting, calculating that things are critical enough that if we take 'baby steps' towards reducing consumption, with hopes of achieving a more 'realistic' outcome, it simply won't be enough. In contrast to sustainable extremists making similar claims, though, we've already developed a simple, readily employable strategy of building to achieve these goals, based on simple technology, existing materials, and ease of construction.

I had the privilege of working for e-co lab/PHIUS over the summer, and I'm excited to see them again.

In addition, I'll be visiting David Salmela's office! He practices in Duluth, where the conference is being held. I was introduced to his work when I was helping the UofI's 2009 Solar Decathlon team, and thought this would be a cool opportunity to see his building in person.

I'm thrilled that my own office is supporting me on this interest. My boss was very encouraging in letting me participate.

Extremely exciting.

EDIT: While I was originally planning on attending this conference representing just my own personal interest, that intention was somewhat blurred when my boss expressed his encouragement for me to go. I've since been unsure whether or not I'd be there as a representative of my current firm.

Well, I just found out that I can give a presentation to my firm after the conference! I'm thrilled about this opportunity to spread the word and reach more architects, but I'm also excited about the chance to 'step up my game' in the office. I'm a little nervous, sure, but I need to start getting used to more responsibility; plus, it'll guide me to get more out of the conference.

This couldn't be better.

Photoshop

2008-10-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

I felt like extruding Hikone Castle into some Piranesian Panopticon.

I love Photoshop.

-Juan

Military bugles and bicycle handlebars; harmonic series and crashing bridges

2008-10-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

What do cycling, music, architecture, and physics have in common? Don't answer that.

Caught this video today, and I was pretty impressed. The title led me to believe that someone made a flute out of some bike handlebars, but apparently the musician made no changes whatsoever to the damn things. He's just playing some tunes with the handlebars, like it's what they were built to do.

Mark Growden plays the handlebars from Doctor Popular on Vimeo.

Notice the range of tones he can achieve without drilling any holes or valves into the pipe. All he does is cover or uncover the end, the rest comes from his lips.

If you've ever tried blowing air into a bottle, you might remember that it only really plays one note, unless you fill it with a different amount of liquid.

In any other instrument, you're changing the distance of the oscillating element by opening or closing the various holes. However, an object of fixed length can actually oscillate in different ways... the harmonic series!

An instrument oscillating normally (the "fundamental note" that he refers to):

(animated, click to see)

VS

an overtone, another note higher in the harmonic series:

(also animated, click to see)

In the same way that a military bugle, an instrument with no valves to press, can play Taps (the funeral song) or the Call to Post at the horse races, or the military breakfast call, this guy is able to make some pretty amazing sounds with a set of handlebars.

Everything vibrates. Everything from our own vocal cords to a violin string, pipes clanging together, or the wind whistling across tree branches. I've even heard that power lines can make sounds if the wind hits the right frequency.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge wasn't destroyed because the wind blew it apart, but rather because the wind hit just the right harmonic frequency, and it started oscillating more and more.

In a way, the whole bridge was playing a note, an overtone, just way too low for our ears to hear.

This, of course, brings me to David Byrne, former member of the Talking Heads, and a recent project of his that I wish I could've seen. He apparently took an old building in New York and wired it to the keys of an organ so that different parts of the building would vibrate, ring, clang, and buzz at will. It's like some analogue MIDI controller from hell.

Apparently some keys are wired to different motors that vibrate, shaking different building elements. It sounds like more than just the motors buzzing, though; he probably spent time on every note, adjusting the frequency of each motor to find the harmonic resonance of that particular building element. While some building elements might normally oscillate too low for human ears to perceive as a pitch(like the first wave animation above), finding some harmonic frequency might actually make them produce a pitch above the threshold of our hearing (like the second wave animation)...

His exhibit apparently ended not too long ago. ::SOB::. Oh well.

Why is it that every time I want to write a "short" post, I end up taking an hour longer than I want to?

-Juan

Somebody wants to kill me

2008-10-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

Not really, but:

Spent a couple of days without internet at home. I'm always having internet problems on my laptop, but they're normally router related (wireless networking = fucking voodoo), but this time I noticed the internet was down while the network was still up. My dad told me to check the phone.

Turns out there was no dial tone on the phone, just static. That only happens in action movies right before someone gets whacked in their own home by a hitman. It sent a bit of a chill down my spine. When is a phone line ever down?

Well, it's fixed now, my DSL is up and running again, and I'm back to resetting my wireless router twice daily to ensure that my laptop receives it.

Today I received a call during work. I didn't take it, but I noticed it took forever for my phone to tell me I had a voicemail. Could it have been that long of a message? I got another major chill down my spine when I listened to it. It sounded like a recording being played at a quarter of its normal speed, to the point where you couldn't decipher what the voice was saying. The message was over two minutes long, getting cut off by the voicemail maximum.

I've been meaning to try speeding it up on my computer, but I'm afraid it'll reveal some terrifying threat, or some apocalyptic prophesy. Maybe it's the guy from Saw. "Juan, I want to play a little game". Um. Anyone for scrabble?

It made me think of the "numbers stations", untraceable shortwave radio transmissions that consist of a human voice repetitively reciting series of numbers, over and over. They were (are?) supposedly used by governments to transmit encrypted information to spies.

There's a YouTube video of some TV program that briefly explains them.

Message or not, their sound does have a sort of sublime, relaxing quality, at least to me. It's like white noise.

Like the above video mentions, they were used in music on occasion. The elusive Scottish duo Boards of Canada are definitely my favorite example.

Boards of Canada - Corsair

Yet another Warp Records artist, you ask? Why, yes.

Bye.
-Juan

Voice without meaning / language without message

2008-10-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Something that's been on my mind recently.

I've been very interested in the usage of the human voice in music purely as a sonic aesthetic, nothing more than an abstract sound, strictly without message or meaning. I'm referring to when you hear a voice in music but cannot understand what it's saying. My current fascination is directed towards the artists that create this situation on purpose.

It happens often enough that you hear a song with lyrics but can't make out all of them clearly. Singers in popular music typically don't use the same diction that, say, a concert choir singer will. Add other loud instruments and percussion and, a lot of times, you don't catch every line.

I've often wondered how important this is to the average music listener. Do lyrics matter? Do you enjoy any music in other languages? Can you enjoy a song that employs lyrics that you don't agree with?

Less commonly, you'll hear voices in music that aren't trying to say anything at all. Examples? In its simplest form, "Aaaaaaahhh" or "Ooooooh", or humming. Listen to James Horner's soundtrack to the film, A Beautiful Mind.

Having a singer "ooh and aaah" on a song is one thing, having a singer sing lyrics is another. The Beatles' Hey Jude wouldn't be quite the same if they just "Nah nah nah"ed the whole thing, right? There's lyrics there, they're part of the song.

So even though James Horner and the Beatles use voice, there's a fundamental difference between their usages, right?

Here's the question: is the difference only the presence/absence of lyrics, or is there more distinguishing the two examples? Consider now a song in a language other than English. Listen to a few seconds of this song from the Cirque Du Soleil's Dralion production. There's lyrics there, but you cannot understand what they're saying. You're not gonna focus all your efforts into trying to decipher this foreign language, so you're gonna start to listen more to the rhythm, the percussion, the bass, everything else. However, it's not like you tune the voice out, there's a melody that it carries, and even syllables and vocal inflections that, while being foreign, are still nice to listen to.

Time to push the envelope. Is it possible to create music with voice, with syllables and inflections but with strictly no language or meaning? Is it possible to harness the quality and aesthetic of a voice singing in another language, without writing in another language?

The reason I used the Cirque Du Soleil as an example is that their music writers write in a fictional language. They wanted the experience of listening to a singer singing a foreign language to be available to all listeners, of all languages.

This begins to shine the spotlight on the sonic quality that I'm trying to get at. I think language has a sonic aesthetic that can be completely separate from the language itself. And when I observe artists deliberately trying to achieve this aesthetic, I get excited.

Now I'm not just talking about the sappy, Icelandic rockers Sigur Ros, who also employ a completely fictional language in a lot of their music (copycats! ahem). I've seen some other really cool examples that go even further.

How'd you guess? None other than Squarepusher, whose 'personal manifesto' I drooled over on my last post.

Squarepusher - f-train

Here's a song that is almost entirely based on the vocal track. If you heard it coming from a distant car window, you might think it was a rap song. In English, even! But if you listen closely, especially to the first half, the vocal track is so sliced up that you can't even hear what the lyrics are. He deliberately dissects the vocal track with a barrage of echoes, re-samplings, reverbs, vocoders, all which render the whole thing almost completely unintelligible. You hear all the syllables, the specific sounds and inflections of the English language as a pure sonic aesthetic, distilled from any sort of meaning.

A similar example:

Autechre - Ccec

Here, there's a sliced-up vocal track that fails to convey anything beyond fractions of syllables. Unlike the last example, though, you can't even hear what language the original vocal track comes from (whereas in the Squarepusher track, a few English words poke through here and there). Even here, though, you can hear that there's SOME language there, at least SOMETHING beyond a voice going "Oooooooh" and "aaaaaaah". A perfect example of how the entity of language can have a sonic imprint on a song without conveying any meaning whatsoever.

Why do I bother with this? Because I've always thought that there was a certain quality present in music with lyrics, absent in music without lyrics, yet STILL PRESENT in music with lyrics I didn't understand. I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and studied music since I was four years old. I was exposed to a lot of music in different languages, predominantly English, which I didn't understand but still enjoyed. I eventually learned English and moved to the US when I was ten, but continued to enjoy the same music without paying any attention to the lyrics at all.

Furthermore, this also directly applies to two of my many convictions in music:

-One: there's an infinitely greater depth to music theory than just lyrics (I mentioned this two posts ago)
-Two: like in art, abstraction tends to be directly proportional to the opportunity for an artist's identity to be expressed. Less abstraction (i.e. more representation) = less opportunity for expression. It's a continuum.

It's two AM and I think I'll explain the latter point some other time.

Squarepusher's "Manifesto"

2008-10-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the sappy language in the last post, if you know me, I tend to get REALLY excited about music that I like.

That being said:

As my tastes in music have developed over time, I've found myself significantly drawn to the work of Tom Jenkinson, better known as Squarepusher, from Warp Records.

I was thrilled to find out that in 2002, he wrote a short statement to coincide with his album, Do you know Squarepusher, which many have interpreted as a personal manifesto.

It goes like this:

Some people would say, in looking at my career, that it betrays a confused musical standpoint; optimistically it is termed unpredictable, more derisively it is said to be self-cancelling, in that within the wide aesthetic range in the work, one part contradicts and undermines another, resulting in something akin to the mixing of all the different paints on the palette. This is an important point to realise: I take no refuge behind standpoints. This has manifested itself as part of my fundamental creative aspiration- to see across as opposed to seeing from.

At first, there needs to be the presence both of a view rooted in inherited opinion, effectively treated as transparent and assumed to be inherently correct, and a will to play with that view, to endlessly distort it and to ultimately be prepared to destroy it. A kind of simultaneous faith and critical ingenuity are required as, without the latter one is bound to a reverential repetition of received wisdom, and without the former ones sparks quickly die away once the entrenched standpoint is supposedly vanquished.

To make a lethal attack on, say a musical standpoint, that standpoint must first be loved, understood and accommodated before it can be assailed, and this problem is exemplified with much youth culture that seeks to destroy its perceived antithetical enemy simply by contradicting it. It is not enough to behead your enemy, they must first be invited in and made to feel welcome in order to be comprehensively destroyed i.e. they must be in some way incorporated.

This process should seem familiar as it is the time honoured way of dissipating polarised energy away from musical movements: by making them popular. What I am doing is turning this system on its head: instead of incorporating isolated views into mainstream equivalents, for the sake of destroying culture in the name of the corporation, I incorporate isolated views into my standpoint, indeed to the point of seemingly cancelling out a coherent view, for the sake of destroying culture in the name of the individual. In this sense I advocate completely respect-less exploitation of all forms available, as this is the only road that could possibly render an individual immune to being dissolved into mainstream castration, insofar as the music industry as it stands feeds most happily on artists with discrete viewpoints:identity-cults can only be effectively generated from one dimensional personalities. Personal identity must be entirely subjugated and rendered formless in order to have any sort of freedom in our era.

A common error is mistaking contradiction or negation of a consensus view for freedom; this leads to phenomena symbiotic with mainstream culture and equally poisonous i.e. movements who identify themselves exclusively with a cynical commentary on the mainstream. This is a dustbin for so called artists: diametrically opposed to the mainstream, they are still very much obliged to march to its tune, or of course its inversion. Being conscious of the fallacy in their claim of independence, the views always deliberately remain self-contained, and just as a surfeit of cultural control gives rise to overweight smug cretins, an almost total absence of it gives rise to the revolting snide dinginess of the eternally subjugated. The lesson is that no punks have yet been punk enough - rejecting and negating the mainstream just as quickly becomes subsumed in its own poisonous cliches, (thus often becoming eligible for mass production).

It is essential for any creator to want to negate and to reject, but this has to be coupled with a consummate understanding of the phenomena one seeks to reject. Otherwise, not understanding the language of negation, the object of the negating will misunderstands what is being shouted at it, and carries on regardless. I have learned to see inside every musicians head because, in order to prevent myself from being fully incorporated into any musical ghetto, I have to incorporate every musical ghetto into myself. I aspire to make music useless as a commodity i.e. a prop for the identities and personalities of the mindless; and if this is all that music constitutes in our era, then to maximise every conceivable parameter until it completely destroys itself.

* * *

It often happens that I get excited about a certain artist, believing their work to be of a certain relevance or significance, but start to question whether this belief is the artists' actual goal or simply my own hopeful projections. In this case, after being a big fan for a year or two now, I'm reaffirmed by this 'manifesto' that my interpretations have been mostly on the right track. Basically, I THINK THIS IS REALLY FREAKING COOL.

While a lot of it refers to his own process, and is therefore difficult to comprehend without being familiar with his music, I still think it offers an interesting and relevant commentary on a lot of contemporary art, music, and culture.

He writes that an organized effort against "mainstream" conformity will just as quickly become a conformity in itself. Beyond that, he seems to want to say that ANY artistic effort wishing to destroy ANY other idea or viewpoint must consume and internalize it, even "love, understand and accommodate" it. It's somewhat confusing to read this terminology, which seems to refer to pretty abstract concepts. It paints the world of music (or art in general) as a battlefield, with these supposed viewpoints wanting to kill each other... So what the hell is he talking about?

What I really think he's addressing is the concept of style in general. Any given style is a set of aesthetic preferences believed to be the most beautiful. Style can exist on the individual level of an artist, or on the level of the movements or genres that individuals choose to align themselves with, or even in greater cultural levels, and anywhere in between. You can recognize Tadao Ando's buildings pretty easily by the distinctive personal aesthetic of meticulous concrete surfaces and careful filtration of light, just as you can recognize the aesthetic of the hip-hop genre, which prioritizes danceable rhythms, the usage of sampling, and lyrics. But why do these styles need to fight each other? "Destroy" each other?

When an artist achieves his or her perceived pinnacle of beauty by choosing aesthetic preferences, this created "style" becomes his/her identity as an artist and creator, and the distinguishing quality of his/her work. If any given style really believes that its own aesthetic preferences are the most beautiful, then it must believe that any other style's aesthetic preferences are inferior. In this sense, styles are against each other, in a way.

I'm not saying that people should only enjoy one style; I'm sure that you find different things to like in different places, as most others do. But there is still stylistic antagonism - musical discussions, especially with young people, tend to turn into arguments. I'm sure that if you think of your own tastes, you'll find that you like certain styles more than others. You might have a singular favorite. And most certainly must have styles that you dislike, maybe even hate to experience, or simply fail to understand.

While words like "negate", "reject", or even "assail" and "destroy" might be a bit strong, they're referring to this underlying fundamental stylistic struggle.

Every 'style', as a set of aesthetic preferences, is susceptible to attack from a rival style. Think of the effect of age on music, for example. There are stylistic preferences that may have sounded good to certain people 20 years ago, but as times and circumstances change, the same people might leave those preferences for what they perceive to be better ones. Certain styles will sound better than others to people of different locations, time periods, economic classes, varying religious beliefs, life experiences, ad infinitum.

So what does he mean when he says that the object (or style) one seeks to destroy "must be in some way incorporated", even "loved, understood and accommodated"? Is he calling for the assimilation of rival styles? The subsequent intermixing of aesthetic preferences? Wouldn't that be contradictory to the original style and its believed ultimate ideals, possibly even self-defeating? Wouldn't that be the end of our idea of 'style'?

I think that's exactly what he's getting at. If an artist can only achieve an identity by creating a style, then the style (and the identity) is open to attack from other styles, chained to time periods, cultural boundaries, cliches and repetitions. However, by 'loving', 'understanding', 'accommodating', and ultimately 'incorporating' other styles into his or her own, the artist sacrifices his own style (and stylistic identity) for the destruction of others. In other words, the identity of the artist transcends the shackles of aesthetic preferences and evolves into a fluid, procedural state. Instead of being distinguishable by a set of limiting aesthetic ideals, the unique identity of the artist is instead found in the process behind the aesthetic choices, thus freeing the artist to express him/herself in any form, without losing his/her recognizable imprint and identity as a creator. As he writes, "personal identity must be entirely subjugated and rendered formless in order to have any sort of freedom in our era".

I believe this to be the heart of this supposed "manifesto", and a very clear outline of Squarepusher's own meandering, erratic, and seemingly contradictory evolution as an artistic identity. I also feel that this is something I've felt about music for a very, very long time. Our views and alignments with musical genres are frustrating to me. The aesthetics of these genres tend to simply overshadow those of the artists that subscribe to them, allowing for very little room for individuality. Beyond that, they're extremely susceptible to trends, time, culture, and everything else abovementioned. If there's no underlying ideas that transcend these shackles, the identities of all these artists and genres are forever doomed to a pointless battle, a free-for-all, where seldom does any one style reign supreme for very long.

I see this ascension from stylistic limitation to procedural freedom in a lot of today's cutting-edge art, architecture, and music. Swiss architects Herzog & De Meuron have hardly any visual 'signature' in their diverse buildings, but are instead recognizable by the process to reach the optimal solution in each of their projects in their individual contexts of scale, location, purpose, budget, etc. One of my favorite musical groups, Autechre, have explored the usage of computer algorithms to create self-generating music, having no control of the resulting aesthetics but instead of the process that achieves them. In the same way, the recent concept of scripting in architectural design explores the creation of generative sequences that design buildings. Interactive media is a booming new trend in the world of art, creating works that change according to different variables, from the viewer's own presence to even things like death statistics, radio interference, or random sequences. The new big splash in the gaming industry is the release of Spore, a game that follows the biological evolution of a life form created by the player, as well as its interactions and influences with other creatures created by other players, offering a unique experience every time it's played.

Squarepusher - Do you know squarepusher (live)

"I aspire to make music useless as a commodity i.e. a prop for the identities and personalities of the mindless; and if this is all that music constitutes in our era, then to maximise every conceivable parameter until it completely destroys itself."

That's it.

Whew. I've been musing on these subjects for a while now, and it's good to get them down on (paper?). That's really the true purpose of this silly blog for me - typing things out helps me understand them, and the possibility of having anyone read them forces me to organize thoughts coherently and logically, therefore achieving greater understanding. (You probably beg to differ on the 'coherent' part - but it's seriously the best I can do). Even if nobody reads this crap, I'm still getting everything out of it.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

2008-10-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

Ryuichi Sakamoto is one of the composers I've wanted to learn more about for a very long time. It's finally now that I'm getting the chance to listen to more of his music.

If you've got ten minutes, you should do yourself a favor and listen to this performance:

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Bibo No Aozora

(That's him on the piano, by the way).

It's simple. Piano, cello, violin. A nice little slow piece played by classical instruments. Boooring (to a lot of people). BUT.

It's possibly one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. Here's why:
(Bear with me here!)

The strings start it off with a pretty repetitive harmony. It isn't until the piano comes in that you feel any depth.

As you keep listening, yeah, it's a nice little slow piece with classical instruments, but listen a little closer and notice how cold the strings keep sounding. They're playing the same repetitive lines, using relatively little or no vibrato (the wavering of volume to add expression). In contrast, the piano is playing a very warm, comforting part, using thick, jazzy chords and hitting some relatively low, resonating notes.

This "nice little slow piece" is meant to sound like it's barely hanging on by a thread. The interaction between the piano and strings sounds distanced, strained.

Hit the 3:36 mark:

Sudden change. The strings are doing something else now, with more motion and vibrato, not the cold and timid notes they were playing before. The key has changed. The piano is seemingly adding emotion as well, louder now, changing the progression...

But the violin and cello's lines, going up and down together, just repeat verbatim over and over, albeit with more emotion. They are completely unaffected by the piano's part. The piano part continues to plead with its emotional, soulful chords, but the strings will not listen, repeating what they've been saying since the key change.

The composition at this point is made to look like it's maintaining a fake smile, a facade, while it actually nears the edge of collapse.

Hit the 4:33 mark:
(This part is very brief).

The strings are screaming. Not only are they completely unaffected by the piano's part, they're not even playing in the same key as him (or each other). The composition has shattered into pieces. The piano continues to simply reiterate what it was saying in the beginning, pretending it doesn't hear the strings shouting.

The 5:03 mark:

After the harsh argument, there seems to be a return to normalcy. Like in the beginning, we hear the piano's moving story again, with deep soulful chords, as the strings resume their cold, repetitive, unsympathetic harmony. They're not screaming anymore, but things are hardly any better.

At 5:52:

A brief swell in emotion, while it almost seems like both piano and strings are finally listening to each other, but the tension builds...

Hit 6:14:

The swell peaks anticlimactically: the violin and cello return yet again to their repetitive, unfeeling drone. The piano, however, finally cracks; it begins playing dissonant, clashing chords, wrong notes. Instead of the warm, coherent, and heartfelt message it's been pleading to communicate all along, it has finally given up and is now sobbing incoherently. The facade of strength and willpower proved too heavy to uphold.

As the strings continue their same drone, like someone who's afraid to look, the piano never really returns to its original self. It's all out in the open, the damage has been done. The piece ends in a devastatingly frigid lack of resolution, a hideous chord, but worst of all, it ends softly, ambiguously, like a hazily-defined compromise.

The piece as a whole, you realize, was falling apart from the beginning, but it was doing so in an almost imperceptible way, hidings its feelings from the world. Underneath a "nice little slow piece" lay an emotional wreck, a jumble of conflicting thoughts, a lump in the throat, an embarrassing emotional breakdown set to a hair trigger, pretending that nothing was wrong.

* * *

This is why I believe that even the most subtle compositional gestures, when deliberately and skillfully written, can be infinitely more expressive than words and lyrics ever will.

Such an incredibly gorgeous song.

-Juan

Idle

2008-09-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've been going through a LOT of paper at my office, both printer and trace. While I'm not very proud of the fact, it did remind me of this:

This online journal of mine has been very idle, but I've been anything but. I'll see if I have time to post an update soon.

In short:
- spent summer in Urbana, working for e-co lab/PHIUS
- PHIUS is AMAZING
- new thoughts about future direction within an architectural career
- now working at traditionalist high-income residential firm in Skokie
- seriously liking my new job
- severe drop in cycling activity, will change soon...
- finally having time to explore music/sound software for experimentation/composition
- subsequent joy of producing glitchy cacaphony using an electric guitar and a USB analog game pad with my Macbook Pro
- subsequent sudden interest in audio/visual performance/art
- very happy to have stable, well-paying job in current economic climate
(though thinking now would've been a better time for grad school)

y desde entonces hasta ahora

2008-07-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

-Juan

Photoblog: Milwaukee Trip

2008-07-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

Santiago Calatrava's addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum
(Yeah, it's tired subject matter, I know.)

From Milwaukee Art...

And... the POLICE, live @ the Marcus Amphitheater

From The POLICE in...

Rural campus

2008-06-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

From Rural Campus ...

My sincerest best wishes.
-Juan
.

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

2008-06-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

I guess a lot has happened.

Since I last posted, I've managed to visit home on two separate occasions, first for my roommate's graduation celebration, then the weekend after for no reason. It would normally feel like overkill, but it felt nice this time. Emotionally, I've been a little off as of late; not necessarily down, just different. There's been a lot to take in, with graduation and everything that comes with it. Given the present circumstances, it's been nice spending so much time with my family.

I just got back to Urbana today. After finding out that there wasn't gonna be anyone at the office today, I found myself with a free afternoon! The weather was gorgeous enough to convince me to get on my bike again. I managed to do an easygoing 30 miles total, though I would have liked to do more. Realistically, I picked a crappy route. I went north on Vine St. until it turned into Cunningham Road and eventually US-45. It gets a little too narrow for comfort up there, so I won't be doing that again.

Thankfully, I think I'm at a point where I'm not getting sore from these rides anymore. At least not from fatigue. The funny thing is that out of all the muscles that are straining from riding, it's the back of my neck that's having the most trouble, from keeping my head up as I ride. I think I'll finally get used to it after a few more rides.

As far as bike comfort goes, a couple of new purchases have really helped out. I've been wanting to go clipless for a while, especially after inheriting some old Look pedals from my dad. These things are probably 15 years old, at least, and they're still kicking. After finding out that the SPD-SL cleat type hasn't changed since then, I realized that all I needed were cleats and shoes. Well, I decided to take an expensive trip to Champaign Cycle and walked out with new cycling shoes, new cleats, a jersey, and a lot less cash...

But I'll be damned if these aren't the coolest looking bike shoes I've ever seen.

Just like I feared, I've already tumbled over while standing still from forgetting to unclip from the pedal, but thankfully it wasn't too bad. I've already ridden 45 miles on these and it feels great. The advantage is that you can turn the pedals in a full circle, as opposed to just pushing down on them. Since you're actually attached to them, you can pull up with one leg as you push down with the other. It's supposed to be more efficient and a better workout. It's a bit of a transition, and I'm still trying to get used to it, but I can instantly feel the difference when sprinting or when starting from zero - it basically feels like I have twice the acceleration that I did before, which is badass. I just have to remember to unclip whenever I stop. Ow.

A few recent photos:

From Ravinia 6/15/08

From Bike Ride 6/1...

And some photos with my new Nikon D40!!!

From Wheelies & Po...

From Random

Good night.
-Juan

New Canon Powershot!

2008-06-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

I am now the proud owner of a Canon Powershot SD1100 IS. I'm a total sucker for digital gadgetry, so I'm all too excited about this.

It's a pretty sleek design. I ended up deciding on the "Bohemian Brown" color, which looks better than it sounds...

This thing is tiny!

I'm comparing it to my bulky old point-and-shoot, the Powershot A75, which I've owned for over three years. It decided to break on the day of my roommate's wedding (this last Saturday), for which I was the best man. Couldn't have timed it any better...

The funny thing about the A75 is that my parents's camera, the very same model, experienced the very same malfunction a few weeks before mine did. The screen showed a distorted purple image, yet the menus and text displayed fine, almost as if the lens was broken. It turns out that it's a malfunctioning charged-coupled device (CCD), a part used in many different Canon cameras. There was a big recall issued years ago. The good news is that Canon will still repair any camera that experiences this problem for free, and even pay for shipping. Go Canon. Even though we'll probably send our cameras to get fixed, I still opted to grab this new SD1100 IS. The truth is that I broke a lot more than the CCD on my old A75...

The SD1100 IS has some cool new features. I've been craving optical image stabilization for a long time. After taking hundreds of shaky photos in museums where flash isn't allowed, this is a welcome feature. The 8 megapixel sensor is also a great improvement over the A75's 3.2 megapixels, but more than just extra pixels, I'm glad to see that the image quality is better. The SD1100 IS does a good job in preserving details.

The one thing I'm not too happy about is the ISO control. With the A75 I could choose a specific ISO to take a picture with, but with my new SD1100 I can only choose "ISO auto" or "ISO high". Also, the A75's "manual" mode offered control over aperture and shutter speed as well, while the SD1100 doesn't. I didn't use this option frequently, but when I was trying to get a shot of a painting or drawing just right, it was nice to have. Ultimately, the SD1100 is a "compact" point-and-shoot, I guess, and probably designed for casual photography.

I'm very pleased overall. A camera always comes in handy just about everywhere you go, and for something that fits in my normally crammed pockets so well, this thing rocks. But when it comes to more advanced photographic needs, I'll soon be getting my hands on one of these:

Graduation present!

I think I have a problem.
-Juan

Life in a nutshell.

2008-06-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'd like to, in a way, 'start over' with this blog. If you haven't noticed from the date of the previous post, this thing is quite old. It's been collecting dust for years now. I've deleted a couple of posts, but there weren't that many to begin with.

This blog will hopefully keep people informed on what I'm up to.

I'm back in the Champaign-Urbana area, but not as a student. I just graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Architectural Studies, and after facing a multitude of options, decided to spend the summer here.

Before graduation, I was a student leader in my university's Solar Decathlon 2009 team, an international competition to create solar-powered homes. The judging happens in Washington DC in the Summer of '09, but we've been designing and engineering it since the beginning of last semester.

Therefore, the plan for the summer is to stay on campus and lend a hand. However, after finding an internship opportunity in the area, depending on how many hours I work, the competition may have to take a backseat. There are many other things I'd like to accomplish this summer. I may still help the team out, but not as a student leader anymore.

I'll be interning for e-co lab (ecological construction laboratory), an local office whose mission is to bring the German PassivHaus Institut strategy of extremely energy-efficient buildings to the United States. e-co lab now serves as the center of operations for the PassiveHouse Institute US (PHIUS), and is working to develop the Passive House design strategy to American climates and markets. These buildings are truly remarkable, able to survive winters without heating air mechanically, relying simply on super-insulation, the sun, and even the heat from our own bodies.

With any luck, this summer will also give me a little time to heal from the stress of last semester.

I'd also like to greatly increase the mileage on my bicycle:

I've been doing 30 and 40 mile rides comfortably, and I hope to push those numbers up. (Yes, those are the black plastic pedals from my very first mountain bike, don't make fun of me!).

After the summer I'll be returning to my hometown of Skokie, IL to work for Konstant Architecture Planning full-time. They specialize in high-income residential projects, predominantly in Winnetka and Wilmette. I've interned for them before and I thoroughly enjoy working there. They're a great group of people. The office is only a few miles away from my house, so I'll hopefully save up money by living at home and cycling to work.

This is my life in a nutshell right now.
-Juan

Settling in

2006-02-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

Great. I'm beginning to get the hang of this. Please notice the much cooler header that I just finished implementing.

There's a couple of things that continue to bug me about this interface... but there are seriously more important things in life. I'm gonna try to change the colors even more, but I think I'll leave it at that.

As for the blogging part of this blog, it'll have to wait until I'm caught up with all my schoolwork.

Till then.
-acro

newcomer

2006-02-21T07:26:00.000-08:00

I'm fed up with modblog, so I'm trying this out.

So, hello. Lemme configure a couple of things.