recent things

Just took part in a comic exchange with Mike Cannell over at eyeattac,k one of his many blogs. He has a cartoon over there called Anton and invited me to draw a strip for him in the style of god is a sloth. In return he did a couple of episodes of god is a sloth.

I've also ordered a Buddha Machine 2.0. It is relevant to my interests. I'm planning to use it within my sound poetry. And play with it. See reviews here, download loops here, and play 21 virtual Buddha Machines here. I'll review the machine once it arrives.

UbuWeb have just posted four Derek Jarman shorts. Garden of Luxor is also on the DVD of The Last of England from Second Sight here in the UK, and A Journey to Avebury is on the Second Sight DVD of The Tempest. The other two Ashden's Walk on Mon and Stolen Apples for Karen Blixen I hadn't seen before. They may be on the UK edition of Jubilee which is the only feature I don't have on DVD. As I'm sure Ubu would acknowledge compressed digital files on a monitor are not the best way to view Super8 so if you like what you see it's worth looking around to find the the films on whatever your preferred format is. For my money A Journey to Avebury and Ashden's Walk on Mon are the most interesting but take a look for yourself.

Making a brief appearance in the twitter feed was this link to an experiment by sound artist Ben Gwilliam featuring a record imprinted in ice producing a spectral decaying version of the original. Don't get fooled by the novelty just listen to what's produced with another window open in front of the video if that helps. You can hear sudden movements of the needle and the gradual degradation of the signal much more clearly. I'd strongly recommend you investigate Ben's website and look out for him at Bury Text Festival if you get the chance.

Engaged in something of a sounds exchange with Gary Fisher. I've been giving him and Helen copies of this year's CD-R releases - news on this and lots of other exciting stuff soon - and in return he's given a boxed set (pictured) of his CD-Rs Live at Womb, Nervous System and Broken Cymbal Music. If you ask him nicely you may be able to buy one from him but I've no idea about prices. There will be reviews to follow.

At the weekend I bought a cassette dictation recorder for gathering urban (and other I guess) field recordings for use in my sound poetry. I certainly plan to use it for my reading in June at The Other Room to collect and use sounds from the space itself. A sample of an unprocessed recording I took can be heard here.