Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Much of the morning spent preparing and posting a half-dozen sound files on the WWW, for Eric Curkendall to download and tinker with. These are not new recordings (http://web.njit.edu/~funkhous/sound/curkendall.html) but a few pieces I had on the laptop that I thought would be fun to work with. We’re beginning to plot and plan our upcoming gig in Bangkok, which will hopefully be a sensory extravaganza. Eric has been spending a lot of time with his audio software, so we’re planning on using a mixture of loops and live sound/vocal processing, with words, animations, hip threads, and who knows what else. Planning to start with a ritual (kesa) chant, break out the durian piece, at least one piece from my spam series, and do some interactive parts taking live requests from the audience and performing google generator poems on the spot. During the next week I’ll be selecting and making mp3s from the several hours of recordings I’ve made since coming to Malaysia, which, though a chore (for which I need to acquire a cable that I do not have in hand), will also be fun.
High point of the day was having a lengthy lunch with Amy, Sau Bin, and Siew Wai Kok, who has just been added to the MMU FCM faculty. A great conversation about the complexities of the country and the role the arts plays (or does not) play within it. It is through free-wheeling conversations such as this that we are able to build a fuller understanding of what is going on around us. Sau Bin also gave us a book he just finished, The Consumption of Kuala Lumpur, by Ziauddin Sardar, which looks quite interesting…
The afternoon was spent becoming more familiar (and somewhat frustrated) with Java. Spent an hour or so studying tutorials, trying to get the program I wrote yesterday to work without success. Realized, finally, that it was a server issue (just one of many instances beginner’s ignorance). Now that I have some familiarity with it, want to move on to what I want to do with the program but definitely need some outside guidance; to that end have contacted the fellow who steered me toward Java here, and hope to be able to get together with him next week. Also feeling like I need a better book, so will head over to the library again tomorrow…
High point of the day was having a lengthy lunch with Amy, Sau Bin, and Siew Wai Kok, who has just been added to the MMU FCM faculty. A great conversation about the complexities of the country and the role the arts plays (or does not) play within it. It is through free-wheeling conversations such as this that we are able to build a fuller understanding of what is going on around us. Sau Bin also gave us a book he just finished, The Consumption of Kuala Lumpur, by Ziauddin Sardar, which looks quite interesting…
The afternoon was spent becoming more familiar (and somewhat frustrated) with Java. Spent an hour or so studying tutorials, trying to get the program I wrote yesterday to work without success. Realized, finally, that it was a server issue (just one of many instances beginner’s ignorance). Now that I have some familiarity with it, want to move on to what I want to do with the program but definitely need some outside guidance; to that end have contacted the fellow who steered me toward Java here, and hope to be able to get together with him next week. Also feeling like I need a better book, so will head over to the library again tomorrow…
# posted by chris funkhouser @ 6:51 AM 
