Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Ok...but it ain't like live Gunafa!
  

    
When's the next webcast? Let's get a plan...!
  

    
Next webcast will be Wed, 24.1.01, 9p.m. CET.

We are off to the Autobahn in a couple of minutes, to be at "14.
Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for expanded media". We will log in
again when we are set up at the hotel!
  

    
What kind of car do you drive on th Autobahn and how fast do you drive
it? 

How many processors does the car have?

What CDs do you play while driving? 

Do you use a GPS digital map to determine where you are driving?
  

    
We are driving on the Autobahn 

In front of us is a wide valley
The sun is shining with glittering rays 

The driving strip is a grey track
White stripes, green edge 

Now we're switching the radio on
From the speaker it sounds:
  

    
We are not driving on the Autobahn any more, but arrived at the
festival. The sun was shining with glittering rays, its dark now and
the projectors are switched on soon hopefully.
tell you more about the southern excursion tomorrow. womder where
David is- hope he didnt miss the webcast-live+conf last nite?!
  

    
Here I am, Elisa! Yes, unfortunately, sadly, ridiculously, I missed
the live webcast last night. Racing against a deadline, by the time I
logged on, I discovered that I'd just plain checked email too late,
which is why I must catch the one on the 24th! Everybody seems to have
had a blast.

Have to point out, though, from your email alert just one more fun
overlap with the Bruce Sterling topic:

--

vinyl DAVE re-released on Gigolo

Techno cult piece by Station Rose's composer Gary Danner re-released
on DJ Hell's label International DeeJay Gigolos. Played in every club
and on the early Love Parades, the original "DAVE" from 1992 is out
again, with remixes by HAL9000 and Dopplereffekt. A good choice for
your electronic music collection.
With the german voice of HAL9000 of Kubrick´s "2001 Space Odyssey" on
the original, the remixes come up with the english voice now.
Originally scheduled to be released end of 2000, with a few little
production delays this vinyl landed in the right year:  2001.

http://www.gigolo-records.de

--

"i think not working in an advertizing agency these days and not
producing cooperate design for commerce is already political."

Excellent point, Elisa. Not that there aren't fine people to be found
in ad agencies or that there isn't terrific work being done in
corporate design, of course, but yes, you two have made your choices
clear. Which could lead us to: How's Stuttgart? 

The schedule looks great, but so far, I can only find this site for
the festivities:

http://www.filmwinter.de

Which is nice, but I can't seem to get past the nifty Flash ball
thingy.

"Its really a problem, because itsimportant to hear artiststalk about
art, and let not only curators and journalists describe a movement. But
do you see a solution on that?"

I actually think that, so far, the Net has gone a long way -- well,
*some* way -- towards remedying that, yes. Net.artists in particular,
of course, have been pretty interested in the last several years in
communicating with each other online, not only here in the conference
Are We Really mentioned, but also on mailing lists like Rhizome Raw,
7-11, American Express and a few others. I have to admit I'm not as
tuned into those as I was in the past because they were very, very
active -- which is a great, positive sign.

The artists on those lists didn't talk to each other the way
theorists, journalists and the like did, naturally. ASCII was their
most obvious material and a lot of fun was had there, but they'd also
simply post URLs without comment, etc.

But Are We Really's points about RealAudio/RealVideo bring up, I
think, an important difference between what most of those artists
were/are doing and what you're doing. Please jump up and object if I'm
completely off here, which is very likely, but it seems to me that your
art really leans much more towards the immersive. It's very much about
the experience, the explosively gunafa, being there, live. And you're
on the forefront in experimenting with ways to make that possible, with
getting as much of that experience across with whatever means are
available.

It seems that one of your most important tools, too, would be
bandwidth. Combine that with what you're talking about, Gary, i.e.,
leaving the racks of samplers, etc., on the shelves and creating more
and more of your music on your HD, and it looks like you're heading
toward transmitting bigger and bigger rooms from smaller and smaller
boxes.
  

    
I´d like to answer about the music side here.
I am not heading towards more bandwidth. Transmitting 8bit mono files
does not use too much width; and for me that´s not a compromise. I 
like the trashy bootleg-type sound quality that is transmitted. My aim
is certainly not to improve sound quality when webcasting; for me the
major thing to listen to hi-quality sound still is over headphones,
from CD or live from a professional P.A.  By the way, most plug-ins
today (which come as an addition to your sequencing software) try to
emulate this lo fi thing, the most popular ones being named "fuzz pro",
"grungelizer" etc.
  

    
Concerning the programm in Stuttgart, there is a webcam/realvideo on
the website, where you can see a bit of the place here. So far we had
interesting conversations with people from other festivals, and with
friends from Geert Lovink and Amsterdam.  It can be stimulating to go
to a festival (and not perform), but talk to others. When we perform,
we are too preoccupied to keep much conversation. So this version now
is not bad. 
Coming back to bandwith - What Gary said concerning  the sound, he is
right. he doesnt need that much more bandwith. but for visuals this is
different. I need much more of it! in the next 2 years realvideo will
become a full screen experience, so much bandwith will be needed. 
and concerning "explosively gunafa, being there, live" - this is a
very important point in our art. The live-moment  is the most intense.
it is always in the center, besides products, art installations,...
this goes for offline and online. 
you were right with your opinion.
  

    
"Fuzz Pro" and "Grungelizer" would make for great fashion plug-ins,
too, wouldn't they? <g>

So I was going over your conversation with Bazon Brock this weekend,
and before asking about that, I think we should note for all the
readers who don't live in Germany and may not know him: Bazon Brock
teaches aesthetics at the University in Wuppertal and he's quite a
media figure around these parts. Not only does he appear in the papers
and on TV, discussing the sort of things you'd expect an aesthetics
prof to discuss, but he also performs himself.

Brief personal aside (feel free to skip over it <g>): In the
mid-to-late 80s, I was part of a performance group called minimal club,
and one of those years, we staged an opera festival. 3 groups, 3
performances rotating for a week or so. Besides minimal club, there was
Die Tödliche Doris and: Bazon Brock. His set was pretty simple,
recalling a study, and his performance primariy consisted of his
talking directly to the audience while smearing a light cream over a
globe.

Years later, of course, Net fever would hit Europe, and he was often
called on for his perspective, and I've always appreciated his attempts
to be more than just another talking head on the television screen.
He's been featured in documentaries, for example, that experiment with
the form of the video doc in ways that reflect the subject matter at
hand.

All this is to say that, of all your conversations in
_private://public_, I was particularly interested in this one. Many,
many ideas are floated in that conversation, but for the sake of our
talk here, let me do him and the both of you a slight disservice and
focus on one, and in the process, probably oversimplify it a bit.

Bazon Brock seems to be concentrating on the idea of technology as a
means of resurrection. He's very explicit about that, consciously
referring to Christian and other theologies. By means of electronic
media, we can "resurrect" moments from the past, and even, to a certain
extent, the dead. A concrete example: he briefly refers to work being
done on a virtual Marlene Dietrich -- this is an actual project, btw,
her family is involved, etc.

So, for him, cyberspace is indeed a *space*, a place very much like
heaven (again, he's explicit about this) where the past and present
coexist for all "eternity" (another term that comes up again and
again). What's not mentioned, though, is the practical and very real
concern that digital media are in fact not eternal. Digital recordings
(audio, video, text, code) do in fact decay. The only way to keep them
indefinitely is to periodically copy them anew. This may bring up
questions, though, of what to archive, or more bluntly, what's worth
copying again and again so that it'll be around for future generations.

So let me ask an odd and maybe uncomfortable sort of question. First,
is this a concern at all for you as artists? Second, of all your
performances, recordings, stored images, books, interviews, webcasts,
etc., would you have a particular Station Rose Collection in mind, the
Essential Station Rose, that you would want to leave behind?
  

    
archiving - horror ! But sometimes you •have• to do it. For example,
"recording" a track to be released on a CD is nothing else than
"archiving" your concepts in a certain format, different to playing
live. Playing live is more playing in the true sense of the word,
experimenting in front of an audience. 
Station Rose Collection - it should contain at least every product,
every composition that was for sale once, or still is. 
I not only once erased music during the years, because a) that stuff
did not interest me any more, I felt it to be a wrong direction, or b)
I could not afford new tape/CDs/DATs to record new material, so the old
stuff had to bite the dust.
  

    
The only way to keep them
indefinitely is to periodically copy them anew-
is right. in the best case this happens to the material, like in a
webcast moment.
if not, it will not be copied for some time.

is this a concern at all for you as artists?  yes, it is. but it
depends on a certain time, that something gets uploaded/copied.

Second, of all your performances, recordings, stored images, books,
interviews, webcasts, etc., would you have a particular Station Rose
Collection in mind, the
Essential Station Rose, that you would want to leave behind?
it should contain at least every product, right. 
the question here is, what can be defined as a Station Rose product?
I think, a performance, maybe only performed once, is a product, and a
1 hour broasdcast on TV, as well as what  as our webcasts. or should 
it be a cd, vinly, cdrom, DVD, pieces of art like prints, light boxes? 
  

    
We've turned a corner with the weekend, so I want to start asking you
about the future, but first, one more about the present. An obvious
one; I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but I for one would
really like to know:

What's a typical day like for Station Rose? Is there such a thing as a
typical day for you two? If you don't mind, tell us a bit about where
you live, what it looks like... I picture you practically living in the
studio, experimenting, jamming nonstop. How far off is that picture?
  

    
We live in a sort of penthouse on top of a 16-floor building, with big
glass windows, and a quite big terrace on one side. The building was
planned by an Italian architect in the late 6Ts, and was finished in
1972. On a clear day you can see for miles to the north-west, where the
terrace is heading. When the wind is not blowing too fiercely, it is
great to spend most of the day out there, with the telephones and
powerbooks set up. Only restriction is loudness - you simply have to
turn down the volume after 10p.m. a bit, or use headphones. But people
are quite tolerant ;-)

Well, living in the studio ... we try to separate between the
multimedia/gunafa thing happening in the studio (or the extended studio
outside in summer & spring), and chilling out upstairs. Because
besides the "studio floor" there is one more upstairs, linked by a
staircase. Upstairs is private. That means reading, meditating, yoga,
sleeping, bathing, watching videos and tv, plus other recreational
subversive activities for adult digital bohemians. 
  

    
What? No Sex!
  

    
Much Sex !! 

at home & on the road.
Get the difference between private and public here: 
sex is our intimate topic, no voyeurs allowed. 
This is the private section, one of our best kept secrets. 
We wont tell you our favourite positions. As we are much in the
public, this is out of that.
(Although we thought about maybe using some sex-scenes for
artproduction one day later.) But so far we are not public here.

"What's a typical day like for Station Rose? Is there such a thing as
a
        typical day for you two? 
David, I want to answer your question now.  a typical day - it depends
if we are in Frankfurt or travelling. Lets say half of the year we are
on voyages, so this would be the pattern "typical day on the road".
Meaning waking up in a hotel, going somewhere to either perform,
setting up an installation or talking about art. It means getting to
know many (new) people, and maybe being in the public for more than 10
hours a day. It has to do a lot with contacts, new situations,...

Version 2 is the pattern  "typical day @home". This involves
practically living in the studio, experimenting, jamming nonstop.
Diving deeply into the field of media art, of soundz and moving images.
This composing can be seen as one of the most intense parts of our
live (besides performing or sex). But I am sorry to say here, that we
are not free to do only composing. There is quite some organizing
included in a daily schedule. Takes hours each day. No way to escape
that most of the time. Quite often we get exhausted with it. So what we
try to do with this experience - seperate between the creative hours
and the organisational ones.
  

    
You're both so very focused!
  

    
I will second that statement. Whenever I am arround Station Rose
physically, I note that they remain immersed in Gunafa techno-think the
entire time.
  

    
Yes, and even better, not in an introverted way at all, but radiant
and contagiously enthusiastic!

We should probably mention for some of those who live in the States
and beyond who usually think of Frankfurt as primarily a banking
town... well, yes, it is, but there's also much, much more going on.
Besides a few gorgeous old neighborhoods, Frankfurt can offer some
pretty nifty clubbing and gallery-hopping.

And Gary and Elisa seem to know everyone. Let me ask: Who are you
listening to, whose work are you keeping an eye on, what sort of trends
do you think might be heading our way, either in the clubs, on CD
and/or MP3, in the galleries or via a URL? Who or what do you think we
might be reading about in de:Bug, Spex -- or some other zine/paper,
online or off you might prefer?
  

    
Frankfurt is a great town. It´s not Vienna, not Paris, Londinium or
Prag. But it is Frankfurt. And Frankfurt, strange city it is, is not
like any other. Hessians, as you know, were alway affordable. Nowadays,
it´s different, but I still don´t know how, and in which ways exactly.
But it´s differnt. It´s not a cultural town, like Vienna. But we live
in the digital times. So who needs a metropole? Remember that Techno
was not a metropolitan thing, but it emerged from Detroit, Frankfurt or
Sheffield. 
Just writing off me head, coming back to you, David ...
  

    
At the moment I am listening to lots of CDs by Frankfurt-based label
<mille plateaux>, which Achim, the head of the label, gave us as Xmas
present. My favorites: "snd - stdio", "met@music force inc. sampler"
and "kid 606 - ps i love you". Then also "the kosmik kommando - laptop
dancing". Trend in music: I think live webcasting will be big in the
future. Generally I think that "clicks & cuts", "clickhouse" or
whatever you may call it (music created on harddiscs, with noisy,
highpitched samples etc.) will be the future in electronic dance music.
Multimedia will conquer the clubs in the near future, at last. There
is a trend towards VJs even today; that´s a start, it has to become
tighter between sounds and visuals.
  

    
first of all I try to answer Are We really and Jon on:
"being focused" and "immersed in Gunafa techno-think". 
isnt that an almost normal behaviour for a professional artist? and,
arent collegues like that, too? the output would become diletantic,
when not focused. since the net and digital production tools are here,
for sure there is not less, but more to do. 

And David, a few statements to "Frankfurt as primarily a banking
town... well, yes, it is, but there's also much, much more going on.
Besides a few gorgeous old neighborhoods, Frankfurt can offer some
pretty nifty clubbing and gallery-hopping."

frankfurt first of all is a very aggressive place with sometimes
really rude manners. It is the center of money, and it behaves like
that. money seems to legalize agression and rudeness totally. we often
dont know why we stay here, but we think it makes us concentrated to
see the dark and dirty side of capitalsim regularily. not many people
can stand that, and left for Berlin, as an example. as we do not have
to live here on a daily basis, our travels give enough distance in
between. when you compared frankfurt with san francisco years ago, it
was so different. the cold hearted offline frankfurt versus the
warm-hearted online SF, you could say. today the two are almost the
same, as only commerce counts and calcul. 
Btw, I just read a book review in telepolis by tilman baumgaertel ,
who I think is uninformed, unprecise and impolite here 
<http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/buch/4731/1.html>.  the review
is on "Cyberville" a book by "Echo"-founder Stacy Horn. tilman starts
his slam with a bravo on new york and a bad attack on san francisco and
espacially on the Well. He seems to have the image of the almost naive
and hippylike west-coast. I really recommend him to take a trip to SF
and getting an update on how the city has become cooperate. Eric
Kluitenberg was doing a very good lecture on the topic SF and e-economy
in stuttgart a few days ago.

Here comes my statemnt to: "Who are you listening to, whose work are
you keeping an eye on, what sort of trends do you think might be
heading our way, either in the clubs, on CD
and/or MP3, in the galleries or via a URL? 
I try to find the time to take a look at what is labeled netart, and
to check out other webcasts as well. I am reading art magazines, but
not regularily. Frankfurt is not that strong in art, there are not that
many places to go and see exhibitions. I do it in other places, on a
trip. Frankfurter Kunstverein was starting with a new director not long
ago, and with lots of energy. Now not much is happening there, which
is a pity. I really hope this will change again, cause it became some
sort of meeting point. There are 2 new galleries I want to check out
soon. 
basically I changed my opinion on the development of the art scene. In
the mid 90ies I thought that the net would make galleries and museums
more or less obsolete. i was wrong. it went into the other direction,
and art shows are stronger again. We are doing artproduction now again,
after some yerars of a pause. All in all I see a conservative touch in
both the music and the art scene, which is a newer trend. but I also
think that a big r-evolution which we thought would happen 92, is still
not here, but for sure on the way. it must be about multimedia, sounds
and visuals.
mp3 and webcasting is great. never before in history something like
that had happened. so the only question unsolved is how to get money
out of it. i do not think it is good if everything on the net is for
free. because for free here means only for the consumer-side. for the
producers today this means either spending much time without getting
any money for a netproject, or doing classical products with it, what
we do, or having someone to pay for an online project, which i think is
very difficult today. A worst case scenario would be only having ad
agencies left to do webcasts in 10years or so. I am sure this will not
happen, but the big amount of time needed for good online projects
together with the right amount of budget will become a major topic. in
the book we talk about that with Geert Lovink. What is your opinion on
that?

and to  "de:Bug, Spex -- or some other zine/paper, online or off you
might prefer?2
both de:Bug and Spex should be informed better. de:bug concentrates
too much on Berlin, and there closer neighbourhood. They should become
more open-minded. or maybe they get sold to a major, and then they
would be even less informed than they are today. spex needs to get a
new identity. And they are sold already. i think online places, mailing
lists like rohrpost, nettime or rhizome are modern, cause they let
people present themselves, which gives a broader perspective.


announcement:
WEBACST 130 tonite/toady 9pm CET at <http://www.stationrose.com>
together with inkwell. we will be actice in both areas
  

    
we are HERE, started 5min ago.
shall be in the conf and in the webcast!
looking forward to see you here
  

    
It's starting... elongating, building.. and there's Elisa's voice: Hi!
  

    
Mad blue cows! Look, but don't eat...