September 25-26, 2008, Humboldt University Berlin. Starting tomorrow, the Humboldt University will host a conference centered around the relational approach to sociology as developed by Harrison C. White. The conference will offer an interesting mixture of papers, providing links to Systems Theory and other ideas in network theory. All abstracts are online.
Conference website 

When Radiohead stopped by in Berlin on their world tour, I had the great opportunity to get up close and personal with their stage setup. Their really nice keyboard tech Russ Russell showed me around all the details, including the cleverly devised backline (with lots of Native Instruments software) and the astonishingly experimental Max/MSP / synthesizer station at the stage center. One other aspect I wish I would have had the time to check out in detail is the light system. It’s built using the most advanced LED technology, and it runs entirely off a battery they keep in a truck behind the stage. According to the technicians, this is the most energy-efficient way to run a stadium-sized lighting system so far, and they plan to proliferate the technology to other eco-conscious bands as well.
Full interview
More information on the lighting system

On the coding page, a new project written in Max/MSP is now online. It is designed to make the work with concatenated distinctions as described in George Spencer Brown’s “Laws of Form” more convenient by automatically generating visual arrangements from a simple script. The program is available as standalone application for both Windows and Mac OS platforms.

The program of the conference “The Methodologies of the System” is now online at the homepage of the Arbeitskreis Funktionale Analyse. I will present some ideas on empirical research methodologies using a mixture of network representations and Spencer Brown expressions. The full abstract for my contribution is on the “Articles” page.

Reading a document inside the frame of a website may seem redundant, but an elegant implementation can give back some of the gratification we find in experiencing a book in our hands. A good example, at least as far as technical realization is concerned, is Scribd.com and their incredibly slick iPaper viewer. This takes in all types of documents we deal with in our software offices all day, and transforms them into an interactive flash movie. Now, the frame inside the frame turns into a full-fledged playground in its own right as the viewer allows for fullscreen display, text search, and a zooming and scrolling behavior that feels much more rounded off than my desktop pdf reader. So this is immersion at its best on the web: The inner frame seems to escape its framing website, the captured document feels more flexible than its original version. But not all is good in Scribd-land, as the company exhibits its corporate nature via control efforts against too much liberty in dealing with documents. For example, outbound links are no longer allowed inside the viewer. Well, with this in mind, let’s turn to one of my favorite finds: The Tibetan Language for Beginners

Update: As Jared from Scribd has pointed out in his comment to this post, outbound links are once again allowed in iPaper, but there seem to be technical difficulties in the Pdf conversion that sometimes still prevent links from showing up correctly.

As founding member of Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and Erasure, Vince Clarke has left a distinctive mark in the history of synth-made pop music. In the interview, he explains his take on songwriting, and why self-restraint is important when you have one of the largest collections of analog synthesizers at your disposal. What really got me hooked was his use of the early computer-based UMI sequencer (running on an educational computer designed by the BBC) well through the nineties, then immediately switching to Max/MSP and Reaktor.
Full interview

It filled me with great sadness today to learn of the death of Michel Waisvisz, the long-time director and inspirational head of STEIM. Though not unexpected, his death leaves a void that hurts just as much. My thoughts are with his family.

Michel was a rare encounter, incredibly inspirational in a very encouraging way. He chose to work as a sound artist, but his ideas could have filled book after book just as well. I feel lucky to have crossed his path, and I know many (including myself) who will keep his thoughts and ideas alive in their work. Rest in peace, Michel.

STEIM condolence page | Crackle.org

Richie Hawtin’s M_nus label are usually wizards when it comes to the creation of a coherent identity for an event or any other type of activity. This is mostly achieved through a good communications concept and brilliant web design. Thus, it came as no surprise that the website for yesterday’s Sunday Adventure Club was rich with signifyers towards the intended identity: A pirate’s bay of minimal techno, with Berlin as its island base and other parts of Europe as free-floating islands in a sea of irrelevant rurality. Globalized local identities at their best.

With this in my head, I was stunned to see the venue mostly undecorated and without obvious connections to the symbolic language of the corresponding website. Instead, the Berlin-identity was back in the driver seat, with its diverse train system rolling right past the crowd, which itself was stuck in a recess between the tracks and an old-Berlin style clay wall. No, this was no island at all. Instead, what I saw and felt was a heterotopy, a venue separated from the regular Berlin, but deeply rooted in its symbolic topos. This was enriched and transformed by the international crowd and the improbability to see a Richie Hawtin set in (almost) full daylight. So, the best communications concept for the creation of an event’s identity is worth nothing after all, if it is not executed all the way through to the venue, where people would couple this identity with social inter(!)action. A great party nonetheless, this event did not convey the coherence I had expected from a brand as successful as M_nus.

STEIM, the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music in Amsterdam, is in immediate danger of losing its governmental funding. The bottom line of the negative advise from the reviewers is that STEIM doesn’t appeal enough to the mainstream pop-music audience. Chasing ghosts of mass-media hype, the Dutch government is on the verge of shutting down an unparalleled institution for creative support, where I had the privilege to work on the projects “fello” and “noiseroom”, as well as to teach two Pd workshops with wonderful and inspiring participants.

For all the details on the current developments, please head over to STEIM’s website. Although time is running out, there’s still the possibility to send a letter of support.

Here’s an excerpt from my letter:

Both artistic work and technological research conducted at STEIM have influenced and benefited a large number of projects in a diversity of fields, such as academic and popular music, interactive media art, modern dance, instrument and performance theory, and the visual arts. Many of these projects have brought together participants from different countries and cultures, thanks to STEIM‘s unique ability to provide lodging, without which many projects could not have happened. Providing such support and thereby drawing in advanced projects from all over the world, STEIM serves as a beacon in the heart of Europe, bearing testimony to the open-mindedness and support of plurality that the Dutch culture is known for internationally.

Today more than ever, STEIM brings together artists from different fields and connects them with a global network of creative productivity. In the Open Studios at STEIM as well as in the guesthouse, both artistic and social exchange have found a safe haven that should be of high value to the Dutch people. STEIM is a place where well-known artists engage in experimental projects to advance their creative scope and broaden their technological as well as artistic repertoire. From my point of view as a German resident, the existence and the acceptance of STEIM, rooted in Amsterdam‘s local culture but decidedly international in its scope, is nothing but admirable.

STEIM homepage / Related posting on Createdigitalmusic.com

As more and more people turn to online resources for everything from news to product reviews of all sorts, fresh marketing money pours into the realm of web-based publications. Although the absolute size of most budgets may not grow, but rather shrink (at least in the world’s benchmark market, the US), manufacturers of goods start to realize that the consumers aren’t necessarily where their ad money is. So they want to change the balance between online and offline spending. Problem is, how do they know where to go? In the society of the printing press, circulation numbers used to be the holy grail of marketing assessment. With magazines giving away more than half of their print run and two thirds of their paper paved with advertisement, the suspicion arose that quantitative data may not really have so much to say anymore.

In the online world, reader attention can theoretically be measured with great accuracy. Unique visits can be counted, and it is even possible to determine how long readers stayed on certain websites. Mighty tools such as compete.com and websitegrader.com do induce a feeling of power. However, it can only be a good sign that even these services warn you not to blindly trust their data. Combining data sources with qualitative research is what’s called for. The mere time a website is open in a browser window doesn’t tell you very much about the communication going on. The number of hits on a website can only vaguely hint at its relevance for certain target groups.

With this post, I want to kick off a series talking about possibilities to create a methodology for the integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis that could help find ways for better assessments while raising awareness for the complexity of the matter.