‘cloak of silence’

 

The BBC report that “Scientists have shown off the blueprint for an “acoustic cloak”, which could make objects impervious to sound waves.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7450321.stm

Obviously, the military are interested (that’s if they didn’t fund the project in the first place), as it would prevent submarines being detected by sonar. So technically you could make a giant whale trap?

Or what about a silent tent? Perfect for Glastonbury (more of a Big Chill man these days myself. Well, you can buy a Guardian, the bogs don’t make you wretch and Lee Scratch Perry’s a regular). 

Wallpaper? Curtains? Hats? The possibilities are endless…

And it’s the next step to a real Harry Potter cloak. Which is scary and cool in equal proportions.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

 

All Watched Over
by Machines of Loving Grace

by Richard Brautigan

I’d like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.I like to think
   (right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
   (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

 

I’ve  been reading Brautigan’s ”Trout Fishing in America”, which is only ostensibly about trout fishing in america. He’s a fascinating character. After years in obscurity, and a period of “convalescence” (including ECT) after being diagnosed as schizophrenic, he achieved critical acclaim for his poems and novels. When The Beatles set up their artsy-fartsy spoken word label “Zapple”, he was their first signing. Allen Klein wouldn’t let them release it, but it came out on Harvest a few years later.

“All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.”-Richard Brautigan

DNA-Some kind of hoax?

 

“We are delighted, with Direct Note Access, to have made a reality something of which we – and others too – have long dreamed.”

“Have you ever thought you could correct a wrong note in a piano recording or in a chord simply by moving it to the correct pitch? In future you will be able to modify the DNA (so to speak) of your audio material: to take the guitar track from your last jam session, for instance, transpose it from C major to F# minor and integrate it into the song you’re working on now.”

- Peter Neubäcker, inventor of Melodyne

 

When I first saw the preview of Celemony’s Direct Note Access (DNA), I checked my calendar to see if it was April 1^st.

I’ve used Melodyne, their pitch correction tool, for a few years now, as I’ve had the “privilege” of working with some musicians who simply could not stay in tune.

Melodyne allows you to correct the pitch of monophonic (single note) instruments and voices, but with Direct Note Access, you can adjust individual notes in a polyphonic recording, meaning that if one voice in a choir is out of tune, you can fine-tune it to fit in. This gave me a severe bout of future shock at first. Has technology finally rendered talent obsolete? It certainly hasn’t replaced human imagination or creativity (yet).

Musical elitism and snobbery about technology can’t ever hope to halt the technological evolution of music. Music is an artform, and I think that it’s the artists that are the harbingers of change, rather than the inventors. Leo Fender didn’t foresee Jimi Hendrix’s screaming, feedback-laden rendition of The Star Spangled Banner when he designed the Stratocaster.  The vast majority of music technology was originally designed for military and medical purposes (oscillators etc.)

My prediction is that this piece of technology, designed simply to correct the pitch of bad singers, will be used in ways that the inventor never imagined, to produce sounds never before heard. I’m quite looking forward to it.

back to my roots (yeah)

Most of the week was spent in Newcastle. On arrival, we discovered that there was a festival going on right outside our rented flat, so the first night was spent looking out of the window at the yoof of Newcastle (most of whom were getting drunk on rosé wine, which I found strange) and listening to the mockney ladster rap of mike skinner. It was more fun than it sounds.

I visited the house I was born in (top right window, fact fans!).

The neighbours got a bit twitchy at us taking photos though, so we made a sharp exit.

The Baltic Centre had an exhibition by an artist called Mariko Mori. Her work explores notions of culture, nature and technology, and how they intertwine. It made my head spin. Luckily it was on the ground floor, or there could have been an incident.