Steve Nalepa flew the redeye out from LA and arrived at the Holiday Inn around 07:00. Let him get an hour of sleep before we headed off to get breakfast at the Hard Times Cafe. Headed over to Ferguson Hall in time to catch the end of Megan England’s talk about Second Life. Duncan and I were up next with “Rock Music”. Started out with a brief intro and Rock Star. Continued along with the work of T. Townsend Brown with petrovoltaics and touched a bit on Cleve Backster’s work with plants before getting into Gordon Salisbury’s work at Duncan’s studio. The talk was well received and garnered some interesting questions afterwards.
We skipped the afternoon concert to go and check out some of the Minneapolis museum scene. First we found the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in an industrial park. The building was stuffed with all manner of early telegraphy, wireless, radio and TV electronics. It seemed more geared to school groups, with several “working” radio control booths and large scale demonstration rooms. The main hall full of electronics was breathtaking.
Next up was The Bakken, A Library and Museum of Electricity in Life. There were a handful of exhibits of electricity throughout a beautiful mansion on the shore of Lake Calhoun. The real prize was a visit to the vault to look at the few radionics devices that were in the open and some interesting devices from Dr. Otto H. Schmitt. The librarian, Elizabeth Ihrig, was incredibly kind and showed us around even through we turned up without an appointment.
We came back over to the university to catch Gregory Taylor and Andrew Pask show a sneak preview of Max/MSP 5. Ran into Ali Momeni on the way to Hard Times Cafe and took a detour through the installations. Headed over to The Whole for a super inspirational talk by Richard Devine about his influences and career.
Up at the crack of dawn to bid Kim and Bryn goodbye and hit the road with Duncan. Made good time over to Bradley International in Hartford Connecticut. Had some fun finding the long-term parking but got right on a shuttle in the lot and were on our way. Good flight out to Chicago, but delayed on the Minneapolis leg. Finally got in and through the airport fun to find that the Holiday Inn Metrodome was best reached by Super Shuttle. Stopped at all the rest of the downtown hotels before making our way over beyond the Metrodome. Checked in to the hotel and freshened up before heading across the river the check out the Whole where Duncan and I would perform the following morning as part of the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts’ Concert of Found Sound/Audio Appropriation. The venue looked decent, with video screens flanking the stage.
Were over at the venue by 08:30. Well ahead of our 09:30-10:00 soundcheck. Dave Hill, the manager of the Whole was happy to have us step right up and get plugged in and our levels adjusted. Chatted with Bob Siebert for a while about airport security and him being a terrorist with his circuit bent Casio SK-1 keyboard. Greg Carr was along a short while later with a turntable coffin from the wayback machine. It was sporting 3 tonearms and was piped to a Space Echo tape delay.
A series of CDs followed Greg’s awesome opener. Then Duncan and I were up, he made a nice intro and I got busy with Ableton Live. The IBVA software went on the fritz and the performance was less than optimal. But the audience had no idea and Duncan along with the curators were quite pleased.
Zipped out before the last of the CDs played in the Found Sound event to go and take in a talk by James and Todd of Graffiti Research Lab. Friend Ali Momeni had built 3 of the Mobile Broadcast Units. GRL put on a nice presentation about their recent work. Had lunch with the GRL boys, Ali and some of the students.
Spent the day working on a Max patch to get MIDI data coming out of the Doepfer Pocket Electronics controller attached to Gordon’s homebrew Octo input box massaged into something that Ableton Live would like. Input was provided by a magnetometer attached to a Rate of Change Convertor.
Brian Kane drove down from Boston to hang out with Duncan and I for a couple of hours in the late afternoon. Was good to see him in fine spirits after some hassle of getting his installation at Le Cube in Paris working right.
Made a long trek from Istanbul to Jamestown, Rhode Island via Frankfurt, Amsterdam, a bonus stop in Detroit instead of Newark and Hartford, Connecticut. Here to prepare for an audio/visual performance with Duncan Laurie at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts in Minneapolis.
Fog in Frankfurt delayed my flight almost an hour…eating up the precariously short layover time I had in Amsterdam. Couple that with the plane taxiing in from one of the far runways, seeming to circle the whole airport and my outbound flight leaving from the opposite end of the massive Schipol Airport…and you have me getting to the gate as the walkway was freshly pulled back from the plane. It sat there taunting me for some time as the gate staff arranged an alternate route through Detroit that only added 20 minutes to my flight schedule.
Had 40 minutes of delay coming out of Detroit for de-icing. Got into Hartford at midnight. Duncan had opted out of getting me that night, choosing instead to come and get me in the morning. Found a nearby hotel that wasn’t terribly outrageous, $55 for the night. Crashed out and fell almost immediately to sleep. Up in the morning to find it snowing. Duncan was by around 10am. Took the windy back roads across Connecticut and Rhode Island to reach Jamestown. Snowed all the way. Only go stuck behind one plow.
Started into work as soon as we could get up to the studio. Both Duncan and Gordon had had trouble getting up the road recently. Spent the first evening working with the IBVA and a stone bowl and the RockStar. Had a long session with Gordon the following day working on the Doepfer Pocket Control that was the interface to a multi-sensor input device he was building from scratch.
