Doves are a great band!

Why are they such a great band?

Here is why:

This video is from their DVD Where we’re calling from, released 2003 – discovered by me today.

Playmodes & OpenFrameworks

I want to show you some of the cool things that can be done with OpenFrameworks. I start by showing the projects of someone who calles themselves Playmodes. They have made an audiovisual sampler, using Native Instruments Reaktor for the sounds (controlling it via OSC) and OF for recording, manipulating and playback of video. It looks like this:

Here’s another example:

Visit their website for more info: http://www.playmodes.com/

OpenFrameworks 0.06 released

Today version 0.06 of OpenFrameworks was released. There has been a lot of changes including the most important:

• new library Poco ( http://pocoproject.org) included – used for events
• event system for base events (setup, update, draw, mouse, keyboard) and constructing new events
• the addons.h system has been dropped in place of direct inclusion of addons .h files
• the window toolkit has been abstracted – now other windowing toolkits besides glut can be used with OF (iphone, glfw, non-windowed/command line)
• all graphics have been opengl-es-ified, allowing for iphone support
• all objects now have virtual destructors
• all objects that draw can return their internal texture
• base types for OF object (ofBaseDraws, ofBaseHasPixels) has been added -> better OOP programming with OF
• new advanced user functionality, like choosing the ARB extension usage, disabling setupScreen, binding of textures, etc.
• lots of bug fixes and small functions (ofClamp, push and pop styles) that should make programming in OF easier

The new version is compatible with the projects from version 0.05, but you have to copy the source code of your old project into an existing 006 project folder. Moving an 005 project folder to OF 006 will not work.

For us Windows / Visual Studio users it seems that we have to upgrade to VS2008 as the library is only compatible with that. Or move to Codeblocks..

Download the current version: http://www.openframeworks.cc/download

There is even a possibility to download OF for the Iphone SDK!

Please note that there are two main versions of the library, the standard, and the FAT-version. The difference is that the FAT-version has all the addon-libraries (like OSC, XML, network, opencv, vector math etx)

OF documentation here (not updated since v0.03)

The OF Wiki page: http://wiki.openframeworks.cc/

Now go and make some digital art!!

Jumping spider tries to seduce his girlfriend, makes funny noises

Listening to this video you can hear the spooky seismic sounds of the desperate male spider as he tries to approach his girlfriend for some sexual activity. The sounds are strange but fascinating, I think it sounds like a farmer trying to start a defect tractor. This video was made by researcher Damian O. Elias. He has written a scientific article about the spiders and the sounds they emit, you can read about it here (title of the article is “Seismic signals in a courting male jumping spider”). This picture is from that page, it shows the movement of the male spider and the sounds they emit at the various positions:

Spiders are fascinating creatures, but with their eight hairy eyes they are scary as well..
For more on jumping spiders, try the wikipedia article
There has recently been discovered some new types of jumping spiders along with about 50 other new species on Papua New-Guinea, see some pictures in norweigian paper Dagbladet

Townes Van Zandt

I’d like to recommend the movie Be Here To Love Me (2005), a documentary about the late great Townes Van Zandt by director Margareth Brown. If you’re into Van Zandts music, this film is a must-see. Van Zandt was one of the most gifted new songwriters that grew up in the 60’s and he has left a mark on some of todays most influential artist of the country and americana genres.

Here is Nancy Griffith doing a great tribute to Townes playing one of my favourite songs, Tecumseh Valley:

New music march 09

Vodpod videos no longer available.

I just fell in love with the music of Bat for Lashes (mypsace: http://www.myspace.com/batforlashes). Natasha Khan is so gifted and she also has an experimental edge to her music. Her new album is called Two Suns and is released april 6. Daniel is the latest single.

Read an interview with Natasha Khan here

And another one here

Lately I’ve mostly been listening to music while driving taxi (I work as a taxi driver). I just discovered a new favourite record; Big Star’s Third / Sister Lovers. I’ve had it for a while, but haven’t paid much attention to it before now. There’s so many really good songs on that record, my favourite is Blue Moon (not the same as the Elvis song). I had previously heard that song as a cover by 4ad band His name is alive, but didn’t know until now it was written by Alex Chilton.

I’ve been listening to a lot of new norwegian music the last few months. I think the last couple of record’s I’ve bought has been by norwegian bands. There are some good new records out there. The record by I Was a King (released jan/feb 09) got some great reviews, I’ve been listening to it but I’m not all that impressed.. some of the songs are very good but others are just mediocre. Their best song Norman Bleik is very good indiepop music. Anne Lise Frøkedal sings in I Was a King, but her main band is Harry’s Gym, their new record is well worth a listen, it’s more synth-oriented and atmospheric, but it’s got some good songs and ideas.

Last year’s best norwegian record was IMHO Medea by Rockettothesky. The band is mostly Jenny Hval with some musicians helping her out. The record is experimental and atmospheric, and can sometimes sound a little bit like The Knife, but the sound is more organic and the compositions seems a little more developed than the swedes.

Interview with Jenny Hval on norwegian tv talking about her song Grizzly Man

This video is a live tv-performance with Neon Neon:

I’ve been listening to Neon Neons only record Stainless Style a lot lately. It’s a great sounding record with lots of synths, but some songs are guitarbased too, and there’s even some hip-hop there as well. It’s a side project by Super Furry Animals frontman Gruf Rhys and producer Boom Bip. The record is a concept album based on the life of “playboy” car designer John DeLorean. It’s a great record!

I also would like to recomend the norwegian hardcore band Rumble in Rhodos and their record Intentions from last year. Check it out on myspace.