It all started when my friend David Tames decided he was going to go into the Dynamic Media Institute’s grad program.. and started the Media Tech Tonic group.. which was sorta an off shoot of the Boston Media Makers.. Media Tech Tonics some how became a part of the Dynamic Media Institute program.. and via becoming active in the Media Tech Tonic thing, I started to feel sorta a part of the DMI community, to one degree or another.. 

What I loved about the DMI community was many fold.. but one of the biggest things was that it started stirring in me the desire to be apart of a community of artists.. people challenging them selves, seeking in that way.. all the stuff that.. I suppose you’re somewhat forced into by being in such a graduate program…

Of course the other thing was just the sorta thing you’d find DMI folks working on. Basically this it’s what is conventionally known as DIY projects.. things like physical computing.. and DMI was so close to the Studio Of Interrelated Media program.. which was my major in my Mass Art days.. or what you do in DMI is stuff that you could have done in SIM, and even did do in SIM! There’s a difference in thrust of course.. DMI being more design orientated.. being a graduate program..  

I’ve been thinking of going back to college for years, I’m a drop out don’t cha know.. trouble is I’m somewhat of a fully formed artist at this point.. and as such I don’t really see how anything undergraduate-e would really feed me.. or be of much value. 

I don’t know what the chances of being able to get into any sorta graduate program would be for someone who didn’t bother to finish there under grad.. especially if the programs I tend to be interested in are the ones that are hard to get into.. I feel like.. if you see me for who I really am it’s sorta a no brainer.. you see where I’m at and it’s totally there..

The other issue I confront is not really being sure if college is right for me. There are certain ways that knowledge gets organized in relationship to majors and focuses and whatevers.. or at least this was my issue as an under graduate.. which mean “you study this” and that’s what you have to focus on and you don’t get to focus on whatever seems sorta right to you.. and if you are, as I say, a fully developed artist.. you have this powerful sorta inner voice.. sense of direction.. sense of what’s right for you, what you need to get where you want to go.. and you wonder if the college experience might not be more of an obstacle then a helper. 

As a sorta extension to that train of thought..  there is the whole issue that I was never exactly a good student… and I wonder if I would be a good student and.. if I were to enter into some sorta graduate type program.. I’d really want to go all out as far as getting everything out of the program I possibly could.

My Visit to DMI  

I got word of a DMI social hour… Turns out it was sorta for new people coming to the program to sorta get orientated and meet some of the other folks there.. or that seemed to be the main thing.. and folks who had been there giving advice on how to survive the program.. followed by informal meeting folks, which was where I got into conversations about what this class was all about that I was thinking of taking.

Shortly after this, those of us that didn’t have a class to head to, headed out to a bar.. which is sorta where the real stuff starts happening. Over the course of this I had the sorta amazing feeling of actually contributing to the conversations / helping folks in the DMI community think out what they where doing.

I often experience my brain as if there was this big library of stuff.. on all the ranging subjects I’ve studied.. and sometimes it feels like you can throw nearly any subject at me, and I have all this stuff on it.. so I can say “well for this subject, these are the things I would look at,” which range from youtube videos, podcasts, blogs, films, major works of different philosophers… whatever.

So suddenly it’s as if the library in my brain has all this value, that I can then use to contribute to what other people are trying to do, what they are interested in. And it’s just awesome to me to.. check out what someone’s trying to do, what they are struggling with, what they are thinking about.. and sorta jump into all that and help them think stuff out.. I don’t know.. I guess it’s just the idea of being part of a community in that way that I super love… and really really want to be a part of.

On the Subject of the Class

It’s not even, at this point, totally clear that I can become a part of the class.. or how it would work. It’s a graduate class that may not be easily open to undergraduates.. but one way or another, I can probably become a part of it.

The other issue is the expense of the class.. If  you’re taking it for graduate credit it’s $1800.. which is way more then I can really spend.. But, even if it were on the high end of what I’m willing to spend, say for undergraduate credit.. I wonder how much this could be a door into the Mass Art Community and world.. and what of the privileges that go a long with that.. well what are they, and might that be a part of where the real value is?

The truth is I can pretty much teach myself anything, I don’t need the formal structure of classes to learn stuff.. and I don’t necessarily even need an instructor. I already push myself so super hard that I don’t feel a need to have some external force to push me.. I’m just crazy self motivated, self directed, so for me the value is.. in the question of how else this can all help me… much of which I take as being a part of a community of people doing, to one degree or another, similar things.. and that with a community of folks doing that.. I could learn from people instead of just books.. which might be a good deal more efficient… and stuff like that.

I’m, of course, already working on a major project.. could I get feed back on.. not just that part which is specific to this class, but the whole of what I’m trying to do?

The class it’s self is sorta like learning the development process for physical computing type stuff.. or I don’t know exactly the all of it.. but it’s exactly what I need for a range of projects / problems I have in front of me..   

Apple announced new new Mac Laptops today at WWDC..  My story is I have last years MacBook.. which while I love it.. it’s #1 regulated to secondary status and #2 I’ve been feeling the need for firewire for audio work.. 

 Firewire and USB for audio

I don’t think firewire is as critical for audio work as many say.. but if you want to go high end in your audio interfaces… it really is. On this front.. for me, its all about focusrite or apogee… there is a now discontinued multichannel audio interface from MOTU.. which I understand is quite good.. but doesn’t really feel like an upgrade so much… from what I currently use.. and.. if you’re on a computer with only USB.. well it makes you wonder why MOTU would have discontinued it! In any event.. the cost of the MOTU interface.. is such that I couldn’t afford to do that, and get the sorta interface that I actually want.. so that my mobile interface is really relegated to.. well Kore or Zoom if I want XLRs.. not the best pres.. and I’m limited to stereo.

The difference.. with Apogee it’s the quality of the A/D conversion.. With Focusrite we have convolution based preamp modeling.. these issues are not inherent to the technology behind USB or Firewire.. the difference between USB and Firewire comes down to data rates.. and how much it effects over all performance. 

What’s up with the Brand Story?

The biggest thing I’m not getting with the new Mac’s is now every thing is a “MacBook Pro” accept for a new ancient model MacBook..  all be it updated..

To get what used to be the MacBook Pro.. you need to spend $2000.. at that point.. you get “the two graphics processors.” The deal here is one is nice to your battery life, and the other has significant performance.. The lower end MacBook Pro’s have the nice battery life processors… If you’re someone who needs the performance.. well.. you might want to go for the $2K models… or better yet the $2.3K model which now gives you 512 MB of view RAM, instead of 256 MB.. which really makes all the difference…  both of which are 15″ models. ..but none of this should miss lead you into thinking that the sub $2K models aren’t fine for video.. its more a question of if you plan to push things..

I couldn’t tell you where the line is exactly.. in terms of how you assess your needs relative to this..  But I’d say.. if you’re doing web video.. particularly that doesn’t need to be HD.. and effects and like.. motion stuff.. isn’t playing a significant roll in how you’re working.. I don’t think you need more power.. if you do that stuff it probably depends on how important that stuff is / how often you go there.

Now you get MacBooks Pros in the 13″ range.. but I’m not sure what the significants of it is.. as aren’t they just calling MacBook’s MacBook Pros now?

Speaking of smaller MacBooks

I think there’s always this trade off you make on size.. The negative of larger is.. costs more, less portable.. the plus is better productivity.. often more powerful.. you can somewhat mitigate the productivity issues by adding a monitor when your at home.. but not really while on the go.

For me..

I haven’t gotten into doing a lot of heavy production work on my 13″ MacBook…  long story… and its a secondary computer.. So the idea is “you can work on the go” which I haven’t fully even put together yet.. The main need.. in a sorta heavy production esk sorta way.. is for live performance.. for that, so far.. I’m actually pretty fine with the 13″…

If you look at the Maschine controller

You’ll note that you can see a certain amount of what’s going on just from Maschine screens.. and the software sequencer is fine on the 13.” 

And of course Kore is similar in this regard

This would seem to a theme for many a controller of this sorta ilk.. The new controllers coming to Ableton.. the Euphonix MC controllers…  

Where things get tricky is when you have to negotiate lots of windows.. which is typical for serious music production of the “studio sort” or.. you see it for video, animation… in design you sometimes see it.. but mainly its the size of the window you’re working in.. and its more of an issue if you’re working with bit map graphics then vectors.. I think..

Conclusions in the World of Matt 

For me.. the laptop is.. if I want to get untethered from this desk.. this room.. if.. say cause its nice out.. I want to do stuff on the go.. even if it just means working on the back porch.. It can be about trying to capture the vibe of an adventure.. how being someplace where things are happening.. can alter your consciousness in certain ways.. and thus later the sort of aesthetic choices you make.. There’s also.. if I were doing work for clients.. being able to show them what I’m doing on the laptop is big.. There’s live shows of course.. There’s having a computer when you’re on a trip somewhere.. being able to stay connected… I’d like to be able to go to a friends house and be like “hey, lets make some work,” and be able to do it all there… If you’re doing video or photography there’s the ability to assess things in the field.. 

There is, of course, the question of how working on a smaller computer impacts your work.. an equation that ultimately probably needs to be felt more then conceptualized.. I mean how often would I really want to lug around the extra weight of Kore or Maschine or even an audio interface?

Other things worth mentioning

1. Apple claims there’s better battery life to be had now.. like 7 hours.. but they are notoriously untrust worthy on this front.. but it’s probably safe to assume better battery life is here. The negative side of this would be.. it looks like you can’t change your battery.. though they say the life span is greatly increased
2. Now the only MacBook with an expansion slot is the 17,” which might be important if you want to connect up a fast hard drive.. or use the UAD type stuff for audio work
3. Now having a backlit keyboard is standard on all MacBook Pros.. which I had one on my MacBook!
4. There was a price drop.. of some significance.
5. Apple’s new laptops now come with SD card readers.. which is nice accept that I tend to use CF cards more these days.

What I might do.. If I was gong 13″ the model  that makes sense runs at $1.5K.. For that you get 2.53 GHz ( 270 more MHz on your processor.. so a total of $1.3K model which is.. I don’t know, doesn’t seem all that significant to me) more hard drive space.. 4GB of RAM instead of the 2 GB.. and the RAM is the main thing.. of course Apple gouges you for RAM and Hard Disk Space.. Apple charges $1000 if you want to go from 4GB to 8GB, where as the retail cost of the RAM looks  to be around $600? Perhaps the thing is to get the cheaper computer and buy and install your own RAM and a 500GB  hard drive.. just to spite them! Really.. I think for photography.. if you use Apples Aperture.. you probably want at least 4GB.. and I’m finding with music.. that I can never quite get enough RAM.. even at 6 GB… and I simply can’t use some of my software on 2GB… like Omnisphere.. But really.. I think I’m most likely to hold off doing anything… 

I’m in this strange mode of meditations on digital story telling… I am driving into this arena after all…

I’m a strange bird, for this there can be no doubt, and so it is that when I approach anything, seems to not matter what, I can’t seem to escape a certain contrarianism.. This is apparently my little cross to bare.. as it seems to have been an issue for me, at least.. since the age of 3… So it’s hard not to think “well, I guess this was God’s idea of a joke on the world” or at the very least it’s sorta a “vocational” thing, maybe.. You ever feel this way? Well… lets explore this as it pertains to story telling.

I have this strange belief that we are all in a constant process of having these little unconscious conversations with each other.. or that there is constant unconscious communication going on.. If you don’t quite believe me.. try taking LSD sometime.. err, I better explain that one, ha?

LSD has a way of giving everything a luminous, numinous, glow. As near as I can gather, from my limited knowledge of neuroscience, psychedelics like LSD essentially create a kind of state of “brain damage,” inside of which the.. lets call it cognitive process.. of attributing causation to stuff..  produces a kind of meta consciousness experience. This, of course, would seem to expose certain structural elements of the psyche to the conscious mind.. so that we have a kind of waking dream experience.. inside of which we can explore our subjective relationship to empirical reality. LOL, boy, doesn’t that sound technical?

Reality.. well it’s something we “experience.” In philosophy and science we often try to understand reality in a way that is like a god’s eye view.. it is a way of looking that is in search of objectivity.. of verifiability.. a way of looking that would seem to be emancipated from human experience.. at least in it’s goals.. The troubles with this are many fold.. not the least of which is that we never experience reality without our “experience” of it. Inside this experience.. is our own “subjective” view point. Here in lys the value of some understanding of psychology in.. well life. 

One idea I developed once upon the time was an idea I called “the order of revelation.” The idea is.. in a world of infinite facts.. infinite ways one could come to understand something.. we only experience a limited portion of that totality.. and the “order of revelation” has to do with the order in which this stuff dawns on the conscious mind. The “order” determines “the shape” of our understanding. The order of revelation is thus the expression of the subjective on our experience of objective reality.

What shapes this order of relations is a complex of factors.. we can influence the order by means of prayer, ritual, and “magick.” Archtypes, as we learn from Jungian psychology, are what makes up the structure of consciousness and the psyche… and so the meta consciousness experience of psychedelics.. the numinous nature of them.. is about this.. and thus the connection to the order of revelation.. and the reason why so many people associate psychedelics with notions of enlightenment.

Ok.. enough of this craziness, how does this relate to the subject of digital story telling?

As I was saying before.. there is this thing I’m terming “unconscious communication.” In my last post.. (which as of this writing I haven’t posted) I spoke of the notion of “ambient story telling” which.. essentially points to this concept. We could look at this simply on the level of “what are the unconscious cues” we get as we go about.. life, from our experience of… whatever. When we get “a feeling in our gut” or.. have a feeling about something that we are unable to quite articulate.. simply have a feeling about something.. or… perhaps an intuition.. this is what we are reacting to.

The lie detector test.. which measures biometrics in relationship to questions, is a means of detecting certain types of unconscious communications… The conscious mind is giving you one story, while the biometrics is giving you another. And so it is that the world of “non verbal communication” is an incredibly nuanced world. There are simple things about.. how you’re talking.. word choices, spaces between words.. tempo of words, pitch of words, varying amplitude and volume between words.. words, phrases, sentences.. the body language as this happens.. where the eyes move.. all sorts of little, itty bitty things… are expressing stuff.

Inside of this expression, interestingly enough.. we find the imprint, on everything, of the shape of that there order of revelation…

So, before.. in that last post.. talking about a painter versus design approach to media arts.. in talking about communications versus expression.. perhaps art versus design.. all of this kind of thing.. is about this sorta thing.

So.. that 3D graphics.. and motion graphics, is largely dominated by the design process.. as a pose to a painters process.. that what we are seeing is so much about conscious design.. means that the story telling of medium are more limited to the surface then.. might be.. ideal.

Next day sometime:

Hmm, perhaps I should post this.. and skip on to the next entry on this subject.

Few days latter:

Ok, I’m really going to post this 

I like the idea of trying to get into the habit of posting everyday.. so lets see if we can’t get back into that swing.

Today I was contacted by a PR women. I had mentioned After Effects in a tweet… which was enough for her to go to the trouble of getting my email from the background image.. and message me about a PR campaign she was doing for Intel, which looks to be an ongoing series of.. kinda like motion graphics contests… and she wanted to know if I was interested, or if I might pass it on to others.

If you’re a regular reader you no doubt know that right now I’m focused on trying to develop some proficiency with with Cinema 4D… which is to say fairly high end ish 3D graphics. While I have other projects to attend to.. in general.. it would seem to me that to participate in the Intel project would require a shift of focus… which is a bit like.. you get the ball rolling and then you leave it.. and now how long is it going to take you to get that back in motion?

That said.. what I’m really looking to develop is a whole set of skills.. you render stuff out of Cinema.. you bring it into After Effects or Motion.. where you perhaps have other assets.. eventually this probably ends up in Final Cut.. and eventually render out as a final project. Inside of this scheme you might shoot video.. you might do a lot of things.. So.. moving from a pure 3D focus to a motion graphics focus.. where 3D is but one element.. doesn’t really seem like that bad an idea.

In any event I was inspired enough to go visit my local book store and pick up a couple of magazines I’d been eyeing: A UK digital arts type magazine has a motion graphics special edition this month.. and this month we also see the first launch issue of a magazine called gomotion. I didn’t buy these magazines before on account of how pricy they are.. the total was $34, but.. with all this on my mind.. it seemed like the thing to do.

Gomotion

Gomotion costs $20.. which seems to me outrageously over priced..  but, at least superficially, I must say it’s a very impressive magazine. A lot of 3D magazines are over priced.. and there’s a general feeling of immaturity about them.. or.. there not quite big enough.. but Gomotion is, in fact, rather kick ass…

What I’m digging about Gomotion is as follows: I’m in the process of giving myself a basic 3D education.. at the moment this is via the DVD based video tutorials that came with Cinema 4D. These tutorials don’t really cover all the bases of the software.. they’re basically enough to get you going… I’m only about half way through the main general course.. I’ve learned about modeling, I’m on to pre texture mapping stuff..

Bouncing around in the back of my head is past information I’ve gathered on the subject of 3D.. at one point I read a mega huge book on 3D Studio Max.. from time to time I pick up copies of special effects trade magazines.. and who knows what.. Most of this information exists in my brain on an almost unconscious level, and reflects a state of technology that is.. old fashion compared to where stuff is at today… which I’m only now getting to appreciate.

Gomotion.. has a lot of articles that are.. actually probably not bad for someone as clueless as I am.. I just read an article on character creation.. and strangely enough it conformed perfectly to certain preconceptions I’m starting to evolve as I try and work out what I want to do.. and when you see what other 3D artists wrestle with.. hear what a more advanced person perceives as the challenges.. it gives you a lot of perspective on how to approach your forward movement..  

The Current State of Matt’s 3D Plans:

There is, of course, the basic business of getting up to speed on the basics… which is really nothing more then the 101 of the tools.. the projects will take us to the next level in the other areas..  

The real project is to come up with some ideas for animated shorts.. What kind of stories do I want to tell? What kind of a challenge is it going to be to develop really good craft when it comes to story telling? I’m not totally sure what my story telling process will look like.. as I have influences coming from strange directions.. But I suppose the first thing is simply to work out what I want to explore.. write something like a script.. and then work out story boards… and from there..

Well we need to embark on a project of designing characters, sets, objects, and what have you.. that make sense for the story we want to tell…

The trouble, as I see it.. are two fold.. or perhaps one fold: There are two viable approaches as I conceive of it… one is that of the painter, the other is that of the designer. The painter process is exploratory.. it’s an adventure.. we perhaps don’t even bother with starting with a script.. we’ll find the story as we go along.. The designer process is the one where we start with a script and move onto story boards….  and blah blah blah.

So there’s a tension between these two approaches.. and the question really is.. how do we integrate them… and I think the question becomes most significant when we look at questions like.. what might we do in a 3D graphics program versus what we might do in a program like After Effects.

Indeed After effects is an interesting problem.. in that it offers the possibility of very strange work flows.. where in 3D we are purely dealing with the 3D world.. in After Effects we can deal with anything.. from photographs, still images, the rendered 3D stuff, 2D computer graphics, video… various sorts of special effects.. compositing… etc. Stuff is fairly endless.

 A few latter, now over tired, resigned to the fact that this wont get posted tonight:

Thoughts on story telling

Story telling strikes me as an amazingly rich and complex subject.. one that.. is no easy art to master.

Lets take the actor. What is good acting, or how does one act well? That’s a complex subject that can take a lifetime to master… Acting is, after all, story telling.. a part of how we tell stories.

I was trying to get to this idea of the tension between a painter versus a designer’s approach to media making.. I stepped away from writing to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.. when I was struck by something..

3D Graphics is an amazingly formalist medium.. Everything in it.. was put there on purpose, consciously.. where as with film.. we are in the world of happy accidence… I’m reminded by something David Lynch said.. about how if you go in someone’s house.. say there bedroom.. you’re amazed at what you find.. because its nothing like anything any production designer could have ever thought of.. so here we see it again.. the difference between.. something like the conscious mind of design, versus the unconscious dialectics of painting.

And then I’m reminded of Tom Wolfe.. Mr Wolfe writes what he calls “new journalism” where in he goes out and makes fiction based off of a kind of journalistic process.. because.. how could you ever writet dialog like.. well like real people speak?

I keep thinking about this.. how does the way a real person speak.. what does this tell us about that person? What does the way a real bedroom looks.. what does that tell us about the person.. To some extent you might think of this as “ambient story telling” in the sense that we are talking about little nuances.. which somehow have something to do with something.. that could somehow be a part of how we might tell a story.. but they also contain a certain extraneous possibility… or at least in how we think of them.. how they might relate to our preconceptions.. which, of course, is the problem of formalism and communication type design. 

When I think of what I want to do.. a part of it is something formalistic.. always a synthesis of this with realism.. and always on the surrealistic side of things.. This idea that the unconscious is exactly what I’m after.. but not exactly as an end in it’s self.. which is perhaps what makes me interesting.. if contrasted with surrealism proper..

In my surrealist spirit.. I tend to think.. well what the hell.. do anything at anytime for any reason at all.. which is to take an anarchic approach, or attitude, towards traditional notions of structure.. and how might I weave such a thing into a story?

As you can no doubt gather.. I have some complex ideas about this subject.. which is perhaps atypical of someone in my beginner shoes..

A post ago I suggested that something like creative brilliance trumps what major studios have as there advantages.. and I suppose what it all comes down to is this.. and story telling.. and if I have brilliance in me.. I imagine it will come from an exploration of these kinds of ideas.. at least as it relates to story telling.. and this kind of animation motion graphics stuff. 

Day or two latter:

Ok, time to post. 

Ok, well here it is

The full sized version can be found on flickr over here. You probably want to look at the full size version to properly evaluate it. I myself still don’t know what I think.. when do I ever?

I basically look at it as a first step and exploring a direction that.. well I have another post in draft form.. that talks about it a bit.. but.. ok, screw it, let me give you some of the challenges:

I want to combine fine art and commercial.. a fundamental difference between the two could be described as.. fine art being about expression where as commercial art is about communication… and has to do with.. whatever the goals of the business objectives are… Strangely.. (expression has to do with the goals of the expresser.. if business is an amplification of natural processes.. and social media takes us closer to the humanness, so to speak.. you can see why this sort of approach might make sense in a social media context) the process of this project is one of “we’ll figure out our goals along the way.”

So I suppose it’s like a kind of cubism.. you can view it as art or as commercial art, right? I say cubism in the sense that in cubism you have multiple views of the same object in the same image.. so to speak.

Commercial Objectives 

The goal is to refine our objectives.. At the current state of things.. this is a flyer for a friend.. who’s putting them up around town, so to speak, to help promote my stuff..

My feeling about it is.. that this project…  well you want your campaign efforts to be coordinated and thought out.. and this is kinda thrown together..  but basically we’d like folks to check out the site and down load the music. Beyond that there’s branding… and we are telling people something about our selves.

How I sorta conceptualize it

The first thing I want is for it to be visually compelling. Is it? That’s the first thing I want you to respond to. Why? It’s a brand value… And its a brand value that has a very particular importance in my brand. And so.. I basically want it to act as a painting first.. and then as you get absorbed into the painting.. you start getting the messages. That’s what we hope anyway.

So it operates in a way that’s different from like.. poster design…  although it is somewhat modeled after the psychedelic posters of the 60s.. that’s an influence anyway.. as well as the art around the rave scene of like.. the 90s..  and other strange things..

So.. lets say you’re like “Ok, this is pretty groovy visually.” You get the name of the site pretty quick.. and then you get.. ok.. its free electronic music..  

There’s “the Mystic Prophet Philosopher shtick.” 

Latter, next day:

So I quickly whipped up some stickers:

Again I’m not sure about the one above… It was whipped up so fast..  

I kinda dig this one. 

Feedback

I haven’t been real sure about these designs..  For the flyer design.. I posted a link on flickr with a request for feed back.. here are a couple of the responses I got:

@hbeeinc @MattSearles re:flyet - that’s just about the busiest thing i’ve seen for a long time. also is it supposed to be “world of the know … 

@djcitymaus @MattSearles flyer is cool. but i don’t know about the little matts inside the head of the big matt. uh, does that make sense? 

NewApeV @MattSearles AHHHHHHHH!!! Dude, this is PURE 100% AWESOME!!! Seriously! The text sort of mirrors your musical feel and that pic..

NewApeV @MattSearles …that pic makes you look 10 years younger, too! ;

Many thanks for the feedback..  As you can see, it’s perhaps not real easy to communicate much about a visual work via twitter but…   

Matt Responds to Feedback 

To Paul’s point (hbeeinc).. 

I’m not sure if he was saying it was “too busy” or not.. though I have gotten that comment from other’s..  and others have said it’s not too busy..  so perhaps its busyness is an issue, or at least something to think about? What I will say about the busyness is..  

I think the busyness.. relates to the communications issue.. which is something I think I need to work on.. You have a lot of things competing for your attention.. and as a result I don’t think it works in certain contexts. Another words.. in modern web design ultra clean simplicity is a big trend.. a long term one at that.. and a reason for that is usability.. people fly through websites so fast.. that it really needs to communicate in a kind of billboard kinda way.. quick, fast.. no time to contemplate… 

So.. I think if you’re helping me put these things up..  You probably want that flyer.. or perhaps printed as a sticker.. up in places where people are sitting around and waiting.. have a chance to look at it for a while.. say like at a buss stop or something… As a pose to some place where they’re moving buy quickly.

I’m not sure what Paul was getting at with if it was supposed to be “world of the known,” when I first got his tweet I a looked at it I went “oh shit, I think I fucked up.” When doing these kinds of designs.. / signs.. its incredibly easy to screw up spelling.. or have things where you word it all wrong..  Further.. I’m not 100% on the language.. but.. it is a rush job so..  as we say in the Bush administration “good enough for government work.” … (And we hope Billy Bob Neck doesn’t object to that too much)…

[editors note: After looking things over Matt ws surprised to see that the word “world” is miss spelled in the first sticker.. just where Paul seemed to find the problem in the flyer.. which leaves Matt feeling baffled and.. well creepy mystical feeling] 

>>> [Editor’s note part 2: After posting this, Matt found the issue] 

To DJ City Maus’s point.

This could be one of those subjective things..  I like the little Matt in the big Matt cause I think it’s sorta disturbing looking..  like a screwed up face.. flesh somehow horribly disfigured…  

There’s also a “conceptual continuity” thing going on here… Perhaps we could call it fractal reality? It is eastern philosophy stuff.. the idea that.. who are you really? That the ultimate answer to that mystery is to say.. that in every grain of sand is the universe, in you is the universe…  

To New Ape V / Evan Pew’s Point:

My theory of this whole process is that there’s an organic unity to the whole thing that happens on an “expressive level.” I mean.. the same sorta impulses that are diving the design / painting are driving the music..  so there’s a unity to the whole that you don’t get when Led Zeppelin doesn’t do there own album art… and this is sorta central to what I’m doing and what I think is exciting about what I’m doing, assuming I can meet the challenges of all this.

Ok, this post drags on a little too long I think..  so lets end it here.