I recently watched for the second time, the 2007 debut film by French writer-director Céline Sciamma, Les Naissance des Pieuvres (Birth of Octopuses) translated for its English language release as ‘Water Lillies’. I first saw this film about 8 years ago and was left with a feeling that it was one of those films whose […]
Thinking today about the idea of the ‘ghost in the machine’. The phrase was coined originally by Gilbert Ryle in 1949, to attack Cartesian dualism (the idea of the mind as a distinct, disembodied vector of the material of the body). It was subsequently used as an analogy to the functioning of more primitive parts […]
I was struck recently by the duality of the old adage ‘write what you know.’ For me this has always resonated in terms of beat, the beat of spaces, the beat of people and what they do, how they interact… what you know (within which is always also located what you do not know). But […]
I lacked any sense of 80’s sci fi story Ender’s Game until 2013 when the film adaptation came along. I had a quick look into it then, noted some controversy as a story and from comments of a homophobic nature by the author Orson Scott Card. It was notable also that the book has been […]
Here’s a fascinating 2013 piece by Andrew Robinson (theorist and activist) about Deleuze & Guattari’s work on the state and the relation with different forms of ‘war-machine’ (a problematised term he does well to unentangle) as well as the correlatives of social dynamics of relation and production (the dimension of the social field). Its written […]
Here is an interesting video about root networks of trees, fungally empowered that allow for a transferrence of material between the network. The arborescent is contrasted in Deleuze and Guattari with the rhizomatic. “… It is odd how the tree has dominated Western reality and all of Western thought… Thought is not arborescent, and […]
I recall hearing an interview with Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals once who commented that one of the most difficult gigs he’d ever been a part of with the group was when they had had to follow the band Suicide on stage to play live (I had no idea who they were at […]
Here’s a great and short video outlining some of the ways this incredible music has influenced western classical composition. There are other ways of considering how this music has been opened up to the outside, but the Gamelan has such a unique and extraordinary sonic presence that it is hard not to fall in love […]
Recently I found myself becoming more and more entwined with listening to some of the outstanding work from composer Max Richter, which brought with it a few thoughts about the classical church organ in certain forms of composition. Born in West Germany and then brought up in Bedford in the UK , Richter has come […]
from science fiction films in the early 80’s Growing up in the early eighties, science fiction was my obsession. There was a definite absence of quality science fiction at that time, certainly on screen and in cinemas. I would reflexively and obsessively check anything which was labelled as science fiction. During this time, weird, flakey […]
Recently came across this excellent article on software and coding and its role in our modern ways of living. I was aware of bits and pieces in relation to this, but its good to get something that delves in and gives us a context and perspective on how our lives are being affected and […]
space life in ambient electronic music Spaces of being If spaces are a key expression within ambient music then it feels like from early on, a sonically expressive animacy (or sonic-presence-as-being) has been another. Partly because as per Young/Zazeela there is the question of ‘forms of existence’ being involved with sound, I think different kinds […]
space life in ambient electronic music (Part 1) Expressions of spaces I came across this great piece of music which is also a remix while recently checking in on the LA artist Deru (Bejamin Wynn) some of whose earlier co-credits have included amazing work and sound design on the Avatar /Korra US Anime series, as […]
Drawing by Artist Marc Ngui It seems to me that a very useful concept in philosophy is affect. This is something other than the everyday way we use or come across the word. I thought it would be helpful to put this definition up here. From Brian Massumi’s introduction to A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and […]
Intensive relations and sound (a paper) Felt like a good time to post a copy of a paper on sound I wrote some years ago, having found it coming up a few times in exchanges recently. It was written for a symposium as part of the Cybersonica Festival in 2005, although when I re-read […]
reflectivewavelengths 