Sociotree

Q: To start, can you talk a little bit about the behind the scenes process? How did you put this altogether(programs, printing, medium)? Was it intended to be for a few friends, mass publication, or somewhere in between?

A:First I want to say that I love making little books like this. Its really nice having a collection or a theme, and being able to reproduce it in some way and share it with other people.

This book came into existence as a result of an itch to make a zine over the last few months. I had been drawing feathers at the time and it seemed like a perfect match. The original drawings are ink and watercolor. I scanned them into photoshop before printing and copying them. I have a funny method that involves cutting out little rectangles of paper, numbering them and taping them back together to get the printer layout. The final product is 4 in x 5 in, saddle stitched, 36 pages long with 31 full color drawings – to be exact.

When I was putting this book together I guessed the audience would be pretty small, but the beauty of the reproduction process is that that fact can change.
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Posted by: matt o. under Show and Tell
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Last week, I saw composer and sound artists John Oswald give a lecture at the Modern Museum of Art of Barcelona as part of the Variations. A Showcase of Sound Appropriationism program. John Oswald is the father of the term and practice Plunderphonics, which is based on the transformation of a recording into another singular piece of work mainly through sound collage and montage.

For those who are not familiar with the term, Oswald’s definition of Plunderphonics is “a plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded. Whistling a bar of “Density 21.5″ is a traditional musical quote. Taking Madonna singing “Like a Virgin” and rerecording it backwards or slower is plunderphonics, as long as you can reasonably recognize the source. The plundering has to be blatant though. There’s a lot of samplepocketing, parroting, plagiarism and tune thievery going on these days which is not what we’re doing.” (From the interview of John Oswald by Norman Igma)

One of the main defenders of sampling, John Oswald’s work is original, provocative and inspirational. During his lecture he talked about his early musical experiences and his urge to experiment with sounds from the very beginning. Although Plunderphonics is his most well known project, Oswald’s interests go much further, but always keeping his focus into the ideas of mixing, collage, and improvisation.

Here you can listen to a couple of songs from his 1980 project  Mystery Tapes, unnamed, unattributed works on cassette which gives a whole new context to each piece.

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Mystery Tapes X1 Version 02

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Mystery Tapes Kissing Jesus in the Dark-01

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Mystery Tapes Kissing Jesus in the Dark_08

Posted by: pilar r. under Music, Things We Like
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I would like to share a collage series that I have been making over the past year. I have not had any venue to share them in until now, and thought I would be able to get some feedback by posting them.  I will put one or two up a week and maybe some other projects.

-matt

Posted by: matt o. under Art, Show and Tell
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Some of my more courageous friends have been long reflecting on the qualities of the audiovisual language and the new practices of filmmaking in a context where the new technologies have affect the way we work, perceive and interact with images. These ideas have taken form in Lacasinegra, an artistic collective that focuses on the audiovisual investigation, creation and reflection. I thought it would be interesting to introduce it on Sociotree, since Lacasinegra calls for the free access and circulation of culture and examines the proccess of appropiation of audiovisual materials.

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Posted by: pilar r. under Show and Tell
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Thought I would like to share an interview with my friend James Morren about a zine that he recently published called, Viewshed //Awesome Reality. James lives in Brooklyn, New York and the contributing artists are from various parts of the US. I am also happy to have been able to contribute my own work, and I can’t wait to get  my hands on a copy. Thanks Jamie!

Q: Is this something you put together yourself or did you work with other people?

A: Aside from the contributors submitting their work & friends helping me screenprint and cut the cover sleeves, this was a self-driven effort. Many pieces had lots of errors, or weak spots, but these were the pieces that were submitted quickly, in a timely manner and from which I was able to work off without waiting another year or so for it to come together. In the rush of getting the first round of cover-sleeves printed I give much gratitude to Noah & Clem Poole, who also contributed an illustration to Viewshed.

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Posted by: matt o. under Show and Tell
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After receiving  a zine by artist Mike Swaney, “The Zulu Nationals”, as a gift from a friend over the holidays, I realized he is an artist I would like to share. I first saw his collages of mashed up faces in his recent exhibition at Igualpop Gallery and had to settle with a free poster which had some of my favorite collages. These frontal portraits are layered masks of colored paper which allow shy characters to peer out from behind their crusty, inside out faces. Vibrantly charred and geometric, these playful characters seem to sit for their ID photo at the metro station, but the resulting image is one that sees past the surfaces of their skin.  If it were not for their rigid geometry,  they would transform into sloppy, chocolate covered kid faces.

www.michaelswaney.com

Posted by: matt o. under Things We Like
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I am sure you have noticed but we have switched over to a new Wordpress site in order to allow people to post by themselves. Hopefully this will allow more people to be involved and spark a flood of contributions. So, if you have been a Sociotree fan over the years and would like to be more involved, please contact us for your own account. Also, be patient with the new design and broken links as we continue to make modifications to the site.

Posted by: matt o. under News
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New on sociotree is a must listen mix, ”Modern Voices”, by Pilar Rico which traces the recipes of sound collage from the beginning of the twentieth century to now.It is based on the project “Variations”, a radio project curated by the Jon Leidecker for his lecture at MACBA where he explored the history of collage and appropriation in music with examples from 20th Century. It is difficult to distinguish the real voice of this mix, as each sonic collage exceeds their boundaries by far in their references to western and world music, bending genres like a flexible wire to create new shapes and fresh ideas. This mix is a mix of a mix of a mix. Enjoy!

Modern Voices

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1) Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers “Boat Woman Song”, 1968
2) Terry Riley, “Bird of Paradise”, 1965
3) John Cage, “Credo In US” (Reiner Riehm amb la Ensemble Musica Negativa, enregistrat 1971), 1942
4) The Happiness Boys, “Twisting The Dials”, 1928
5) Holger Czukay “Cool In The Pool”, 1979
6) The Residents “Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life”, 1976
7) Bernard Parmegiani “Du pop a l’ane”, 1969
8) Teiji Ito, “Tenno” (Part 6, beginning), 1964
9) Karlheinz Stockhausen, “Hymnen – Fourth Region, 5th Insertion India”, 1967
10) Richard Maxfield, “Amazing Grace”, 1960
11) Pierre Schaeffer, “Etude Pathétique” 1948
12) Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers “Boat Woman Song”, 1968
13) Malcom Goldstein “It seems to me”, 1963
14) Pauline Oliveros, “Bye Bye Butterfly”, 1965
15) Holger Czukay “Persian Love”, 1979

For the complete series and others http://rwm.macba.cat/

Posted by: matt o. under Mixes
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Posted by: matt o. under Things We Like
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There is a new short mix by Parent_M available on Sociotree called ”Mangled Dino Tons”. This mix sounds like dino mash mixed with leopard pops and broken record curls. Coming soon will be two compilations, one of American Folk music by Santi Rivas of Barcelona, and a mix by Pilar Rico surveying the history of sound collage, from Charles Ives to Girl Talk.  So check back soon for new updates!

Mangled Dino Tons

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Posted by: matt o. under Mixes
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