Daniel's artwork on display March 27th

For anyone in the Los Angeles area, Daniel will be showing a series of pieces known collectively as "Art 1-X" at the next Heard of Elephants show March 27th at the Unknown Theater. More information at http://heardofelephants.net/

Please come out and show your support!

A quick fix of Transhumanism

For those of you who are unsure as to what Transhumanism might be, I've pulled together a few links to help expand your knowledge base.

Here is Wikipedia's introduction to their article on Transhumanism:

Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.^[1]

The term "transhumanism" is symbolized by H+ or h+ and is often used as a synonym for "human enhancement".^[2] Although the first known use of the term dates from 1957, the contemporary meaning is a product of the 1980s when futurists in the United States began to organize what has since grown into the transhumanist movement. Transhumanist thinkers predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".^[1] Transhumanism is therefore sometimes referred to as "posthumanism" or a form of transformational activism influenced by posthumanist ideals.^[3]

Transhumanist foresight of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives. Transhumanism has been described by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as the world's most dangerous idea,^[4] while one proponent, Ronald Bailey, counters that it is the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity".^[5]

The link for that article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

There's the World Transhumanist Association at: http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/index/

There's Dresden Codak (http://www.dresdencodak.com/), a wonderful Transhumanist web comic, and their discussion forum: http://forums.koalawallop.com/viewforum.php?f=14&sid=802a750f24f84acd759605743551b79e

These are all good starting points for gaining more knowledge on what Transhumanism is and what Transhumanists strive to do and be.

-Daniel

Time travelling Trans-humanist band seeks experienced musicians

Made a few adjustments to our ad. Why only look for a guitarist when there are so many varied and interesting instruments out there? If this ad applies to you, please send us an email. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

And now, the ad:

Are The Residents, King Crimson, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Queen, The Boredoms, Van Morrison, John Zorn, and Rush on your recreational aural stimulator?

Are you on a waiting list list for sweet bionic enhancements?

Are you a skilled musician and composer (no drummers or vocalists, thanks, we're set on those)?

Then we've got the band for you!

H+ is the world's first trans-humanist band. We're eating the boundaries that limit modern music and regurgitating the future of rock.

We're looking for someone who's equally at home playing atonal alternative to the poppiest punk.

We want to meet twice a week and are about as serious as you can be about totally rocking the future.

Bonus points if you're a ninja.

Transhumanism and Romanticism

I think that transhumanism, when it is considered at all, is seen as the ultimate scientific rationalization of nature and thus anti-romantic.

In one sense this is true, transhumanism is very much a rational philosophy. I would argue, however, that man's struggle to break through the limitations of his mortal coil is essentially romantic.

Transhumanism does not seek to remove emotion from the human experience. I believe expanding our perception and knowledge can only lead to new emotions heretofore unknown to the human condition.

Some fear that to change our current condition would be to cease being essentially human. I argue that the only essentially human trait is the progress towards greater life and understanding. This is man's enduring quest and what makes him romantic.

With H+ I hope to capture and express the joy and heartbreak of humanity not only as we know him today, but as we might know him tomorrow.

-Andy

Time travelling Trans-Humanist band seeks experienced guitarist

We posted this on Craig's List, and might as well post it here, as well:

Are The Residents, King Crimson, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Queen, The Boredoms, John Zorn, and Rush on your recreational aural stimulator?

Are you on a waiting list list for sweet bionic enhancements?

Are you a skilled guitarist and composer?

Then we've got the band for you!

H+ is the world's first trans-humanist band. We're eating the boundaries that limit modern music and regurgitating the future of rock.

We're looking for someone who's equally at home playing atonal alternative to the poppiest punk.

We want to meet twice a week and are about as serious as you can be about totally rocking the future.

Bonus points if you're a ninja.

You're doing it all wrong

As we search further for more instruments and technologies of note, we have come across some blunders. The first, seen in the following video, is really just a lame way of reinventing the wheel. Or, in this case, the synthesizer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Beamz:



I actually do have a larger objection to Beamz beyond its terrible promotional video, and I will get back to that shortly.

I've also come across something that really pisses me off. This isn't just a bad video (although what you're about to see is almost unwatchable, and is NOT a parody), but it's the entire principle behind it. Take a look for yourself;



Part of what we're trying to do with H+ is make music creation more accessible and intuitive. But we still want the creative process to be solely in the hands of the people with ideas. This program, Microsoft Songsmith, teaches young people that the best way to make music is to let other people do it for you. And that, to me, is a problem. There have been great artists who never wrote a single line of their own material, such as Frank Sinatra. But he always had talented songwriters working on music, most of it tailored directly to him. Now we have a revolving door of singers who don't stay in the limelight unless they do something outrageous and embarrassing (see: Britney Spears). This program is pretty much the dumbed-down version of what happens at a Britney Spears session. The person with no talent (in this case, it literally could be you!) is molly-coddled and led to think they're actually contributing. Meanwhile, their voice is manipulated and placed against generic backing tracks. Throw in some annoying lyrics and you've got a hit single.

Now, let me jump back to Beamz for a minute. If you watch the video, the people "playing" the beams aren't really hitting notes. They're simply breaking the beams for either short or long amounts of time. The instrument plays back a pre-recorded loop that is independent of the person. This is different from a synthesizer. where the player at least has to understand basic notes and scales.

What's the connection? Neither Beamz nor Microsoft Songsmith actually require any knowledge of music. Worse, they don't promote an understanding of music. Instead, they offer an easy, albeit awful sounding, way out of the problem of having no musical talent. Instead of becoming skilled, you simply let machines do the work for you. That's not what H+ is about. We want music creation to be accessible to more people, but at some point you have to meet traditional music methods halfway, just so you can know what you're doing. I can promise you that someone using Beamz and Songsmith could never come up with anything as catchy as "Wild Thing," let alone anything as groundbreaking as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Daydream Nation. It's hard to imagine, but someone using these tools may not even be able to come up with something as good as the latest disposable Britney Spears single. And that's truly scary.

P.S. I actually do want to get a Beamz and replace all the pre-recorded sounds with found sounds of glass breaking, babies crying, tires screeching, etc. It may be no better than loading those sounds into a synth, but I feel like the comedic effect of playing them on "Beamz" may be worth it.

P.P.S. Someone quickly pounced on Songsmith's claims by taking David Lee Roth's vocal track from the Van Halen classic of "Running With The Devil" and putting it through the program. The result, dubbed "Running With The Songsmith," can be heard here: http://music.metafilter.com/2943/Runnin-With-The-Songsmith It's actually worse than I would have thought.

Thummer Update

I just received an email from Jim Plamondon, CEO of Thumtronics. Apparently the recession scared off all potential investors in the Thummer, so the product will not come to market. A shame, really, as I was quite interested in trying one out. Maybe one day Jim will let me play with a prototype.

Mr. Plamondon did mention that he has started a new company, iGetIt! Music, and he plans to develop an application for the iPhone that simulates many of the Thummer functions. More updates on that as they become available.

Until then, I've been looking into the Opal Midi, a unique midi controller from the UK. Each instrument is hand made, and quite interesting. The website for that one is: http://www.theshapeofmusic.com.
Pretty nifty. Also not cheap. But it's on my wish list.

-Daniel