Post nuclear apocalypse, the Cactoelho (Cacto = cactus, coelho = rabbit in Portuguese) is born from the fusion of a dessert jackrabbit and a cactus (the inspiration is the real cactus sitting on my desk). Cute, but spiny, he wanders the world looking for affection in the form of hugs. But that is alas, rather difficult.

Cactoelho is a new cartoon character work in progress.

Above: Posing with fellow Awesome NYC trustee Catherine White and Erika Johansson and Martine Wisotsky from Purpose.

Below: Awesome Foundation NYC trustees: Catherine White, Jesse Chan-Norris, and myself

More photos on Flickr

HEPNOVA is dedicating our cover version of Green Island Serenade (綠島小夜曲) to jailed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. As a song that was popular in Taiwan, China, and across the Sinosphere, we think it is a poignant symbol of cross-strait solidarity. On the surface, the lyrics are a pop song about a man admiring a silent woman from afar, but it has also been interpreted by many to be a veiled protest against government censorship and oppression.

We hope you enjoy the song, learn it’s meaning, and pass it on.

You can also sign a petition by Change.org or Avaaz.org calling for Ai Weiwei’s release.

Designer’s Statement

JETAANY “JET-AH-NEE” – a bold, dynamic, genki brand, embodying the best of Japan, JET, and NYC

The Apple a symbol of New York City as well as the teaching profession

Red like the rising sun in the Japanese hinomaru flag and the indelible ink of an inkan seal

Brush strokes evoke both traditional Japanese painting and urban street art

Download PDF

“Petrosino Square”

Romantic recrudescence
Far from the burning iridescence
Safe from the searchlights of the past
Witnesses no more, but outlaws at last

You start to tense, begin to brace
As I press the revolver to your face
I see you aflame in this love so heady
Like a bomb thrown by Sacco and Vanzetti

When I saw you there in Petrosino Square
Is this paradise or my worst nightmare?
When the workers arise
I look into your eyes, your beautiful lies
Oh your beautiful eyes/lies

Your eyes your lies
Beautiful eyes/lies

Haven’t seen you in awhile and
I’m not sure how to start
Whether to thank or to blame you
For the anarchy in my heart
Your eyes your lies
Beautiful eyes/lies

More new Hepnova tracks on Bandcamp. And even more new music coming soon.

Ni Hao You Doin’? – A new Hepnova shirt on Zazzle in collaboration with Joey G.

We were hanging out in Little Italy/Chinatown tonight and Joe came up with this brilliant bilingual pun that celebrates the confluence of cultures in a pizza/scallion pancake slice of Lower Manhattan with classic New York wit and attitude.  Here’s to pasta and to potstickers and to Sino-Italian-American friendship! Ni hao you doin’?

Buy the Ni Hao You Doin’ shirt on Zazzle

Ni Hao You Doin’? by Hepnova in collaboration with Joey G

Estrella Intersects The Plane by Matthew Richard

Significant Other by Diego Rioja

The Life Dress by Elizabeth Fuller

I took this photo in Williamsburg on my way to Joel’s dinner party last week.

ZEE Immersive Audiovisual Environment by Kurt Hentschlager  I’m in the testimonial video!

New music for your next ccowboy zombie prom slow dance from Hepnova & JC Cassis

Original version of Again Tonight

More Hepnova Music on Bandcamp

Photos by Daniel in the Lion’s Den via Flickr.

Above: a light sculpture by Matthew Richard.
Below: Thomas the Barrel by Meredith Hasson.

Below: Life Dress by Elizabeth Fuller. Featured in Gizmodo.

More pics on Flickr.

Here is a portrait of me drawn by artist and illustrator Gideon Kendall.  I bartered it in exchange for customizing the theme on his WordPress blog.

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas vs. T.I.

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas vs. Art Kleiner

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas vs. The Plastic Ono Band

Thanks to Yasser Ansari, Paul Paradiso, and Jorge Just for these brilliant mashups!

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas (excerpt) @ ITP NIME 2009, Southpaw, Brooklyn, NY from lee-sean on Vimeo.

Here is an excerpt of my Mumbo Jumbo Maracas piece for the ITP NIME concert at Southpaw in Brooklyn last night.
Featuring Eric Mika on maracas and Arturo Vidich on keytar
Thanks to Meredith Hasson and Tianwei Liu for the video

More video coming soon. Photos on Flickr.

TXTTONE is my final project for Live Web.  It’s a web browser and SMS-based collaborative musical instrument that is meant to be performed in a room full of people with laptops and cellphones.  I wanted to create an interactive and collaborative musical experienced based on the ubiquitous technologies that we normally have with us at all times.  I was also interested in the play between the synchronous and asynchronous and explore the phase effects that result from TXTTONE being played on multiple computers simultaneously.  TXTTONE is programmed in AJAX/PHP, with SMS support by TextMarks.   I did the sound design in Logic Pro; I was going for “wind chimes meets dial tone.”

Check it out here.

Come out to Brooklyn next Tuesday night for the ITP NIME Show! I will be performing my Mumbo Jumbo Maracas piece with Arturo Vidich and Eric Mika.

NIME: New Interfaces for Musical Expression
Creating new performance tools for digital music.

In the eighth annual NIME concert, performers will play a series of newly designed electronic instruments that aim to keep the “live” in the live performance of digital music.

Electronic music is usually played with a keyboard and mouse. Laptop musicians often sit at a desk and give performances that feel like watching someone work in their cubicle. The idea behind NIME is to go beyond the mouse and keyboard and beyond even piano keys and drum pads. It seeks to present performance systems that make the most out of the new opportunities for musical expression that digital technology offers.

This year’s NIME concert will feature such innovations as a musically enhanced sewing machine, sonified floor tiles, performative knitting needles, turntablism for live instrumentalists, electronically controlled cartoon antics, novel realizations of the rock guitar, and a host of other exciting approaches to the creation of music.

NIME is an end-of-semester performance by 16 graduate student artists from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU.

Entry is $7 (Free for NYU ID holders)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Doors open at 7, Show starts at 8

Southpaw
125 Fifth Avenue (at Sterling Pl)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.230.0236

Here is the score for my new musical composition, Mumbo Jumbo Maracas, a trio for Wiimote MIDI controller playing a custom MainStage patch, keytar, and maracas.  I will be playing the Wiimote, with Arturo Vidich on keytar and Eric Mika on maracas.  We will be playing the world premiere of the piece as part of the ITP NIME show on December 15.  Details coming soon!

Monkey Think
Monkeys often evokes a strong emotional response among people. Monkeys as symbols are also charged with social and political meaning.  We often anthropomorphize monkeys and project our own human anxieties onto them. Monkeys drive us bananas. They are Curious George one minute and the next minute they are giving you Ebola or AIDS or ripping off your face. Horror lies just under the surface of cute. 

I worked this week with Kristin Loeb on Monkeys Watching Monkeys, a streaming web video installation that deals with the mediated gaze, reflections and narcissism as they relate to how people look at monkeys, and how we think monkeys look at people and how monkeys look at each other.

More monkeys / This is is really disturbing / WHOA!

Monkey Do
We started with the Conference.as code that Shawn gave us in class, but we came across some mysterious problems. For some reason the compiled SWFs only worked part of the time on Kristin’s computer and never actually worked on mine. (Does Snow Leopard hate Monkeys or what?) So we moved on to some off-the-shelf solutions, trying first iChat, then Skype, and finally USTREAM.tv to create a series of simian scenarios. The goal was to position webcams and screens in a way to create an “infinity effect” of primate viewing pleasure.

Documentation outtakes on Flickr

Finally, we created the be beginnings of the Monkey Show, a webpage featuring two USTREAM channels and a Twitter widget that displays the latest tweets with the work “monkey” in them. We hope to trick this page out with more live monkey media in the near future.

Monkey Learn
Bandwidth is an issue
There are mysterious bugs in the system
Even off-the-shelf solutions have their limitations
This installation would probably work better and be more aesthetically pleasing with just cameras and monitors (with the laptops hidden)
The installation would probably have worked better with analog video
Lighting and camera placement are tricky
If only our monkey talent were this well trained:

This week I have continued to develop my idea for my Live Web midterm.  My project is called Monkey Watching Monkey Watching Monkey… It combines live streaming video with elements of Nam June Paik’s TV Buddha and The Infinite Cat Project. I want to play with the idea of the mediated gaze, reflections and narcissism.  I have also been reviewing some of the concepts we dealt with in my Animals and People class last spring.  I’ve previously said that I like looking at animals through webcams and in zoos.  But what do animals see when they look at us?  What do they see when they see themselves reflected in a mirror or on a video screen?  I want to create an infinite loop (or more like spiral) of live internet video of monkeys watching monkeys watching monkeys, ad infinitum.  It would be awesome to try this with real monkeys, but in the meantime, I’ll demonstrate proof of concept with virtual monkeys.  Starting off from the Infinite Cat idea, but with monkeys:

Lemur photo by Sandrine Vuillermoz, published in National Geographic.

Imagine the above scenario with live video, multiple computers, and streaming online.  What if I replaced the lemur photo with the last photo with me in it.  Would that create an infinite loop of monkeys looking at monkeys?