Jai's Laboratory

Sweet mother of god. This is such a brilliantly executed piece of motion and sound design, I just had to share it. Plus, I’m a sucker for anything that has some turntable prowess in it. Check out their site for the credits and production stills.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t stop thinking about the notion of an inexhaustable well of creativity that all of us humans are born with, but that a lot of us let run dry out of neglect or indifference. Maybe it’s that they don’t run dry, so much as someone else in need of some “creativity juice” drills on an angle to access some more. they put their straw on an angle an “DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!!” hahaha. I’ve been waiting to insert that SOMEWHERE. Good stuff.
Anyway, I was browsing around for good movies that are coming out, and I came across this one by the same director that did Hello. It looks absolutely charming. It’s called “The Missing Key” and it follows a young, aspiring pianist who just happens to have a gramophone for a head. (see: freaking awesome concept)
Check out a sneak preview here.

Listening to: “We’ll make great pets” – Porno for Pyros

Over at The Cool Hunter, I came across a neat post about some interactive turntables. Being a DJ myself, I have been keeping a close eye on this technology & was curious what the hype was about. Numark partnered with GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) in Brisbane, Australia to introduce people to the art of turntablism. While I applaud their set-up and ambition, from looking at the interface, it doesn’t really accurately convey that which makes manipulating music through a vinyl record is all about. The user has control over one plastic/metal platter, and a touch screen. It’s a neat interface, but misleading. It’s like Guitar Hero, or Track & Field for the NES… You get to go through the motions and feel some minute trickle of accomplishment, but click as many buttons as you want, you still won’t be able to play a real guiar, or run a 400m relay without actually getting out there and doing it yourself.

I saw a video a while ago where someone had actually built some touch screen turntables that looked like something I could get behind. Now.. where was it…Ah… here it is:

The sound was a bit buggy when I was watching to it, but the simple interface, and visual manipulation of a waveform is awesome. If the reactivity could be as real-time as..well.. real time, then it would take off for sure.

Listening to: “Eye on the Gold Chain” – Ugly Duckling