February 18, 2012
The Race of the Future theory states that due to the process of miscegenation, the mixing of different races, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations, all the races are blending to become one single new race in the future. Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi distinctly advocated race mixing in his 1925 book ‘Practical Idealism’: ‘The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today’s races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals.’
The same scenario had been envisaged, with rather less enthusiasm, by Madison Grant in his 1916 book ‘The Passing of the Great Race,’ calling for an eugenics program to prevent this development, and in a similar ideological context in Lothrop Stoddard’s ‘The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy’ in 1920. In the United States, the proportion of Multiracial American children is growing. Interracial partnerships are rising, as are transracial adoptions.
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February 18, 2012
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements ‘melting together’ into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States; the melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s.
After 1970 the desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model was challenged by proponents of multiculturalism, who assert that cultural differences within society are valuable and should be preserved, proposing the alternative metaphor of the mosaic or salad bowl – different cultures mix, but remain distinct.
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February 18, 2012
Feral pigeons are derived from domestic pigeons that have returned to the wild. The domestic pigeon was originally bred from the wild Rock dove, which naturally inhabits sea-cliffs and mountains. Feral pigeons find the ledges of buildings to be a substitute for sea cliffs, and have become adapted to urban life and are abundant in towns and cities throughout much of the world.
All pigeons are one species (columba livia). Pigeons breed when the food supply is good, which in cities can be any time of the year. Laying of eggs can take place up to six times per year. Pigeons mate for life, and are often found in pairs during the breeding season, but usually the pigeons are gregarious preferring to exist in flocks of from 50 to 500 birds.
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February 17, 2012
A solar roadway is a road surface, that generates electricity by solar photovoltaics. One current proposal is for panels including solar panels and LED signage, that can be driven on. Parking lots, driveways, and eventually highways are all targets for the panels. If the entire United States Interstate Highway system were surfaced with Solar Roadways panels, it would produce more than three times the amount of electricity currently used nationwide.
The United States Department of Transportation awarded Solar Roadways Incorporated a $100,000 research contract in 2009. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract enabled Solar Roadways to prototype Solar Road Panels. After successful completion of the Phase I SBIR contract, it was awarded it a follow-up $750,000 Phase II contract to take it to the next step: a solar parking lot. Constructed out of multiple 12′ x 12′ panels, this smart parking lot will also warm itself in cold weather to melt away snow and ice. Continue reading →
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February 17, 2012
VitaliV (or ‘Vitali V,’ real name Vitali Vinogradov) is a Soviet-born painter and sculptor now living in the United Kingdom, who has developed an artistic style based on the designs of computer microchips. Some works have been laser-cut in relief and then hand-painted as 3D objects.
His style, ‘Via Art,’ was created in the late 90’s while attempting to imprint an unusual, digital circuit-like pattern upon jewelry. In appreciation of the simplicity and logic of digital circuits, the artist decided to use the pattern as the structural basis for a new style. The following decade led to the creation of over 1000 designs including jewelry, furniture sketches, fashion collections, and hundreds of porcelain wares. The essence of the Via Art style are simple geometrical patterns—circles and lines connected at 45° angles.
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February 17, 2012
Wes Anderson (b. 1969) is an American director and screenwriter. Anderson has been called an auteur, as he is involved in every aspect of his films’ production. His films employ similar aesthetics, using a deliberate, methodical cinematography, with mostly primary colors. His soundtracks feature folk and early rock music, in particular classic British rock. Anderson’s films combine dry humor with poignant portrayals of flawed characters – often a mix of the wealthy and the working class. He is also known for working with many of the same actors and crew on varying projects, particularly Owen Wilson (who co-wrote three of Anderson’s feature films), Bill Murray, and Jason Schwartzman. Other frequent collaborators include writer Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote ‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou’ and ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ with Anderson co-producing his film ‘The Squid and the Whale.’
Anderson went to India to film his 2007 film ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ partly as a tribute to the legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, whose ‘films have also inspired all my other movies in different ways’ (the film is dedicated to him). Jason Schwartzman reunited with Anderson for it, acting as well as co-writing the script with Anderson and Roman Coppola. In 2006, following the disappointing commercial and critical reception of ‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,’ Steely Dan’s Walter Becker and Donald Fagen released a tongue-in-cheek ‘letter of intervention’ of Anderson’s artistic ‘malaise.’ Proclaiming themselves to be fans of ‘World Cinema’ and Anderson in particular, they offered Anderson their soundtrack services for his ‘The Darjeeling Limited,’ including lyrics for a title track.
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February 17, 2012
The Ganzfeld effect (German: ‘complete field’) is a phenomenon of visual perception caused by staring at an undifferentiated and uniform field of color. The effect is described as the loss of vision as the brain cuts off the unchanging signal from the eyes. The result is ‘seeing black’ – apparent blindness. In the 1930s, research by psychologist Wolfgang Metzger established that when subjects gazed into a featureless field of vision they consistently hallucinated and their electroencephalograms changed. The Ganzfeld effect is the result of the brain amplifying neural noise in order to look for the missing visual signals. The noise is interpreted in the higher visual cortex, and gives rise to hallucinations. This is similar to dream production because of the brain’s state of sensory deprivation during sleep.
The Ganzfeld effect has been reported since ancient times. The adepts of Pythagoras retreated to pitch black caves to receive wisdom through their visions, known as the prisoner’s cinema. Miners trapped by accidents in mines frequently reported hallucinations, visions and seeing ghosts when they were in the pitch dark for days. Arctic explorers seeing nothing but featureless landscape of white snow for a long time also reported hallucinations and an altered state of mind.
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February 16, 2012
The three individuals most closely associated with the birth of Detroit techno as a genre are Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, also known as ‘The Belleville Three.’ High school friends from Belleville, Michigan, the trio created electronic music tracks in their basement(s). Eventually, they were in demand at local dance clubs, thanks in part to seminal Detroit radio personality ‘The Electrifying Mojo.’
Ironically, Derrick May once described Detroit techno music as being a ‘complete mistake…like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator, with only a sequencer to keep them company.’ The location of Belleville was key to the formation of the three as musicians. Because the town was still ‘pretty racial at the time,’ according to Saunderson, ‘we three kind of gelled right away.’ Continue reading →
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February 16, 2012
Emil Schult (b. 1946) is a German painter, poet and musician. He is most famous for his collaborations with the electronic music band Kraftwerk. He has created most of their sleeve designs since 1973. He also co-wrote the lyrics of some famous Kraftwerk songs.
For a short while around 1973, Schult also played guitar in the group; this was to be short-lived, since Schult by his own admission is not quite good enough to be a professional musician, and since the group had started to develop its synth-based sound it no longer had any use for a guitarist.
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February 16, 2012
Kraftwerk (German: ‘power plant’ or ‘power station’) is an influential electronic music band from Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider’s departure in 2008. The signature Kraftwerk sound combines driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies, mainly following a Western Classical style of harmony, with a minimalistic and strictly electronic instrumentation.
The group’s simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. Kraftwerk were one of the first groups to popularize electronic music and are considered pioneers in the field. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Kraftwerk’s distinctive sound was revolutionary, and has had a lasting effect across many genres of modern music.
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February 16, 2012
‘Trans-Europe Express‘ is the title track of Kraftwerk’s 1977 album of the same name, and released as a single at the time. The music was written by Ralf Hütter, and the lyrics by Hütter and Florian Schneider. The track is ostensibly about the Trans Europ Express rail system, with technology and transport both being common themes in Kraftwerk’s ouvre. The track has since found further influence, both in hip-hop by its interpolation by Afrika Bambaata (via Arthur Baker) on the seminal ‘Planet Rock’ and by modern experimental bands such as the electroclash bands of the early 2000s.
The musical elements of the suite have been described as having a haunting theme with ‘deadpan chanting of the title phrase’ which is ‘slowly layered over that rhythmic base in much the same way that the earlier ‘Autobahn’ was constructed.’ The song’s lyrics reference the album Station to Station and meeting with musicians Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Hütter and Schneider had previously met up with Bowie in Germany and were flattered with the attention they received from him. Ralf Hütter was interested in Bowie’s work as he had been working with Iggy Pop, who was the former lead singer of the Stooges; one of Hütter’s favorite groups.
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February 16, 2012
8-Bit Operators: The Music of Kraftwerk was released in 2007 by the group 8-Bit Operators on Kraftwerk’s US homelabel Astralwerks and EMI Records worldwide. It features cover versions of Kraftwerk songs by several prominent chiptune artists. Inspiration for the project as quoted by Jeremy Kolosine (credited as Executive Producer of the release, and noted founder of the early 80’s electronic group Futurisk and chipmusic band Receptors.) ‘Well the first thing that comes to my mind when I saw a gameboy show was Kraftwerk’s Computer World Tour from 1981, where four of them played various handheld devices during the song ‘Pocket Calculator.’ Plus it came up in a print from a Glomag quote, and an 8 Bit Weapon April Fool’s joke that backfired.’
This Kraftwerk covers compilation was somewhat unique in the fact that Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter selected the final track line-up, ‘So Jeremy was a little nervous when meeting Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter after a concert by the group in New York last year. He passed along to him a sample of the compilation. Later Hutter said he enjoyed it and even offered some editing suggestions.’ In a subsequent interview, when asked about the 8-Bit Operators release, Ralf Hütter responded, ‘It is mind stimulating, the minimum/maximum coming from sound levels and thoughts and ideas. Like ‘Autobahn’ and ‘Trans-Europe Express’ are very basic and elementary ideas, but they offer a pattern or concept for improvisation.’
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