January 15, 2012
Kode9 (born Steve Goodman) is a London-based electronic music artist, DJ, and owner of the Hyperdub record label. MC, The Spaceape, is a frequent collaborator. Initially inspired by what he calls the ‘hardcore continuum,’ he also draws on dub reggae, and was one of the founding members of the early dubstep scene (which he views as a continuation of developments originally stemming from UK Hardcore).
He has released two full-length albums: ‘Memories of the Future’ and ‘Black Sun’ (both featuring the Spaceape). Kode9 has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Warwick. In 2009, MIT Press published his book, ‘Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear,’ exploring the uses of acoustic force and how sound can be deployed to set moods of dread and fear, how sound can be used as torture, as a weapon and as a threat.’
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January 14, 2012
Larry Levan (1954 – 1992) was a DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club. He developed a cult following who referred to his sets as ‘Saturday Mass.’ Influential US DJ François Kevorkian credits Levan with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music. Along with Kevorkian, Levan experimented with drum machines and synthesizers in his productions and live sets, ushering in an electronic, post-disco sound that presaged the ascendence of house music.
Born, Lawrence Philpot, Levan was openly gay and got his start alongside DJ Frankie Knuckles at the Continental Baths, as a replacement for the DJ from The Gallery, Nicky Siano. Levan’s DJing style was influenced by Siano’s eclectic style, and by The Loft’s David Mancuso, who briefly dated Levan in the early 1970s. As Knuckles was still trying to make his way in the New York club scene, Levan became a popular attraction perhaps due to his ‘diva persona,’ which he developed in the city’s notoriously competitive black drag ‘houses.’
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January 12, 2012
Marco Brambilla (b. 1960) is an Italian-born Canadian video artist who works in the United States. He first worked in commercials and feature films, directing the successful 1993 science fiction film ‘Demolition Man.’ In 1998 he shifted focus to video and photography projects, and has since exhibited works in private and public collections including, ‘Cyclorama’ at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, ‘HalfLife’ at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2011. His commissions include ‘Superstar’ for the ’59th Minute’ series in Times Square in 1999, and ‘Arcadia’ for ‘Massless Medium: Explorations in Sensory Immersion’ at Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage in 2001, both for New York public arts organization Creative Time.
His installation, ‘Cathedral’ was showcased during the Toronto International Film Festival 2008, and his 3D work ‘Evolution’ was selected for the 2011 Venice Film Festival and the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. A second 3D work ‘Civilization’ is a permanent installation at the Standard Hotel in New York. ‘Transit,’ a collection of photographs Brambilla took in and around national and international airports, was published in 2000.
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January 11, 2012
Sidney Frank (1919 – 2006) was an American businessman who became a billionaire through his promotion of Grey Goose vodka and Jägermeister. He attended Brown University, but left because he could only afford one year of tuition. He later made enormous gifts to the university to ensure that no student would ever be forced to leave Brown because of inability to pay tuition. During World War II, Frank worked for Pratt and Whitney as an aircraft engine mechanic in the South Pacific.
Frank’s first wife, Louise Rosenstiel, was the daughter of Lewis Rosenstiel, founder of Schenley Industries, one of the largest American distiller and spirit importers. Frank joined Schenley after his marriage and rose to the company presidency, but was forced out in a family dispute in 1970. In 1973 his wife died and he started his own company, Sidney Frank Importing Company, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer. The company is based in New Rochelle, New York where Frank lived part of the year (he had a home in Rancho Santa Fe, California as well).
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January 4, 2012
Harold Williams (1876 – 1928) was a New Zealand journalist, foreign editor of ‘The Times’ and is considered one of the most accomplished polyglots in history, said to have known over 58 languages and other related dialects. Like most youngsters his age, Harold wasn’t possessed by a voracious appetite for learning, but he recalled that, when he was about seven, ‘an explosion in his brain’ occurred and from that time his capacity to learn, in particular languages, grew to an extraordinary degree. He began with the study of Latin, one of the great root languages, and hungrily acquired others.
As a schoolboy he constructed a grammar and vocabulary of the New Guinea language Dobuan from a copy of St. Mark’s Gospel written in that language. Next he compiled a vocabulary of the dialect of Niue Island, again from the Gospel written in that language, and was published in the ‘Polynesian Journal.’
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January 4, 2012
Fatima Al Qadiri (b. 1981) is music producer born in Senegal and raised in Kuwait during the Gulf War, who now resides in Brooklyn.
She previously released an EP under the name Ayshay, featuring spectral chanting of traditional Islamic songs in Arabic.
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January 3, 2012
Yayoi [yah-yoy] Kusama [koo-sah-muh] (b. 1929) is a Japanese artist whose paintings, collages, soft sculptures, performance art and environmental installations all share an obsession with repetition, pattern, and accumulation (she has described herself as an ‘obsessive artist’). Kusama’s work is based in Conceptual art (in which the concepts or ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns) and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content.
Kusama is also a published novelist and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design. She has long struggled with mental illness, and has experienced hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, often of a suicidal nature. She claims that as a small child she suffered physical abuse by her mother. In 2008, a work by her sold for $5.1 million, a record for a living female artist.
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January 1, 2012
Michel Waisvisz [whyz-vizz] (1949 – 2008) was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments. He became the artistic director of STEIM (STudio for Electro Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam from 1981, where he collaborated with musicians and artists from all over the world. His involvement with STEIM goes back until 1969, when it had been co-founded by his mentor and friend Dick Raaymakers.
Waisvisz had a passionate dedication to a physical, bodily approach to electronic music which he has expressed in the use and presentation of his many developments of hardware and software instruments. From his point of view electronic music is created in direct musical interaction with individual technology, allowing for instant travels into sound through improvisation.
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December 30, 2011
Ivan Neville (b. 1959) is a multi-instrumentalist musician, singer, and songwriter. He is the son of Aaron Neville and nephew to members of The Neville Brothers. While it was never a huge charting song, Neville’s ‘Why Cant I Fall In Love’ become a sleeper fan-favorite, gaining fame from the 1990 Soundtrack to the Christian Slater film, ‘Pump Up the Volume.’ Neville has played with and appeared on several Neville Brother records, as well as his father’s solo records.
He performed in Bonnie Raitt’s band from 1985 to 1987. He also contributed keyboards to two Rolling Stones albums, 1986’s ‘Dirty Work’ and 1994’s ‘Voodoo Lounge’ as well as being a member of Keith Richards’ solo band the X-Pensive Winos. In 1988, he toured with Richards. In 2003, he formed his own band Dumpstaphunk. When the levees failed in New Orleans in 2005, Neville joined The New Orleans Social Club and recorded the benefit album ‘Sing Me Back Home’ with producers Leo Sacks and Ray Bardani at Wire Studios in Austin, Texas.
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December 21, 2011
Aaron Koblin is an American digital media artist best known for his innovative uses of data visualization and crowdsourcing. He is currently Creative Director of the Data Arts Team at Google Creative Lab in San Francisco.
Koblin’s projects have been shown at international festivals including Ars Electronica, TED, and are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
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December 20, 2011
Ram Dass (b. 1931) is an American contemporary spiritual teacher, originally named Richard Alpert, and the author of the seminal 1971 book ‘Be Here Now.’
He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation.
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December 20, 2011
Ron Popeil (b. 1935) is an American inventor and marketing personality, best known for his direct response marketing company Ronco. He is well known for his appearances in infomercials for the Showtime Rotisserie (‘Set it, and forget it!’) and for using the phrase, ‘But wait, there’s more!’ on television as early as the mid-1950s. Popeil learned his trade from his father, Samuel, who was also an inventor and carny salesman of kitchen-related gadgets such as the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic. The Chop-O-Matic retailed for US$3.98 and sold over two million units.
The success of the product caused a problem that marked the entrance of Ron Popeil into television. Chop-O-Matic was efficient at chopping vegetables, but it was impractical for salesmen to carry vegetables for demonstrations. The solution was to tape the demonstration; it was a short step to broadcasting the demonstration as a commercial. Some of his better-known products include: Mr. Microphone (a short-range hand-held radio transmitter that broadcast over FM radios), Showtime Rotisserie (a small rotisserie oven designed for cooking smaller sized portions of meat such as whole chicken and lamb),GLH-9 Hair in a Can Spray, and an Electric Food Dehydrator.
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