After much hemming and hawing and discussion, Aesop Rock finally took the web plunge and launched his own website. Though Aes has been active online for a minute (e.g., on the now defunct DefJunkies discussion boards, on Twitter, and on 900 Bats), this marks the official launch of his own spot online. The cat belongs to photographer Chrissy Piper. His name is Andy.

In his defense, the man has been busy with several records by him and his friends (Rob Sonic, DJ Big Wiz, Kimya Dawson, et al.). Here’s the latest …

Sometimes our Earth’s orbit brings us closer to other heavenly entities. Last Saturday for instance, our own Moon was closer than it has been in twenty years. Well, annually in mid-March, we collide headlong into another planet, a clusterfuck (as Buckminster Fuller would say) of talky panels, film screenings, and live shows that is known as South by Southwest, or more commonly by its planetary initials SXSW. This was only my second visit and the first at which I have spoken. The daylight saving’s time wormhole swallowed up a few key …

With 2010′s emergence of Aesop Rock and company’s art-driven 900 Bats website and the death of Peter Christopherson, I got to thinking about inspiration for art and design and, well, inspiration in general. I just read Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen (Portfolio, 2010; with thanks to Matt Schulte for the tip). His book and Havi Brooks‘ Tweets keep me thinking about what I find inspiring and–often more importantly–motivating (they’re not the same thing).
I don’t draw or do traditional art work as much as I used to, but I still feel …

Though I am unlikely to be alone in this, I have a confession to make. There is a group of artists whom I tend to romanticize because I missed a certain time their careers. I will always wonder what it must’ve been like to see Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, David Gilmour, David Bowie, David Byrne, or Brian Eno in the early-to-mid-80s. I’m old enough to remember buying Talking Heads records in junior-high and high school and to have seen their odd videos, but not old enough to have grasped the …

With the passing of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson today, we lost a prolifically creative soul.

Christopherson is probably best known as a pioneer of industrial music. He explored confrontation and sound with such germinal outfits as Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and Coil. He directed commercials and music videos (including most of Rage Against the Machine’s best ones, a few for Ministry, Van Halen, and Yes‘s chart-topping “Owner of a Lonely Heart”) and was also the designer of some of the most memorable album covers in music history. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were …

Longtime BMX homie and amazing photographer Sandy Carson has a show on display here in Austin at Okay Mountain Gallery. The opening on October 23rd was a bicycle scene reunion. We all gawked at Sandy’s photos, and geeked out on bikes, parks, and trails. A good time was had by all.

Here’s what the Okay Mountain site says about the show:
“Paradise Has Relocated” attempts to capture the lifeless remains and emptiness of a once thriving and historic island devastated by Hurricane Ike in September …

Aesop Rock, who previously wrote here about breakfast, just launched a new website called 900 Bats — a creative resource for arts, information, and oddities.  It shows the breadth of his interest in art (i.e., video, audio, art, photos, etc.) and as an artist. It’s not his own artist site (try as I might to get him to do one), it goes way beyond something like that.
Aesop’s first post describes the concept:
In an effort to supply a sandbox for what I hope proves to be a …

DJ Spooky is planning an artist’s retreat on the island of Tanna in the archipelago of Vanuatu. Here is the Kickstarter project description:
The Project – Tanna Center for the Arts will be a 6-hectare/14.8-acre off-the-grid artists retreat, cultural preservation and technological education space. Its site is situated on the island of Tanna’s northern up country in the archipelago of Vanuatu.
Our vision is to build an eco-haven using a majority of local materials and talent, engineer it using energy efficient design fueled by renewables, and fortify …

It’s that time again… For those who don’t know, every year around this time,  I ask a bunch of my friends and colleagues what they’re reading and then I compile it and post it here. This year, new participants Nancy Baym, Ian Bogost, Andy Jenkins, Kenyatta Cheese, and Michael Schandorf, and join regular contributors Steven Shaviro, DJ Spooky, David Silver, Dave Allen, Patrick Barber, Ashley Crawford, Howard Bloom, Alex Burns, Peter Lunenfeld, Cynthia Connolly, and Erik Davis. Thanks to everyone who contributed and to those who didn’t but considered …

Campus sidewalks meander between places of interest, connecting buildings and parking lots in a maze of concrete stripes. Often where their right angles turn near grassy areas between them and another building or parking lot, there are paths leading off diagonally. These forking paths are called “desire lines,” so named because they show where people would rather walk. There’s a story circulating that says good engineers (or lazy ones, depending on who tells the story; see Brand, 1994, p. 187) put sidewalks in last as to follow the desire lines …