This video offers a glimpse at an earlier era in electronic and computer music production – as well as what it was like to use a computer in the early 1970s. My first experience with computers dates from this around this time. It is interesting to reflect what has and hasn’t changed in the nearly 40 year interim.
Author Archives: mjl
The Dunning–Kruger Effect
Something worth reflecting upon as an educator: The Dunning–Kruger effect. Paraphrasing the Wikipedia entry, this is a cognitive bias by which the unskilled mistakenly overestimate their competence. The article gives two excellent historical quotes recognizing the effect:
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (Charles Darwin)
“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision”
(Bertrand Russell)
This effect is named after two Cornell psychologists who verified it experimentally. Dunning and Kruger also described the converse effect by which the actually competent may suffer lower confidence.
The article quotes cross-cultural studies which claim to show the effect may be less significant, even inverted, with East Asians, however this runs counter to intuition and my personal experience with Japanese university students. Ignorance of one’s own ignorance seems to be intrinsic to the nature of knowledge. Consider the ancient aphorism of Lao Tzu:
He who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know.
Having some experience with cross-cultural experimentation, I am acutely aware of the difficulties of conducting carefully controlled, unbiased experiments, as well as the dangers of over-generalizing results out of context. Perhaps it is the social presentation of self-perceived competence that differs between Western and East Asian subjects – something like the ‘Display Rules’ for facial expressions discussed Paul Ekman et al..
sea monkeys (excerpt)
Scentsational!
The film I was thinking of this morning was, Polyester (1981) (日本語), not Pink Flamingos, however, these two films have the same the director, John Waters, and main actor (-ess?), Divine, and both are of the cult transgressive genre. The reason that this stuck in my memory for 30 years, is precisely because Polyester features scratch-and-sniff odorama. I remember being intrigued by that prospect but not sufficiently intrigued to take the trouble to see this film, which was usually shown, like other transgressive cult films, starting after midnight. In those days, I was much keener on Neuer Deutscher Film directors like Herzog, Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, and Margarethe von Trotta. I most likely would not have been able to sit through a John Waters film, and the cult transgressive audience of the day would most likely have irritated me. ‘Scratch-and-sniff’ cinema remains an unrealized experience.
I did however spend a couple of years trying to build a mathematical model of the olfactory system and ran a reading/discussion group on the topic of smell when I worked at Caltech. But that is another story.
Confucius said …
I do not enlighten those who are not eager to learn, nor arouse those who are not eager to give an explanation themselves. If I have presented one corner of the square and they cannot come back to me with the other three, I should not go over the points again.
Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go)
Der Lauf der Dinge is a 1987 experimental adventure by Swiss duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss.
Historical Images of New York City
The New York City Municipal Archives has just released a large gallery of historical photographs to the pubilc. A selection of the images was published by The Atlantic. Many offer a fascinating glimpse at NYC under construction. The quality of these images is very impressive, perhaps timeless. I imagine factors contributing to the image quality include:
- Skill of the photographers
- Use of large format film
- Use of a tripod
- Craftsmanly control of exposure, development, and printing process
- etc …
Strobe Castle
Continuing with the YouTube vignettes, but skipping ahead about 30 years, here’s an intriguing live video of Toronto band Crystal Castles doing Alice Practice which was a hit a few years ago. I shudder to think about the cocktail Alice Glass may need to imbibe before such exhibitions, but the video does at least demonstrate the kind of engaging performance that can be possible with even a very lo-fi approach.
Oddly enough this video reminded me of my early youth: I sometimes played with a high powered strobe light my father used for adjusting the timing of the car engine. It seems no one was very worried about photosensitive epilepsy in those days, though we did have the idea that the strobe might be able to trigger a seizure. I certainly tried out all the possible frequencies more for visual effect than neurological experiment. We sometimes used the strobe to turn the basement into a makeshift disco. This was during elementary school and my interest in art and technology may date to those experiences.
Glam Days
Hopefully this blog will not degenerate into a series of YouTube highlights, but since I broke the ice with the Nina Hagen post, I thought I’d add another peek at an era young viewers are probably not familiar with. Frankly, the beginning of term leads me to seek relaxation on certain days (you might be able to guess specifically which days) and there are times when light entertainment is needed.
First up, “White Punks on Dope” by The Tubes, a tongue-in-cheek send-up of early 70’s glam band excess. You’ll recognize the tune from Nina Hagen’s “TV Glotzer”: Nina borrowed the song but changed the words. Not sure how that would have worked out copyright-wise. Other than being hilarious, this video is a record of the Tubes’ UK tour, which made an impact on early UK punk, or so goes the story.
This dates back to my pre-teen years. I can vaguely recall this catchy tune being on the radio. My family made a trip back home to the UK in the early 1970’s and I can remember watching glam bands on TV, most likely on “Top of the Pops” rather than the more mature “Old Grey Whistle Test”. I also have a surreal memory of some teachers getting our class to dance to Gary Glitter‘s early 70’s glam anthem “Rock and Roll Part 2”. That must have been either grade six or seven.
Two excellent acts of the glam era were David Bowie and Brian Eno (with Roxy Music during Glam). First, a recently re-discovered video of David Bowie in a 1973 Top of the Pops performance of “The Jean Genie” a pun on the name of controversial writer Jean Genet. It seems that the BBC had erased this video tape, but one of the cameramen had saved a copy because it used a television camera customized with fisheye lens. The video showed up on YouTube late last year.
In the final video for today, you can watch Brian Eno, when he still had feathers, playing the tambourine and soloing the VCS3 during his glam days with po-mo art school rockers Roxy Music. The VCS3 was an early commercial synth that had only three oscillators and rather unstable voltage controls. These days a VC3 in good condition will fetch more than £5000.
Ich glotz YouTube
Everyone should know about Nina Hagen.
She wasn’t the first to wear memento mori as a fashion statement: that must go back to Neanderthal times at least. But she may have been the first modern pop star to do so. And she may have been the first to wear pacifier earrings, or perhaps that’s something she noticed a punk doing when she visited London after defecting East Germany in ’76. Legend has it the punks loved Nina. Who wouldn’t? Isn’t that a Diana camera around her neck? This is about 25 years ahead of the toy camera hipstas!
I was 16 years old when I heard her voice. There has never been anyone else quite like Nina.