Author Archives: evsc
The line between life and not-life
Martin Hanczyc of the Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT) in Denmark, shows off protocells – simple chemical blobs that display life-like behavior – in his TED talk. The protocells move around, feed on energy, dance with each other, merge, …
This in Timeouts
Setting a timeout on a class method that relies on another class method, causes errors as the callback function loses the reference to this. The solution: hand on the initial this as parameter to the callback. { empty: function() { …

Martha Marcy May Marlene
I am back from the movies, and i am still puzzled and captivated by Martha Marcy May Marlene. Mostly due the ambiguous abrupt ending that leaves you on the edge of your seat. Amazing work by first time director Sean …
json_en/decode in PHP4
A fix to use json_encode() and json_decode() on servers only running PHP4 can be found and downloaded at Using json_encode() and json_decode() in PHP4.
SimpleDateFormat
Fri Oct 28 2011 > 20111028 DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat(“E MMM d yyyy”); Date day = df.parse(“Fri Oct 28 2011″); SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat(“yyyyMMdd”); String newFormat = format.format(day);
Sound falling off tapes …
On Radiolab’s new show on Loops William Basinski talks about the discovery and beauty of his Disintegration Loops.

Together with video artist Mia Makela i developed a software piece that generates a live visuals set for Austrian violin artist Mia Zabelka’s new record M. The collaboration will premiere at the Phonofemme festival in Vienna, on Oct. 30st 2011.
Loveland by Charles Stankievech
Charles Stankievech LOVELAND (video still), 2009–2011 Video installation Soundtrack by Tim Hecker Yesterday I ran through the Quebec Triennial at the MAC in Montreal, and was pretty much only intrigued by this video installation by Charles Stankievech. You encounter a …

I am on the bus back to Montreal. Yesterday we exhibited White Loop at the Nuit Blanche in Toronto. My backpack contains a plastic bag filled with many handwritten dream submission on paper slips. This being my first Nuit Blanche …

It’s already hard to believe, but we build a 50-ft 25-ton wooden Trojan Horse, celebrated, pulled, and burned it at Burning Man 2011. And it’s been one hell of a journey!

Standard Gerber Files
.GBL – Gerber Bottom Layer .GTL – Gerber Top Layer .GBS – Gerber Bottom Solder Resist .GTS – Gerber Top Solder Resist .GBO – Gerber Bottom Overlay .GTO – Gerber Top Overlay .GBP – Gerber Bottom Paste .GTP – Gerber …
@transform_reset 1
After frustrating for a while why my jitter.noise just doesn’t look proper when send to render on a videoplane, i finally stumbled over the solution: transform_reset! [jit.gl.videoplane z @transform_reset 1]

White Loop is a sound installation that explores and infiltrates the collective unconscious of a neighborhood through the noise generated by 100 dream stories.
Crick on trained brains
Francis Crick talks about our (brain’s) ability to grasp and understand the idea of consciousness in The Astonishing Hypothesis – The Scientific Search for the Soul: “Our brains have evolved and developed so that we can deal fluently wit many …
On the multistability in consciousness
James Kent talks about his new Book Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason. On the multistability in consciousness: “The brain does not want to exist in multiple states at once, by nature it transitions from one state …
WP_MEMORY_LIMIT
If adding define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’256M’); in /wp-config.php doesn’t help, edit the limit in /wp-includes/default-constants.php instead: if ( !defined(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’) ) { if( is_multisite() ) { define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’); } else { define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’256M’); } } No more Fatal error: Allowed memory size of …
David Eagleman talks Incognito
On this Nature Podcast neuroscientist David Eagleman talks about his new book on the secret, subconscious, lives of the brain. About rethinking criminal behaviour and punishment and time as a construct of the mind.
The paradox of the observer in Bit-format
The observer is observing, and asking questions and making statements that must ultimately be expressed in discrete bits. John Archibald Wheeler: “What we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions. [...] All things physical …

path / thispatcher
How to output the file-path of your current Max/MSP file: [loadbang] | (path) | [thispatcher] | C:/Users/eva/…
Subaqueous Spring
A series of events celebrating the seasonal shift from darkness to light at the historic Bain St-Michel in Montreal. Florian Grond: Material Probes and Laura Emelianoff: Catalyst phase II – exploring the sonic space of water with melting ice, boiling …
NOVA – How Does The Brain Work?
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is everywhere (even on The Big Bang Theory) and usually very entertaining to watch. He presents the NOVA scienceNOW episode How Does The Brain Work?. The documentary focuses on perception and attention in relation to magic …

Audio Spatialization
I went to a few presentations at the Workshop on variable acoustics in large spaces for music at CIRMMT – Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, McGill University, Montreal – today and heard about highly equipped research/performance/recording …
Paul Root Wolpe: It’s time to question bio-engineering
Great overview by bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe on recent bio-engineering experiments, from hybrid pets to mice that grow human ears in his TED talk. The living eel brain inside the robot-car was actually already done in 2001!
Jane Eyre
Beautiful adaptation of Jane Eyre. There have been many before, but this one seems to get it just right. Grand and intimate, epic and sensitive, dreamy and realistic.
Limitless
Limitless (2011) takes an interesting idea and completely ruins it. It’s about a pill that amplifies your focus and attention capabilities to a max and gives you unlimited access to every possible memory. Which in combination makes you very clever …