We Robot on Bandcamp

A day of We Robot promotion. Added the album and the single to Bandcamp and created a bonus mix of Hydroxy' exclusive to that platform. Have sent out a couple of promotional album copies to friends. The day has generally flown by, I feel I've hardly done a thing. All set for quarterly backups tomorrow. The day must be seized. Every day, hour, breath is precious, and fleeting.

I watched fragments of an interview with the wonderful Brian May. He's recently remastered his solo albums from the early 1990s. I remember downloading a digital copy of Starfleet Project in the 1990s and mailing him a royalty cheque.

On we march, forging a path in culture. We are specks of colour in the bucket of life, but each speck changes the hue of the whole.

Cycling, Scoring, AI and Celebrity

Sigh, difficult days! In the night I started a book about how to enjoy life; I may continue writing, as it was rather fun. Life feels like a struggle at the moment, but I must try my best every day.

By yesterday morning I thought I'd finished the Cycles remaster. I burned a CD master in the morning, ready to carefully proof-by-ear later (I prefer to do this on CD, still my preferred way to listen to music), then started work transcribing some of the Testing The Delicates sheet music.

There is a transcription schism with some of these. For 'Float Like Memories' performances I play scales and strokes in D-Major, switch to A-Major at one point and back to D again. I've noted approximate times in the lyrics for chord changes, and some basic melodies to play with. Each performance is different, but pretty similar too. For these transcriptions I usually transcribe the CD version note-by-note, which can create a few problems with these largely improvised tunes. Usually the problems arise from the loose timing. The chord changes rarely take place at the 'start of a bar' and sometimes there are odd numbers of notes in bars at timings that are virtually unscorable. Another option I thought, is to publish a score as I play them, with 'hints' and guides, like the D/A switch as above.

I managed 3 or 4 scores, but it was slow and unrewarding work. I need some sort of regular income and I'm starting to fear the oncoming year. Still, these scores are important, and I must do them all. I've made good progress in there mere two years since starting this grand plan, with almost half of my albums now fully scored.

Before bed, in the late dark, the best time for listening, I listened to Cycles with headphones... and disaster! Almost all of the piano parts had blips and ticks. Usually only one -tiny- tick in a 3-minute recording, but it was there. An annoying thing about this is that these are not audible when monitoring during recording... so after recording I must re-listen to an entire track. Today I've analysed each piano part (there are about 20 such recordings for the album) and re-recorded those needed, which was most of them. This time I used the P105 piano to playback the MIDI files, to reduce USB bandwidth. All recordings but one were fine; but even so, one still had a 'tick' and needed re-recording. This tedious, mind-numbing task has taken all day.

One upshot is that I've discovered (how could I miss it!?) that my PC has a USB-C connector in the back. These can be double the speed of a normal USB, so it should theoretically help with latency for this USB-C sound card. Come to think of it, I'm unsure if this is faster or merely an alternative shape. The one on the front IS faster, it advertises itself as so. I must hope.

It's nearly 3pm and Cycles is again ready for a master test. Last week was spent tediously working on the audiobook, a job that I thought would take 2 days, and so it is this week with Cycles. So it goes.

It's AI and Celebrity day, and my single (my first since Jabberwocky in 2021, but that was Fall in Green) is now out. I've only had two single releases as a solo artist: 'House Of Glass' and 'Masculinity Two', but both were later re-recorded and released by Marius Fate.

Later today, work surrounding the release will take place. The premiere of the video, release of the Flatspace We Robot Music Pack, and a special Flatspace sale. I have the option of attending a company meal on Oct 24th, the album release day. If I do then I will delay the premiere of the video to Saturday.

Cycles 2023 Continues

A full day yesterday remastering Cycles. Completed all of Shadows yesterday, a matter of re-recording the piano, changing the reverbs from old to new, and cutting the bass on various parts (particularly the vocals). Everything sounds much better and nicer, clearly better than the old versions. When listening without a side-by-side comparison with older versions, the changes are very slight, to the extent that almost nobody would notice any difference. Musically, these are note-for-note identical (apart from two near-silent off-key piano notes which have been removed). Most of the work on this remaster is/will be the admin, rather than the music work.

Cycles III, however, was my primary motivation for the remaster. It's a nice piano tune I've played live often that was somewhat drowned by orchestration in the original version. Today I've reworked the whole thing with a new piano part, and toned down much of the backing, removing or attenuating many strings to allow the basic melody to rise. Cycles I and VI sound like piano concerto movements, with quite a lot of orchestration, but III had perhaps too much competing with the backing, and that balance is restored in the new version.

The final step is mastering for volume, a secondary objective.

Cycles is one of my few albums on CD. I've sold a few over the years, so the question is what to do with those. The most efficient option is to keep the old artwork, and have new plain CDs made to replace the old ones, as I did with Burn Of God. It will mean that any liner notes regarding dates will be incorrect, but I can add on-disc printing to mark the distinction. A cheaper alternative would be to print none, but then I'd have to destroy the existing CDs, which is silly. I wonder how many I have..?

Cycles 2023

Day 1 of remastering my album Cycles & Shadows. My technology and skills have changed hugely since 2017, and the original album now sounds particularly boomy and smudgy. I can also record the piano in far better quality now, and boost the volume to a better and more even value.

Musically, there won't be any radical changes. I toyed with changing the synth instruments to sampled strings etc. but this album was unique is being a 'piano concerto for synth instruments'; and I'm replacing the album, this isn't something extra, so I must be careful not to destroy the special qualities present in the first version. The only track I'd like to change is Cycles III, which I've played live many times. It sounds much faster and has better flow live than on this album. Many of the Cycles tracks are (or were) better live, but I'll leave those be.

Today I've re-recorded the piano parts for Cycles 1,2,4,5,6, and remixed the core of those tracks. The results don't sound very different but certainly cleaner and more 'sparkly'.

The Shadows half will benefit most.

The Intangible Man Cover

Here, incidentally, is the Intangible Man cover, posed here to make it appear more... tangible. The credits have moved up a bit to make way for that lower-right corner.

Book Complete, Music Stand

A full Saturday yesterday. Spent the morning finalising The Intangible Man audio. Only when uploading did I see that the cover designs demand a blank space in the lower right corner for promotions. This template isn't stated anywhere in the written guidance, it's only there as a mask on the upload screen. Ah well, a quick adjustment (which, incidentally, does knock the design out of balance) and it was ready. All submitted. I must wait 10 days for approval. I'm still unsure of what to file.

Then, work on the light stands. I started by drilling the 6.5mm holes for the light stand legs, so all 4 are now complete apart from the little 'notch' things to hold them at the right angle. Then work on the music stand.

The mic thread adaptors arrived, so I fitted 1/4" bolts into the mic holders, then set up the stand to measure the width. 12mm holes were drilled into the wood, and the mic holders were fitted into a little bath of epoxy resin to hold them. A few hours later, I drilled the holes for the bolt collars (for the main sheet music plate) and painted it black before fitting those collars, this time using paraloid resin to hold them, which is much more polite as a glue than epoxy (though not strong enough to hold the mic holders, and it dries by evaporation, so not suitable for a cavity).

Here is the result:

You can see here how the top tier leans in to make a trapezium, which is part of the problem. The Reface, by chance, holds it becase its base isn't flat but has an extruded middle.

Of downsides/possible improvements; I'm unsure of the strength of the epoxy, although there is really no alternative other than more tightly drilling a hole for a better mechanical grip. It may have been nice to make the mic clips removable, but the lengths of the screw threads make this difficult. They might be, even now, unscrewable. I didn't tighten them for this reason (of course, I still needed to orient them exactly, so couldn't fit the screws without the mic clamps).

So, all is done, and the music holder can be removed and attached as needed, which is a huge bonus. I don't want a big thing like that hanging around for once-in-a-blue-moon music performances.

The Intangible Man Audiobook Continues

Another long day working on The Intangible Man stories. All have been recorded satisfactorily now, but there's quite a lot of work in balancing and processing, checking the levels and examining each pause, click, fizzle, in the audio. Audio proofing takes a lot of time. This book is 2 hours 47 mins of audio, a long time to listen to even once.

I'm struck by the possibility that I could program something to process these... eliminate peaks then level out the volume correctly. Software optimised for audiobooks. Then add a second layer of sound effects, or a touch of reverb. This isn't that easy, however. This is a lot of audio to process... all of my audio processing so far has taken place in memory; 90 seconds at a time at most. And, of course, the audio tools I use do all of this anyway. The difference is, I could design a non-lossy system. Now, I have to take the raw recordings, balance, limit, gate, filter, then (perhaps) apply sounds or reverb. I can't keep a copy of each step along the way, 3 hours is too much audio, so it makes future editing difficult.

Perhaps we've become 'addicted to undo' though. Almost all craft-work until the digital era was one-way and there was no undo. It's rare that we want to go back and change something; it's a sort of insecurity to want to hold on to every stage... yet, sometimes this is useful, particularly when doing something for a first time. For the time being, I'm keeping a copy of the raw start, and the final end waves, as well as the final MP3. I'm unsure whether to keep the raw start OR the final edited ends... the former allows more tweaks if needed, though will need changing from the outset. Why keep a wav that's the same as the MP3? I could even forget the wav entirely and only retain the MP3, an ultimate casual attitude, though my professional-archive self doesn't like that idea.

At 6pm, I diverted to launch the first SFXEngine sale, and announce the release of the first DLC for it, the Analogue VCF.

I've spent all week on this book and it's still not finished. John mentioned The Many Beautiful Worlds of Death in the foreword, and the fact that that book was first published in 2015 (its first draft written in 2012; the second edition updated and published in 2021), and that these stories were published in 2020 might make people think that these stories were written later, when they were generally written earlier, most of them in 2011. This is why the writing is better in the novel.

Still, the quality of the language is one thing, it's the core ideas of these tales that's the important part. Each of these would make for a good television programme. Surreal, strange, and imaginative.

The Intangible Man Day 4

A long day working on The Intangible Man audio. I've had to re-record everything.

There are three stages to performing or rehearsing: First; tentative, slow steps as the material is read and learned. For newsreaders, public speakers, and myself when presenting on the radio for example, this is the only step. There are no chances for a second take here. Second; we know the material, so move more quickly, but, for me, usually too quickly, too eagerly because it's 'easy'. Several musicians fall into this too. I've heard bands who struggle with a song at first, but as they master it end up playing too quickly. This can also be audible in classical recitals, a sort of over-confidence. Third; full knowledge of the material, so we can move at any pace we choose.

My recordings of yesterday tended to be too fast. They felt fine, perfect, brilliant, on the day when read, but today, when listening back, they needed to be slower. An audiobook is not like a conversation. Each word should be audible and clear, so it should be spoken slower than normal. This improves clarity at the expense of (for me) some personality. This is the aesthetic balance.

So, today, I started to record everything again, and this time re-listened and edited each one after each one. This has pros and cons. The biggest pro is that it allows learning from a previous story for reading the next story, but the biggest con is inconsistency in sound, in volume levels and tone, due to the ultra-slight variations in recording volumes (vs. the playback between) and the distance of the mic. Less than a centimetre difference in mic-mouth difference can influence bass levels. A closer, quieter, voice has more intimacy and bass, but in this case consistency is more desirable.

Well, most of the stories are re-recorded. How ropey some seem now. My writing improved during writing them, and in the years since. I've found many errors of various minor sorts, so that's another side benefit to these readings.

The Intangible Man, FIG, Modular Music Stand

A steady day. Started by recording the last few stories from The Intangible Man. All of the editing remains. I wanted to save that for another day. It's amazing how like a performance reading is, that a rehearsal really helps.

Speaking of which, a real rehearsal then followed, of the Nantwich Fall in Green performance. This is, I think, already our 4th rehearsal for this important, but short and easy show. This is plenty for me, but Deb has the difficult job; memorising the words, the actions, being the primary performer. For me, today was the first time I'd played all of the music from memory. I used to play almost all of the tunes and perform everything from 'memory', but the music then was improvisatory in nature. It was a mix of the 'right-sort' of chords and 'right-sort' of notes, right instrument, right mood, but essentially everything a little different and unique each time. Now things are much more exacting, and each performance is a recital of pre-recorded work.

This reminds me that most of the Fall in Green music isn't scored. Salome and War Is Over is, but not Testing The Delicates, or Apocalypse Of Clowns.

After that, Deb helped me get some wood for the last stage of my studio lights, the final 'legs' for the stands. These have taken months! At times I think it was silly to bother, a huge endeavour and large cost for what, for more accurate photography of my paintings, but perfection, getting better, takes more and more energy for smaller gains; and over time things should, must, get better. If I spend £100 to become 1% better at something, it's worth it. All investments in life, all, so pay back eventually, and investments in skill or a personal and unique ability are worth even more. No artist will have my art photography system.

Another inventive investment is the new music stand. So, the X-frame is wide, with the big synth on. Above, the next tier leans inwards, a trapezoid to 'trap' the smaller Reface DX there. This makes for a neat 2-tier arrangement. Now, for a music stand on top of that I'll use two microphone clips. These will grip the tubes of the upper tier and the music stand will be fixed to those. There are a few nice things about this system. First, the very angle joint on the mic holders can be used to tilt the music stand as needed; and second, the 'face' of music holder itself can be bolted on from the one I made a few months ago, here:

The back part is specially made to hook onto the MODX, but the front has bolts (see the silver screws) which can be removed to permit a variety of different faces. In this case I can remove the face and bolt it onto the new stand. Essentially, I've developed a modular music stand.

The mic clip, for £3.99, came today, but annoyingly the bolt adaptor I need didn't come with it (sigh; these conflicting standards, and all in inches!). There are three thread sizes: 5/8" and 3/8" for mics (most mic stands have adaptors to support both, but in this case the mic holder clip I ordered ONLY supported 5/8"). For photography tripods the standard is 1/4", which is what I'd like to use here, as I have many of those bolts to hand. So I've had to pay £9 for the adaptor. Well, this may be a long term thing. I might be able to create a modular system here too, make those holders boltable somehow.

SFXEngine has a new pack out on the 22nd and I'm determined to make this the best sound effect software there is - well, I feel this already, but I must alert the world! Twitter is deader and deader in reach, so I'll need to develop pre-social media methods.

The Intangible Man Audiobook

Started work on the audiobook version of The Intangible Man & Other Strange Tales today. There are a few technical requirements. The biggest hurdle is probably the file sizes for so much audio, perhaps 1Gb of data per title. More than a complete music album.

Also required is a new 2400x2400 pixel cover, which is far bigger than the book requires. I've decided to use the audio album standard, which is currently 3000x3000 pixels. It's somewhat odd that these similar media have different standards; an audiobook is little different from a music album in appearance and how they are sold. 3000 pixels (plus bleed) errs on the side of future compatibility. Here's a look at the new cover (the cover so far, that is...):

I had to make a surprisingly large amount of changes for this.

The volume requirements are relatively simple, though far quieter than the standard for music (which is measured in LUFS, and more like a loudness limit than a recommendation). Book audio is limited to an -18dB average, which is about 75% of a regular peak, and at least 3dB of headroom is required at all times.

I read about 10 stories before my voice became too tired for more. I'll split the process into recording first, then editing and processing. The editing will take longer than recording and it would be slow and distracting to dart between one job and another. Reading is a lot like acting, bringing the story alive; it's not just a matter of clarity.

AI readers (text to speech) are forbidden, perhaps for job-protection reasons more than anything else, which is a unusual stance for the commercial exploitation of a technology. YouTube, for example, would never ban AI generated videos (most of the screen-time for today's Hollywood films would count!). Twitter would never ban automated text, or Amazon AI-written books, or the sale of 3D-printed, computer designed objects. Human customers would almost always prefer human readers to listen to, but if offered a worse-quality voice for less money, some people would pick that, and history indicates that cheap, poor-quality, and disposable generally wins in commerce, however lamentable that fact is. I expect that banning 'robot' voices will be a losing battle, but I also know that no AI voice, today, could do the job as well as a human, and that readers/listeners would prefer a real person - expecially the voice of the author. One day, AI actors and AI voice artists will be as 'good' as humans, though, like humans, each will be unique and imperfect. Perhaps an AI Charles Dickens or AI Shakespeare will be our best hope of hearing their words in 'their' voice...

This work is, for me, an experiment. I'll see how it goes. Some books lend themselves more to audio than others. My How To Organise Your Computer Files, my second biggest seller, won't work as audio because its a complex reference book that needs information to hand - it works best as a paper book. Stories work, but wordy literature can be hard to listen to; that's best read at your own pace. To absorb, and to see and appreciate the language.

Success

Success isn't security. Success is dynamism, energy, striving, that which is new. Success is discovery, sharing, and recording. Security is decay. Contentment is decay.

Argus v1.29, Prometheus v3.18

Two programming days which have been extremely frustrating. I started with some adaptations to Argus, a few slight changes which went largely to plan.

Then, work to address a tiny bug in Prometheus. I have a feature to export the frame numbers for all beats and measures, useful data when making videos. I noticed that any tempo modulations that happen in a song are not reset, so that a song that slows down at the end would, on the next run of this code, assume it was slow at the start and therefore output the wrong frames; but only on a second run which is why I hadn't spotted it before (and 90% of songs are the same speed at the end as the start). This is a minor bug. It's easy to store and restore the settings before and after the calculation.

Or so I thought. This turned out to be an unimportant bug in a sea of little problems. Unlike a normal calculation from the start of the song, frames can start from the cursor, as though playing a song from the middle. The difference seems trivial, but it's not because a lot of pre-calculation takes place before the cursor and before playing. So starting a song at beat #1 doesn't mean that a sample there will immediately begin output at sample number zero. It depends on what's happened to the tempo up to that point and other things. This isn't important in musical terms, but is when calculating to return the -exact- sample number for a particular note, which I do quite often.

It took many hours yesterday and most of today to refine and fix these calculation errors but it's now done. It's amazing that Prometheus is 21 years old and I'm still finding and fixing bugs (of course, any change or new feature can introduce them).

My We Robot work is done so I'm faced with what to do next. At least one aim is to notate my existing music, which will take months if not years, and give me no swift return (if any return) but this is a worthwhile long-term goal. Many artistic things are in progress; paintings, my light, but again the return from them or prospects for them seem bleak, at least uncertain. I need more outlets for my output.

One immediate requirement is a new stand for the Nantwich performance next month. For the first time I'll perform seated using the two-tier keyboard stand. This creates a few problems as the X-stand is now too wide for the tiny Reface keyboard, and that tier obscures the music stand, so I'll need to find a place for that. Again, after over 50 shows, things still need refining and fixing.

We Robot Video Completion

The final tweaks and changes to the We Robot videos today, with slight changed to Someone Else's AI (a new syllable-by-syllable section), and a new 'blue sky' part in the middle of I Think You Love Me. All videos then converted to 8000kbps for upload, and scheduled for broadcast on YouTube.

Now the filing part, and some little updates to Argus.

More We Robot Video Work

More work on the We Robot videos today. Created the first drafts of last two videos, for the complex song 'Someone Else's AI', and 'I Think You Love Me'. Several small revisions to the existing ones were made too, and some changes to four Spotify Canvases too.

Someone Else's AI was a difficult one. Initially little different from simply printing images for different lines or parts of the song. It came alive when I made the cube shimmy to the music; the synchronisation aspects are a key feature of Argus, though a lot has to be done manually to some extent, entering exact frame numbers here and there. Prometheus can export this data, which is vital help.

I think one more day should complete these, then this will be my first album since The Love Symphony to have a film to accompany the entire work.

We Robot Video Work

More work on the We Robot videos today. I managed draft versions of Robot, My Baby's Non-Binary, Fake Plastic Lies, and P-L-Astic. A long and full day. This is the fastest I can work on these. They are better than no video, better than a simple loop. Not perfect, not a great showcase of my skills or great artworks, but they are adequate for the task. I dislike doing anything that is not my best, that doesn't push me, but those things now take increasingly large amounts of time and resources. The mural (still in limbo) is a case in point. I like/liked the first design, that was and is a good artwork, but would have been a lot of work even if it were approved by the authorities. The second design is an easy compromise.

For these videos I have to compromise. I'm effectively making a 45-minute film to accompany the album. Sometimes I justify jobs because they 'only take a day', but 350 jobs like that is a year of work, and so much of this year has been spent on We Robot, and other music admin; for the glory of art? Music is art.

There are no guides to what we should be doing as artists. No guides to the culture of the now and the future. We can see what other artists of the past did, but they are the past. We must be new, be moving forwards. We can say we are influenced by x or y, but their legacy can't help. They can't help. What we do must be new, satisfactory to our philosophy and feelings as artists. No artist copies others. No artist likes to be compared to another artist of the past.

I wish I could do more, could make these videos better, but there is only so much I can do. I must do my best with the time I have, with the tools I can make. My exhaustion is the measure of my effort, and this is good.

So, my first priority is to complete these; complete, complete! I must finish everything in progress, but not so quickly that the results aren't up to a basic standard. The eternal balance.

Onward!

Between

Between the atoms and the stars we span.
Between the whisper and the roar.
Between the grass seed and the gods lie man.
Between the never and the evermore.

ArtsLab, We Robot Videos

A busy and productive day. I started by checking the new ArtsLab blog, and deleting the ArtsLab entries from here. It turned out that MixCloud did have all of the episodes (apart from 1 to 4, these were probably accidentally deleted by RedShift early on). The MixCloud search seemed to hide some of them unless searching for a specific episode by name. I've now checked the three series' playlists, and added another for everything. Links on the right here, and on the ArtsLab and ArtSwarm blogs.

Then, charging into work on the music videos; with a few distractions. It seems that the wonderful shop Wilko is to close very soon, so I made a quick dash to town for low-priced supplies I may need for the mural.

Then back to videos, and rendering the 10 I've completed. The last 6, however, are among the most difficult. Here's a look at Mothmoon:

I will call these simply official videos. As I've said, I was unsure about that, as these don't have credits and have generally lower production values than other videos... but even that is debatable. Some older videos were simpler looking, even if they were a lot harder work to create than when using Argus. If I make another video in future, I will rename them so I could have 'Second Official Video' or something.

I'm trying not to put a massive amount of work into these. The intent was to make something like a 'Spotify Canvas' for YouTube, but these are already closer to full-length animated videos that that. I must not waste too much time on these when I could be spending time on new art... the month, like the year, is running away on me.

ArtsLab, Talent, Midnight Cowboy

I feel odd; stressed with many half projects. Two days ago, shortly after my last blog post, I read the sad news on Facebook that a guest from ArtsLab, Dorli Nauta, had died. She was one of a small number of guests I'd remained in touch with to some degree. She'd even attended some of our Fall in Green shows. This made me look up her interview, and made me realise how important those old radio programmes were and are.

I noticed that some of the programmes were now, again, missing from MixCloud. As a result I vowed to check them all and correct any missing data. I also decided to create a second blog, an ArtsLab Archive. I detailed the programmes here on this blog as I made them, but I thought it would be neater if a second blog detailed this instead, in the same manner as the ArtSwarm blog. So, on Sunday night, I started the process of noting the programme details, and yesterday created a second blog (artslabarchive.blogspot.com) and transferred the programme details for the 100+ shows there. I'll continue this process today, and eventually upload the missing shows to MixCloud. I have recordings of all shows from Series 1, Ep. 12 in 128kpbs MP3, and shows 1 to 11 in 64kbps M4A. Show zero is lost forever. That was my 'training' show, so not really a 'proper' episode, but still a loss, to me if nobody else.

For most of yesterday, Deb and I went out, to Sandbach for a wander and break. It was a nice break, but didn't relax me much. I feel I have too much going on, tied in knots. The mural, the Steam issues, the intended re-recordings of 4 or more albums. Little painting done. The awkward and bulky lights still unfinished. I hate any state of incompleteness. I want to charge at everything to get it out of the way, to finish everything neatly, but I know that this will take time.

This morning I was reminded that I have no natural skills. I was/am always slightly annoyed when people call me 'talented': I'm not. I have no natural maths ability and was not taught any, but I've learned maths by hard crawl, inch-by-inch, hand by hand, until I knew enough to program with. I have no talent for programming, but too, learned it by hard and slow crawl, hand by hand over the sharp, black terrain of ability. I have no natural drawing skill, but have slowly learned that. No natural painting knowledge or ability. I have no natural musical skills, apart from a good memory for a tune, yet again, have learned (and am learning) to play the piano, by slow crawl along the black desert of broken obsidian. I have no natural singing ability, but have learned to sing by the same slow and difficult crawl. And so it is with everything. No talent. No help. No encouragement, only discouragement. Every tiny gain is a battle demanding immense strength. Every tiny win consolidated and carefully registered to preserve it.

What is life but this? Slow learning which is consolidated. Learning new things, and storing that knowledge. Maintaining a good record. Time has massive power. I remember the Buddhist wisdom from my twenties: we can't fill the bucket in one day, we only need to add one drop. We also need to check it for leaks. As I get older, the time spent fixing leaks becomes greater than the time spent adding drops, but doing both is important.

So, today, I'll continue to work on the ArtsLab Archive, and then try to hammer away at the next rock-face: the music videos for We Robot, then the mural (which is still in limbo), then Cycles, A Walk In The Countryside, The Dusty Mirror, Nightfood, Secret Electric Sorcery, the lights, the Descartes painting...

Our day ended by watching the end of the brilliant Midnight Cowboy, which I'd seen years ago. All lives are Rizzo's; hoping for some magical event, like a lottery win, or waiting for some fantasy Florida. Life isn't leaps, it's slowly building a mountain and shaping the sides to make it beautiful. My mountain today feels like tarmac, or black glistening rocks of a glassy mineral. I must continue to shape it, and perhaps add more colour.

Anxiety and Questions, Gridding, Videos

An anxious day. Anxiety consists of unanswered questions. It doesn't, however, consist of unasked questions, thus anxiety is the preserve of intelligent creatures; those with foresight. The questions can be buried and must be unearthed, divided into options, then answered.

My first question at 6am was how to quickly grid the 15M wall for my mural designs. My first idea was to measure 1M marks along the floor and use a laser guide and pins to mark many verticals, but the lines may all be different, and need to be 1.8M high, which isn't easy. This method would also be quite time consuming. Then I thought about measuring the start and end points, at 1M high, at 3M and 14M across, then using the laser guide to draw a horizontal - but the line wouldn't be visible for 10M or so, and using its bubble as the level wouldn't work because the floor is likely to slope (all floors and walls do, as every builder knows). My line must be relative to the floor.

The vertical option seems best, these can be my initial anchors, but rather than a laser, I'll use my 2M ruler (actually it's an aluminium plaster float, but it does a good job of being a straight edge). I carefully lined this vertically, and carefully stuck a spirit-level to it. Ill use drawing pins on the base of the wall at the correct intervals, so this should rapidly permit me to draw the verticals at the exact place and length. Ideally I need to mark and grid the 12 complex patterns in 90 minutes, so efficiency and preparation are vital.

It's still too hot today, but thankfully not sunny, instead damp and on the cusp of summer thunder-showers. I've spent most of the day working on cycle videos for We Robot; that is full screen videos for YouTube. I wondered whether to call them Cycle Videos or just Official Videos. There is likely to be a lot of crossover; the AI and Celebrity video is mostly animated anyway... the notable difference is that the official videos have end credits - a space at the end. These 'cycle' videos don't which makes them better for YouTube Playlists - people won't want a 10 second pause between tracks.

But, these are intended to be 'relatively simple' animated videos (though still hand-made of course, I'm not a fan of computer generated anything). I can imagine replacing one or two with other 'official' videos in future... can music have more than one official video? I already have several videos per track catalogued; the little loops for Spotify... questions questions.

Videos made today: Do You Know Where Your Heart Is? (this took a long time, and most of yesterday); We Are The Damaged; Joy from a Machine Code Perspective; Mothmoon; Life as a Robot Guard; Where Is Love?; Silicon-Carbon Genesis. Flight Over Rust City and Android Heaven were done yesterday. All are draft versions, unfinished and unrendered.

Heat, More Videos, Flatspace

The hottest UK day of 2023. 25 degrees in here when I woke and the temperature rapidly grew to a sustained 26.5. I consider 26 too hot to work.

The day started with a small addition to Argus, adding a feature to scale the timing for different frames-per-second values (eg. shift everything when switching from 30 to 25 F.P.S.). It will rarely be useful, as I plan on using 25 frames-per-sec from now on, but the coding was easy and it might come in handy in future.

Then I completed the paperwork for the mural. Ultimately the paperwork alone has taken at least a working day, but it will be very useful for any future public commissions. Then, more work on the Hydroxychloroquinine video, and the start of some others before it became too hot.

Then the release of Flatspace v1.08. A note on the forum complained about revoked Steam keys. This was concerning. A batch of keys were sold in a Pay-What-You-Want deal in 2018; all keys remain valid. No other Steam keys have been sold (I never sell keys directly), though I have revoked many review keys from which no review appeared. It appears that some of these keys were illegally sold, which is sad but would be unsurprising. I will investigate. This message is a good reason for me to warn people about buying keys from third-party sites.

The We Robot Music Pack has been approved and is set for release on the 29th.

Tomorrow will also be too hot to work but the weather should become cooler after that. I must think of things to do tomorrow... it will be too hot to use the computer.

Hydroxycholoquinine Video

Work today on the Hydroxycholoquinine video; all of these are simple 'cycle' videos; essentially something like the Spotify Canvases for YouTube, but full length, so they can have a narrative. I put less work in than a 'full' music video, but they still take a remarkably long time.

Most will be based on the Spotify Canvases. This one was just a blue background with a spinning cube. I've done the same here, but it darts a little between the different song sections. I've spent about 90 mins programming; adding the ability to import song sections from Prometheus so that I can quickly get a layout of the song structure. I'm not massively pleased with this video, but it will suffice and has a certain 90s Amiga-Megademo look. I'm reminded a bit of that Betty Boo video.

Generally, it's too hot to work; 26 degrees in here in this unusual heatwave. The heat is making me feel ill, dizzy and anxious. I can't work efficiently until things cool down, which won't happen until Monday or Tuesday (if the weather forecast is accurate).

Eclectic Wednesday, Flatspace IIk v1.08

A busy yesterday, I started by filing the cover image for the AI And Celebrity single. I now file all album covers as artworks too, and put these on sale as posters on Society6.

Then, work on the risk assessment and other administration work for the Crewe Mural Project, then a full rehearsal with Deborah for our Fall in Green performance at Nantwich Words & Music Festival in October. I need t o make a full-size replica of Rilke's gravestone for this!

Finally, finalising the mixes and music for the forthcoming We Robot Music Pack for Flatspace IIk. Most of the initial stages are creating the store, the artwork, setting things up in the background. This itself took several hours.

Today was spent updating Flatspace IIk. Always a nerve racking experience, the whole thing is so complex that I must proceed with care and caution. For the first time I've added Steam Achievements to the game. I'll release it after more testing. The We Robot Music Pack is due out on the 29th, and it will be updated in late October when the album comes out. I'm rather pleased with these mixes. The Robot song for example uses the instruments from the Flatspace Theme to good effect. That song dates from the Flatspace era, its initial sequence and lyrics written almost 20 years ago. It's taken until 2023 to finish it.

I'm now awaiting Steam approvel for the store. It's a similar situation with mural; waiting for the civic authorities to approve. I'll need a few days to prepare that anyway. This or next week would have been ideal, but I imagine that the third or fourth week of this month is more likely. I'll need at least two days to prepare everything. The preparation is vital. I'd like to minimise the work time at the wall.

Intelligence

An idiot (assuming he wasn't immensely idiotic) slowly following the paper-printed instructions to execute the program that constitutes the 'Deep Blue' chess computer program could, eventually, beat any chess player in the world. Of course, one must discard the time rules of chess for this, but my example shows that intelligence, here, is a matter of computing speed rather than anything abstract.

The timing element seems to be a key part in IQ tests. I say this partly because of the IQ tests I've taken, I ran out of time twice, only completing a third test when I realised that I had to simply do it quickly. Oddly, there seems to be a trade off; that the optimum is to complete the test a few seconds before time runs out. This very trade off indicates the highly subjective measurements made in IQ tests.

The word intelligence is loaded with human prejudice. We assume that the intelligent people are better people without really knowing what intelligence is. For me, intelligence is imagination, the ability to foresee and predict, but if this is combined with speed, then, as my trade-off inference indicates you can see that the further one must be able to see, the better or more distant the prediction, the more time the computation will take.

Intelligence seems to be an abstracted layer of life, an alternative to physical prowess, which humans can use to battle other humans; as in chess; but chess as a game has stark limits. Poker is perhaps more interesting because it involves much more subtle and complex judgements of an opponent. Can a game be designed that really pits one human against another? Perhaps the answer to that question is the origin of most animals' mating rituals.

AI And Celebrity Album Edit, More Muralising

A full day, starting with the conversion of the AI and Celebrity single video, then creating a new extended edit for the album version. The conversion was quite time consuming; 3 long renders plus a final conversion was almost an hour of PC time on this super-modern system.

The middle of the day involved another meeting about the Ly2 mural. All is set we think, apart from box-ticking and more official paperwork, but David and I are, ultimately, awaiting for final approval from the civil authorities.

My design is very geometrical, so I've spent lots of time working out the best way to do this. Marking a wall for a grid of squares is easy enough, but marking for a grid of equilateral triangles and hexagons of a specific size with a specific 'mortar' gap requires a bit of maths. I have 12 grids to mark, and it could easily take many hours just to draw them all; time I can't afford. I can't use an overall stencil (even if I could find 12, 80x80cm square sheets suitable for stencils) because the masked areas are 'holes'. Imagine drawing the 'wires' in chicken wire and you can imagine my predicament. So, I need to create masks for the holes and place them accurately on a pre-measured grid. I wondered about a master plan which could be traced or overlayed (with guide holes?), but my idea is to use pre-measured paper guides for the edge of each axis which can be stuck to the wall, then lines instantly drawn between, so no need to measure on site.

The masks themselves, the 'holes', are numerous. I'll need well over 100 squares, over 100 hexagons, and nearly 100 equilateral triangles, so lots of preparation and cutting needed. With luck though, and those days of preparation, I can construct the design in one day. It will be a few weeks before anything happens, however.

Next; Deb and I have a rehearsal for the October Carol Ann Duffy gig at Nantwich Civic Hall. I must also finalise the tracks for the Flatspace IIk We Robot Sound Pack, and then create a new video for the single's B-Side. Then, a full suite of HD videos for the entire album. All of my albums from now on will feature videos for each track.

Then... new art, and refurbished older art. I wish I could paint my Signalman painting, many people seem to want it. I have an exhibition coming in London this Autumn/Winter and it would make a spectacular centrepiece. I do, however, have lots of other work to show...

I'm working at maximum efficiency. On we march, charge, fly.

AI And Celebrity Video

A good day of work on the AI and Celebrity video. The first hour or two was spent finalising the Argus update, then the video animation. Then filming. Here's a screenshot:

As with Frans Hals, it uses a simple mask for video placement. Here, though, I've added a third 'overlay' layer, the blue glow around the edge. Much of the video is animation in the style of the Spotify Canvas:

After that, I made 4 lyric-free edits of the We Robot songs for a future Flatspace IIk Music Pack. Tomorrow another meeting about the Ly2 mural, but my focus is on music, new art, new important ideas.

Onward we charge and tumble.

AI And Celebrity Video, Argus v1.27

A long a busy day working on the video for the AI and Celebrity single. A lot of the day was spent programming, updating the increasingly complex Argus. I'm unsure if my recent change of making it possible to change modulators on the fly was good or bad for complexity...

I can create an object anywhere with built-in movement characteristics, modulations, like a block that moves up and down by itself, for example. A recent change permitted the modulators to be changed on the fly to allow complex choreography. Before this, complex movements were a matter of creating a new object at that point rather than moving the existing one. Problems have arisen when trying to move an object after it's been changed. The Move command will, by default, reset the actor to its initial status, thus removing any subsequent modulator attachments.

I'll ponder on the optimal solution.

The video itself is a modification of the short loop I've made for Spotify, but like the Frans Hals video will feature a mask for live action filming. The video is largely done, so I may be filming tomorrow.

Illustration Admin, Hydroxychloroquinine Music, Mazes

A full day, starting with scanning, filing, recording the new illustrations for I Slip into French like Tolstoy. These are the first illustrations I've drawn in 3 years, since Solitary Child. The admin involves scanning each of the 20 images, recording titles and sizes, labelling and signing each one, re-sizing images for the website, and preparing for inclusion in the book, updating the written records, and creating simple jpg versions for future batch mass-processing.

I'm toying with the idea of having a blog which simply lists all of my artwork, page by page, like a gallery. I did this once, but took it down a few years later. One advantage is permanency, redundancy. Perhaps my blog will outlast my website... but perhaps not. Google's terms are to terminate anything unused for 2-years. If you, dear reader, are reading this on Blogger in a distant future, several years after my death, then it would seem that they've changed their policy. I hope this can be, but I suspect it won't and that this blog like countless thousands of others are doomed. Perhaps, one day, I'll print and publish this blog. The proof-reading work alone of this job has just given me a shiver.

And indeed, the workload of another online gallery causes similar problems. It may also be deleted when inactive, so I'll hold off on that idea for now.

After lunch, I transcribed the sheet music for 'Hydroxychloroquinine Aspartame', the B-Side to the new AI And Celebrity single. For album titles I capitalise each word. This is a common convention. Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love has a capital 'Of', and A Night At The Opera by Queen is capitalised throughout, but that convention doesn't apply to song titles. For a single then, there can be an ambiguity. I have a B-Side here, so it feels more like an 'album' than solely one track, but even if so, I now capitalise all of the words in the 'album/single' title but not the track title.

After that I created a new edit of AI and Celebrity for a possible new Flatspace Music Pack. I've also prepared some artwork for this.

My task for the week is more We Robot work; making a new video for the single (which should be easy to extend into the album version) and a few other full-screen videos of album tracks for YouTube. After that I'll start on a remaster/re-recording of Cycles & Shadows. Another job for the month is to complete the studio lights, and any paintings in progress. I'm in the good mood of 'finishing'.

My strategic future seems uncertain. I'm pulled in many directions and all seem maze-like and full of dead ends. Where is peace? Success? Every passage in life leads to another, there are no actual dead ends. Some passages are strewn with rubble, or blocked with rock-falls. Some have quicksand or watery mires. Some have monsters, some spikes, some others magical monoliths marked with glittery runes, some caskets with golden locks. All are, in the end, passable. Which are we to choose? The adventure of life.

Tolstoy Illustrations

Some illustrations today for Deb's forthcoming poetry collection, I Slip into French like Tolstoy.

You may recognise the figure in the lower drawing. I love ink drawings because the medium is so expressive. There is no escape from the line. It can't be changed and is super-sensitive so must reflect exactly one's feelings in the moment.

I drew 20 or 30 drawings for the poems while listening to Bowie's Low. I haven't drawn in a long time, it was a welcome escape.

The Rules Of Xor

A steady day yesterday, developing a second mural concept. As part of the idea, I've designed a game called Xor based around the concept of exclusive-or.

The game is played on a board of equilateral triangles in a rhombus shape, though any shape or size of board can be used (a 6-pointed star is another option):

The rules are:

1. There are two players, one plays as zero (0), the other as one (1).
2. Players take turns to play. A turn consists of:
2.1. A player marks any empty triangle with their symbol (0 or 1).
2.2. If a symbol is present in one of the adjoining triangles, that value is 'flipped': a 0 is swapped for 1, a 1 is swapped for 0. As symbols can change, the game must be played with counters, or a pencil and eraser, or chalk or something else which can be erased.
3. Play continues until all triangles are marked.
4. The score is calculated as follows:
4.1. Players score 1 point for each triangle marked with their symbol.
4.2. The board includes some 'master triangles' as shown. If a player has the same symbol in each of the four triangles in that zone, a bonus of 6 points is added.

I considered having minor zones, awarding 3 points for two triangles of the same zone which adjoin. I rather like the idea though this add more complexity to the score calculation and visualisation of the board. I need to playtest this more.