A few months after the release of the first html-based ‘web browser’ (Mosaic) in 1993, working with folks at ISMENNT (the Icelandic Educational Network), I was able to establish the first Icelandic educational institution’s website (for the Myndlista- og handíðaskóli Íslands (MHÍ) – Icelandic College of Arts and Craft) and along with that server access, established the initial hopkins/neoscenes web presence. Through many iterations, upgrades, platforms, and technologies I’ve somehow kept it running and proliferating. Hasn’t been cheap, nor lacking enormous floods of frustration with the shifting vicissitudes of arbitrary tech development, but it’s my primary creative output at this point.
neoscenes.net at +31 years
A few comments on where the site is in the moment:
A year ago my old friend, Howard Rheingold—the Silicon Valley journalist, who, among other activities was part of the WELL and who coined the term “virtual communities”—connected me with a start-up hosting company, ReClaim, that caters to the educational community. I’ve been part of the global educational community for more than thirty years: if the shoe fits! That and I’ve been increasingly annoyed/disgusted with GoDaddy—fifteen years the site host—for re-defining their “unlimited” hosting offers. In 2021 they threatened to kill the neoscenes.net site unless I deleted 30 of the 40 gigs of content. Faugh, enough of that: I signed on with ReClaim immediately. Rescued! This was the sixth major platform rollover for the site since 1993, and it’s only recently that I was able to take the time to revive those 30 gigs of the archival content.
There are still some format/embed and sizing problems with images that accompanying postings before 2009, brought on by fundamental changes in WordPress. It’s an endless process to keep the beast up to even a minimal contemporary standard. Currently there are ~8100 entries, several thousand images, a few hundred videos and maybe 2,000 audio pieces. I’ve decided if I can hit 10,000 substantive entries I will either stop posting, and/or be declared a daisy-pusher.
In the meantime, compiling the wretched news on Social Security and Medicare, monthly income will be, well, grim, in this, the richest … country … in … the … world (sorry, gagging on the phrase). Okay, okay, I am a privileged white male who tried to follow his own idiosyncratic path internationally. And, honestly, it feels like the ‘system’ it meting out its interpretation of just punishment for my ludicrous belief that what I did along that path had some socially-redeemable value in cash: it didn’t.
Staring out the window on the unseasonably warm and very dry environs, waiting for the arrival of a colleague to gather the remaining office gear: two MacBook Pros; an iMac; iPad; a couple Dell monitors; 2000 slides in archival boxes; a set of data DVDs; some of the org swag accumulated over the years; university credit card; Mines BlasterCard ID; various cables; and my internal identity as an employee of the Colorado Geological Survey and the Colorado School of Mines. It was a job I took out of desperation to lock in some minimal fiscal security before boredom, age, and ageism made it impossible. Indeed, it filled that role, somewhat, but I’m still in a relatively precarious state. Will soon liquidate the Cedaredge property if a reasonable renter can’t be found, though I hate to give up the Covid-era 2.25% mortgage!
As if radio…
As if radio… is a collaborative radio space—created between the folks @ Soundcamp and )acousticommons(— in response to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 31 October – 12 November 2021.
Based on ideas and practices of ecological radio and acts of listening, this long-form broadcast will bring together contributions by climate activists and artists, both those gathering around the Conference in Glasgow and those individuals and communities around the world seeking to bring their voices to the collective demands for climate justice. Situated in Glasgow for the duration, As if radio (Air) will provide a platform for the voices less often heard at such events, interweaving these with ecological sounds combining live coverage and commentary from the COP and widening the soundfield to areas out with the official event. We anticipate a rich listening experience combining environmental streams from the Acoustic Commons network with a mix of reportage, radiophonic works, critical perspectives and environmental sounds, sonic interventions and untold stories of the climate crisis. There will be an emphasis on live content wherever possible.
neoscenes participates with an older, but still very much apropos composition, water fills the hall.Running as an open radio studio at Civic House, Glasgow, AIR is dedicated to experimenting with ideas and practices of ecological radio and acts of listening. It will feature contributions by artists and climate activists in Glasgow and around the world, together with live environmental sounds on the LocusSonus open microphone network, real-time feeds and commentary from around and beyond the COP.
The open call invites diverse audio contributions by artists, activists, ecologists and other sound workers that engage issues of climate and ecological crises in their broadest sense. These might include live streams, soundscapes, field recordings, readings, environmental sound and transmission works – including live material wherever possible. We are also looking for live projects, performances, local reports and interventions over the COP that involve sound or can be adapted for radio.
We imagine the AIR station as a public platform for sharing work, learning about making radio, bringing remote places into conversation, organising, experimentation and acoustic commoning. The show will stream to a server at our broadcast partner, Wave Farm in Acra, New York, from where it will be available for other broadcasters to pick up.
We invite you to join us on-line or in the open studio at Civic House to find out more about ecological radio, for a streambox building workshop, performance or to join a broadcast.
GoDaddy Sucks
Thank you GoDaddy for gutting 20 of the 40 Gb of image, audio, and video content on this blog last night. I know I’m a customer that you dislike — one who believed that when you say ‘unlimited storage’ you meant it. You decided that the equivalent space of four movie files was far beyond ‘unlimited’ use of your servers. Why do you lie? As a patient customer for 20+ years, you can go fuck yourself.
So, subscribers and anyone else who drops in here — sorry about that, not much I can do about it short of migrating the site elsewhere. Please consider supporting the site, although at this point, maintaining this life-work appears to be reaching its end point. The expense involved in recovering it under a new hosting service would be more that I could justify, given that it is a low-traffic resource.
I may implement an interim solution which I cannot detail here: Plan B.
neoscenes, or neoçenes
neoscenes is 35 years old. how did that happen. From Ocean Park, south Santa Monica, guard station 13, suicidal tendencies, locals only, to the Mount of Zion in a golden land. A holy trip, a pilgrimage. made on the knees, in full submission to the (a) reality that I am embedded within. Not that it is continuous, this pilgrimage or this reality, but it has no boundaries.
This, the notebook page from November 1983. Sure, no font designer, no plain-old designer either. Just trying to figure out what to do with life. The very next day, presenting a workshop “Gravity” at the Unocal’s Corporate Research Lab, in Brea, California to a slew of my superiors. What to do with Life.?
neoscenes
I’ve been using the neoscenes pseudonym, brand, art-name, label, whatever, since 1983. I came up with it back when I was living in Santa Monica, California, around the time that I was beginning to print and mail a lot of postcards. Yes, back when I was a passable-but-not-very-talented surfer, back when Reagan’s brain disease became very apparent, and when Suicidal Tendencies was just a band. Back when I used to dress in a three-piece suit and drive a Fiat Spyder convertible down the Santa Monica Freeway to the Harbor Freeway into Downtown Los Angeles up to five days a week, exiting opposite the Bonaventure Hotel, parking in the underground garage under the corporate headquarters of Union Oil Company of California and marching to the elevator, riding to the third floor, often with the CEO, saying hello to that blond girl, Carol? Cindy? who worked the front desk, and, cruising down the hall to the right, past Lida, my secretary, to my office from the window of which, if you leaned up against the walnut-paneled wall and it wasn’t too smoggy a day, you could see THE HOLLYWOOD sign that has been such an icon for the movie-going world… Enough said…
The connotation of neoscenes as a “new scene” — an idiosyncratic personal vision — has been invoked in the creative art icons in a variety of forms that are generated and sent out. Network, time-based, and other electronic media works are signified by a ©19-or-20-something hopkins/neoscenes. All the hundreds of snail-mail postcards, which have decorated peoples refrigerators, walls, galleries, and studios around the world, carry this identification. You never know when you’ll run across a neoscene …
The neoscenes.net domain was reserved back in 1998 or so, and although there is an interior design consultancy in Mauritius ‘neoscenes.com’ and a piece of video editing software ‘neoscenes’ that both came later to the web, neoscenes.net dominates any searches using the name.
water fills the hall
New work for Galerie Díra, aka The Hole Gallery, a site-specific sound art gallery space in the courtyard of Školská street no. 28, in Prague. The Gallery was founded in 2012 by Mlok Asociation in collaboration with Školská 28 Gallery.
(00:52:45, stereo audio, loop, 127.2 mb)
As neoscenes is wont to synthesize, water fills the hall is a sustained drift, this time through a profusion of sonic liquids that flow — in drips, burbles, washes, rushing, splashing, crashing, soothing — hard against the (lovingly graceful) machinic systems we deploy to direct those flows. The I Ching suggests that water simply flows, on and on, filling up all the places through which it moves. Nothing can make it lose its own essential nature: it remains true to itself under all conditions. What are we in the face of such an energized flux? Are we advancing or are we retreating with the tide? Will the rain wash our sins away? If we can swim, will we drown? Do we recall our amphibian soul? Are we thirsty for more? Are we simply thirsty?
With sonic samples from four continents, many cities, and, especially, many wilderness places, this multilayer movement begins in the Mojave desert, as flies collect around the body of a dead rattlesnake, the dry air desiccating the corpse; there is organ practice by the harbor in Sydney; and wandering through the Pergammon on the Spree; students protesting along the Vilna River; monsoon rains and thunders, falling and filling desert cisterns in the High Sonoran desert; telecom wires hum in moist Arctic chill; melt-waters slowly cleave the Rocky Mountains to dust; film projectors clatter while representing fluid realities (homage to mentor and friend, film-maker Stan Brakhage); Geiger counters count what heavy waters we’ve made; rains falls on the roofs of hydrocarbon-fired chariots; rivers rage, and whining pumps pump the rivers; while F-18s storm in the wet clouds overhead, and baptisms soulfully bless the swimming pools; a plague of cicadas stands ready for the waters to recede, and Noah’s ark founders on a reef.
Retooling: the Meta-Labor of design
Welcome to the tech-no-mad blog / neoscenes travelog. We are undergoing a significant facelift in the next weeks so bear with us … Although there has never been a “done” or “finished” mode since the initiation of the neoscenes web presence more than 20 years ago, we hope that when this latest phase change is implemented you will further enjoy the prodigious amount of visual-sonic-textual material provided here: well away from pseudo-sociality of Facebook, Google+, and the other leviathans of social media ‘content’.
The question of how to move through a data space is the core, and my conservative solutions are clunky answers at best. But I pride myself on the fact that I have always done 100% of the design, implementation, and maintenance of my online presence. Maybe I shouldn’t. Against the flood of professionally produced data-experiences, what can an individual do? Should I give up? Hardly any traffic (although not bad for such a site). Ai. Twenty years of this project. And all’s I’m doing now is reliving the past. sheesh.
idling fire engine in front of Bank of Amurika
en route over Kansas
Gate 47, SkyHarbor Airport, Phoenix
radio scan, I-40
Motel 8 parking lot
chilled wires and phone pole
The Laughing Goat
construction, Art Building
stairs, UMC
house construction
house construction
Sonya’s basketball practice
YMCA yoga class
YMCA weight room
kamikaze turkey
piano practice
birds
1 + 1 = 3
[ED: This is the third report on selected actions and flows in the neoscenes occupation (nso)[1] network, published in acoustic.space #4 (2003 ISSN 1407-2858). Since the last report, learning and networks [2] in the acoustic.space #3 (2000 ISSN 1407-2858), nso has spun off two major networking projects and is constantly involved in a heavy creation-filtering-redirection of network energies on a sustained multi-channel and daily basis. This article will briefly look at these two projects, “expand” [3] and “<di>fusion” [4], and it will comment on the matrix of practice that the projects grew from.]
One of the biggest obstacles to finishing this article is trying to carve out a piece of time away from network and face-to-face communication just to write it! This fundamental dilemma lies at the core of neoscenes — why take time away from attentive one-to-one distributed action for anything related to re-production, re-creation, or re-presentation? For a network to remain healthy and thriving, it demands a flow of energies from node to node. There’s no time to spare. neoscenes prefers person-to-person as the core tactical expression of networking — neoscenes avoids centrally organized media and PR-related activities whenever possible. acoustic.space is a fine exception because of close linkage between paper artifact and the lively network-of-praxis that generates it.
So it goes.
By nature, networks are human-scaled and exist in human-scaled time. They develop at the speed of life. neoscenes was never a fast solution caught in the cross-fire hype of media-convergence-mania: and it definitely didn’t burst in the dot.com vacuum. neoscenes is dot.net [5]. The slow evolution of the neoscenes network is a vehicle for learning, creating, and sharing that does not seek stasis, spectacle, or speed. more “1 + 1 = 3”
neoscenes registered
Sunday night, weekend spent. Friday, a quick trip to Rovaniemi to do a seminar in their Media Department. had never been there before, so it was good to see the facility, and finally see where Jeff Taylor has been teaching for the last three years. my seminar was a bit un-focused, like much of my activity these days, energies dispersed in too many directions, all of which are not productive or positive. I was nervous about the drive from Tornio, but the weather was okay, and I consistently underestimate my skills. if only appraisals would be more consistent along with actions and behavior! otherwise, I grumble along with this site/text. understanding that it needs to be jacked up some how. the best prospect would be to transfer the entire site to one server. Stefan registered the neoscenes.net name with Internic last month, but the next step would be to assign the domain to a server, and go from there. the question is, how to find a server? I would rather have one free, as some have pretty high monthly fees, especially for the storage space I would need — around 100 megs. trying to get into what is going on. preaching but not doing. Buddha looks over my shoulder and shakes his head: misalignment.
neoscenes occupation: an international network-building project
[ED: written and published as part of the acoustic.space initiative established by friends Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits at the re-lab in Riga, Latvia net audio issue 1999 ISSN 1407-2858.]
In September of 1998, neoscenes occupation (nso) was formally launched as a networking project in the second Open-X venue at the 1998 Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
The basic concept for the project is rooted in several facets of my former and current involvement as a networker, and my broad experience in arts and design education in Europe and North America during the last fifteen years.
Having taught or lectured in, and visited many tens of art and design institutions, and engaged in wide-ranging discussions with many educators, I had gradually come to the conclusion that much of the (formal) educational process in the developed world is irrelevant, dead, or dying. I viewed neoscenes occupation as a vehicle for the re-creation and renewal of the learning process—applying a series of conditions to make it an “omni-directional flow of energies with a force multiplied far beyond the meat count and with a reach that is far ahead of the game.”
Rhetoric aside, the project has several interlinked concepts and goals relating to creating a viable independent social network of people who share creative aspirations.
Dialogue is at the core of the whole nso idea — dialogue as the bi-directional movement of energies between any two people who engage each other in honest and open exchange. Dialogue that moves in opposition to the oppression of monologue and centralized patriarchal infotainment; that stands as two quiet voices versus the blasting inferno of social emission. Dialogue, as pure expression of heart and soul, is the core of all meaningful activism. more “neoscenes occupation: an international network-building project”
neoscenes occupation project 1
neoscenes occupation project 1 (nso1) took place during the 20-hour period from 0800 (GMT+2) November 27 through 0400 (GMT+2) November 28, 1998 live in Tornio, Finnish Lapland, at the Western Lapland College of Art and Media (LLAKY, now LapinAMK), and online via IRC, iVisit, and Real Audio/Video.
Local node networkers: TORNIO, FINLAND — Western Lapland College of Art and Media: Tuomas Mathelein (web-graphics designer), Henri Peltola, Mikko Rönkä, Karri Pöykiö, Sari Winberg, Reeta Parkkinen, Mari Keski-Korsu, Eija Mäkivuoti, Tommi Piirainen, Toni Ylitalo, Johannes Collins, P. Nurmukumpu, Bono Estente, Antti Autio, Jukka Timonen
Special thanks to Joona Järvelä, sysadmin, who slaves over the local server network, Coke in hand — this event could not happen without his dedicated work!
Remote contributors/participants: Todd Marrone, Brad Brace, Helen Thorington, Mindaugas Gapsevicius, Ken Gregory, AND MORE… (this page to be updated soon — 10.12.98!)
Special thanks to Kiasma and LLAKY (Western Lapland College of Media)
Project 1 will be running during the following times (please note the changed ending time):
(00:14:16, stereo audio, 34 mb)
0800 (GMT+2) November 27 — 0400 (GMT+2) November 28 (Helsinki)
or
0700 (GMT+1) November 27 — 0300 (GMT+1) November 28 (Central European Time)
0600 (GMT+0) November 27 — 0200 (GMT+0) November 28 (London, Reykjavík)
0300 (GMT-5) November 27 — 2300 (GMT-5) November 27 (EST – NYC)
0000 (GMT-8) November 27 — 2000 (GMT-8) November 27 (PST – Los Angeles)
2300 (GMT-9) November 26 — 1900 (GMT-9) November 27 (Anchorage, Alaska)
1500 (GMT+9) November 27 — 1100 (GMT+9) November 28 (Toyko)
ETC, ETC…
The schedule will be filled out as we go! — [Ed: well, you can see there was no time for that, so, basically, you had to be there!]
| 0800 GMT+2 | stuff |
| 0900 | more stuff |
| 1000 | MANIFESTO READING |
| 1100 | Hafler Trio or so |
| 1200 | more stuff |
| 1300 | more stuff |
| 1400 | more stuff |
| 1500 | Live: The Highland Cows |
| 1600 | Live: The Highland Cows |
| 1700 | more stuff |
| 1800 | more stuff |
| 1900 | more stuff |
| 2000 | more stuff |
| 2100 | more stuff |
| 2200 | MANIFESTO READING |
| 2300 | more stuff |
| 2400 | more stuff |
| 0100 | more stuff |
| 0200 | MANIFESTO READING |
| 0300 | more stuff |
what?:
November 20 — Project one, while floundering in the midst of technical difficulties, WILL happen somehow. At the moment, we are only able to broadcast audio, but by Wednesday the 25th, we hope to have a new video card that can handle the streaming video. iVisit is not operating completely properly either, but at least we have email and IRC to rely on — lo-tech is the BEST! PLEASE STAY TUNED TO THESE PAGES FOR UPDATES DURING THE 24-HOUR BROADCAST!
November 25 — We have gotten real video to work, though bandwidth will be a problem — RealVideo eats it up even though we have a very fast network here. iVisit works, but only with a direct IP connection.
November 26 — No problem, KIASMA, the Finnish National Gallery/Museum of Contemporary Art, has loaned us one of their RealAudio/Video servers which we will use as a back-up…
November 27 — It is now happening, 12 hours into the project, there are a dozen hard-cores hanging around the studio, the Highland Cows did their live happening several hours ago. Night has fallen like a brick on yer face.
November 28 — It’s over. 0300: we ran out of material and steam in the depths of the almost-Arctic Lappish night. Goodnight all!
sea of webbing
Yet another change in the sea of Webbing … My main home-page URL has changed yet again:
OLD: https://www.usa.net/~hopkins
NEW: https://neoscenes.net/
PLEASE UPDATE YOUR LINKS!
version 1.0
the neoscenes web space gathers its first hits — don’t remember exactly when I first uploaded some pages — and no archive of that time either — pity, didn’t have enough memory then! ;-0 ooooooooo
the birth of neoscenes
stark images with a Utopian rhythm: NeoÇenes (or neoscenes)
[ed: this note in my note-/sketch-book of the day.]