Dancing Data: The Pikachu Edition
Posted by nettrice in Uncategorized on May 23, 2020
This week I posted an Instructable titled “The Sound of Data Science” and it includes step-by-step instructions to convert U.S. Census data into visualizations and 3D models. I decided to take it further and experiment with other datasets. I joined Kaggle, an online community of data scientists and machine learning practitioners. I found “The Complete […]
Artificial Intelligence Music Making Machine: Part 2
NSynth (Neural Synthesizer) is a machine learning or “AI” algorithm from Google and collaborators that uses a deep neural network to learn the characteristics of sounds, and then creates a completely new sound based on them. More than simply mixing sounds it actually creates an entirely new sound using the acoustic qualities of the original sounds. Here’s […]
Artificial Intelligence Music Making Machine: Part 1
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to deploy technologies that classify and coerce specific populations. AI can also be used create new projects by producing novel combinations of familiar ideas, exploring the potential of conceptual spaces, and by making transformations that enable the generation of previously impossible ideas. In an essay I wrote for the […]
Algorithmic Analytics: Race, Blackness & Data in Song of Solomon & Alright
If you want to fly you have to give up the shit that weighs you down. ― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon In honor of the author who has been most impactful on my work, I’m recalling the 2017 visual essay I wrote for Liquid Blackness. The essay juxtaposes algorithmic art with images evoked by […]
My Funk-tastic Childhood: Before Afrofuturism
Posted by nettrice in Afrofuturism, Art, IBM exhibition space, Second Life, Virtual 3D Worlds, Writing on July 11, 2019
As a kid I used to dig into my father’s large stash of records and discovered Parliament/Funkadelic (P-Funk). I was intrigued by the art on the covers, especially the colors and the representation of black people. However, I was too young to understand many of the words or concepts embedded in the illustrations (and that […]
Mark Making 2.0: A.I. & Portraiture
The writer, in perpetual graphic knocking together of his identity, also presents a body, only apparent from the trace left by the writing, also presents a body, only apparent from the trace left by the writing. But what is of prime interest here is the definition of the signature as the ‘visible trace of a […]
Modularity & Culturally Relevant Making: 3D Design
Geometric formations are important in techno-vernacular production; circles represent unity, kinship, community and cyclic movement. Modules can repeat patterns at ever-diminishing scales. Artists use modules to explore the geometric properties of heritage artifacts. Playing Funkadelic’s “Cosmic Slop” in music visualizer software generate cosmogramic effects. In my book, I refer to this process as conceptual remixing, […]
Computation, Math & Fashion: Diarrablu
In today’s STEAM universe makers, artists, crafts people, designers, and performers are using computation, math and other subjects to create things. Senegalese fashion designer Diarra Bousso majored in mathematics before entering fashion and her brand/flagship Diarrablu is part math lab and clothing store. The mission of Diarrablu is to celebrate Africa’s rich cultural legacy through […]
How to Make a Giant Abacus & Teach With It
Posted by nettrice in Uncategorized on June 8, 2019
An abacus is a counting frame, or a calculating tool that was in use in Europe, China and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written Hindu–Arabic numeral system. Abacuses are often constructed as a frame with beads sliding on wires. They have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic. The […]
Renegade Futurism 
