Winter in Manhattan . .

Back at work in sunny Brisbane now . . after spending some snow time in Manhattan late Jan /Feb.

We loved the snow, being so rare in Australia. Problem is, a good thing can go a little too far sometimes: turns out we got snowed in – what the New Yorkers are calling the 'Blizzard of 2010" - they made celebratory hats and everything! Took us another five days to get a flight out, and got home just in time for those start of year 'working retreats' . . .

However, the extra days did allow me time to argue with myself some more, and finally relent to pick up a gorgeous private stock PRS 513 from the amazing people at Rudy's Soho (ask for Marco if you're there).

Back at the Queensland Conservatorium in Australia, we're now bustling the new year arrival of hundreds of new students. The research higher degree cohort is just growing exponentially - wonderful people with great ideas, in Masters, M.Phil, PhD and our Doctor of Musical Arts. Much new staff work also planned for our research centre, a couple of new albums out, and a new podcast series called 'Behind the Music'.

From the promo:

Behind the Music presents intimate insights from leading musicians into what happens ‘behind the scenes’ as they prepare their art. In music performance, technology, composition, education and research, creative activities are often a response to musical questions arising directly from their artistic practice. These presentations offer a valuable opportunity to reveal a range of creative processes as artists share their personal approaches to such issues.

http://www29.griffith.edu.au/rss/imersd_podcasts.xml

Enjoy.

Colbert at the Grammys

Check it out . . .

A Critical Commons

criticalcommons.org for 'fair and critical participation in media culture'.

digital arts conference season

Lots of travel and interesting events over the last couple of weeks. I visited the very spooky Sydney College of the Arts (University of Sydney) for a PhD seminar.

Once a mental institution, now houses academic artists and designers (!) - very beautiful historic building, wonderful artwork and artists, but I'm positive its haunted. 'Nuff said.

Back to Brisbane next, to present a paper 'Authority 3.0' at the fourth annual international CreateWorld 2009 conference on Brisbane's beautiful South Bank.

A great turn out again, with artists from all over the country, from New Zealand and the US. This time, with a new AUC CreateWorld blogsite and well as CreateWorld09 on Twitter.

On the Tuesday (1 Dec), one of the CreateWorld keynotes featured an iChat hook-up to New York with Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell, talking about their latest Sonic Babylon project and new iPhone app:

Right after the CreateWorld conference, I flew back to Sydney again on 4 Dec to present at the ICoMCS2 conference (that's the second International Conference on Music Communication Science), at the University of New South Wales.

My paper was about a recent album recording project 'Foreign objects & the art of interpretation'. Overall, the conference presented fascinating interdisciplinary collection of people, from psychology, music, education and science.

Xmas soon. Best wishes to everyone for the holiday season.