Sonicwarfare

Robert Henke of Monolake just emailed me this link to some projects he is working on

“Henke Systems ™ offers a wide range of sonic crowd management systems. These systems create a high energy pulse of sound in user defined time intervals, optionally preceded by legal warnings where applicable. Just like a neutron bomb, the sound bursts do not harm buildings, city infrastructure or private property but will make it impossible for unwanted persons to stay in the exposed areas. ”

I love the idea of Henke Systems ™ corp . . .wonder what the receptionists look like?

I’ve got an article on the virology of rhythmic glitches in electronic music in this new book which generally looks excellent – “The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies From the Dark Side of Digital Culture”. It was written a while ago before currents strains of metric dysfunktion in synth funk, hip hop, grime and dubstep were so prominent. It focuses particularly on the idea of the glitch as rhythmachinic malfunction in dance musics, focusing particularly on house and techno. In retrospect, i can now see where musically it was heading, if only i was able to 1) sustain an argument properly and 2) understand what was happening in front of me lol. Anyway the launch for the Spam Book is at Goldsmiths on Friday 25th September with participants including:

Participants are:
Greg Elmer
Matthew Fuller
Andrew Goffey
Steve Goodman
Jussi Parikka
Luciana Parisi
Sadie Plant
Tony Sampson

Here is the book summary. On pre-order here

For those of us increasingly reliant on email networks in our everyday social interactions, spam can be a pain; it can annoy; it can deceive; it can overload. Yet spam can also entertain and perplex us. This book is an aberration into the dark side of network culture. Instead of regurgitating stories of technological progress or over celebrating creative social media on the Internet, it filters contemporary culture through its anomalies. The book features theorists writing on spam, porn, censorship, and viruses. The evil side of media theory is exposed to theoretical interventions and innovative case studies that touch base with new media and Internet studies and the sociology of new network culture, as well as post-representational cultural theory.

Contents: Foreword, Sadie Plant. On Anomalous Objects of Digital Culture: An Introduction, Jussi Parikka and Tony D. Sampson. CONTAGIONS. Mutant and Viral: Artificial Evolution and Software Ecology, John Johnston. How Networks Become Viral: Three Questions Concerning Universal Contagion, Tony D. Sampson. Extensive Abstraction in Digital Architecture, Luciana Parisi. Unpredictable Legacies: Viral Games in the Networked World, Roberta Buiani. BAD OBJECTS. Archives of Software–Malicious Codes and the Aesthesis of Media Accidents, Jussi Parikka. Contagious Noise: From Digital Glitches to Audio Viruses, Steve Goodman. Toward an Evil Media Studies, Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey. PORNOGRAPHY. Irregular Fantasies, Anomalous Uses: Pornography Spam as Boundary Work, Susanna Paasonen. Make Porn, Not War: How to Wear the Network’s Underpants, Katrien Jacobs. Can Desire Go On Without a Body?: Pornographic Exchange as Orbital Anomaly, Dougal Phillips. CENSORED. Robots.txt: The Politics of Search Engine Exclusion, Greg Elmer. The Internet Treats Censorship as a Malfunction and Routes Around It?: A New Media Approach to the Study of State Internet Censorship, Richard Rogers. On Narcolepsy, Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker.

here