news archive> June 00 - July 01
07 | 13 | 01 Berlin, Germany, 12:21amBurnlab hits the skies again, but for the first time we're going all the way around. Certainly no time for a holiday, so it's work hard/play hard. All news updates for the next few weeks will be at the MOBILE LAB index.07 | 07 | 01 Brooklyn, NY, 4:22pmThe overhauled studio tour is now on-line. Friendly reminder: Burnlab does not support Netscape below V 6.0, and 1024 min. screen res. is absolutely required.06 | 27 | 01 Brooklyn, NY, 3:14pmHere's the invite for the ID4BBQ at the Red Hook office. Drop us a line for directions if you're in town.
06 | 21 | 01 Singapore, 12:04pm
Burnlab's Don Downie and the Faux Real crew present UNPLUGGED, a multi-media performance in Williamsburg Brooklyn tonight only! Not one volt of electricity will be utilized. UNPLUGGED is part of the Roll Your Own Blackout protest against President Bush's energy policies. Contact Don for more info.
MIR updated with video clips at L0C810N.
Feeling vectored-out by minimalist graphics? Find bitmap bliss in Burnlab's indulgent new desktops [1024x768].
3 lovely reds to choose from.
06 | 13 | 01 Singapore, 11:50am
The Conspirators and Modus departments are back on-line.
06 | 08 | 01 Singapore, 4:36pm
Not something that happens every day: Andy Malone and I boarded the world's second largest dredger at high speed off the coast of Singapore yesterday. Photos here.
News archive operational.
05 | 31 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 12:46am
Here is the complete run down on the DEMF. Big thanks to everyone in Detroit for a great weekend, especially Jonnie O for accommodations, Mr. Hawtin for a great party and the La Resistance Detroit crew for keeping the spirit alive.
05 | 27 | 01 Detroit MI, 3:55pm
MIR set up running behind schedule amidst all the panic in Detroit. We'll be up and running at Motor in time for Acquaviva tonight. Off right now to help set up Richie Hawtin's party at City Club tonight. Jak the system!
05 | 25 | 01 Detroit MI, 11:52 pm
Jumped out of a van with Carl Craig to crash the C-POP party tonight. (The weekend is off to a good start!)
05 | 24 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 12:00 am
Burnlab V1.5 is [mostly] operational. This is the first major reorganization in a year, and we hope you enjoy the streamlined navigation and all the new features. The news page will continue to be updated on a regular basis, with project updates, media selections, travel logs and the usual rants. The usual departments are in testing and will be back online soon. Ol' version 1.3 will be archived here for a few weeks.
Two days until the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, and Burnlab has a lot going on this weekend...
The L0C810N team will be taking over Motor with MIR, a multi-sensory environmental installation. On the bill is Rolando, of Underground Resistance fame, and the incomparable John Acquaviva.
Conspirator Micho McAdow [a.k.a. Detronik, Synthetic313, Non Compliant, Inter Animi, Critical, etc.] is launching LOGIC, a new gallery/performance space in Detroit.
Much fuss about the inexcusable firing of DEMF founder and Creative Director Carl Craig. Visit La Resistance Detroit to get the whole story, support Carl and send hate mail to the money-grubbers at Pop Culture Media. Screw Paul Oakenfold and MTV. Can anybody just do something for the sake of art anymore?
We'll have reports from the Burnlab Cass Corridor office (regional director Jonnie O) throughout the weekend, so bloody stay tuned! :)
-Doyle
5 | 9 | 01 Singapore, 7:00pm
Monday was Vesak Day, marking Buddah's entry into Nirvana. Below are some photos from Thian Hock Keng Temple, the oldest is Singapore.
5 | 6 | 01 Singapore, 4:41am
Yeah, it's been a while. Sue me. Busy, busy on the Garden Isle. I did make some time to catch resident DJ Aldrin at Zouk tonight. An amazing set, including a live talba player! They call it House, but it sure sounds like Techno to this pasty American. Fierce 909s, baby. Progress is slow but steady on BL1.5 and MIR. Patience is a virtue.
4 | 16 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 1:39pm
We've scrapped the spring facelift [BL1.4] in lieu of a full restructuring. BL1.5 (scheduled for early summer deployment) is a much leaner, easier to navigate environment, with expanded conspirator portfolios and clearer distinctions between commercial and experimental work. Click here to preview a new section called MODUSburnlab, dedicated to a handful of artists who are a daily inspiration to us, and collectively define the Burnlab aesthetic.
In audio news... Nick Cave, the king of sorrow and beauty has topped himself again with No More Shall We Part. (Keep the razor blades and whiskey out of reach.)
4 | 12 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 2:26pm
While you're waiting for us to get our act together (no less than 4 major projects in the werks) please visit Wes Jones' killer site for his architecture firm J,P:A. (long downloads, but well worth the wait - enjoy the "Downlaod Distractions")
3 | 24 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 3:03am
The L0C810N team is currently scheming for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. What does this have to do with 80 tons of Soviet electronics corroding on the bottom of the ocean?
ADULT.'s highly anticipated long player available for consumption in one month. Check out the sample tracks at Ersatz Audio.
3 | 16 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 1:52am
Burnlab 1.4 is in advanced development. Check out a sneak peek here.
Our new friends at h3llb3nt have just released a new album on Invisible. An all-star cast and crunchy digital bliss.
3 | 8 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 1:00pm
Here is the first in a new serise of desktops from the Burnlab travel archives. PETRONAS is from my trip to Kuala Lumpur in January. Since most Westerners will never have the occasion to see the tallest building in the world in person, I figured it's my obligation to share it with y'all. [PETRONAS is 236K and 1024x768. You know the drill: drag it on to your desktop or pull it from your cache.]
L0C810N has been updated with color images from the X0B installation last Friday.
3 | 4 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 11:31pm
X0B installation goes off successfully in Times Square & Micho returns safely to Detroit.
We are happy to announce the Brooklyn office is relocating to a new facility in Red Hook this month! We figure the new neighborhood is Starbucks-safe for at least 2 years. The new lab has panoramic views of that island with the big buildings we go to for shoes and art books sometimes. More details as they develop.
2 | 27 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 4:16pm
Oh, goody! Just what you've been waiting for... a scan of my beard after a week of being a grubby tourist. Actually, check out Jon O's typographic construction for the XOB project, and a couple of remixes.
We have archived all the news updates from Y2K to help speed up the load time of this page.
2 | 26 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 11:39am
Back from Italy and back to work. Rome is especially interesting to Detroiters, who naturally have an fetish for ruins. I'm particularly fascinated with the layers of time evident from generations of building over and over in one location. Most fascinating is the way the Catholic church chose to deliberately build over the history of the culture which once used its followers as lion food and human torches. 2000 years later, as the church itself is showing signs of a slow death, one wonders what next major cultural change will leave its mark in this place. [Here's a new factoid to me: The Colosseum had a retractable roof which could be opened in 20 minutes.]
All this gorgeous decay inspired me to finally finish the Detroit section here at B'lab.
2 | 16 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 12:42pm
www.L0c810n.com is open for business.
L0C810N is the Burnlab Special Projects Division, dedicated to exploration of concepts of place and context through installation art, event production and guerrilla media. Look for X0B, our first installation, in the window of 135 West 42nd Street (between Broadway and 6th Ave., NYC) Friday, March 2nd, from 12pm-5pm.
I'll be out of the country, without PowerBook for the next week, so please copy all questions, complaints and Valentines to Jon Ozias (Detroit office) and Don Downie (Brooklyn office). Anyone know a good cybercafé in Venice?
2 | 10| 01 Brooklyn NY, 3:17pm
Shannon puts up major competition for 'artist of the house' with her LEEZARDZ series.
One wouldn't think of February as a great time to visit Detroit, but the folks at C-Pop give you three good reasons: 1) a bunch of great new work from Ron Zakrin [see below], 2) Neil Olliveirra's haunting geometric landscapes, and 3) images of the DEMF from the lens of Joe Vaughn. On view through Feb. 25.
If you were wondering "what's next for music?", track down FischerSpooner. No more indie-rock bands appropriating electronica! This is techno-art taking pop media for ransom and spitting back its body parts as beautifully crisp digital melodies and hooks. Big thanks to Josh at MOTOR for the tip.
Fellow Detroit ex-patriot and flyer god DEMO has some spiffy new desktops.
1 | 31 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 12:40pm
It looks like we're overdue for a major overhaul. Too much new stuff on this page, and the indexes are getting sadly out of date. I'll be getting on a full V2.0 in the coming weeks. It has been called to my attention that PC users have been having some trouble with all the QuickTime. Well, download the plug-in! We really don't want to have to open the Flash can of worms here. ;)
Anyway, here's yet another QuickTime piece I did for the L0C810N project. The L0C810N sub-site, which is in "live beta", WILL be finished by the end of the week, as we prepare for our first installation in Times Square next month. See what a bunch of old cyberpunks do with a vanload of TVs, aircraft cable and furnace filters.
Peace out,
-Mike
1 | 16 | 01 Singapore, 12:24pm
Burnlab's Andy Malone has created a new automata piece for the Anti-Auto Show at the Detroit Contemporary gallery, on view through this Saturday.
1 | 14 | 01 Singapore, 3:58pm
New QuickTime slide show of the Minami district in Osaka here. Japan was even cooler than I had hoped. There was a robot directing traffic outside my hotel room window. Off to Kuala Lumpur for a research trip tomorrow.
1 | 11 | 01 Singapore, 2:20pm
Naughtalles was hatched on the plane from Osaka. Her wit isn't the only thing that's razor sharp.
1 | 6 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 4:33am
Here is a label comp for a new soap brand, featuring Cyberprawn... everyone's favorite deconstructivist crustacean.
1 | 2 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 12:22am
I think we've finally resolved the audio component of Development for both platforms. If you're using a PC, please let us know if you have both animation and sound. ("Make up the code as you go" doesn't always work. Where's my damn pencil?)
1 | 1 | 01 Brooklyn NY, 6:44pm
New splash and © pages. Shape of things to come?
The Brooklyn office spends a noisy New Year's Eve with Finnish master knob tweakers Panasonic, NYC electropunk pioneers Suicide and the legendary Jim "Foetus" Thirlwell at the Knitting Factory. Suicides's Alan Vega was sporting a Detroit Motorcycle Company shirt! It was exactly ten years ago last night we were front row [smashed against the stage] for Nine Inch Nails at the old Latin Quarter ballroom. The more things change...
12 | 31 | 00 Brooklyn NY, 4:50pm
New index for winter.
12 | 22 | 00 Brooklyn NY, 1:54am
The Friends page is up.
If [+ISM] wasn't dark enough for you, give Evil Pupil a try. Also try the fabulous on-line magazine Artistica. You'll find great interviews and exclusive designs from some of our favorite folks.
I travel to Detroit Saturday, for the third time this month. There's a lot to love about the Motor City, but I can think of places I'd rather be... like New York.
12 | 14 | 00 Detroit MI, 10:47am
Here's a flyer I whipped up last night.
12 | 12 | 00 Detroit MI, 11:16am
Greetings from snowed-in Detroit. Here is the site of the day.
12 | 10 | 00 Brooklyn NY, 3:09am
Burnlab Special Projects Division, L0C810N, dedicated to multisensory site specific installations, kicks off it's first project in association with the Faux Real theater company. L0C810N is the spiritual successor to Inter Animi and Hamletmachine. Box will occur in Times Square (of all places.) More details as they develop.
In Detroit all this week... strictly business though.
12 | 3 | 00 Brooklyn NY, 12:54am
Ever run across someone so good you can't decide if you're inspired, or if you should just get out of design altogether? Meet [+ISM].
real old news down here
12/1/00
random notes on auditory abrasives >
Have I mentioned lately how imperative it is that you treat yourself to the official Speedy J site?
The new NIN is [mostly] quite good, and dang that cover of Gary Numan's Metal is excellent! Benelli's rework of The Frail is plain haunting.
Get yourself the 3 volume +8 Classics collection before they're all snatched up and sent off in space probes to prove how advanced earthlings can be.
11/30/00
New photos from the Singapore office.
Good to see some old conspirators doing well in the quest for world domination. Visit Carlo Silvio's Spoon Fed Films, and Atlanta based photographer Jon Kownacki.
11/23/00
On the ground in NYC for a couple days and back to the Motor City for back-to-back Thanksgiving dinners and my 10 year high school reunion. Last night's show at MOTOR with Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May and DJ Hannah was cut short by exploding transformers. That's a Wednesday club night you'll only find in Detroit!
NPFC has a new disc out on Planet Ant records, and member/Submethodologist Sean Foyle has put up the third incarnation of his stunning on-line portfolio.
Look for some new pics of the Singapore office next week, including the last photos of the iBook before it suffered a fatal HD dysfunction.
11/4/00
Back to Singapore this week, which is less than 2º north of the equator. This means the earth spins at roughly 1750 mph there, but you really don't notice the difference.
Carlos Ferreira's Sketchtank and architect Andy Malone have joined the Conspirators directory. Also visit graphic designer Jeff Caldwell's new collective, the Vega Project. Andy is the only one above who has never shared a cubicle with me and hasn't since moved to California. Coincidence?
Updates to the Portfolio at Burnlab are slow going, but you can now get the Reader's Digest version at COROFLOT, a division of the excellent on-line design Magazine Core77.
If you're in town, go play with Golan Levin's Audio Visual Environment Suite at the New York Digital Salon Exhibition, opening Monday, 11/6.
11/1/00
To celebrate Halloween, here is a picture of Burnlab's own dueling Hamlets circa 1989.
10/23/00
I met a plethora of brilliant people this weekend. Check out Golan Levin's beautiful interface experiments from the M.I.T. Aesthetics+Computation Group. Big thanks to Marius for the Deathprod files and peek at the Amoeba design process.
Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva have been keeping very thorough diaries of the +8 world tour, which are a very insightful read. The +8 anniversary party is less than a week away, which should be the loudest thing to hit Detroit since the DEMF. On the subject of Detroit in October, did you know that the biggest thing people here in Brooklyn worry about at Halloween is getting hit with eggs? P-lease! I guess it's nicer not to have to hose down your house so it doesn't burn down. If anyone has a This House is Being Watched sign, please mail it out - we'd love to have one for the studio. We'll reciprocate with a Crypto t-shirt, or sod from Prospect Park or something.
Back to work now, which by the way, is visually reinterpreting information to create three dimensional educational and marketing environments which engage and inform users through the use of multisensory experiences and multiple levels of abstraction. (I was asked, "What do you do?" a lot this weekend, and gave the previous statement in any number of rambling, nonsensical versions, always avoiding the phrase information architect.)
10/14/00
One of my favorite design firms graced the cover of the NY Times Magazine supplement last week. LOT/EK is currently busy cutting up a 747 fuselage, and God knows what else! Sort of a refined Survival Research Labs, for the home.
One day left for the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge festival. Don't miss this chance to see 200 artists' studios, hear some great music and soak up that creative energy unique to this side of the East River. For more info, visit DUMBO Direct or the DUMBO Arts Center. While you're in the area, check out the Williamsburg Dog Parade, Sunday at 12pm. See you there!
10/7/00
Splash and index page revisions for the fall season.
10/6/00
New page for the Singapore office in Places. No kidding. Highlights from this first of many trips include grilled stingray with chili paste (mmm) and almost walking into a 16" (torso length) sleeping bat.
We're still looking for contributors for the Brooklyn and Detroit city sections. Free place to mouth off here - don't be shy. Any out-of-work Orbit writers read this?
Buy the new Carl Craig CD, Designer Music V1, and listen to it in your 2CV while driving to a midnight showing of Blade Runner.
There's a new Jochem Paap record over at +8. It won't take the enamel off your teeth like his Speedy J work, but it still leaves a nice metallic taste in your mouth.
9/18/00
No updates for a little while, as I'm flying to Singapore this week to present a design for a new museum. Petrochemicals are your friends. Send me e-mail! I have a used iBook and 44 hours of air time to kill. If you haven't yet, take the virtual tour of the NYC studio in Places. You can spend days rooting around, and probably learn more than you want to.
9/12/00
Four Miles From Home was [intended to be] a four part graphic novel John Tenney and I created a long time ago. Like so many ideas, it was stillborn due to short attention spans. After six years in a cardboard box, some of the original pages have been digitally remastered and presented for you here, in the Features section.
9/7/00
We've just returned from the Unnatural Science exhibit at MASSMoCA, which is brilliant. Lim Young-sun's Room of the Host is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and disturbing experiences you can hope to have.
I'm off to Detroit today to meet on a new project in Singapore. More on that later.
For all those whom I contacted regarding the bi-city multimedia project first mentioned 6/29, it hasn't gone away. L0C810N (as it's now called) has been put on the back burner for the moment, but should resume development in November.
You may have noticed some activity over in the Places section. The Burnlab NYC Studio Tour is fully functioning and has some really fun stuff and a lot of interesting links. We're working on the Detroit and Brooklyn indexes right now. I'm seeking guest editors for these areas, so if you have any insight, content (writing, pictures, etc.) or great links please send it along.
Lastly, I'm well aware that the Portfolio section has been neglected, and will try to finish that up a.s.a.p.
8/24/00
Check out the re-tooled Features section.
7/31/00
Yeah, it's been a while. Busy, busy in the physical world. The Theater section of the Portfolio is complete... two more sections to go. Hey, we're still in 'preview mode'.
Hungry for optical stimulus? Submethod just did a tasty re-design. Also check out DEMOdesign for some delicious tidbits. If you haven't paid homage to vector masters Büro Destruct, now is the time. Another essential stop is the official Speedy J site, for the crunchiest beats this side of VIVIsectVI, and an interface you really need to see.
7/11/00
The new Conspirators section will be up later tonight, and maybe some new Portfolio stuff. Speaking of conspirators, Jon O is en route to New York for further brainstorming on the as yet unnamed bi-city multimedia performance/installation mentioned last week.
Stay tuned...
6/29/00
I'm off to Detroit this afternoon for a vacation and to meet with some peeps about a potential bi-city multimedia project. The Conspirators section should be up later next week. I just got hooked up with the guys at 19.5 Collective. Very nice. Also check out Submethod and Designgraphik. This is some of the best stuff I've seen on the web. Urban blight breeds great art!
If that's not enough to keep you busy, visit Amoeba at the Evolutionzone. Brilliant stuff.
6/24/00
Two new items in Features: "Bugs" by DOSAGE, "the NYC Subterranean Art Collective", and a short film by Micho for Synthetic(313). Check 'em out!
6/22/00
Due to outside forces (too much work!) the Portfolio section will not be finished this week, as promised. However, I did get a start on the Conspirators section, including a page for former Inter Animi mastermind, Micho McAdow.
I also viewed the site on AOL for the first time today, and it sucks butt. Please use Netscape... or Explorer if you must. AOL's screwy protocols really mess with the colors and resolution.
6/20/00
The Features section goes live today. This is a showcase for experiments and exchange of ideas. The first two features are an on-going exquisite corpse, and the personal site of our dog, Socks. She's getting pretty good with the Mac.
6/18/00
New index page (as you can see.) Live beta testing continues. New pages are being added daily, and the Portfolio section should be complete by week's end.
6/14/00
Live beta testing starts. This means you are viewing a work in progress riddled with broken links and such. The portfolio section is coming along, and all the links in the graphics area should be working. Please drop me an e-mail. I'd love to hear comments or suggestions.
-Mike
