Duncan Laurie on Todd Thille

The Secret Art - off to print

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:50:23 -0800

A thoroughly revised and updated version of Duncan Laurie’s book on radionics and the arts has been submitted to the printer today.

The previously titled “A SHORT HISTORY OF RADIONICS: INSIGHTS FOR ARTISTS WORKING WITH SUBTLE ENERGY” is re-dubbed “The Secret Art: A Brief History of Radionic Technology for the Creative Individual. ”

The manuscript finally being produced in physical form has been a herculean effort undertaken at the behest of Patrick Huyghe of Anomalist Books. The text and illustrations have taken shape over the past year through the direct labors of Duncan, Patrick, Mike Bossick, Jessica Paulk and myself. I have also had the pleasure of designing the interior and cover.

Ghostlab Interview

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:51:20 -0800

An interview I conducted with Cosmin of Ghostlab is up at DuncanLaurie.com. I met Cosmin at Live Performers Meeting 2007 in Rome. His most recent project, with Marie Christine, is an installation entitled “Aurora Consurgens” at ISEA in Singapore.

Mind Meld III

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:06:39 -0800

The weekend of Friday the 13th marked the 3rd annual Mind Meld gathering at Duncan Laurie’s Jamestown, Rhode Island studio. An incredible assortment of audio and video artists were assembled, ostensibly to relax, but with so much talent in one place, a show or two is inevitable.

Dragonline Studio.

Duncan’s three-storey studio sits atop Bull Point, surrounded by water on three sides. The studio was built entirely out of salvaged materials. Floors made of glass block allow light to penetrate up from the lower workshop, through the main room and into the laboratory on the top floor. It is on the top floor that Duncan and his electrical engineer Gordon Salisbury have been experimenting with sonifying signals from Nature. There is an impressive array of old Radionic equipment as well as a number of devices that Gordon has developed. The visual centerpiece of the lab is the “Music Machine”, an 8’ tall cuboctahedron that was part of a GENESIS Bio-Entrainment Module, a bio-feedback device developed in the 1980’s. The machine is now host to Gordon’s Purr Generator. The purr generator is a device which generates a signal at approximately 25 Hz. This coincides with the frequency of vibrations given off by a “happy cat” and has long been thought to be therapeutic. External audio sources can be played through the machine.

META 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:17:07 +0200

Took the Greyhound overnight from Atlanta to Asheville, North Carolina. Met up with Duncan Laurie and his daughters Lena and Bryn. Headed into the “hippie” part of town for some vegetarian lunch at the Laughing Seed Café. Found one of Duncan’s cast metal belt buckles from the 1970s in the Paul Taylor Sandals shop.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/57611802@N00/2558293776 “View ‘One of Duncan’s “Star Buckles” from the 1970s [center] at Paul Taylor’s’ on Flickr.com”)

META 2008

Sun, 04 May 2008 04:17:07 -0800

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/57611802@N00/2558293776 “View ‘One of Duncan’s “Star Buckles” from the 1970s [center] at Paul Taylor’s’ on Flickr.com”)

Todd joins duncanlaurie.com

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:27:36 -0800

Duncan Laurie, Steve Nalepa and Todd Thille @ Spark Fesitval - Feb 2008.

After over a year and a half working behind the scenes to build up online presence for Duncan Laurie at duncanlaurie.com, I have joined the front of house team as a designer. The first project that I will collaborate on with Duncan is the design of a print edition of his Radionics book.

Spark Festival - Rock Music Paper

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:40:28 -0800

Steve Nalepa flew the redeye out from LA and arrived at the Holiday Inn around 07:00. Let him get an hour of sleep before we headed off to get breakfast at the Hard Times Cafe. Headed over to Ferguson Hall in time to catch the end of Megan England’s talk about Second Life. Duncan and I were up next with “Rock Music”. Started out with a brief intro and Rock Star. Continued along with the work of T. Townsend Brown with petrovoltaics and touched a bit on Cleve Backster’s work with plants before getting into Gordon Salisbury’s work at Duncan’s studio. The talk was well received and garnered some interesting questions afterwards.

Spark Festival - Found Sound

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:10:16 -0800

Up at the crack of dawn to bid Kim and Bryn goodbye and hit the road with Duncan. Made good time over to Bradley International in Hartford Connecticut. Had some fun finding the long-term parking but got right on a shuttle in the lot and were on our way. Good flight out to Chicago, but delayed on the Minneapolis leg. Finally got in and through the airport fun to find that the Holiday Inn Metrodome was best reached by Super Shuttle. Stopped at all the rest of the downtown hotels before making our way over beyond the Metrodome. Checked in to the hotel and freshened up before heading across the river the check out the Whole where Duncan and I would perform the following morning as part of the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts’ Concert of Found Sound/Audio Appropriation. The venue looked decent, with video screens flanking the stage.

Gadgets and Kane

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:36:47 -0800

Spent the day working on a Max patch to get MIDI data coming out of the Doepfer Pocket Electronics controller attached to Gordon’s homebrew Octo input box massaged into something that Ableton Live would like. Input was provided by a magnetometer attached to a Rate of Change Convertor.

Snow over the Eastern Seaboard

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:55:26 -0800

Made a long trek from Istanbul to Jamestown, Rhode Island via Frankfurt, Amsterdam, a bonus stop in Detroit instead of Newark and Hartford, Connecticut. Here to prepare for an audio/visual performance with Duncan Laurie at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts in Minneapolis.

Fog in Frankfurt delayed my flight almost an hour…eating up the precariously short layover time I had in Amsterdam. Couple that with the plane taxiing in from one of the far runways, seeming to circle the whole airport and my outbound flight leaving from the opposite end of the massive Schipol Airport…and you have me getting to the gate as the walkway was freshly pulled back from the plane. It sat there taunting me for some time as the gate staff arranged an alternate route through Detroit that only added 20 minutes to my flight schedule.