'What type of music do you like?' is one of those questions which helps break the ice. It serves to create a connection between new acquaintances, revealing but not personal. I like folk-rock, 60's influenced bands as well as some electronic music. It's a range which travels from Shakey Graves through Dr. Dog all the way to Four Tet and Booka Shade. I rely on various sources to hear new music but one of them, like for a lot of my generation, is not radio. It was before my time. I don't even buy music much any more, relying instead on streaming services such as Grooveshark and after finding a work around for their US only site Pandora too. After keying in bands and music which you like it provides you with a 'radio station' playing similar music. When you rate it's selection up or down it refines it's selection process. It's good, I enjoy it. You can leave it open in your browser and not have to think about what you what to listen to next. However one of my issues with it is how accurate it sometimes is. I have already given you my own potted description of my musical tastes, but Pandora's would justify it's choice 'because it features synth rock arranging, electronica influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, call and answer vocal harmony (antiphony) and repetitive melodic phrasing.' That's for a Postal Service track, a group I had listened to and enjoyed before but I hadn't told Pandora that.
My issue is really that I wouldn't think I was that predictable. Music is something very much at the heart of humanness. It is very much unsatisfying to think that an algorithm can predict what type of music you would like when you view musical taste as something above scientific scrutiny.
I will still use Pandora; it is right most of the time. I will take heart from when it gets something wrong, and feel a little unpredictable human pride when I use the downvote option. A computer may be able to guess, with a fair degree of accuracy, my musical tastes, but it will never get it right all the time.
The Dutch tourism board recently launched their 'Holland, the Original Cool' campaign telling us that the Netherlands is a cool place to visit. Though not featured in the video one person who adds to the image of Amsterdam as a vibrant, artistic centre is Joris Laarman. He is a Dutch furniture designer who blends the natural shapes which surround him with cutting edge technology drawn from fields as diverse as computer animation to engine construction. It's a blending of form and function which makes it something more than art.
Joris Laarman - Bone Chair
His Bone Furniture is one of his most intriguing works, not just for the organic yet ethereal shapes which are created, but also because of the story behind that creation. A section of General Motors had developed a program which mimicked the way trees and bones reinforced weak parts of their own structure, balanced between strength and weight. Aided by new developments in 3D printing Joris took this tool and applied it to furniture, with striking results.
One of his first creations was 'Heatwave', a Rococo-esque sculpture. At least that's what I thought when I first saw it. However, it wouldn't just be a piece of sculpture, that's not how Joris thinks. It's a radiator, a perfectly boring piece of equipment, sitting plainly on the wall - usually.
Heatwave
Joris makes art, but art with a function. It's cool and it's original and it's Dutch.
