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I'm reminded of Tracey Emin becoming the subject of a Turner Prize nomination on account of her bed being in the center of a special room at the Tate Britain, but I really dug her warmth, when I got there and wandered through the rooms, taking in her video, her writings, quilts and drawings; whatever it was that would make an artist choose to create everything she does as a partial display of her self, this was good.
Not a unique idea, but a unique presentation.
One might question whether I suffer from acute schizophrenia to trade under so many different names...Day For Night, Rhythm Factory, Found, Sexus, King FM, Bluebottles, NIGHTfonts, Von Trapps...Eric Scott
Yes, perhaps I have trouble resisting identities...or too much spare time to think. Perhaps (also) my reasoning originates with a desire to differentiate projects by a discrete manifesto – a subset of artistry defined by an independent projects label, and an image represented in a series of curriculum vitae.
Eric Scott projects are mostly linked to my pursuits as an author or composer of instrumental, ambient, (minimalistic) compositions for other ensembles (ie. Sexus)...plus a few songs written while dabbling with popular music since the mid-eighties onwards...
Found, as another example... compiled entirely from sources I've collected over the years and not relying too heavily upon melodies so much as the settings and scenarios created; some poignant, funny or even sad...
Or Sexus, the funny little six-keyboard ensemble founded for the purpose of performing minimalist ensemble pieces--of which I am but one member as well as "lead" composer...
King FM is a drum & bass/dub/remix outfit...and what better source material to start with than the music of Rhythm Factory, essentially a techno outfit -- me again, with an arsenal of keyboards -- in which I play the three main roles, composer, programmer, and producer (assigned three discrete aliases: Jupiter, Pete and Gez - The Sonic Investigators?) ...But recent attempts to sculpt the upcoming releases "Push" (Day 022) and "Suck" (Day 024), not as electronica, but with guitars is part of the genre-busting we're hearing so much about...
The Von Trapps is me recording with singer/lyricist Doug Green. Attempts made in the early 1990's haven't always aged the same as others (foreshadowing of breakbeat loops and no more electronic drums for another 10 years!) -- still, the Von Trapps have been hibernating for quite some time now...there are but three recordings to this identity; a one-off perhaps, but as with most projects these things do wake up as they receive interest...
The eponymous first Bluebottles album is slated for 2000, a return to the basic art of songwriting. Meaning Bluebottles that it basically has singing and guitars, and really doesn't have that problem of sounding like it was done entirely inside a computer. (Even if it was!)
re:Fresh is the online gallery where Day For Night's inter- media goes on display... a temporary shopfront for NIGHTfonts, the foundry of digital and experimental typefaces, developed under the patronage of Day For Night.
Font families are organized in groups by a particular thematic title (Manifesto, Control, Disorder, Mission, Style, Transit)...
So where exactly does DAY for NIGHT fit as a creative entity? What is there possibly left to say? It might be witnessed simply as a designer label, but Day For Night assumes predominantly a curatorial role in the big picture of internet theatre and the independent projects label: the proverbial camera operator presiding behind the creative lens, gently nudging the frame to the right or to the left.
The NIGHTlink stations represent something internal to the Day For Night process; a creative embodiment on this specific type of willful misdirection. Which may account for why I tell people that NIGHTlink is a work of fiction.
You see, all the stations, all the artists are my identities...They're me.
No identities are fixed. All identities are the product of change. They flow, and are not meant to be rigid entities.
So in the end, I can weave a good story, but I can also be a bit of a control freak, and what happens there is that the art, the music, the counter-narrative themes, or whatever, they become so me that nobody else knows how to get involved properly. Which can be sad really, as it's meant to inspire, while at the same time, overwhelming the end user is one way I like to create that particular distinction in art.
Basically, what this says, is that "the thicker the book, the more credible the author and their information."
Sound familiar? I wrestled with the idea of the length of this book. And of the breadth of content on my CD-rom.
As an independent artist and designer, I have deliberately avoided some of the limitations, both of specialized areas of work and the obligations of commitment required in a design studio environment.
I prefer to work alone, allowing myself more room to experiment and change, and to choose commissions of a wider diversity (from web creation to record covers, corporate work to unique commissions).
Presently, I am pursuing only the commissions I believe in and can support morally, socially and politically. This approach leads me into essentially close relationships with clients.
With two of my experimental projects thus far – NIGHTlink Rail - An Internet Journey By Rail, and H O SPITAL – I have indulged the passion for image-making which most interest me... Siteworks offering a unique marriage of progressive musics with flexible visuals. Both are joined in a network unified by a starting-point and an end-point. In the middle lies a finite universe of 100 virtual underground stations, each one representing a completed Day For Night project.
This might be tied in to a longtime fascination with underground travel, allowing me to develop a more effective context to integrate my music and images, making for a journey that is both unique for each visitor, and yet, like a subway system, governed by a powerful internal logic.
What I do is not a 'job' but a vocation, something that is fundamental to my life. My approach to doing projects is continually informed by a passion for language and for architecture – a balance of form, space and order.
I admit a tendency to being something of a “trainspotter” – creating an ordered universe, where the beauty and serendipity of random order can ultimately be introduced to play a catalytic role in the creative process.
Future hopes include continually challenging the accepted notions of applied arts – experimenting with unknown materials and new technologies – to extend work into a wider diversity of projects and to work more with environmentally-aware clients.
Eric Scott
January 1, 2000
Back when I did this at a studio, nobody understood it, and it was really hard taking credit – or getting credit – for much of it, because what I really do never surfaced in the finished work. So I haven't included any of that work in my book (portfolio) -- it just doesn't seem relevant to show it when it feels like so little of that was made of the same substance as my current stuff.
Getting into answers? Some people assert that there aren't really any answers, maybe that's it. Only some really good questions. And the value they provide, is that they make us think, or they give us an opportunity to find new things of importance to think about. Take social issues. These get a beating on daytime television, there aren't any more to think about, because hosts turn them into a media circus. "Entertainment is assault by the media, 24 hours a day." So instead, we retreat into our own heads and think about the things we're going to buy, the people we're going to see, or what our share of this might be to do so that, by the end of the day, it finds new relevance.
...I entered the NIGHTlink gateway and descended into the extranet that Tuesday, via Station 019. I had a handful of quarters and a haversack, filled with my camera, my steno pad, my walkman (listening to Paris: A musical overpass all the way here. What a blast to imagine actually being able to go there from here...or wherever 'here' is.
I decided I would take one of those mystery trips advertised on one of the walls in the station. Saw a poster reading "Take an Internet Journey By Rail." Next to that was a large ticket paypoint with a ten-by-ten selector counting all the way up from 001 to 100. I was intrigued by the fact that only about one-half of them were lit up or even appeared to be working. At first glance, it looked like a mostly dormant network.
Chose my lucky number twenty-four. 24? 24. There it was all lit up and waiting: 024. I clicked the button, and waited for the paypoint to issue me a ticket or something. "Validating your connection, please wait"... The next thing I knew, I found myself hurtling along a dark tunnel as one of the NIGHTlink connections carried me and my haversack to my mystery destination.
In the dim interior light of the car, I could hear the repetitive cachick-cachack of the trestle rods and the faint hum of a busker strumming his guitar& turntables to underground beats and to the bemused stares of other tele-commuters. But when I turned my head, I was all alone here. Where was this seemingly deserted subway car taking me? I could see the ambient and repetitive blur of ads flying past on the wall, inches beyond the glass of the door. I could barely make out the words except by the repetitions. Ads for different artists..."Rhythm factory"..."Found"..."The Von Trapps"(chuckle)..."Day for Night"..."Eric Scott"...odd that it were Tuesday, and it were also raining, it were, it were...
When the doors opened a mere few seconds later, I found myself staring down a dark tube with a Travel Planner in my hand.
We understand them: they're regular, on time (mostly) and we like to ride them.
That's all.
2 years ago, I didn't know the first thing about the web. I wrote, conceived, designed and mostly illustrated this internet journey by rail.
(I need some help developing the abstract for the connected relationship between separate days (of which I am presenting 100) and the spatial relationship between stations in a network. a similar abstract might explain the connection between railway stations in a transit network and broadcast stations in a radio/television/web network.)
I have pre-visualised the NIGHTlink network as a series of algorithms, based upon traditional commuter behavior on an urban transit system.
Analogous to the existence of different "platforms" in a subway stations to allow travelers at junctions to commute and switch between different transit lines, the NIGHTlink architecture also suggests a similar algorithm where the key variables are 10 Artists (x) and 100 Stations (y). There is a specific and finite number of possible connections using the x-y variables.
This fictionalized account is intended to suggest a new (old) model in intuitive graphic communication and information architecture. (with sparing use of the term "telecommuting") ;-)
Please enjoy the ride.