Dan Reetz, Fakeproject Corporation of America.

Foveon X3 5m / Polaroid X530

danreetz — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:12:34 +0000

edit: this post will return later.

Fakeproject at the Fargo Theatre, 2003, and where it’s taken me.

danreetz — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:57:55 +0000

Shaun Fort and I played a show at the 2003 Fargo Winter Carnivale, held in the Fargo Theatre. I recently had the pleasure of revisiting the show with Shaun (though we’ve maintained occasional contact, we’ve also more or less gone our separate ways). Of all the things I think stand out about that show (risky live electronic music performance, hand-built hardware, and a standing ovation to our public war protest) the one that I’m now the most fond of was our integration of state surveillance footage.

In the days preceding the show, we collected video from ND and MN interstate traffic camera systems. The end result was a pan-state time lapse view leading right up to the show, and the closest we could come to realtime monitoring using the state surveillance apparatus. This approach — infusing data local to the performance venue — has become central to my approach, from last summer’s “attack” on the Plains Art Museum to the scale-accurate photogrammetry-derived 3D model of downtown Fargo I produced for my recent show at Dempseys. Note: that’s a test render…

Andy Filer took some beautiful photos of the Carnivale, this one in particular inspired this post.

Aesthetic Effluent

danreetz — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:31:49 +0000

I constantly and consistently document process and production. Sometimes this yields a byproduct that is interesting in its own right.

A contact sheet with a few dozen shots of camcorder viewfinders “hacked” to display NTSC video from a surveillance camera.

A contact sheet with shots of my dot-matrix senior show flyers (printed on old traffic ticket blanks).

A contact sheet with images of the production of the digital pictureframe that displayed images from “No Pictures Please”.

Public Domain Images of Burning Vehicles

danreetz — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:56:08 +0000

My time as an artist working on educational games made me acutely aware of the need for quality reference materials. As such, whenever I run across something interesting, I take hundreds of pictures. I’ve decided that some of these are useful enough to warrant the pain of uploading and cataloging.

Here is a collection of 153 images of a truck which spontaneously caught fire and burned a delivery van next to it. I am releasing these images into the public domain, you may use them however you see fit. I ask that you not hammer on my server with any download clients, though. These images will be here indefinitely, and if you’re gentle, this can be a free lunch for both of us.

I made two contact sheets so that you can see which images are relevant to your project. I’d like to thank Joe Francis for the initial inspiration, and Hannah Filer for the great conversation that afternoon.

I’ll be slowly releasing a lot more (and hopefully a lot more interesting) content into the public domain over the next few months.

Four Thousand.

danreetz — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:29:37 +0000

Today You Are Not Dead: A Guide To Modern Living was downloaded from Fakeproject.com for the four-thousandth time.

That number refers to downloads of the zip file; plays with the embedded player have numbered over 22,000 for the first two tracks and decline thereafter.

Unfortunately, I have few stats about the torrent, but on my own machine my upload ratio is well over 100, and I’d guess the total number of torrent downloads to be between 100 and 400 from TPB. I don’t have the latest from Waffles, but it was around 30 last I heard.

Thanks, everyone, for listening, downloading, reading, and commenting so far, and don’t stop there.

You Are Not Dead: A Guide To Modern Living

danreetz — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:06:12 +0000

Five long years, hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, and millions of mouse-clicks have gone into the making of You Are Not Dead, A Guide to Modern Living. This album of electronic music is a joint effort between myself and writer Meg Holle, plus piecewise contributions from a half-dozen highly talented artists times the latest in absurdly powerful audio manipulation software. The album consists of twelve audio tracks and one wickedly written, heavily illustrated guidebook.

You Are Not Dead: A Guide to Modern living is available now, free:

http://www.fakeproject.com/you_are_not_dead/

Please tell everyone who might enjoy it.

Your comments are requested and appreciated.
Daniel Reetz

PS. Some pages may be changing a little; pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Any problems with the site, let me know.
PPS. Don’t miss my upcoming all-ages show at the Aquarium in Fargo, April 7th, 7pm.
PPXS. Torrents of very-high-quality MP3s will be posted late Monday night, but not before.

Fakeproject Plays the Aquarium, Part XIXQZXRT

danreetz — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:47:31 +0000

Edit: I’ll be playing alone.

***

I am pleased to announce that Fakeproject will be playing the Aquarium with Why? and The New Instructions.

Information:
The Aquarium (Dempsey’s Upstairs)
April, 7 2008
Why? with Fake Project and The New Instructions (early All-Ages)
226 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Fargo, North Dakota 58102
Cost : $8

Here is a flyer for the show. I hope to see you there.

Public Domain Casio CTK-150 Drum Loop Collection.

danreetz — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:09:38 +0000

I write electronic music, and I also modify (”circuit bend”) electronic instruments. Since it is easy to destroy cheap Casio synths when poking around inside them, I often digitize all of their sounds before beginning the modification process…. which leaves me with hundreds of useful and interesting loops.

I’ve decided to start releasing my loops into the public domain. Why public domain? Because Creative Commons licenses have some nagging problems, and while I appreciate attribution, I am not interested in restricting your rights in any way. Quite the opposite.

Included in this file are 89 drum loops sampled from a Casio CTK-150 synthesizer(24mb). There is also a photograph of the loop-table on the machine, so you can guess at the name of the loop (eg. “Rock 1″). They are named in the order that I recorded them, but I can’t guarantee that they follow the table exactly. If you appreciate this work, perhaps you’d be interested in naming the loops according to the table.

Also included in the zip file is a text file proclaiming the public domain status of these loops. If you feel like giving attribution, please cite the Fakeproject Corporation of America (www.fakeproject.com).

Now, then.

danreetz — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:02:55 +0000

For the first time in history, this day today, the Federal Communications Commission is allowingAMPS analog cellular networks to go silent.

This is the end of an era of half-watt handhelds, Star-Tacs, OKI 900s, UltraClassics. Cheek-modified scanners, mistuned UHF TVs and downconverters. When these channels go silent, cellular experimentation will be the domain of high-speed field programmable gate array arrays and well-funded agencies.

Yes, this is well out of bounds. But this network is as old as I am, and we go way back.

… -.-

The Wade to Glory.

danreetz — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:27:45 +0000

If you missed my Artview show at the Plains Art Museum Café Muse, you have another chance to see one of the images in the flesh. From February 18th through the 29th, “Plains Art Museum: Exterior” will be featured in a group photography show in the new-and-improved NDSU Memorial Union Gallery.

Regrets,
Daniel