music – FOLLOWERS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Followers of the Apocalypse Radio vol. 3

These are my views and not those of my employer, or of projects and programmes I am responsible for. This post is available under a creative commons CC-BY license. Material linked to contains rights owned by various sources, available under various licenses.

Here’s the gen on the latest Followers of the Apocalypse radio show on #ds106radio

If anyone is wondering what kind of music this is, the straight answer is “I dunno”. I say “drums & bass” but that is a fragmented genre that is pretty much meaningless. I’m no expert, but I think what I’m playing in this set is a mixture of old school D&B, darkcore, darkstep, EBM and industrial.

If you want to hear this kind of music done properly, check out DJ Lee Chaos at chaos approved. He’s an astonishingly good west-of-the-uk based DJ playing pretty much this kind of music. I love his stuff.

Full tracklist and on-demand listening for the Followers of the Apocalypse mix #3 on Mixcloud

Helen Beetham speaking on “Digital Literacy and the role of the University” at Greenwich University, November 2010

In Our Time on BBC Radio 4 – “The Medieval University“, with Melvyn Bragg, Miri Rubin, Ian Wei and Peter Denley, March 2011

Jim Groom speaking at the City University of New York, “Going Loony at CUNY“, February 2011.

In-game audio from the Fallout series of games.

Sample from “Terminator: Salvation“

#ds106 – Followers of the Apocalypse radio show 2

The opinions expressed within this blog post are my own, and not those of my employer, or of projects or programmes I am responsible for. This post is available under a Creative Commons Zero (public domain) license.

Released the second mix in this series to DS106 Radio last night. Wise words include those from @daveowhite, Joss Winn, @hallymk1 and @dougald – fine music includes pendulum, 1 speed bike, rammstein, king crimson, and silver mt zion. As far as these things have a theme, the first one was pretty much a general exploration of the way I want to use the apocalypse as a narrative form in this series, this second one is kind of about the place of education in a dying society.

Available on soundcloud. No, it’s not an OER – sorry. In fact it’s probably illegal, definitely not safe for work (or children) and you probably won’t like it.

What is #ds106 ? Why is it the greatest thing ever?

This post represents my own opinions only and does not represent the views of my employers, or of programmes and projects I am responsible. It is available under a CC-BY license.

I really didn’t (don’t?) have time to get involved in #ds106 , but it sucked me in through just sheer awesomeness. It’s a MOOC (massively open online course) led in inimitable style by THE BAVA: Jim Groom at Mary Washington U. The course is actually offered to (and is being taken by) a number of Jim’s actual students, but their participation is more than matched by the enthusiasm and anarchy of what I’m going to start calling the EduPunk diaspora.

The canonical course site is here.

It has assignments, but these have quickly become sublimated into waves of activity. The first was around animated .GIFs, which I have yet to engage in but need to rectify urgently. The second – which was just so completely up my alley that I couldn’t not was an open access radio station. Adherents have been uploading their own audio work and their own favourite tracks, which are played with a cavalier disregard for public taste and the laws of copyright, all thanks to Jim’s enthusiasm and Grant Potter’s technical wizardry.

And it is compulsive listening. Occasionally mind-blowing, occasionally irritating, occasionally challenging – never, ever, boring. UK folks, it’s like the second coming of John Peel.

This is an amazing example of the ability of the internet to bring people together almost despite themselves – a more concrete example of the phenomena which makes the “misc” section of any discussion board the most interesting and lively, makes mailing lists occasionally veer wonderfully off-topic and does bizarre things to conference back-channels.

If you provide people with the means to connect and share experiences then they will – on a level that is both more massive and more human than anyone could have anticipated. If you try to constrain the connections and the sharing you kill a community. The internet has taught me (and many others) that, now #ds106 is bringing it home.

[I’ve contributed a 1hr “Followers Of The Apocalypse” radio show/mixtape, made during odd bits of downtime this week using Audacity and Sonar. Be warned, it’s pretty extreme and definitely not safe for work/children and the IP is just, well, my fault…- but it would make a good workout/deadline/driving mix. Possibly.]