Reminiscing on Those Bastard Souls

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Remembering, I guess a night in 1996. Without expectations, a friend and I saw Those Bastard Souls open at a small venue in San Francisco. They were one of three bands, not headlining, and their performance stood out. I bought their “Twentieth Century Chemical” CD on the spot. Over 20 years later, whenever I occasionally play it, I remain impressed at how perfectly it hits the mark. Yet they seem to hav ... continue reading

Hearing the Ephemeral Sounds of Device Interactions Past

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The Conserve the Sound Project has recordings of the sounds produced while interacting with a large variety of old devices. For example, typing on a typewriter, inserting an audio cassette, opening the lid of a laptop. I’m glad that people have thought to pay attention to, and capture these otherwise ephemeral sounds. Aside from the pleasure of hearing them, I think it adds an important dimension to understan ... continue reading

Visualization and Dominant Perspectives?

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This article “What can data visualization learn from feminism?” brings up great points on the “view” of data–it’s not without some sort of perspective. This also reminds me of what is sometimes raised in discussion of archives–dominant or privileged perspectives tend to be what we see and it takes effort to go beyond that (like this example of decolonizing Canadian archives ... continue reading