reactable

The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share ... all » complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language. This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

Link

El reactable es un instrumento musical electrónico multiusos con un interface tablero. Varios ejecutantes simultáneos comparte todo el control completo sobre el instrumento moviendo objetos físicos en una superficie luminosa de la tabla. Moviendo y relacionando estos objetos, que representan los componentes de un sintetizador modular clásico, usuarios pueden crear topologías sonoras complejas y dinámicas, con los generadores, filtros y moduladores, en una clase de sintetizador modular tangible o de lenguaje de programación de corriente regulada aprehendible. Este instrumento está siendo desarrollado por un equipo de los luthiers digitales (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger y Marcos Alonso), en el grupo de la tecnología de la música dentro del Universitat Pompeu Fabra en Barcelona, España.

Enlace

Becas para académicos

--ESRC-SSRC COLLABORATIVE VISITING FELLOWSHIP--
http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/esrc/

Monday, April 16, 2007 Application deadline


The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Social Science
Research Council (SSRC) are pleased to announce fellowships for scholars from
the Americas (North, Central, South, and the Caribbean) to visit and engage in
collaborative activities with members of ESRC-supported projects in Britain,
or for British scholars at ESRC-supported projects to visit collaborators in
the Americas, between June 2007 and September 2008. Approximately eighteen
research fellowships of up to $9,500 will be awarded.

Eligibility: Applicants from the Americas should have received a Ph.D in one
of the social sciences (including history) by the time the proposed visiting
fellowship would start. They should have been based in the country from which
they are applying for at least two years before the application deadline of
April 16, 2007. This fellowship is open to scholars from Antigua and Barbuda,
Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Great Britain, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, United
States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Goals of the fellowship: The ESRC and the SSRC have a common mission of
promoting, funding, and disseminating important and socially useful knowledge
in the social sciences. This is the fourth round of a scheme designed to
encourage communication and cooperation between social scientists in Great
Britain and the Americas, and to explore and develop possibilities for future
exchanges to be organized by the ESRC and the SSRC.

EMI first to open DRM/EMI primera discotera en abrir sus derechos de propiedad

Link

Enlace

Conference - 19th Century Latin America

Common Vocabularies, Different Perspectives: New
Political History on Nineteenth Century Latin America

Columbia University, New York City, May 4-5, 2007

This symposium will bring together historians
from Latin America and the United States to
present some of the most exciting current
research within Latin American history. Recent
political historiography, particularly that of
the turbulent decades after independence, has
been characterized by innovative approaches to
old questions about nation building,
institutional legitimacy, and political culture.
Panels will highlight prominent conceptual
categories such as hegemony and subalternity,
state-formation, the public sphere and civil
society, liberalism and republicanism.
Participants will address key approaches to questions of political
culture, elite and popular politics, and the
connections of political history to intellectual, cultural, and social history.

New NACLA report on immigration out

The Report addresses the following issues:

The anti-immigration movement: As Solana Larsen shows, this movement is a complex, decentralized web that both private and public power, from the white supremacist fringe to the halls of Congress. It not only musters popular support and helps to foster a general anti-immigrant climate, but it also raises millions of dollars to advance its policy goals in Washington.

The detention of Immigrants: As Forrest Wilder reports, immigration authorities have launched a crackdown, arresting undocumented people, including families with children, and jailing them indefinitely. This has ramped up demand for facilities, giving rise to a nationwide “detention archipelago”­a series of detention centers largely run for profit by companies contracted by the government.

The truth about day laborers: Anti-immigrant activists have targeted urban day laborers, most of them Latino immigrants, as they congregate looking for work. Drawing on a national survey of day laborers, Abel Valenzuela Jr. demolishes five of the most pernicious myths about them and discusses the National Day Laborer Organizing Network’s successes in protecting these workers’ rights.

Labor and Latino immigrants: The massive immigrant protests last year took many by surprise, but they were made possible by more than a decade of immigrant labor organizing in California. Now immigrant workers, including the undocumented, are poised to reinvigorate the ailing U.S. labor movement. And with a new wave of naturalizations and voter registrations, the consequences at the ballot box could be substantial.

Black-brown tension: Ever since the U.S. Census announced in 2000 that Latinos would overtake African Americans as the largest national minority, pundits have been warning of a virtual war between the communities. Rene P. Ciria-Cruz argues that in South Los Angeles, where “black-brown tension” has erupted in violence, old-fashioned organizing has helped resolve conflicts and build unity.

With a newly Democratic-controlled Congress the U.S. is on the road to a potential immigration compromise, but it’s clear that the battle for comprehensive change in U.S. policy is far from over. We hope this Report provides the information and analysis that progressive stakeholders in this debate need to keep up the fight.
Link

La Muerte del Album/The Death of the Album

This NY Times op-ed blames the RIAA, not technology. Link
(Lástima, el New York Times no se deja traducir...)

Vírgenes viajeras/Travelling Maries

Traveling Virgins/ Virgenes Viajeras

Website: http://www.hemisphericinstitute.org/virgenes/

9:30 AM - 1:00 PM (Portrait Room)
Meeting of Working Group Members

The following events are free and open to the public.

2:00 PM (Auditorium)
Panel:La virgen se fue de mojada: Migrating Devotions Across Borders
Screening of short film clips including Celebrating the virgin in "la mala vecindad" by, Elva Elisabeth Bishop and Altha Cravey, as well as “Lupe & JuanDi from the Block” by FULANA (www.fulana.org)., Presentation by Joel Magallán, Executive Director of Asociación Tepeyac de New York (www.tepeyac.org), Moderated by Alyshia Gálvez.

6:00 PM (Auditorium)
A conversation with Jean Franco and Renato Rosaldo, with story-telling by Pedro Lasch
Artist Pedro Lasch will launch the evening’s events by telling a story, La virgen más…
Distinguished scholars Jean Franco and Renato Rosaldo will respond to the story and to each other in an informal conversation touching on the topics of religion, globalization, local religiosities, Marianism, migration and dueling virgins…

7:00 PM
Reception to celebrate the new release of Performing Religion in the Americas: Media, Politics, and Devotional Practices of the 21st Century.

Conference on Deleuze

Link

Global

A Korean ensemble with Pachelbel's canon on gayageum, beatboxing, a DJ, and breakdancing. Good for ethno classes?

Enlace/Link

Un conjunto koreano toca el Canon de Pachelbel en gayageum con beatbox, DJ y breakdance. Bueno para las clases de etnomusicología?

Theorizing Performance/Performing Scholarship

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Music/events/GSIM2007.html

Special Events & Conferences

Tenth Annual Music GSIM Symposium:
Theorizing Performance/Performing Scholarship
The City University of New York Graduate Students in Music (GSIM)
Saturday, 21 April 2007 CUNY Graduate Center, New York City

Keynote Speaker:
ELISABETH LE GUIN Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of California at Los Angeles

The CUNY Graduate Center's Music Ph.D.-D.M.A. programs invite you to attend its Tenth Annual Graduate Students in Music symposium (CUNY GSIM 10), Theorizing Performance/Performing Scholarship, on Saturday, April 21st, 2007 at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY
between 34th & 35th Streets.

Keynote speaker Elisabeth Le Guin has taught at UCLA since 1997. Her book Boccherini's Body: an Essay in Carnal Musicology, was published by the University of California Press in January 2006. Her current project is on musical theater in 18th-century Madrid. Before beginning her academic career Dr. Le Guin was a free-lance Baroque cellist in the lively Early Music scene in California. She is a founding member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Artaria String Quartet, and appears in over 40 recordings. She continues to perform nationally and internationally, and this double career has permitted her to develop the idea, fundamental to her work, of musicology as a perpetual dialogue between theory and practice.

Nuevo/New CD: The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes/La Era Dorada de Discos Fuentes

Some nice crate digging by Soundwayz - cumbia, Afro-pop, salsa, and then some.
Una buena mezcla ded Soundways - cumbia, Afro-pop, salsa y (como dicen los cartageneros) hasta más!
1 Fruko y sus Tesos Salsa Na Ma (4:13)
2 Lito Barrientros y su Orguesta Cumbia En Do Menor (2:45)
3 Michi Sarmiento y sus Bravos Honk Kong (3:52)
4 La Sonora Clenaguera La Piojosa (2:58)
5 Fruko y sus Tesos Improvisando (3:50)
6 Latin Brothers, The Patrona De Los Reclusos (6:13)
7 Wganda Kenya Tiffit Hayed (3:40)
8 Pedro Laza y sus Pelayeros Fandando En Percusion (2:45)
9 Orquesta Nunez La Samaria (2:57)
10 Los Corraleros de Majagual El Mondongo (10:13)
11 Fruko y sus Tesos A La Memoria Del Muerto (4:21)
12 Michi Sarmiento y sus Bravos La Primavera (2:16)
13 Wganda Kenya Elyoyo (4:07)
14 Lucho Bermudez Gaita De Las Flores (2:52)
15 El Sexeto Miramar Cumbiamba (2:32)
16 Michi Sarmiento y sus Bravos Mirame San Miguel (2:42)
17 Pedro Laza y sus Pelayeros La Picua (2:50)
18 Climaco Sarmiento y su Orquesta La Pata Y El Pato (2:43)
19 Latin Brothers, The Las Caleñas Son Como Los Flores (3:55)
20 Afrosound Pacifico (2:44)

Colombia Creative Commons

Un movimiento para "Creative Commons" (es decir, de libertad de restricciones sobre propiedad intelectual en ciertos casos) en Colombia. Enlace

A Creative Commons movement in Colombia. Link

Primitive computer technology on 1980s British LPs/Tecnología primitiva para computador en LPs Británicos de los 80

Thanks to Ben Tausig. Click below on Shaky's for link in English.
Hacé cliq en el trencito arriba para ver el link traducido al español.

Organ Trade Symposium

Why should an ethnomusicologist care about the organ trade in South Asia? Exchange, exchange, exchange, baby. Political economy, the trajectory of commodities, the social life of things, social networks, 
etc. This is all stuff that we have not looked at when dealing with music recording and distribution. So...

The NYU Critical Perspectives on South Asia Series, the Department of
Anthropology, and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
present:

Lawrence Cohen
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley

"Two Reflections on Operable Life:
Anthropological Surgery and Bodily Commitment"

Thursday, April 12th
5:00-6:30 pm

Room 300 Silver Center
100 Washington Square East


Since 1997 Lawrence Cohen has studied and written about the global
market
in transplant organs, with a focus on understanding emergent practices
of
rendering specific populations "bioavailable" to others. In this talk,
Cohen takes his work on operability in two new directions. He begins to
attempt a genealogy of surgical reason over the twentieth century.
Second,
Cohen turns to the frequently offered linkage in his south Indian
fieldwork (or the refusal of a linkage) between selling a kidney and
"prostitution," to ask how different kinds of givings over the body
come
to be articulated in relation to one another.

Heavy-hitters at NYC music conference

Conferencia sobre música en NY.

Fordham University announces a two-day international conference, "Musical Meaning and Human Values: A Colloquium with Lawrence Kramer," to be held at the university's Lincoln Center Campus, 113 W. 60th Street, New York, New York, on Friday and Saturday, May 4 and 5, 2007. The conference is free and open to the public. Featured speakers include Walter Bernhart (University of Graz), Marshall Brown (University of Washington), Keith Chapin (Fordham University), Peter Franklin (Oxford University), Walter Frisch (Columbia University), Lawrence Kramer (Fordham University), Richard Leppert (University of Minnesota), and Susan McClary (UCLA). For further information, please go to the conference web page, www.fordham.edu/musiccolloquium, or contact Stephanie Pietros at: pietros at fordham.edu.

Faustino Oremas, QEPD

Se ha muerto el gran trovador cubano y maestro del doble sentido. Palabras sabias las suyas: "Cuidado con el perro que muerde callao."
Enlace

Malnutrition in Chocó/Desnutrición en el Chocó

Según El Tiempo, mueren 17 niños al mes de hambre en el Chocó. Es importante destacar que es por culpa del conflicto armado y sus repercusiones, no por alguna falta de cultura de la gente, como uno podría creer leyendo este artículo. Se la gente lava, excreta, y toma del agua del río, ya tienen su sistema de hacer cada uno en su parte estratégica del río para no contaminarse, según una lógica desarrollada a través de 400 años (más en el caso de los indígenas) de vivir en su entorno.

According to El Tiempo (translated), 17 children die each month in Chocó. It's important to remember that this is because of the armed conflict there, not because of some innate ignorance of the local people, as you might believe from the article. If, as the article says, people wash, throw their waste and drink from the same water, they have a system for doing so in strategic parts of the river so that they don't end up drinking dirty water, in accordance with a logic which has developed from 400 years (more, in the case of the indeigenous people) of living in this environment.

Interacción "Socio-rítmica" con robots/"Socio-rhythmic" interaction with robots

Dance, Robot, Dance

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn11434
La página no quiere traducirse, no sé porque, pero vé cliqueando los links para ver como la gente en el Japón está entrenado los robots a ser más amenos a la interaccíon social con las personas. Interesante que central en la concepción de lo social para estos investigadores son a) la mirada a la cara y b) el ritmo. Por eso, el robotcito amarrillo aquel, como se ve en el video, está entrenado mirarte en la cara y bailar a la música. Y no baila mal!

Undergrad papers

This from Timothy Burke, who wrote a very smart book on consumption in Africa, on how he grades undergrad papers.
http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?page_id=8

Este post es sobre como calificar los ensayos de los estudiantes de pregrado. Ustedes en Latinoamérica tiene la ventaja que sus alumnos son mucho más preparados y motivados que los de aquí en EEUU, así que ni lo traduzco para ustedes...

Orlando Cabrera y el bies colombiano/Orlando Cabrera and Colombian baseball

Cabrera pays for it all — uniforms, equipment, coaches, English lessons. It is a small price, the Angels' shortstop says, to accelerate the development of baseball in his homeland. Link

En la República Dominicana, una fuente probada del talento del béisbol, los equipos importantes de la liga funcionan a academias individuales. En Colombia, en donde los equipos se atreven raramente a pisar, Orlando Cabrera funciona a su propia academia. Él paga ella toda - los uniformes, equipo, coches, lecciones inglesas. Es un precio pequeño, el shortstop de los ángeles dice, acelera el desarrollo del béisbol en su patria. Cabrera se imaginaba que el deporte sacaría después de la serie 2004 de mundo, en la cual cada equipo ofreció un shortstop colombiano - Edgar Renteria para los cardenales de St. Louis, Cabrera para el rojo Sox de Boston. Pero el interés nunca se aflojó, así que Cabrera abrió a su academia, para los muchachos 15-17. En tres años, él dijo, 56 perspectivas de la academia han firmado con organizaciones importantes de la liga. “Soy justo haciendo esto para dar de nuevo a la comunidad,” Cabrera dicho. “No deseo dar detrás con cosas que no sé a lo hacer.”