Category Archives: Uncategorized
Permanent Prototypes
The ability to define history while it is happening is a rare skill. For every Democracy in America (de Tocqueville, 1835/1840) that gets it right, there is a Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead, 1928) that gets it wrong. We … Continue reading
John Cage, the Student: Time at Black Mountain College
This is from my talk at the Black Mountain College ReVIEWING conference in November of 2021. That year’s conference focused on John Cage’s ideas and practices. The annual conference draws scholars from around the world to Asheville, North Carolina, near … Continue reading
Let’s Get Small: Python for Microcontrollers
Let’s Get Small: Python for Microcontrollers Elliot Inman In the world of Big Data, some of the most prolific data generating devices are also the smallest – microcontrollers that gather data from sensors and pump out an always-on highspeed bitstream. … Continue reading
High Speed Computing for Poets
Natasha Goldowski: Science, Cybernetics, and High Speed Computing at Black Mountain College Elliot Inman Paper presented at the Black Mountain College ReViewing Conference 2019 held on the campus of UNC-Asheville. The success of any interdisciplinary curriculum often depends on a … Continue reading
Silence, Chance, Cage, Code
“Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard.” ~ Stéphane Mallarmé, 1897 John Cage is well known as the composer who formalized the use of silence as a compositional element on par with any other note or sound. He was … Continue reading
Musical Circuits at UNC
A Musical Stylus for the World’s Simplest Oscillator
“Rule #17: If it sounds good and doesn’t smoke, don’t worry if you don’t understand it.” ~ Nicholas Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, Second Edition, Routledge, 2009, p. 144. Collins describes it as the “world’s simplest … Continue reading
Musical Circuits 
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