Summary of Last Semester

Mainly what I did this semester was take 8 classes and create 3 theses. I also learned how to swim.

For my music thesis I recorded samples and made instruments out of them. Bottles clanking created high percussion and water-filled woks made for sweeping wobble-lines. I got tons of gamelan sounds and focused on lining up the pulsing patterns to create a polyrhythmic structure.

I thought it would be super cool to create an interface that used body-motion to control music, and realized it would be possible with a Kinect sensor, Ableton Live, Synapse, and MaxMSP. At my senior show: "The X Sound Festival" I performed the piece: "Dream Leftovers" using a minimalist dance to control elements of the song. It appeared that I was floating because I was lit by backlight, wearing a UV costume I had made, and standing on one leg to use one foot to pan a track, In the end I rolled off the stage into the audience.

My teacher was powerful mad at me for putting a dead coyote in her dishwasher. Actually she was mad for not having a DVD for the X Sound Festival (the DVD drive in the lab was broken). I didn't realize it was an issue because everything worked fine using my friend's laptop, including preemptive messages I had made such as: "Shake into a New Dimension is an application downloaded from the ether, are you sure you want to open it?" and "The X Sound Festival has unexpectedly quit, reopen? Once I had been scolded for being unprofessional for an hour or so I felt ashamed and have hopefully learned my lesson.

 

Here's the part where I get to brag however: after being thoroughly chided my teacher commented on how impressive it was that I had written two songs and made a music video in three weeks, along with creating a multi-media performance art piece. She commented that I had accomplished more with the Kinect sensor technology in a few weeks than the combined efforts of the technical director of Mills and a graduate student had over the course of four months. 

Once I was thoroughly burnt out on working hard I just continued to work hard. I directed my first large video crew and finished my psychology thesis. I had an average of 3 hours a day commuting by bus throughout the semester and would use it to do research for this thesis. I ended up writing about music as a metaphor for brain function, discussing how cross-cerebral neural oscillation synchrony may be a crucial component for cognitive function. There are many brain disturbances that are correlated with brainwave synchrony abnormalities and I proposed new research within three of these areas (schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and Parkinson’s disease) involving a relatively new individualized neurofeedback treatment that transforms EEG data into music. 

Now I’m done with my undergraduate degree. I’ve had capstone educational experiences, but it’s still odd not to be thinking about what classes I’ll take next semester. Now I’m busy trying to find a job and an apartment but also making myself deadlines for individual projects like writing an album, making a few DJ sets, making a line of paintings, creating a fashion line, studying for the GRE, Researching all the neuroscience literature on dreaming and learning basic Photoshop, calculus and physics.

Kindred Art Kid

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It is convenient for two vegetarian ghosts to go out for dinner, except when the world of wait-staff cannot perceive their presence. One Saturn’s day I ordered a “Victoria Bitter” and discovered it was just my favorite cheap AU beer “VB.” At Kelley’s, a Newtown bar that consistently holds a place for me, I asked for the finest “Victoria Bitter” and was given blank stare in return. Finally the bartender said: “There are only four people in the world who know what VB stands for, and two of them are dead.”

Jack and I swapped jackets because ze was shivering, and I happened to be wearing my pea coat. At the next pub a guy with “New Zealand” shaved into the back of his head questioned: “Who are you ladies rooting for?” Being Australian by birth, Jack reckoned Melbourne would win. Naturally, I said I was going for NZ. I don’t know who eventually won, but it was a victory for me, having always hoped to find someone to be androgynously confusing with.

I wouldn’t mind being mistaken for a couple of hipster creatures eating spaghetti out of jars with chopsticks either. Uni life has left my kitchen forkless, and with few plates, but we always have jars. Even though I have posted an insistent set of kitchen rules, the only one anyone seems to be following is the addendum created by Jack and our good friend Clarance Clancy Jr. (CCJ): “Don’t forget to smile like a powerful whale.” I escape the gritty kitchen often these days, for friend adventures and modeling gigs, but mostly to go home to the music lab, which is where I truly live. I made a DJ set looping live soda-can opening and mbira, with video to match each track and transition. I also dropped many samples of the New Mexican folk storyteller Joe Hayes. Naturally I began with quotes from the drunk coyote hiding under the table: “Ah que carai, ahora se voy a cantar, now I’m really going to sing!” I myself am quite a Table Coyote. But who wants to sit under one’s own table when one can depend on a campus of climable sculptures to drink on? Plus, all the fatherly security guards see us and offer us packed lunches with sandwiches and juice boxes.

It is convenient for two uncanny kids to drink cocktails out of one another’s clavicles. Uni life has left the kitchen cupless, and when all the jars are in use the most elegant cups are those created by skeletal structure. Of course pre-drinks and facepaint on the Hump Day before Halloween led to the missing of yet another costume contest at The Ranch, but when one has a kindred art-kid to make faces with, that type of thing just doesn’t matter.

Human memory is a fundamentally creative act, each time we visit a memory we are making that memory again. Each blog post and picture from this era in my existence as Emily is being solidified into a golden-fun-feeling. Each message in my inbox is a small poem about how much fun life is. The fields of communication are littered with happy-faces. 

 

Psychedelic Roadkill

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For Halloween I bought garden wire for $2. I made a stag mask for myself, and helped Jack make a coyote mask. To the top-forty bros on George street and at The Ranch’s “undead” party, I introduced myself as “Toohey’s Undead” (Toohey’s is a "cheap" AU beer that features a stag on the label). To the more indie crowd Jack and I became: “Psychedelic Road kill.”

A Stag prepares for dinner

Inter-Species Love

After spending some time seeing Metropolis accompanied by a live score from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, I greeted Jack: “Destroy the machines!” We painted our faces in a building’s reflective surface, and ambled across the city. I had done some research and found a party in King’s Cross. If it weren’t for our address knowledge, we wouldn’t have found “Tatler’s,” there we were greeted by harsh bouncers, who shoved us inside and ID’d us. Apparently we made the cut, and found ourselves in s tiny club, that was basically a converted apartment. Later we found out that “Tatler’s” has the strictest door policy in Sydney, and has housed VIP parties for the like of Biggie Smallz. There was Astroturf on the walls, brilliant beats emanating at perfect volume from large speakers, and black lights that made our (UV painted) masks glow.

I aimed to get some serious dancing done, but we ended up making friends on the Smoker’s porch till the wee hours. A woman in her last year of law school, and her fiancé, a professional horse-race better, both in thick-rimmed wayfarers took a liking to us and bought us Gin and Tonics. Their friend, a former member of the hit band Sneaky Sound System was telling me about how he had gone to the states to research this one kind of hummingbird and to go to Burning Man. The more I spoke with him the more apparent it became that he loved birds. I then noticed that he had a tattoo that said: “I love birds.” He told me about some of the birds that he loves.  The Bowerbird loves blue, and makes really tall nests out of anything blue. They’ll steal anything that’s blue to make their nests: “Shells, pigs, straws plastic, ANYTHING!” Blue Wrens don’t love blue like Bower Birds, but they always have multiple dates. “If you see a Blue Wren, it’ll be cruising around with 3 or 2 dates!” As for the Butcher Bird It’ll hypnotize its prey. “It’s killer.”

DJ Cosmonaut

What with our late start and new friends, Jack and I started our walk to the night bus stop around 3:00 am. In King’s Cross I saw real life prostitutes for the first time. On George Street a bro came up to me, looking like he was bowing. Then he began doing push ups. I accepted the challenge, handed Jack my bag, and did push ups back. Finally the bro staggered, not being able to do another push up, and I stood up the victor of our impromptu competition. This time his bow was a real bow. Jack and I played push hands as we waited for the bus, found out we were waiting for the wrong bus, and waited for the right one for an hour and a half. There kept being N10 busses, which weren’t our line and I said: “Why do they get all the busses? I’m going to kill their mayor.” So when Jack and I were skipping back across campus at 6:00 am, we shot fake guns and sang about killing “Princess Mayor.”

The couple that bought us drinks

Describing a bird

Heeding my cold or getting some sleep would have barred more fun times, so the next day I went to Aneshka’s party (Aneshka is Adhit’s sister, who is the really good kind of Fauxdult that is a good artist and a good cook with a nice apartment that comes with its own time-warping ability). Aneshka and all her friends were fun and giggletronic, Before preparing for another big night of Halloween in the city we enjoyed ∞ sangria and the night water of the pool Adhit grew up in. We were perfectly dressed for the Jungle Voodoo themed party that we were so excited to go to, but it ended up being the opposite of the cool description. Because we got a late start and had to walk a good distance to get home, and because we had to satisfy our animalistic cravings (nothing like falafel at an hour when no one should be awake) we didn’t get to sleep until 4:00 am.

"I Love Birds"

The next day I think I did more damage to my homework than good for how tired I was. I was reduced to plain roadkill. The incessant sunlight filtered through the layers of discomfort that made up my very being, telling me: “I am a beautiful day you motherfucker. I will illuminate your electric-static aura of confused sadness.” I was a stinky stray dog as I walked to the train, across a Sunday morning of friendly pretty people at charming corner cafes, having the best cups of coffee they’d ever had, with their best friends who would always love them. I couldn’t hold a single thought for long but most of them were along the lines of: “I must be a terrible person.” Then I had a nap.

The late afternoon sunlight changed its tune to: “Everything is great and everyone loves you,” as I collected the headphones and face paint I had left at Aneshka’s and savored cake, olive oil drenched bread with haloumi, and double-hugs from beautiful people who smell like hints of incense. I was ready for my next adventure. 

The Real World is Such a Stupid Joke

    When I woke up Wednesday morning it looked like my poor peace lilly was dying. I didn't have time to give it that much of a pep-talk, but I ensured it could make it in the real world - and gave it a little water.

    I spent many more minutes than intended analyzing my dreams, and realized I would be late for class after said pep-talk to plant. Then I realized it didn't matter, made myself two pieces of toast and a thermos of cayenne-hot-chocolate, and rocked up to class five minutes late. When I got there everyone was standing outside and they asked me: "Is there anyone in there?" This was how I ended up the first person to the Neuropsychology tutorial on visual-spatial disorders.

    I scarfed X-amount of corn-chips with the beans and fajitas I had effectively placed in a generic brand plastic container, rocked up to the library, and studied for 1.5 hours before going to a lab meeting. The lab meeting was for post-grads studying music cognition, and I ended up the first person there, despite my being New Mexican and therefore always late.

    Allow me to back up a second and speak on how I knew about such a meeting: It all started in freshman year when the College of Santa Fe was going bankrupt and everyone started jumping ship. I suddenly realized that I shouldn't just be studying film - I should be learning something that was a challenge for me. I remembered back to a conversation I'd had with my dad when I was around 6 or, thought about human potential, and dreams from ages 5+, and decided I needed to study neuroscience.

    It took me a semester of community college to find the school I would be transferring to, and it took a semester of college at the school I transferred to, to realize there was even more to be had - I could study abroad on their scholarship dollar! (+ a couple thousand of parent-dollars, and about 20,000 of future dollars, AKA student loans).

    I systematically looked through each school on Mill's study-abroad list, and found that the one with the best classes for me was Macquarie Uni. This was actually mainly based on the fact that they offered a class called: "Music, Mind and Message:" which specialized in music cognition, and was taught by the head of the psychology department, Bill Thompson. In the end that class wasn't offered this semester, but the textbook Thompson wrote is available in the library, so I know what I'm doing for spring break!

     The date of my 21st birthday was the deadline to get all the materials in for study abroad, and this happened to be the date I completed my entire application for study abroad, including but not limited to a petition to the Academic Standing Committee, saying they should let me break a bunch of rules so that I could study abroad. It probably worked because I used key terms such as "classism."  Study abroad is a complete privilege, and it's consistently a statistically a life-changing experience (because, you can easily quantify that which is life-changing). 85% of community-college transfer students miss out on this life-changing experience, because if and when they do transfer to a four year college, they are encouraged not to study abroad. It is also interesting to note that  70% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

    You really have to commit to the word committee, because it has two m's, two t's, and two e's. Similarly, repetitive is repetitive because it has three e's. Tangent aside, here I am, in Australia, writing a blog, based on a heap of scraggly logic. I think what my scraggly logic turns into is a lot of white matter, just making connections like some sort of networking capitalist that lives inside HUMAN BRAINS!

    So back to human brains: I ended up the first person at this lab meeting, because my life-story and college history has placed me in this position at a neuroimaging lab. The person who interviewed me at this lab noted my interest the brain and music, and mentioned the name: "Bill Thomspon" I emailed Bill, asking about any experiment ideas he might have involving MEG (that's the kind of brain research lab I'm interning in) Instead of replying to me like so many professors would (with automated messages or "something something something bureaucracy and "No kid, you are a fool!") He responded inviting me to a lab meeting, and to discuss experimental ideas.

    Dr. Thompson seemed keen to use me as a buffer between the brain lab and his music-cognition lab and hinted at a role in designing/piloting my own experiment several times, only to realize that I will be here until December, which will not be enough time to get it passed by ethics etc. I couldn't believe that my foolhardy dreams were being siphoned out into the little office with such ease, like it would just be possible for an undergrad with a small amount of lab experience to bypass the real world based solely on enthusiasm. I am so grateful for all the opportunities and support and wish I could stay here another semester. I may not be able to design a complete experiment, but we'll see how much I can do.

The Only Braincell Left

       It was "Back 2 School" day at The Ranch, and it was a costume contest. I worked all day on my Neuron costume, which I made with recycled fliers from STA, wire, duct tape, wrapping paper, and a red sharpie. I figure that neurons are the most important school supply. I made text-book like labels so the drunken masses would understand, and they largely did - "Oh, ha ha, you're an electrically excitable cell that's fundamental to the nervous system!"

     Its always fun mingling when in a fantastic costume, because it takes away all social awkwardness. I was making friends of "nerds" and "sexy nerds" alike.

The bar staff pulled me away to say I qualified for the costume contest, so I got on stage feeling elite. My main competition were Leon, the head RA who was dressed as a calculator (which was a cardboard box with a print out on it) and a girl dressed as a bus (a cardboard box with a print out on it). When they called my name first however, I knew I wouldn't win. The first never wins when the judges are are drunken mob.

The guy who won was wearing a hat and a backpack, because he had placed his friends in the front. He won a Macbook Pro. They should call it a yelling contest to be more accurate. When I left the bouncer asked if I won and I said no, adding that it was because I was the only braincell left alive.