7/30/2005 07:03:00 AM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|Your attention, please! Recombinants existed long before the so-called "age of the recombinant." So today we are featuring a classic form of recombinant art: the QUILT.|W|P|112272166531829655|W|P|Today's Special: Quilts.|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com8/01/2005 09:19:25 AM|W|P|Mr. Romance|W|P|And it's FUNCTIONAL!7/30/2005 06:38:00 AM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P| Two street scenes from two artists. One from 1920s Berlin, the other from 1970s New York. But they are not so different. The two artists were personal friends, after all. Neither was bearded. |W|P|112272091463268105|W|P|Romare Bearden + George Grosz = razor go beard emerge nose (remainder r, g)|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com8/04/2005 10:49:08 AM|W|P|Mr. Romance|W|P|zero roman beard gorge regs7/26/2005 01:27:00 PM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|Speaking of hypertext, I have to agree with Mr. Romance that our reason for employing hypertext and other varieties of "netspeak" is, as he put it, "to use these technologies to draw out, re-arrange, and celebrate the art that lies dormant, tiny and flat, between words, letters, numbers, notes, and the circuit boards in your computer." But it should also be noted that hypertext is more than just the cute slang and abreviation of netspeak. Hypertext is the overcoming of text, a move beyond text, and when done with art it can greatly expand the poetic potential of language. With hypertext, we can explode text and force it to better reflect the richness and flexibility of language. We can do this in a number of ways: (a) by subverting the linear order of reading, in favor of circular paths of reading, or complicated networks of texts linked to one another (b) by grafting other media onto the text (images, videos, audio, etc.), (c) by connecting the texts we write with other texts in a more direct way than using footnotes or other old fashioned forms of reference. Maybe in other ways, too. Hypertext is an art of its own, and the links below (selected quickly and at random) testify to the existence of a whole community of hypertext artists. http://www.krokodile.co.uk/hyper1.html http://www.duke.edu/~mshumate/original.html http://www.hypertxt.com/sh/hyper98/ http://www.eastgate.com/ http://www.hypertextkitchen.com/Press.html http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~koskimaa/thesis/chapter9.htm |W|P|112240010683115861|W|P|hyper on text|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com7/25/2005 01:09:00 PM|W|P|Mr. Romance|W|P|It has been suggested that the proliferation of instant text-transmital technologies such as e-mail, instant messages, "texting" (how's that for a new verb?), and blogging have encouraged a certain compositional atrophy, wherein traditional syntax is abandoned and "When shall we meet this evening?" becomes "will i c u l8tr?". Such critics may argue that the beauty of language is being discarded in order to make these digital communiques more efficient, both through the practice of using as few characters as possible to convey messages (see above) and by forsaking composition in favor of a more rapid response time. Along with this critique often comes an examination of the practice - in blogging and e-mail at least - of using hypertext to direct readers to other texts. In relying on hypertext, they say, the author abdicates responsibility to flesh our his or her ideas, relying on other authors to do instead. On the other hand, champions of the internet's potential for intertextuality will point out that hypertext allows for the ingathering of a much wider array of information within a single text. More details, more accounts, more points of view can be presented under, in some sense, a single textual roof. One can sympathize with both the lovers and haters of "netspeak". As you have certainly noticed, the culling and subsequent recombination of information is of prime importance here. And displaying our wares on the internet as we do, hypertext is one of our most valued tools. At the same time, we don't seek to drain the beauty from language in order to reduce it to some sort of computer code to be judged solely on its ability to convey information the most efficiently. Quite the contrary, we aim to use these technologies to draw out, re-arrange, and celebrate the art that lies dormant, tiny and flat, between words, letters, numbers, notes, and the circuit boards in your computer. What sort of action is needed in order to balance out the poetic and anti-poetic aspects of these new technologies? And where do our responsibilities lie?|W|P|112231879304970469|W|P|On Hypertext|W|P|romance@recombinanthumandragon.com7/22/2005 12:26:00 PM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|Readers of Bearded Miracles may have noticed that the editors of this fine publication are a bit obsessed with recombination. Especially, they enjoy the recombination of sounds in cutting edge electronic music, and the recombination of words to make different meanings, as for example in the legendary puns of Marcel Duchamp, professional designer of urinals. Today these concerns lead us back to the term "IDM," which fans of electronic music may recognize as one of the zillions of annoying sub-genre terms for a certain type of electronic sounds. Typically, IDM stands for "independant dance music," or "intelligent dance music," and refers to artists such as those at Warp records. But the letters IDM could very well stand for all sorts of other things instead. And as we were thinking about today's insignificant digital musings, we pulled out our international dada mill (invented by Hannah Hoch so long ago), and started turning the crank to see what different IDM's might come out. Below are just some of the results:

Internationale Deutsche Motorradmeisterschaft

Inspirational daily messages

I damage marmots

Internet dandruff machine

Intricate dream messages

Inside David’s moustache

Inside David’s mom

Instrumental doom music

Intelligent deaf mute

Introverted deaf mute

Igloos don't melt

I detest mormons

Interstellar dinosaur movie

Ivan doesn’t mind

Intel deletes music

International dandruff management

Innuerable dead marines

I destroy music

Inadvertently dented Mercedez

Interesting dead man

I devour mangos insufficiently dowried marriages Incan desire machine ...and so on. After we were done with this exercise, we were once again struck by the flimsiness of language, the joy of punning, and the silliness of ravers who think that they need to cultivate ever more specialized labels for the miniscule subcultures that they hang out in.|W|P|112205112167377866|W|P|I distribute messages|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com7/22/2005 01:13:15 PM|W|P|Anonymous|W|P|inexplicably dumped manure
i dig mozzarella
inexpensive designer mothballs7/23/2005 03:16:29 PM|W|P|Anonymous|W|P|for the dirty:

insatiably damp mound7/18/2005 11:16:00 AM|W|P|Mr. Romance|W|P| Former hostage rescue commando, and a woman whirlwind of a thousand disguises, this psychothriller female detective character is multicultural, with a Jewish mother and Egyptian/Nubian father, and she's on yet another adventure to solve mysteries and find out what makes people act as they do. Can she use her omnipresent video camera when making house calls to convince a teenage boy she longs to adopt to turn from hate crimes to making the world a saner and safer place for all? Follow this video-therapist, forensic psychologist, family court judge, film-maker, private eye, investigative reporter, TV and radio personality and world-traveler on one adventure after another through suspense and deep thought.|W|P|112170037794260708|W|P|Crime Fiction|W|P|romance@recombinanthumandragon.com7/15/2005 12:35:00 PM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|

ORDER: Squamata FAMILY: Agamidae GENUS: Pogona SPECIES: vitticeps

|W|P|112144537643083103|W|P|the Bearded Dragon...info|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com7/15/2005 12:15:00 PM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|Imagine a transparent journal, full of camels and snakes. Even without opening it, you can already see the contents: a hot air balloon, an umbrella stand, a steam ship, a small scale, a mollusk. Then, several pages ahead, you can already see a photographer, coyly draped in a black cloth, turning his black box toward a public urinal, waiting for the gents to exit! "A heart with a beard," it's called, a brief message reaching us from 1922, inviting us to an exposition that may have never taken place. A bearded miracle for sure!|W|P|112144471799117408|W|P|a Heart with a Beard|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com7/14/2005 10:47:00 AM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|Melted plastic sears my flesh.|W|P|112135248956084697|W|P|Globules|W|P|bandwidth@recombinanthumandragon.com7/14/2005 09:21:00 AM|W|P|Mr. Romance|W|P|Your plastic is melted|W|P|112134728338902011|W|P|Flame On|W|P|romance@recombinanthumandragon.com