 Thomas Park
"An Artist's Toolkit" Although multi-disciplinary artist Thomas Park has largely retired, at least as the musical act mystified, throughout the years he has collected hundreds of gigabytes of resources that are free for artists of any kind (and non-artists) to use and enjoy. Feel free to visit “An Artist’s Toolkit”-- save the pdf, use the links, share: https://ia601504.us.archive.org/27/items/ThomasParkBenchmarkHub/21_An_Artists_Toolkit.pdf Thomas hopes that his efforts can help to enhance the creativity of other artists and creative folk in the larger world community. Editor's note: This bulletin board announcement is Thomas Park's first post at Electronic Cottage. He has also created a Personal Page, which you can visit here.
26 Comments
Frank
5/2/2018 03:17:44
Hi Thomas, nice to see you at EC! Curious person, as I am, I downloaded 'An artist's toolkit' and my eye immediately fell on: 'How to create a legacy'... 5/2/2018 06:38:30
I am glad to hear that the toolkit is helping. I hope your work on creating a legacy is helpful. I have definitely found archive.org to be useful.
Frank
5/3/2018 01:06:01
Funny! I just realized that, on April 22nd, I already downloaded your 'The everyday world of Thomas Park. I've got no idea where I read about that, but I remember it saying, to use the sounds to make your own song(s). Well, they're on my laptop waiting to become new songs, thanks Thomas
Frank
5/3/2018 02:14:49
I figured out how I got to your sounds! {AN}Eel posted the album that got made with your sounds on his FB. 5/2/2018 05:18:51
I sometimes wonder what immense treasure will be lost for planet earth's heritage, when someone somewhen *pulls the plug* at archive.org...
Frank
5/2/2018 06:14:28
But also an enormous amount of 'garbage' will be lost! But I guess one man's 'garbage' is another man's 'treasure'. 5/2/2018 06:42:17
Of course, you can have an opinion on that-- but personally I wonder-- why vain? Do you mean vain in that it would not matter, or vain in that it would be silly? 5/2/2018 06:40:55
It would be a sad thing. A lot of new material is being added every day, including digitizations of old 78 rpm records, news reports, and lots more. It's certainly been very helpful to me.
Frank
5/2/2018 19:25:43
Again, I am speaking in my case, I don't want to offend anybody. With 'vain', I meant 'narcist'... like, why would I put my music on there, am I that important? And probably I am a narcist. Yesterday, I started putting my 'legacy' on Archive. I thought, if I put it on Bandcamp, then why not on Archive? 5/2/2018 10:50:11
Thanks for this Thomas! 5/2/2018 11:06:27
Welcome Aboard, Mister Vapor!
Hal McGee
5/2/2018 12:17:12
This is a worthy discussion! But let's not turn EC into an old folk's home for retired hometapers. Let's keep things current and look to the future! For me personally my artistic work is ongoing and current - it's now, not yesterday. Forward, amigos! 5/2/2018 12:51:47
That's Right, Hal, ongoing and current! And in that spirit, let me right now offer up seven new releases that I've put out this very year of 2018, all of which are on the archive for anyone to hear right now, no matter how they might regard my legacy. If you got a hankering for sonic art, I invite one and all to give these a try, FORWARD!: 5/3/2018 11:26:46
Ha ha, right you are Hal! I hope I haven't contributed to things taking a morbid turn here. Yes, onward and upward! Actually, part of the reason why my own archival efforts are proceeding at the approximate rate of molasses running uphill in January is...I can't stop making new work! 5/3/2018 11:19:10
Thanks for the encouragement! And I will be looking to your archive.org profile for inspiration as well! 5/2/2018 13:25:10
Garbage of Archive.org
C. Goff III
5/2/2018 14:16:40
Ha! LL, coming right after my previous reply, your statement brings a number of implications to mind! Just be careful what you wish for -- as your own nick name implies, one person's trash is often another person's treasure, and I'm more inclined to leave those sorts of judgments up to myself, rather than to an appointed third party. Those "ubhjen" things that you refer to are a reflection of humankind -- intentional or malicious or simply dadaist, whatever -- they are a part of the humanity that we all share, and isn't that after all what the archive is meant to reveal? 5/3/2018 06:03:58
That is sure a total legitimate way to look at it! 5/2/2018 13:56:27
If folks would like to "pivot ahead"-- just to mention-- the toolkit wasn't meant just to inspire a fear of mortality-- there are also a lot of free samples available there for current and future project, images, live mixing consoles, and so forth. 5/3/2018 11:44:36
Thanks again! I will be checking out your samples and mixing consoles soon. This is something I've also been thinking about recently. The idea of offering up all of the raw audio material I've collected over the years. So much of it that I would never be able to actually use it all even if I had several lifetimes! Not to mention the mountain of "unfinished" pieces and experiments that will never get "finished" but might still be interesting to people, or of potential use in collaborative works.
Chris Phinney
5/2/2018 21:39:03
I feel you Mr Davison a daunting task indeed! After almost 4 decades myself of mail art, Tapes, videos, vinyl & tons more I think we all need a team! 5/3/2018 06:02:44
Chris Phinney! Haven't heard from you since AutoCad days. Hope you are good.
Chris Phinney
5/3/2018 14:02:49
Thomas doing as good as possible. Likewise hope your doing well. We did some good recordings back in those days.On 5/3/2018 11:35:18
Perhaps these archive teams should be Brewster Kahle's next project. I'll mention it to him ;-)
Hal McGee
5/5/2018 01:41:18
I think it is a good thing that we oldtimers are thinking about preserving our stuff. Me personally, I have never been that impressed with the Internet Archive. It looks ugly and the interface and controls are awkward and wonky. I think that Bandcamp is sufficient. It has all of the tools that an artist needs. The layout and interface make sense and are easy to use. Bandcamp is successful and is making a lot of money because they are doing things the right way and offering a service that is useful to musicians/audio artists. It works! It's built with artists in mind. I also like the fact that from the beginning they forced artists to upload lossless audio files. When someone downloads an album of mine from Bandcamp in WAV or FLAC format it sounds as good as I could possibly hope it to sound. To me albums that are available at archive.org only in MP3 format are sub-standard and are NOT properly archived. If you are going to go to the trouble to archive something lossy files don't hack it. Ya gotta have some standards! Arguments about how permanent Bandcamp is compared to the Internet Archive are arguments I'm not interested in. When I'm dead in 40 or 50 years from now I won't fucking care, and enough people will have downloaded my stuff that there will be sufficient data storage of my audio art stored on hard drives on the planet. I have made more connections with new people through Bandcamp than I ever did by posting my stuff at archive.org. Two of my best friends, Frank and Per-Arne Hognert, I came into contact with through Bandcamp. They purchased downloads of my albums and I started corresponding with them. I know that some of you are all against money being connected with music, and that's your business. I used to sell my tapes back in the 80s, and in the 90s, and have done so ever since. What's the big deal? Some people who like my music don't make music themselves. Spending a dollar on 60 minutes or more of my music is not going to drive anyone broke. After Bandcamp and PayPal take their cuts I end up with 78 cents. That's really pretty good. And guess what? I use that 78 cents for materials and supplies and research for new projects, many of which serve the community. The one dollar that I charge to download my albums is the bare minimum that Bandcamp allows. I tried for 60 cents per album and it's not allowed. Forcing people to play for a download is a good way to deter bootleggers who are just going to download free stuff and then SELL it on their illicit sites. That might not matter to you personally, but it does to me. If someone gets a copy of my music I want them to get it from me. When people make their one dollar download purchases of my solo or collaborative music or my compilations I write an email thanking them for their support and interest. This is how I made contact and connections with Frank and Per-Arne, who are artists themselves, and are now important people in my life and valuable members of this community. To me, there's no harm in backing up one's stuff on the Internet Archive. It's a good thing, all in all. But it is my opinion that if you already have your stuff on Bandcamp there is no need to put it on archive.org too. Leave a Reply. |
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