Google Earth art & “brainjazz” (420, base 2)

May 24, 2022 3:04 PM

Thomas Collet uses Google Earth as a palette to create glitchy digital art.
Barcode (frustratingly styled as ||||||||||||||||||||) creates downtempo electronic music that will probably make you think of the aughts and quiet late nights, or of Murcof, or Redshape. (“Brainjazz”, per the 110100100 record label)
At Berlin’s Atonal festival in 2021, the two came together to create a forty-five minute video-and-music-scape - a session of music by Barcode, user09081994, and Grand Inc juxtaposed over Google Earth landscape pans, sudden juxtapositions, and visual distortions.
posted by Going To Maine (5 comments total)

I discovered |||||||||||||||||||| on Spotify a few months back and it's really a shame they're listed that way, because it's unsearchable. I even got a ban in a Twitch chat for typing it because the vertical bar character was in their spam filter.
posted by Down10 at 5:39 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

It is my most old man trait but I really dislike all deviant spellings, emojis, and everything else the cool kids are using in their song titles these days.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:18 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this! I listened to some Barcode on Spotify and I think I will be listening to them when I need that mood. And I agree about the special characters! Stop it, youth!

I went to the Instagram link for Thomas Collet and he has a note in his profile that he did a glitch version of Ariana Grande's "imagine" but I can't find it... There's one on YouTube that's a Mac Miller tribute that has glitches in it, but I don't think that's it. Going to look again...
posted by danabanana at 6:58 PM on May 24, 2022

The video with Google Earth images opens with what looks like a deep, deep cobalt mine, like Khyber pass maybe, or China. It is certainly thoroughly utilized. Lotsa necklaces, that will now become batteries.
posted by Oyéah at 7:06 PM on May 24, 2022

It’s amazing what a clever person can do with Google Earth as their tool. Jon Bois blows my mind on the reg too.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:14 PM on May 24, 2022