Adam Scott Miller

I first saw Adam's work a few years ago on Integral Naked (now Integral Life). He creates what some call 'Visionary Art'. Alex Grey is probably the most famous of this breed, his work having appeared on albums for artists such as David Byrne, Nirvana, Beastie Boys and TOOL.

Being a long time fan of Alex Grey and having even gotten the opportunity to play in his Chapel of Sacred Mirrors just before it left New York City I was instantly drawn to Adam's unique visions of that which normally goes unseen by the eyes of flesh. What visionary art attempts to communicate is that which the eye of the mind and the eye of spirit perceive. These painters just somehow manage to get these visions down on canvas.

Upon seeing Adams work for the first time I immediately went to his website and bought a few of his original paintings to hang in my loft for inspiration. What I attempt with music, specifically what David and I did with The Emergence, could in this context be called Visionary Music. We attempted to communicate Spirit and the struggles along the way to such a realization in sound. As soon as we had the CDs for this project I sent one off to Adam hoping only that this kindred spirit and fellow artist that I have immense respect for may enjoy the noise we make.

I have recently been exchanging messages with Adam on facebook (where you should become a fan of his work). He reached out to tell me how much he enjoyed the album and most recently to say that he just spent about 12 hours listening to our CD while working on the painting you see above. Needless to say the finished product is stunning and knowing that I played even a small part in inspiring the work that went into it is a beautiful fuel for my future creative efforts.

I hope to be collaborating with Adam some time in the not too distant future. His work has only been improving in the past few years and I can't wait to see his new pieces as they emerge. He was recently on the stage painting live with Shpongle and I'm sure things will only advance from here.

You can see more of Adam's work and purchase prints and originals from his website: http://www.corpuscallosum.cc/ do it

Who wants to buy me the original above???

Chunky Move - Mortal Engine

Just got back from a night out in Brooklyn. Went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to see Chunky Move's Mortal Engine. I could describe, but you should just watch:



Thanks to Kiersten for both turning me on to the performance and for coming with me to see the show.

Baraka

People have been telling me to see this film for quite some time. I think Tony told me first and most often. Baraka is hard to describe. For some reason I was expecting something more music video than story and more psychedelic than linear. It's none of these things and all of them. I'm not going to pretend to be able to describe it in detail here. It needs to be watched and the less specific your expectations are the better I think. But I will try to give you an impression of what the experience was like for me.

If ever I had any doubt about just how weird and wonderful this world is in all of its diversity of manifestation, Baraka put that concern to rest. The cinematography is stunning. The music, the sounds amazing. The sequence of shots tells a story that words would have only muddled and confined.

At times I was reminded of Planet Earth simply because of a sense of awe that someone had managed to film what I was looking at and managed to do so in such an intensely beautiful and powerfully delicate way. Nothing seems contrived or rehearsed or even particularly concerned with the camera. The director Ron Fricke plays with time and scale exploring both the sacred and the mundane.

Through ritual, through design, through creating, moving, praying, working and intensely held stillness the scenes that are shown in this movie weave an image of intense differences at many levels, but left me with a sense of a far deeper and more universal common core. Through 152 locations in 24 countries nature is put on display in all of it's geographical, animal, human and technological forms. I was often left with a sense that there was something at work in all of these scenes, a common drive, a shared want or need, that seems to express itself in the most wonderfully weird and inexplicable ways depending on the environment.

I wasn't sure how much I would be in the mood for Baraka at home alone on this Sunday morning with a slight hang over and a lot on my mind. I anticipated a broken viewing with a lot of pausing and getting up to eat or sleep or play guitar. I was in state for most of it; transfixed by the unexpected and lulled by the sweetness of it all. Even in it's darkness the images are tender and full of life.


In case you can't tell. I highly recommend seeing this film. Find the biggest screen you can and don't be shy with the volume. And if you do see it or have seen it, please hit the comment button below and share a response. I'd love to hear your reactions.

Baraka was released in 1992. A sequel, Samsara, is scheduled for release in 2010. I can't wait to see this in the theater. And apparently in 2007 the original film from Baraka was rescanned in an extremely high end custom manner, the audio remastered, and the whole thing released on Blu-ray disc in what Roger Ebert described as "the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined." I think it may be time for me to update my DVD player.

The Fountain

I finally watched 'The Fountain', a film by Darren Aronofsky. This is the guy who made Pi and Requiem for a Dream. And I have to admit, I was really blown away. Tony has been telling me for months to see this movie. He was right.

First of all yes, the movie is beautiful to look at. The acting is great. The special effects are exciting, yet somehow quieting. The editing is refined. It is a technically awesome movie. Having said that:

My initial reactions were purely emotional. I watched the movie, and was engrossed, but really didn't know what exactly was going on. I could follow each scene, but an understanding of the story, the connections between the scenes, just wasn't gelling. Normally, when offered an experience such as this, I feel frustrated or bored or detached from the characters and their plight. Yet, somehow, the exact opposite was happening as I watched this film. My heart was breaking, over and over. My investment in some sort of positive outcome only seemed to increase as my ideas about what that might mean dropped away one after the other.

I was left stunned, in awe and wonderment as the credits rolled.

Then, in the hours after the movie ended it was as if a dust storm had calmed and all of the pieces began to settle on the ground beneath me where I could look more closely at them and see patterns emerge in their arrangement on the ground. Suddenly a wave of ideas washed over me. Life and death merged. Chasing immortality became a fear of life. Love became a denial of that which he already have. Death creates life. One life is many lives. Dis-ease is the path to ease. And in these and so many more paradoxes a much greater, more inclusive truth was illuminated. In the recognition of the ultimate interdependence of relative reality the need to define by opposites became a beautiful tapestry which allowed all of our pain, suffering, joy and triumph to have meaning within the context of one another.

I gotta watch that shit again.