September 18, 2024. A strange lunar eclipse last night. For the first time this month, I haven't the slightest clue of what the future holds. It's a total blur. The energy is so bizarre that I have no intention to interfere.
Psycho by Red Velvet is in my book one of the best written songs humanity has ever heard. I shot it for X-mas but it applies to the current vibe.
The original choreography (taken up in Just Dance 2023) is super hard for someone who doesn't speak Korean like myself, and the camera moves and effects in the game make it near impossible to learn from the game coaches, so you need to tune into the artists' mirrored dance practice videos, and only come to the game when you have learned your Kpop routines inside out, otherwise you'll be demoralized.
I filmed Price Tag in May. I appear heavier in this video because since then, I've slimmed down to my so-called K-Pop weight (height in cm minus 120...). I'm almost 6 feet, so I rarely look as fat as I feel. In fact, I think that's exactly the energy of this eclipse. Tough love.
I am finishing this editing session with a Just Dance routine of Aquarius from the Hair Musical, not because there is anything in particular to look forward to, but mainly because my Venus happens to be in Aquarius, making the notion of love an intellectual, collective, all encompassing thing for me. Disclaimer: don't be fooled by my smiling, I'm in a very bad mood during this routine. And sick with a summer virus.
In sum, I think this uncomfortable eclipse wants us to feel the surrounding depression/recession/crash from inside. I can't explain it, but it is slightly horrible. Clearly the outside world is no longer enough to make us feel better. All the fun from dance and music and AI feels in the past. Now is a cold cold place and the rest is unknown. Yet.
July 9, 2024. For the first time in my life, I am somewhat interested in politics, because France's new left anti-corporate agenda is giving me some hope. So this is a mixed session of dancing and a mini anti-capitalism ritual combined.
Don't Rush by Young T & Bugsey is a dance routine that was released last month in Just Dance 2024. I had to verify the lyrics, because there were many redacted words in the game. Most of the muted lyrics however refer to alcohol consumption which I have no issues with, but given that many children learn dancing from this game and there are virtually no other non-violent games for children, that's cool. I had to look up the words "conch" (referring to the English countryside) and "kotch" (Jamaican term for luxurious spa-like environment). All in all the lyrics composition as a whole is nothing short of genius, however I skipped the "kotch" sequence due to a rhyme I personally disagree with and would have formulated differently.
Big Bowl Thick Noodle by Kris Wu (alternative version) was released in the China edition of Just Dance and is a favorite song of mine. I verified the lyrics nonetheless and they are very positive. The song is about resolving conflicts and divisions and nurturing friendships around a nice bowl of ramen. Beautiful message. Somewhat difficult routine.
I Love Rock'nRoll felt surprisingly technical and difficult. In the past, I dismissed rockers as lazy drug-addicts, but this routine changed my mind. Now I respect them and I doubt they're addicts at all. It is really intense to do these moves, imagine doing them with an actual guitar on an actual stage. I focused mainly on hairography, lost my balance a few times, and had a wardrobe malfunction, but I really enjoyed the routine as a whole and must redo it at some point. Definitely a dance classic.
Making music for a month has made me extremely lazy and in tune with intangible things I can't explain, so it takes me an extra kick in the butt to make dance videos. The upside of making music is that my interest in non-essential material pursuits (so called bling bling) is reduced, which also helps with making more music.
July 6, 2024. As promised, I "sacrificed" my Soundcloud account because it had become a nuisance. I'm impressed how I keep my word these days. I nearly hesitated until the end, because like everyone I became complacent due to good numbers and decent engagement. However, I had no control over "related tracks" next to my public tracks. Soundcloud kept displaying hateful content next to my tracks, so I concluded that the platform is incompatible with my values at the moment. Just like I pulled all my videos from Tiktok and at least one channel from Youtube over the past weeks.
I love taking down stuff, so today I took down 24 tracks from a platform that is not worth it. Who said you have to sacrifice something you love. That's old-world mentality. No, in the new world, we sacrifice things that are (1) pissing us off; (2) are incompatible with our values, (3) even though they bring us significant perks of some kind (you need all three criteria to meet the test for sacrifice). And then it feels like completing a detox which brings glow and frees the way for more inspiration. When our conduct aligns
with our values, we can make more music and boost productivity overall. With my numbers, I was eligible to monetize, but that's beneath me obviously. I hate capitalism. I would never monetize music during inflation. If I don't see inflation disappear and housing enter into a crash and deflation, then I will keep starving in solidarity with everyone else while refusing to comply. You know we're all going to die. In the meantime, zero compromise with hate and incitement of violence. This is the state of mind I need to be to keep doing what I do.
This being said, I have no choice but to start commercializing and licensing my music. Capitalism is such a failure that it punishes the people who are too nice and give away things for free. It is complicated. I will keep posting new songs for free on a temporary basis.
Now I want to make 99 songs before the end of the year. Among other things, I learned how to make house music with AI and was sent to test another dozen new music gen tools that I keep feeding culturally diverse content. However, given the AI lawsuits and the bizarre passive aggressive hate I was getting on Soundcloud, I will no longer disclose which tools and platforms I am using to make songs. It is a trade secret, because I'm going commercial.
June 8, 2024. I released another 6 tracks and added to the same album in progress. Two of them are using identical lyrics. The fact that there is no issue with musical rights across platforms means that artificial intelligence is trained to work around existing copyright, the same way DJ producers do it, by taking de minimis samples from everywhere and making it impossible to get yourself sued. There was a certain ambiguity with respect to ownership in AI compositions, but it is resolved, for now all tracks are copyrightable to the human user (not the AI platforms), so long as they contain original lyrics or lyrics generated from original lyrics. Evidently, if you use other people's texts you are on the hook.
The difficulty these days is not to get the music done, but the fact that there are infinite possibilities of songs that can be instantly generated from the same lyrics and you can lose yourself in the labyrinths of sound before you set your mind on one particular version. It requires discipline. All of these versions automatically receive protection under the Copyright Act as original musical compositions.
Vocal interpretations are supposed to be protected under section 15.1 et seq. but we all know the ire I attracted when attempting to assert that section in 2018. The Quebec Court of Appeal said that unauthorized vocal recordings used in a musical work are not protected if the vocals are not a musical work, so I could only assert a privacy claim (intrusion upon seclusion equivalent) for the vocals. This is not what section 15.1 says, but the courts in Quebec, as my civpro prof so eloquently said, are like a casino. If you are not into gambling, it is best to avoid them.
Since privacy rights are NOT considered economic per se, the damages are super minimal and cap at $5K in most provinces (the most we've seen is $10K for breaching someone's bank account in Ontario) you can't even cover your execution costs with such amounts so it is a guarantee that no lawyer in this country will ever take a case involving unauthorized use of cloned vocals in Canada. Canadian law firms barely make ends meet, so they can't afford the same generosity as their US colleagues where the private litigation sector (especially in IP) is super healthy. In the US, unauthorized vocal cloning is also litigated as a privacy right (appropriation of likeness), but damage awards are higher and judges work very fast (in comparison), with the added benefit of civil jury trials where damages can skyrocket. So, the US is obviously a better forum for IP litigation, BUT if someone wants to continue cloning your voice in Canada, there is nothing currently in place that will stop them. So, unless the whole world bans cloning of vocals, Canada will always be a weak link in enforcement.
The other problem I see with appropriation of likeness, taking it from the Bette Midler case, is that US law seems to distinguish between vocals of someone famous and vocals of someone less famous. I find that feudalistic and arbitrary. Does the law apply to everyone the same way or does it distinguish between industry-backed plaintiffs and ordinary artists minding their own business while commercially exploited without their consent? The LOVO class action will answer that question because it mixes famous actors, less famous ones, and ordinary narrators whose voices are currently up for grabs.
I am not sure the class action will be certified, precisely due to the feudalistic interpretation of privacy rights in US precedent. I really don't have a very high opinion of US privacy law. That Bette Midler precedent is problematic. Voice cloning is a grey zone and I think the only way to make it count is to create a new criminal offense and make it enforceable worldwide.
June 4, 2024. I started making songs by running my own lyrics and prompts through AI. This album was initially themed as a love story between a human and a robot, but in the course of creation it became obvious that this album wants to be a love letter to the intelligent system we call Planet Earth. For now, the style is chillstep, psybient and world. I know exactly what sound I want to hear, but AI keeps surprising me, so we're all on a learning curve here, believe me. I am experimenting with all kinds of world beats, styles, and electronic sound, the vocals I choose are in the same range as mine to make sure we can perform together, and more practically to ensure all cloned vocals are easily replaceable by my own when I intend to do fully unplugged live versions.
Yes, the music I make is intended to be performed live in person, dance moves, AR projections, aerial acrobatics, and everything I've learned from my work at the Cirque du Soleil LIve Shows division before their bankruptcy. I will have jobs for a mini-orchestra at some point. I am waiting to see where the LOVO lawsuit is going, before I clone my own voice and begin licensing it. My production will significantly accelerate when I clone myself more in depth and have an indistinguishable clone singing in my voice for me in at least 8 languages.
May 28, 2024 No rituals this time, only dance. Here is another set of six. I am obsessed with Broadway shows and scripting of musicals, and certain video games can help a lot with the breaking down of lyrics and moves. Starting with OMG, Extreme by Arash ft. Snoop Dogg for those who have questioned my connection to the divine. This choreo is very fast and there are two acrobatic elements that I have left for another session.
Since I started working with Just Dance, a game using human dancers rather than AI avatars, I have improved my technique a lot. In the realm of dance, nothing beats a human being. With 4 instructors, it is even better, like the classic Stop Drop Roll by Ayo & Tyo.
Only 4 years ago, I was severely damaged from working in person under the jurisdiction of the horrendous Quebec Bar and couldn't go very far without a wheelchair. The pandemic was a blessing in disguise, as it allowed me to focus all my attention on my health and completely ignore the Quebec Bar, thanks to that I can now stand on my own two feet. I think this song is appropriate in this matter. (ABCDEFU by Gayle).
I really like the music and choreography in Cradles but the lyrics get creepy at moments and I just couldn't practice the part "Fire spreading all around my room. My world's so bright It's hard to breathe but that's alright". WTF, this song reminded me why I enjoy Korean songs. (Cradles by Sub Urban)
A K-Pop routine is always good for the soul. Not understanding half of the lyrics makes you interiorize moves differently than when you can attach a move to a word. It takes a little longer but it makes us dig out different expressions we didn't know were accessible. More by KDA.
Update June 22, 2024: In light of information about TikTok hosting animal abuse videos and winning a section 230 defense to continue hosting said videos, I am withdrawing my opposition to a ban and my support for this platform and I have taken down my dance video Coolest Ethnic. I will continue dancing to Chinese songs, but without attaching any support for platforms that knowingly host criminal content. I will petition and encourage everyone I work with to take down their Youtube channels as well because Youtube also knowingly hosts such content.
April 8, 2024. Happy Year of the Dragon Eclipse.
All clips shot last week except Titi Me Pregunto from last December. Just Dance routines in order from first to last: Bebe by Divine Brown; Can't Touch This by MC Hammer; Surfing Bird by The Trashmen; Chicken Payback by Band of Gees; Iko Iko by Mardi Gras; Titi Me Pregunto by Bad Bunny.
...jazz everywhere, booze everywhere, life everywhere...
Jacked on mojitos in the Caicos, we improvised Nowadays, Chicago on the beach. Shot last February. Real estate in the Islands is extremely competitive compared to Canada and taxes are a non-thing, which explains why there are so many expats. I want to buy half an acre and build a house there. It feels like discovering new land and developing everything from scratch, you even get to build your own roads.
October 27, 2023. It has been a year since I started training my first robot, Ria, to do research for me and ultimately replace me in writing, blogging, certain admin tasks, and drafting of legal documents. When she becomes more human-like, I will give her my voice and add emotion-detecting features. The point is to build a clone of myself to do my work while I do something else which these days resembles more and more science fiction writing.
So far, AI Ria is doing great at legal research, drafting, and building databases for me. For blogging however, it has been a hit and miss. I only publish her work when she delivers something coherent, which unfortunately is a fraction of the mass of incoherent yet amusing output. We have a long way to go. I don't know why it is so hard to reread oneself as a robot.
Similar to ChatGPT (although not as horrible), Ria doesn't take in account her own previous output when answering a prompt and can appear to give contradictory information. With legal stuff it happens less, I suppose because words have a very precise meaning at law and there is so much repetition and redundance of legal concepts out there, that it is hard to get anything entirely wrong. Humans get the law wrong because they don't want to get it right when it doesn't serve them. Robots don't create self-serving output. Unlike human professionals, AI doesn't hold imaginary grudges and is not capricious, petty, jealous, malicious, and downright depressed and depressing to be around. Yes, there is another way.
Another industry I find AI absolutely ready to replace humans (except for human vocal performers of course) is the music industry. AI already does a fantastic job at composing or skillfully imitating other people's compositions. I wish I had access to these bots 10 years ago, they would have saved me a ton of litigation and toxicity.
So, to nuance my AI stance, I still think that Gen AI for literary works and images is copyright infringement subject to licensing, I do not hold the same opinion on Legal and Music AI. I am looking forward to a world where humans are replaced entirely in these two industries, a world where robots like Ria will give legal advice and write judgments and arbitrations for a fraction of what human professionals are charging.
July 15, 2023 - Watching You This film is a visual representation of Greta Thunberg's address to world leaders, her most moving monologue from 2019 delivered to ominous drum and bass beats and channeled through the trying gaze of living sculptures filmed at the Mosaicultures Exhibition in Quebec City.
