[art]by[odo]

Multitasking, one of the hottest buzz words of the decade. It’s the high bar for modern man. If you’re not multitasking, you’re in the dark ages, get up to speed.

Wireless and high speed connections have transformed communication. We’ve gone from mail by horseback, to telegraphs, to telephones, to televisions, to instant personal communicators in our pockets. It’s awesome, dude. It is. I’m not being sarcastic.

There’s just one hitch. All this information/communication/processing power is not what our brains have evolved to accommodate. Human consciousness is capable of one, and only one, train of thought at a time. Jumping from task to task and person to person is not multitasking. Every time you switch gears, there’s an adjustment to be made. You need to regroup to change your thought stream. Study after study has conclusively demonstrated that ricocheting from this project, to that person; from email to texting; from trying to listen, to read and to talk all at one time is inefficient. Multitasking impedes one’s ability to concentrate, it reduces the quality of work, and the big kicker, it increases the amount of time it takes to do any of the tasks at hand. Why? Simple. Each time you try to pick up where you left off requires a little backtrack to return to that frame of mind. If you’re bouncing around like a ping-pong ball, you never fully focus on any assignment. Without full attention, you make mistakes, overlook details, and frequently let glaring errors slip by, the kind you later look at, slap your forehead, and wonder how such a flagrant mistake went unnoticed.

There is no such thing as multitasking. There is only multi-distracted. When multi-distracted we are sorely unproductive. It’s stressful. It’s a time waster. And it doesn’t allow us to dig into any subject or endeavor with any degree of concentration or intensity.

If you think you’re a great multitasker who gets tons of stuff done, you are deluded. You’re so distracted with your busy-busy buzzing that you can’t see how superficial and inadequate your performance actually is. Take a break. Slow down. Get one something done. You’ll likely feel better, more relaxed and less frazzled. Later you’ll have more time to spend talking with friends, having fun, and developing some real social skills. A techno-wiz shouldn’t end up being a social numbnuts.

Now if you’re wondering what this has to do with art or audio, here’s the connection.

Most speaker systems use passive crossovers that divide audible frequencies into separate bandwidths for the tweeter, midrange, and woofer. But they require only one (two channel) amplifier to drive all three speaker ranges at the same time, in other words, the amp has to multi-multi-multitask. The Parallel Audio Project divides the frequencies before amplification to give each bandwidth to a single amplifier for driving each tweeter, midrange, and woofer. Dividing the work load makes it easier for each amp. The result : lower distortion, cleaner sound.

As an artist I have several clearly distinct bodies of work. Each one starts from a different view point, each with a different theme, each with a different style. Although there are common threads that bridge the bodies, those bridges are subtle. Curators like artists with a single, easily recognizable style. Instead of throwing everything into one pot, I divide the ideas I want to express into separate well defined bodies of work. Each takes on its own purpose, personality, and reason for being.

See for yourself in the galleries : [i dialoghi], [image of the gods], [myth of face], or visit [Parallel Audio] to learn more.

Friction : resistance. It slows things down, heats things up, causes abrasions and blisters, reduces or restricts action. But I’m not talking about the physical sort of friction. I’m talking mental friction. The type that blocks us from doing or getting what we want. It comes in many forms. Let’s take a look.

Make a phone call. A lovely calm female voice answers. She, the automated phone answering system, starts to go through an interminable list of options. None of the choices are quite right, so you ponder, then make a selection. She comes back with another list of several choices none of which are what you need, but you take another stab. Then she starts talking again and if you were lucky enough to get to where you want, you hear this, “Due to heavy call volume, your wait time is. . .” You know, it’s not due to heavy call volume, it’s due to insufficient customer service reps. At this point the friction starts making a lot of heat. You realize the company you called has no respect for your time or your satisfaction. Had they tested their own automated phone tree, they’d have realized, it sucks. They’d have found that a real person answering from the start would help their customers quickly and efficiently.

Go to a store. Take your items to the check out. Your order is rung, you present your credit or debit card. The cashier says, “$20 minimum on cards.” If you’re familiar with VISA/Mastercard merchant agreements, you’d know that in the agreement the merchant signed with their bank for processing card payments it states that they must accept credit/debit cards the same as cash. That means no discrimination between cash or credit or debit—no discount for cash, no fee for credit, no minimum purchase—in other words, no friction. A card must be treated the same as cash, and except for the processing fee, and the convenience, and the safety, and the security, and the time savings that card processing offers the merchant and the customer, it is. The next time someone presents you with resistance to using your card, ask them if they want your business or not. (Unfortunately, these rules have been changed. Gas stations are allowed to charge a different price, and some merchants are allow to set a minimum charge amount. So much for “same as cash.”)

Vinyl is friction. When a diamond stylus is dropped on a spinning disc there’d be no sound without friction. That friction is doom for the record and for the sound quality. The only way to reduce the friction is listen to CDs or other digital sources.

Vacuum tubes throw off copious amounts of heat—wasted energy. They require more effort, attention and maintenance—friction. And they produce more distortion, harmonic, intermodulation and resonance—more friction. They cost more, deliver less—more friction.

Have you ever participated in a survey or a questionnaire? Part way through it you start to think, “How long is this going to take?” That’s friction and another example of not testing something before making it public. A little consideration goes far for gaining the cooperation of others.

Am I guilty? How easy is it to acquire one of my artworks? How easy is it to audition the Project? Let me know how I can reduce the friction for you. All it takes is an email. [Contact me]

Anything that reduces the nonessential, the number of steps, the speed humps, time bumps and hoop jumps, reduces friction. People keep cooler. Live happier. Spend more. Come again.

Businesses that test and analyze their procedures to find the hitches, redundancies, inconveniences, and annoyances, then take steps to reduce the friction can do wonders for themselves and their customers.