Episode 47 Pass It Back

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. This episode: Fortnite, Midwest, your screen, our email! Some of the plays in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check out the timecodes below.

Join us at our 2020 Virtual Gala on October 15th! Any donation to our Just Giving page or subscription to our Patreon gets you an invite link to the night’s events including an auction, and a Zoom Room roulette of digital performances! We’d love to party with you. 

Also we’re wrapping up Season 1 of Hit Play with our 50th episode on October 24th. We’ll be back towards the end of the year with some special episodes of Hit Play, so stay tuned and stay subscribed!

Take care of yourself, ice-roll your face, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

2:32 [CW: videogame gun sounds] - A singular game of Fortnite reinterpreted as a meditation on existence by Shelton Lindsay

5:25 - small sound moments from the middlewest by Rob Neill

7:48 - Experiments in random voice over part 2 by Michael John Improta

9:46 - Even when we are apart, we are still creating together, a song made by passing around a track and adding to it one by one by Shelton Lindsay, Anthony Sertel Dean, T Thompson, Annie Levin, Lee LeBreton, Joey Rizzolo, Julia Melfi, and Rob Neill

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay

Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Julia Melfi, and Léah Miller

Take care!

Transcript 

Episode 47 Pass It Back

Show Intro

Peppy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 47. Pass It Back. I’m Julia Melfi—a New York Neo-Futurist. While our on-going, ever-changing, late-night show, The Infinite Wrench, is on hold for the foreseeable future, we wanted a place to keep making art for you. And so we made this podcast!  

If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hello! We can’t wait to make a blood pact with you in preparation for the super rare full moon on Halloween. If this is totally new to you—welcome to it!

We make art by four rules: We are who we are, we’re doing what we’re doing, we are where we are, and the time is now. Simply put: we tell stories, and those stories are our own. Everything that you hear is actually happening. So if we tell you we're recording this part while making coffee out of our roommate's aeropress, we are really recording this part while making some coffee from our roommate's aeropress. Like I am right now. 

Squish of aeropress being pushed down. 

Love that sound. 

Some of the plays in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check the timecodes in the show notes.

Two quick things before we get going:

First, you’re invited to our 2020 virtual gala on October 15th! Any donation to our Just-Giving page gets you an invite link to the night’s events including an auction, and a Zoom Room roulette of digital performances! You can go to justgiving.com/campaign/nynfgala2020 to check that out. We’d love to have you. 

AND we’ll be wrapping up Season 1 of Hit Play with our 50th episode, which comes out on October 24th. We created Hit Play the week after we paused our live show back in March, and it’s been a joy staying responsive and making a lot of wacky art for you weirdos. We’ll be back towards the end of the year with some special episodes of Hit Play, but we’re gonna take some time to develop some new art for you, knowing that we won’t be returning to the theater for a good while. So stay tuned! (and stay subscribed!)

Now take it away Mike, run those numbers!

Michael: Hey, I’m Mike, a New York Neo-Futurist. 

In this episode we’re bringing you 4 plays.

The first is by Shelton Lindsay, the second is by Rob Neill, the third one is by me, Michael John Improta, and the last is by Shelton Lindsay and friends.

That brings us to 181 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: A singular game of Fortnite (2:32)

Shelton: A singular game of Fortnite reinterpreted as a meditation on existence. GO!

Meditative drone with singing bowl as underscore

Shelton: Breathe in. Turn on. Game out.

Let the PS4 be flooded with energy.

Feel that energy coursing down the controller cable to your arm, up into your chest into your mind. Using only your index finger hit x, select your account, select Fortnite, select Battle Royale, and now... wait. Life is all about waiting, we are waiting, we are loading, we are coming together, a hundred people from around the globe, loading up to fight till they die in a world of unreal beauty rendered by the unreal engine. 

Shelton inhales

Breathe in

PS,2,3,4.

We await life in a spiritual place without attachment, without objects, we can not carry anything from here into our lives, but our own expectations. You may dance on this temple, a spaceship in the sky while we wait, this place of nonbeing, where you are with people digitally, run to people digitally, express your joy or rage or fear FOR WE ARE BEGINNING…

Music crescendo

Breath out

PS,2,3,4.

Video game background noise

From the bus of destiny we leap, we fall, we fly! Fall towards the earth below you, don’t fear, don’t fret, don’t freak, embrace the trajectory of your life’s passage. 

Down down, the pixels flying by when boom. You are at a farm. No livestock here, no life, but weapons grown to green perfection floating in front of you. Clasp them to your chest, this shotgun and gloat. (Muffled gunshot) At close range you are unstoppable, (Muffled gunshot) as in life you are unstoppable--

Multiple muffled gunshots underneath following line

--When you barrel through your problems with single minded determinism. 

Breath in

PS,2,3,4.

Now take a pick-ax to the farm walls around you and break them down. Break through the limitations around you, burst forth new vistas and avenues, wait. In your hunger for resources, you espy from the corner of your eye, a stranger, the first person seen since you left from the bus. 

Muffled machine gun scuffle and general game noise

Boom, it’s all over, far too soon. 

Groot, has killed you.

Breathe out.

Shelton exhales

Breathe in.

Shelton inhales 

Life will continue. 

Drone fades, singing bowl rings out 

Play 2: small sound moments from the middlewest (5:25)

Rob: small sound moments from the middlewest. GO!

Rob (echoey): One. 

Water lapping

On the lake. One of the deepest in the state. The sun was bouncing off the water. 

Water fades into drone, like a lawn mower

Two. Walking past a place I knew so well then and now it's not… important. 

Drone fades and people chat inaudibly 

Three. This one's new. Newer.

High drone and nighttime bugs and water gurgling. 

Last night. A [inaudible]. And just that little bit of water. It's good. And I wish that you could (but you can't). 

Previous soundscape fades to ticking like a clock or metronome. 

Epilogue. It's night. Still. Again. There is this sonic representation of time. Making me think it's going to be okay. (I think the realization is--) Okay. (I can actually feel my attitudes shifting) where I am now, it's hard to tell where this ends. 

Rob hums quietly and ticking fades

Play 3: Experiments in random voice over part 2 (7:48)

Michael: Hello listener, before we begin this play I’m going to invite you to experiment with me. So, um, let's just pull up a video, any video. You may need a second screen for this. Then I am going to perform what might be a voiceover, while you watch your chosen video. And let’s just see what happens! Experiments in random voice over part 2. GO!

Dramatic clang

Michael: Hello

Can you hear me…?

Blink your right eye if you can…

Good. Good.

Now what you are seeing in front of you is very important. Pay, pay close attention to it. Right there, did you see that? Hold on to that image. It will be your lodestar through the coming week. 

Subtle dramatic underscore fades in

Now listen both with your eyes and your ears.

There are wolves howling just outside of reach

You can almost hear them. I know.

There are wolves and they are howling for you, and you have a choice to make. Look deeper.

You have a choice to make. A choice that has passed, but is coming again. 

This time you can choose differently. 

This time you can choose differently. 

What do you see?

Make the choice. But make it like a wolf's howl. 

Offer your choice to the heavens, and let it echo around you. 

Fading into the wind. Changing the atmosphere.

But Choose…

Underscore fades

Thanks for playing with me! Maybe try this experiment again with a different video! Let us know what fun moments of synchronicity you found. Or didn't. 

Play 4: Even when we are apart, we are still creating (9:46)

Shelton: Even when we are apart, we are still creating together, a song made by passing around a track and adding to it one by one. By Neos Shelton, Anthony, T, Annie, Lee, Joey, Julia, and Rob. GO!

Anthony: Clap. This. Beat. Go. 

Julia (with other Neos clapping): 1. 2. 3. 4. 

Layered song of various beats and sounds, including a vacuum and nonverbal singing and belly drumming and electric bass and rhythmic breath and vocal effects and whisper-scatting. Ends with a crescendo and final vacuum.  

Julia: And the track is over now. 

Show Outro

Chill electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show and tell a friend! If you want to support the New York Neo-Futurists in other ways, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or by joining our Patreon–Patreon.com/NYNF. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like post livestream hangouts. And if this episode gets over 1,000 downloads, we'll order one of our Patreon supporters a pizza on us. We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, ice-roll your face, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Shelton Lindsay, Rob Neill, Michael John Improta, Anthony Sertel Dean, T Thompson, Annie Levin, Lee LeBreton, Joey Rizzolo, and Julia Melfi.

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Léah Miller, and me, Julia Melfi. Take Care!

Music plays out!