Disquiet Junto: Insta/gr/ambient


Disquiet Junto Project 0061: Textinstagr/am/bient

This project requires a single die, or the digital equivalent.

Here are the steps in the project:

Step 1: Roll a die six times (or six dice once), add up the combined results, and then subtract five from it. Make note of the resulting number. If you don’t have access to a die, you can use various digital equivalents. This link, for example, will roll six dice simultaneously:


Step 2: Visit this Twitter account:


Step 3: Count the tweets of that account backwards from the most recent tweet at the time of your visit until you reach the tweet that coincides with the resulting number from step 1 above. Make note of this tweet, unless it begins with an @ sign. If the tweet begins with an @ sign, then use the next tweet (continuing down in reverse chronological order). If the next tweet also begins with an @ sign, then continue until coming to a tweet that doesn't begin with an @ sign. This final tweet will serve as the title of the track you will soon begin composing and recording.

Step 4: Now, roll a die twice (or two dice once), add up the combined results, and then subtract one from it. Make note of the resulting number. This link will roll two dice simultaneously:


Step 5: Visit this web page and locate the list of Instagram filters: 


Step 6: Count down the list of filters on that page until you come to the filter that coincides with the resulting number from step 4 above.

Step 7: Close your eyes and imagine a simple photograph that would be described with the tweet that is the title of your track, and that would have been treated with the filter that resulted from the step 6.

Step 8: Now imagine that the image from step 7 is the cover of your next single. Record a track of original ambient music that would be this single. It should be between one and two minutes in length, true to the postcard-like quality of Instagram — and, by extension, Textinstagram. 

. . .

Background: This project is a low-key followup to the Instagr/am/bient compilation that I developed at the end of 2011, and that was in many ways the direct precursor of the Disquiet Junto. Various contributors to Insta/gr/ambient were among the initial participants in the Junto.

Deadline: Monday, March 4, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between one and two minutes in length.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0061-textinstagrambient” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 61st Disquiet Junto project at:


More details on the Disquiet Junto at:


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I forget what numbers I rolled now but I remember the outcome. The text read:
Girl holding something innocuous just to conveniently show off a little too much boob.
And the filter was:
Valencia Effect: True-to-life contrast, with slightly gray and brown overtones

Originally I thought, stuff it, I'm going to record bowing on a cymbal and say it's whatever seems appropriate because that's what I want to do this weekend.

Well, bowing on a cymbal sounded terrible.

So I thought about the directions I'd been given and decided it needed to be a guitar. It was probably for sentimental reasons because I began playing a riff that I've always liked but never used in a song. It's kinda discordant but I've always liked hearing notes rub against each other.

And I got to thinking about the girl I rubbed against when I played the riff in 1990. Now I've got sore fingers from playing the guitar and a musky smell on my mind.