About
Hello! My name is Alan Bland. Thank you for visiting my site!
I am an artist, musician, computer scientist and technology geek. I like to create things: photos, art, music, video, code. I sometimes mix them together, for example, writing code to create algorithmic music, or layering a bunch of photos into a piece of digital art to use as cover art for a piece of music.
My current creative passions: eclectic electronic music, nature photography, conceptual photo art.
Photography and Photo Art
My portfolio of visual art explores a variety of topics including music, science, nature and technology. Much of my work tends toward the whimsical.
I create my visual art using digital cameras, a scanner, image editing software, 3D modeling software, fractal software, a drawing tablet with digital painting software, occasional licensed content from other artists, AI image generation, and my sometimes crazy imagination. I blend it all together using various image manipulation programs to bring my imaginary scenes to life.
My photography has appeared in AWAKE Photography magazine (January 2019, April 2019, December 2020) and Artists Down Under magazine (March 2019).
My photo art has appeared in Living the Photo Artistic Life magazine (December 2015, July 2016, May 2017).
Electronic Music
The music I make is eclectic and sometimes hard to classify. I’m still exploring the style of music I like to make and the techniques used to make it, so it’s pretty much all over the map right now.
Some of my inspirations include Philip Glass, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin. Most of my recent explorations use modular and semi-modular synthesizers. I’ve been experimenting with recording video along with my music.
I record music under the artist name Alien Brunch. The best place to find my music is at my Alien Brunch website, or my Youtube channel. I also occasionally post music at Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Instagram.
I create music primarily using physical synthesizers, including a modular synthesizer that’s growing out of control as those things tend to do, some guitar pedals, a field recorder, and some hardware MIDI keyboards and audio modules dating from the 1980’s to the 2020’s. Sometimes I even use real musical instruments like trumpet, guitar, and toy instruments. I also use various audio programs and coding environments on my computer, including Ableton Live, Max for Live, VCV Rack, SuperCollider, and a variety of software synthesizers and effects. And of course, my smartphone gets involved sometimes too!
Sometimes I play the Disquiet Junto game, a weekly prompt where musicians compose music in response to a creative assignment with a tight deadline. I have also contributed to the Naviar Haiku project, where musicians compose music inspired by haiku poetry.
Video
I’ve started doing a little more with video. Most of my recently shared music are videos posted to my Youtube channel. Some of my videos are essentially documentary, showing me performing music. Others are artistic, generally with sci-fi, nature or abstract themes, where I feature my music with a video composed from my photography or photo art or video recordings.
Journal
I occasionally post to my creative journal at Blandcanyon. I post short articles about some of my current projects, including the occasional behind-the-scenes description of how I create my visual and audio work.
Website Technology
I currently use Eleventy for websites. Eleventy is a Static Site Generator that creates static HTML pages. No code runs on the server, which eliminates the security and performance problems of dynamically generated websites.
Sharing / Terms of Use
Except where noted, my photos and photo art are copyrighted!
Please respect my copyright and ask for permission before using any of my photos or art.
If you appear in one of my photos, you are automatically granted permission to use it for your own personal use (social media, self promotion, etc.). No additional permission or attribution is necessary!
To encourage creative music remixes, I sometimes release my music under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA license, which allows you to share it and remix it into your own musical creation, as long as you attribute me and do not use it commercially. Please check the terms of use on each track on Soundcloud to be sure before using it, as I may use more restrictive licenses for some music.
Ways to Support Me
If you enjoy my creative works, you can support me in several ways:
🎵 Like or comment when you see my work posted on social media
🎵 Buy my art prints and other merchandise at my Pixels / Fine Art America shop
🎵 Buy my music at Bandcamp
🎵 Contact me to ask about buying any of my art you don’t see for sale anywhere
Thank you!