utah saints - something good '08 remix

The new week drags a revamped classic in its paws! Harrogate cyberpunk/techno rockers Utah Saints rocked the charts with their first self-titled album in 1992, their highest-ranking song being "Something Good", featuring a sample from Kate Bush's Cloudbursting, now the remix is currently #8 on the UK charts. The video is hilarious, tongue-in-cheek and unashamedly harks back to the electro/techno naissance (no spoilers on video ending), there's also a Garbutt/Willis interview on ilikemusic. (via darkenedsector)


suzuki biplane @ tokyo motorcycle show

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Suzuki's Biplane, one of the prototype motorcycles on display, was designed to capture the feelings shared between airplane and motorcycle. (via stars and stripes, thx PinkTsunamii)


yellow drum machine (stuff that girls adore)


fritsl's 120$ self-propelled autonomous drumming robot on letsmakerobots is not only yellow, it has immense attractor written all over it. really. while finding its way to the nearest wide surface or single object it can drum on, it does a serious business of turning its sensors in a very paranoid fashion - by using three drumsticks, a microphone and a loudspeaker, it records patterns of its own (randomly invented) drumplaying he uses as a basis to drum to, though it can also synchronize to music or to your feet tapping. i'm on my way to find someone who jury-rigs one for me. (via wired)


ray park shows off glowing i ching patch (g.i.joe promo)

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Uninitiated in the lore of G.I.Joe? Me too. But that doesn't mean we couldn't  appreciate a ninja in a pyric gear, emblazoned with 既濟. Yes, that's an I Ching hexagram there (63), meaning "after completion" or "already completed".

If you're not into Hellgate or I Ching, don't worry. Meditate on this: that's Ray Park there, better known as The Toad or Darth Maul, posing for the first promo pictures for G.I.Joe as Snake-Eyes. (via io9)


bukkake day

you know
easter monday is really bukkake day
yes
get over it

life according to breslin.


the rez post (k-project, synaesthete)

Tetsuya Mizuguchi's REZ is usually regarded as one of the key points of cyberpunk gamemaking with its fusion of vivid colors, wireframe graphics, use of synaesthesia (or so they say) and the rhythm-based gameplay - not to forget the use of a nineties' techno soundtrack (by Adam Freeland, Tsuyoshi Suzuki's very own Joujouka, Ken Ishii and Coldcut, among others).Lost Levels (and also Kotaku and Siliconera) dug up a classic version of REZ on its original Dreamcast platform where it was called K-Project and youtubed it. Different VMU animations, different sound effects, different boss behaviour patterns and also - different music! Stage One (Earth) features Underworld's Cow Girl and Born Slippy.

Now pretty much defunct DailyRadar had these videos on the alpha versions of K-Project (did you know that previously it was also running on names like Project Eden and Vibes?). If you have never been into the game business or unaware of how games look, feel and play like when they've just been pulled out from the developer's assholes, you might want to take a peek. (Segment 1 above, segment 2 and segment 3 are located here.)

Synaesthete, the brainchild of four DigiPen students has often brought on par with Rez recently and that's no small wonder - this new PC indie game is also a quasi-philosophical and hallucinogenic quest for existence in an abstract environment, synchronized to techno music. You control a creature named a Zaikman, controlling him with your left hand's WASD while following portions of the soundtrack's grooves (low, mid and high beats, they call it) with your right hand's JKL. Your only weapon is your accuracy and reflexes, as the Zaikman automatically shoots when you try to hit a beat, the efficiency depends on how accurately did you follow the beat, it's that easy. Tigsource writes more about the game, check that out.
(I'd opt for slicker graphics, more little details (like the trees that change their shapes to the beat) that would completely transform the game into a classic X-MIX techno movie and music from licensed artists. )

Watch this space for more Rez-related games in the near future.


hoyhoykung: the glory of motorways, teenagers and pit stops

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Thai deviantartist hoyhoykung has a habit of making amazing sci-fi airbrush paintings, mixing retro pop/art with cyber kitsch, giving a brief look-see into the minds of the Thai cyberpunk teen generation: all about megalove, motors, pit stops, runways, vivid colors and by the looks of it, hallucinogenes. Lots of them. (Titles from top to bottom: Wandaburger and peppercola, MIKA megalove, Suki circuit)

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cyberpunk bodypaint girls with guns (g.e.n.)

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Girls Entertainment Network's all-female staff blogs the way they think about games and technology and at the same time what they think would get a few thousand extra male visitors for their site. Their version of celeb boobs takes a new twist: Halo's Cortana and Ghost in the Shell's Motoko Kusanagi cosplayed with bare skin, some body paint and guns. If you jerk off or spend more time watching the galleries, that's fine. Melodie Gore would need to pull off at least a three-combo chain of plastic surgeries to start looking like Motoko, though. (via girlsentertainmentnetwork)


lo rez 天涯, 構いません

hienalunamodding.jpgHello, dolls and datapunks.
I am speaking to you all from the wombs of the Easter chamber with an erection the size of Fuji-san, an annoyingly detailed list of android sex services in Southern Hanoi (those including lube are marked with chili signs), my new iPhone that does not use batteries (it uses saliva or perspiration) and my coder has bought me a "sexy cat suit" as a very attentive addition to my already overcomplicated and troubled life.
As you might already have guessed, I am slightly aggravated and also at my wit's end.
Which is not too far away.
今全部が始まります. - This was 19th of June, 2007. I am also posting this now. This signifies that from now on I will never, ever trip while doing mind parkour, scaling desires, jumping across rooftops, never arrive unbalanced into stances. If you think you understand this, you don't. I also managed to booby-trap this sentence so by the time you have finished reading it, you are infected with at least two different strands of very, very. Heh heh.

I also need all of you to listen.
Because I also have my ears open.
And I'm very impatient.


The Onion: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

Panelists discuss whether controversial decisions by the Robot Congress and President Executron indicate robots have too much control over our lives. (via boingboing)


angelspit blipverts: classic cyberpunk meme reinstated!

Sydney-based cyberpunk duo ANGELSPIT has a new take on blipverts. If blipverts mean anything to you, you probably are old and weary, as they were first introduced to science fiction fans back in 1987 in the series Max Headroom. Max Headroom was the first British (and as far as I know, also world-first) cyberpunk TV series about a reporter named Edison Carter. Carter works for a network called Channel 23 and he gets into trouble while uncovering things his bosses would like to keep in the private. One of these scandals is about the blipvert, a hi-speed visual medium that condenses advertisements into a few seconds, thus effectively killing people with the overload.

In the past 20 years anything in the ad scene that got related to or was called a blipvert was basically a brief advertisement, sometimes laced with subliminal effects. Wikipedia has more to say about that, check out Richi Jennings and the image-based spams with subliminal BUY BUY BUY messages.



As for what Angelspit sez: the cult movie Max Headroom used the term 'Blipvert' to describe a short and intense information-packed video that would make people explode. We are hoping ours will do the same. Angelspit Blipverts are designed to inform and inspire people to get active and be creative!
Only three YouTube videos (How to Write Lyrics, Songwriting, Destroying Bass) are available at the moment - if you dig tongue-in-cheek commentaries and love your mind being expanded (although these videos work much better for a younger audience), you gotta so love this. Max respect for Zoog & DestroyX.


brides of kimiko yoshida

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The Green Tea Bride, 2006

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The Cyber Bride, 2003

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The Mao Bride, 2006

Photos of Kimiko Yoshida, representing herself as a bride in various cultures. Link to Yoshida-san's official but not completely worksafe site (landing page still okay), via pinktentacle.


bonsai gear clock / ボンサイ ギア クロック

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Visioncoax has this amazing piece of clockworkry for 9975円, done from ABS plastic gears, a metal stem and a wooden base. 本物の盆栽をかわいがるように、BONSAI GEARを眺めてみてはいかがですか? (link, via gearfuse)


sanzhi ufo houses

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Came across yusheng's superb flickr set about an abandoned housing complex near Taipei. According to yusheng, this place was built in the 70s as a resort but was later abandoned. I couldn't find any definitive explanation about why exactly it was abandoned, however. There's some talks about failed partnerships and/or real estate bubbles. The original source at notcot also lists another flickr gallery with some interior shots and also speculates that the complex was apparently built in the early 1980s as a series of vacation homes marketed towards affluent Taipei residents seeking to get out of the city. (via notcot, recommended by dH!)


(not so) new headscan track, tomorrow square

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If Syd Mead in the last post was a visual futurist, Toronto's very own Headscan is his musical counterpart. Planetdamage is still a few steps away from starting its own dossiers on cyberpunk musicians (and their related kin) but until we hit it off, here's today's big news: Headscan is out with a new track, Tomorrow Square (full streaming version on MySpace). Impressive, inspiring and immersive, as always, quite on the Haujobb - Clock DVA axis with a twist of neon-lit Chiba on a sad dose of vasopressin. According to what MySpace hints, the new album is TBA 2008. (via razzor)

UPDATE 1: VividFluxury rightly warns all of us that Tomorrow Square has been released two years ago (omfg) on the Re:Connected compilation on Alfa Matrix, which sort of makes me feel uneasy. Arigatou, nevertheless.

UPDATE 2: You can download the full-length track from last.fm.


syd mead: the visual futurist behind blade runner and tron

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Half the tech/design blogs in my blogroll ran this post and I don't really know who to via this for, really. This very flickr set features some 18 pics by "visual futurist" Syd Mead, the guy who did all the design work for Blade Runner and Tron. If this is not enough for you, CGSociety has just had a brief resumé on Mead so check that out as well while you're at it.

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I see the future as a contest between human intelligence being degraded by dogma, and human intelligence being allowed to invent itself to solutions and to its own credit.

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dardenbahst: steampunk lego mecha

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It's a shame I don't cover the new steampunk contraptions but Dardenbahst, this amazing piece of LEGO machinery could make me reconsider. You have a full-on schematic to use your old Technics pieces with - if you're laziness incarnate (or just too young), do try out the free LEGO Digital Designer. You might have a chance. (via bb gadgets)


vexille: uk trailer online, uk theatrical release date set

Fumihiko Sori's new cyberpunk/biotech movie Vexille gets a UK trailer and all you lucky British cunts can watch it from the 9th of May on them huge frigging screens. The UK trailer is really here, the YouTube above is just the Japanese version with English dubs. Here's the synopsis if the title doesn't ring a single bell. (via)

"The year is 2077 - 10 years has passed since Japan had decided to leave the United Nations to go into isolation. They have completely blocked the islands with an ultra magnetic field which prevents anyone to see what is going inside. This was a result to opposing to a treaty which UN has passed, preventing the development of all bio and robot technology which has evolved drastically and has become a threat to the human beings. When Japan finally begins to move, the US government sends in a special force team SWORD, lead by a female commander Vexille, to find out what is really happening inside the country."


mirror's edge: new concept/images from the cyberpunk parkour game

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Hardwired shows off some new (concept) images from DICE's cyberpunk parkour game Mirror's Edge. Gamers at the HW forum have a hard time deciding whether Faith (protagonist) is a well-equipped woman or not but honestly, martial arts and physics-heavy sports are sort of more geared towards this kind of build. (Check my previous post on ME here.)

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(via hardwired)


dj krush: japan's leading sensei of hiphopry spins like a zen spider god, says nothing

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I am sitting in the bowels of A38, one of Budapest's leading venues, the very one situated on the river Danube, the living proof of how near-paramilitary Russian vessels have a posthumous life of their own. I am also locked on to one of the greatest names in contemporary hip-hop, DJ Krush. He has a wonderful habit of not saying anything specific, carefully not going into any details about fellow DJs, up-and-coming artists or technicalities. The one and only name that comes up from the J-hiphop scene is Kentaro and Krush is very firm in stating that Kentaro will never become as strong an export product of the cultural scene as he is. This is probably, casting a glance on download figures and the probability of finding these two names on p2p networks, very true.

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In all honesty - making an interview with a lobotomized and gangraped alien with no tongue and mouth is much-much easier than getting two full sentences out of Krush on what he thinks about the DJ scene nowadays. He obviously thinks that the technical possibilities are endless (yes, I also read digitaldj.jp) and being a DJ takes a whole person so no serious human relationships can go hand in hand with being a DJ (I also know that, seen that, been there). How he himself does what, when and where - remains a mystery. We get to know he has a family, he's got two kids and there's only one person in the world he'd really teach how to DJ - and it's his grandson.

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We spend 45 minutes with him, up close and personal. Almost nothing remains. He's distant, however much you think the years of dealing with Oriental culture can make you understand this kind of mentality more - it doesn't. The party itself is as strange and ambiguous as the meeting itself - you seriously can't enjoy hiphop/lounge in a crowd of 800 people. The secret Shaolin shadow technique of DJ Krush are amazing, 15 points on a scale of ten. I leave after an hour of lingering at the back of the event hall, buying the 3DVD pack and cherishing something I took from Krush with a grin on my face, two interview questions that he thought are real hard to answer, I usually take this as a compliment.

This is something like Zen, leaving empty-handed.

UPD1> O. claims that all the rocking party hardcore shit happened in the second part. Damn that.


doomsday: where eating people is standard procedure


DOOMSDAY
apparently -and unfortunately - evaded my attention for the past few weeks and I really need to have at least two different fingers chopped off for that. Neil Marshall, completely unknown in the cyberpunk/postapoc scene signs this as both director and screenwriter and he's got the tough-ass chick vs epidemic meme spiced up with Mad Max and a hairless villain with a mohawk - very similar to John B himself. (Really.) IO9 has some extra scenes to soothe the thirst until the official debut on the 14th. Anyways, one of the best-looking fetish horde on the screens in the past years.

and mankind finally has an expiration date


Great Britain, 2007. A deadly plague, known as the "Reaper Virus," has broken out, killing hundreds of thousands in its wake. In desperation, the British Government evacuates as many survivors as it can out of the infected area, and then builds a wall, preventing the remainder from escaping. Thirty years later, with the wall still up and the victims all but forgotten, the virus breaks out again. The Government decides to send a crack team of operatives, led by Major Eden Sinclair, into the hot zone to investigate the possibility of a cure.


lego tachikoma and fuchikoma

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Gizmodo Japan has these rockin' pieces of lego machinery for hardcore GITS afficionados - Tachikoma and Fuchikoma. (link sent by PinkTsunamii)


haujobb - we are

wireframe meets neon meets seventies funk craze meets slipstream meets new york meets demotune meets haujobb


amegatana, fula - innovative japanese gamer performance gadgets

yuichiro katsumoto has a new video for two of his pet projects out on youtube - the first being amegatana [sword of rain], the one he'd been presenting at ars electronica, 2007 (see my yt linked at the end of this post) - an umbrella linked to an accelerometer that obviously detects the types of swings that you try to pull off and plays a few sound effects (like thunderclaps and rumblings) if you succeeded in doing so. katsumoto-san describes this "an umbrella for enjoying a blissful walk after a rain", which obviously means that all Japanese with umbrellas have this innate ability of kicking our asses hard without even trying.

fula, he says, "is a muffler for warming the user's body and soul on a cold winter's day", but it's more like a gadget with dramatic effects, blowing a scarf off our backs and keeping it floating while we show off our blissful shadow-swordsman technique. if i'm nonsensical, just tap play and you'll see what I mean.

funny thing is, I did a brief talk-to with him back at second city. turns out he's a huge fan of bushido blade and this really leaves a mark on the whole amegatana thing. secondly, he said that since the Japanese mobile market is starting to get flooded with handsets with built-in accelerometers, he could rewrite the software for mobiles instead of umbrellas adding multiplayer support. which could leave him with a righteous amount of revenue, so all thumbs up for yuichiro katsumoto!