KICKSTARTER: support The Tide (Limbo-inspired short film)
Limbo, a true monochrome monogatari of perfection in the indie game industry (and a game that we also score as 10/10 and consider it one of the greatest releases in 2011) is now something of an inspiring jewel for The Samsquanch Team who set out to release a short film very much in its vein. Although the original $3000 budget is already met, check out their Kickstarter page and donate a few bucks until Nov 26 - I'm definitely sold for their project. (via Riplakoidase)
razor coated candies: number 10, a november edition
Razor Coated Candies was a video collection of weird little jewels you can make strange friends with back in the days when I was working for the video startup Dragontape. This is the tenth and most possibly the last-but-one etape of the series, leaving the last 3-hours long one being an endless chain of the best tracks I've found this year (their recent changes in the editor makes it near impossible to do a proper crossfade without volume glitches and that's just one of the numerous frustrating mixmaking problems). Still, expect a kick-ass mix mid-December and have fun listening to this melancholic throatstab.
Always,
The Damage
1. CELLDWELLER - Own Little World (Klayton's We Will Never Die mix)
2. SKRILLEX - First of the Year (Equinox)
3. PHAELEH - Afterglow (feat. Soundmouse)
4. ICONA POP - Manners
5. WOLF GANG - The King and All of His Men
6. THE HELLFREAKS - Boogie Man
7. ZOLA JESUS - Vessel
8. COLLIDE - Mind Games
9. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE - Shake it Out
10. THE OPIATES - Anatomy of a Plastic Girl
11. ANGELSPIT - Channel Hell
12. THE GOOD NATURED - Skeleton
13. EMMON - Rock d'Amour
14. THE CREEPSHOW - The Garden
15. THE GOOD NATURED - Your Body is a Machine
16. NIKI & THE DOVE - Mother Protect (Swedish House Mafia bootleg feat. Afrojack)
17. ESKMO - Cloudlight
corning's future of glass
Yet another concept video revoking the almost pornographic love for glass or glass simile touchscreens and most of this tech has been out there in the Microsoft Future vision videos. Reminds me of the same stuff that gives me headaches during finishing up the last few dozen pages of the book I'm working on: we've seen this so many times it's already a cliché and those three compulsory paragraphs of The Enthusiastic Blogger's simply not coming out. Not enthusiastic about that kind of glossy wanking. Not saying I wouldn't be the first one to get subdermal circuitry implanted to get online inside my own brain without cables but that is so much flashy consumer technology that I'm only interested whether it can be hacked, gotten off the surveillance grid and used for porn. (corning.com)
NEW LOOT: the SVK comic (by ellis, d'israeli & berg)
SVK reinvented comics, nice first sentence, quite dramatic, though. Take a step back, reiterate.
SVK is a healthy transfusion of Cherenkov light and battery acid blood into the heart of the comics industry turned a tad uncogged and shambling. Warren Ellis, misanthropic PCP godhead of the hard-edge counterculture, Matt D'Israeli Brooker (with art and inkery dipped into Judge Dredd, Future Shocks, Sandman or Kill Your Boyfriend) and London-based design agency BERG stands behind this shoulder-mounted package of sheer ROCK and a whole lot of Easter Eggs, turned into something of a cheeky prodigal bastard child.
Ellis calls SVK a Kafkaesque Bourne Identity and he has truth, revealing emerging issues of data clouds, information leakage, surveillance and active lens technology through an object called SVK (quite similar to the prototype in Gibson's Virtual Light) and the eyes and actions of Thomas Woodwind, an Ellisesque protagonist of a troubled professional background, a blood-spangled mercenary mindset and a hacker sidekick to make a contemporary spy story look straight enough.
The greatness? The issues breathing down on your neck and those same cards played out in the narrative to get the creative cells going. The idea of multiple layers of narrative -reading the comic is one thing, then reading it again with the SVK (strategic vigilance key) object - a branded one-shot blacklight - will reveal extra facets of visual and contextual elements to combine back into the big picture. The foreword praise by William Gibson. The extra know-how ramblings by Jamais Cascio and Paul Gravett. The hilariously brilliant ads from breeding pygmy elephants to DNA-altering trousers, 4D printers and cerebellum plugins that will teach you Japanese in just 30 years? This is just like reading your first mind- and brain-altering comics under the blanket with a flashlight. Only this is the futurepast and only blacklights will do.
Get your copy of SVK and its designated weird little reader card before it's too late.
the transfinite
cannot unlove the glitch of ryoji ikeda gone completely satori this time, now it's a bit too much fucked up about the bratislava trip, still hoping to get there, muchly (more at the park avenue armory about the transfinite installation, his datamatics lastfm event is here)
11/11/11: what will you bring us? (nitronic rush, skyrim, haujobb - new world march)
Just reading on TIGSource that 11/11/11 will not only bring us SKYRIM, the latest fantasy sandbox extravaganza in the Elder Scrolls series (scroll below for a wonderful teaser about their sound/orchestral background work) but also a wonderful piece of neon threesome including Tron Legacy, Rez and the Wipeout series and what was born out of the cherenkov fucklock was nothing less than Nitronic Rush, an amazing piece of high-style-all-action racing game that'll be released as freeware by the Digipen guys - more info at nitronic-rush.com (or their Facebook page) and yes, the trailer music is a part of the game soundtrack.
Musicwise: more bitchslapping treats. This time last month Angelspit's released their new album Hello My Name Is, featuring some kick-ass renegade industrial, pretty much unlike their previous stuff: more guitars, more punk, more raw, less decency! (Their Soundcloud is full of new stuff to check out.) If that ain't right, tune in this month, same eleventh: sample Haujobb's New World March and all their schizoid-technoid pumping IDM beats will scorch the planet through Tympanik, one of the most promising record labels this year.
NEW FIND: darkdriveclinic - the silhouettes
The brainchild of record producer mastermind John Fryer (worked with basically everyone from Depeche Mode through NIN, Ulver, HIM, Cradle of Filth, Nitzer Ebb, Cocteau Twins to Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills, Rabia Sorda and of course there's his own band This Mortal Coil) and Rebecca Coseboom (from Stripmall Architecture), DarkDriveClinic is a reach back to the nineties' sounding power-punch female-fronted industrial rock with touches of Jakalope, Lucia Cifarelli, Kidneythieves or even a bit of Garbage and it's as dirty, mean, mature and powerful as you expect it. Debut album Noise In My Head is coming down on you hard (released last week) and the Fryer-Coseboom axis is already signed to Metropolis. Clean and sharp stuff. Go get that. And while you're at it, check out Rebecca's other band Stripmall Architecture - their videos will give you a clean first start and a few re-listens on the way to getting their stuff from Bandcamp.
retaliate and devastate (angerfist)
Demons of the hardcore underworld are back with their new album Retaliate this year. Funny how the hardcore scene makes use of all the god complex syndromes and hierarchy from empresses and moguls to archdemons, rulers and whatnot. And the Snow - Informer sample at the very end? Promising stuff, coming from the 9th hardergeneration blog.
LINKBOX: 2011 October 18, from Tron: Legacy to a polished Zombie Boy
End of the Line, in association with Distillery Productions and Toby Summerskill, have filmed the first 3D Graffiti Time-lapse. Created to document the production of a painted promo for Disney’s Tron: Legacy this is the final 2D edit. This groundbreaking project was filmed in December 2010 and January 2011, in a warehouse in Shoreditch with the exterior shots taken from the rooftops of East London. (more @ vimeo)
These pieces are all courtesy of Daryl Mandryk, a freelance concept artist who has worked with EA on games like Need for Speed, Def Jam and SSX, and more recently on the Turok and Tron franchises. In between all that, Mandryk has also done work for clients like Lucasfilm, Dark Horse Comics and Hasbro. (via kotaku)
Nackashi's story takes place "in the dismal future, [where] we'll all be affixed to our respective wires and screens, dreaming about being virtually with the one that you love." The story initially caught my attention but it was the visuals that really got me excited. I particularly love Nackashi's mix of old-school and new-school tech and the mix of the two is pretty much where I expect we'll begin when we start re-building after some terrible disaster. It reminded me a bit of William Gibson's vision of the future which makes me wonder what the heck is going on with Neuromancer... (via our friends at the amazing quietearth.us)
The iconic Zombie Boy (Rick Genest) has his face tattoos erased off with make-up, as part of his photoshoot for fashion magazine Schon!... (via bizarremag)
IN ANOTHER NEWS: Why Gaming's Most Famous Transgender Character Remains a Controversial Topic | How Japanese Cosplay is Moving Closer to Porn | There is a new Shadowrun game in the maker | Biting Elbows - The Stampede, a 3-min long track in the vein of Mirror's Edge | Source Code adapted as CBS TV show
NEW FIND: the good natured - skeleton
From a land bordered by Bat for Lashes, Metric and Adrian Lux comes UK electropop trio The Good Natured. Skeleton is first-hear-first-love upbeat electro pop (you'll find their stuff either self-released or on Parlophone, even found one track on a Kitsuné compilation) and the most recent same-titled three-track single is a loop-repeat-loop invoker. Perfect, gorgeous, ten out of ten. Here's what lovely Sarah sez about the track:
‘Skeleton’ was written in my bedroom and in Stockholm, Sweden. It was produced out there too. ‘Skeleton’ is about emotional vulnerability. When you’re in a relationship, you can become really vulnerable. ‘Skeleton’ explores the emotion of feeling stripped down to the bone, like somebody knows you so well that everything is laid bare and you have nothing to hide anymore, they know you in both a physical and emotional sense, which can be a frightening prospect. I explored these emotions whilst playing them against more sexual feelings you have in a relationship. The extreme lust and desire you feel for somebody often overpowers you, no matter how vulnerable you feel towards them.” (via hardcandymusic)
magnetic man feat. katy b - perfect stranger
Kept me through the past twelve hours or so on continuous repeat. Makes me feel a bit more like moving to London instead of Berlin. Notice the utter seriousness of Benga! The whole Maida Vale axis got me hooked, good work, Radio 1. (Great collab with Emeli Sandé as well.)
angelspit - channel hell (fan video comp finalist)
this is a marketing ploy. this is the new black. it's a publicity stunt. relax. kick back.
wang zi won's mechanical nirvana
Dumbfounded with awe, bliss and auspice at Wang Zi Won's work of boddhisattvas and buddhas molded from sterility and the holy precision of clockworks. Pure amazement and delight. (ultraz1.com, via the amazing mind-opener blog romokon)
we are 138
"You just need your surroundings and you can evolve"- Mark Ong aka SBTG, takes viewers through his creative process and roots growing up in the perceived restrictions of Singapore. Finding inspiration in the simplest of forms, SBTG creates the "138" shoe collaboration with FICE Boutique in Salt Lake City, Utah and explains how the Misfits inspiration guided the collaboration. On the surface the film purposes to expose the cerebral world of SBTG and an emerging sub-culture in Singapore, but the film becomes deeply personal as SBTG reveals how his experiences have affected his work and current mindset. (more on vimeo)
revolights: a step closer to tron lightcycles
Dawe_ sent this link over a couple of hours ago, making a point on how to make the still unnamed black-white-red bike into something more of a Tron lightcycle. And a point it is with all the fwd/bwd illumination and the apparent coolness of it all (yeah, that being the first thing ripped off of it during a Budapest nightride break but that wouldn't really be otherwise in edge cities, would it). Things is, Revolights still needs support to get their act running and there's a Kickstarter where you can donate, which is something I'm going to do. Because I seriously need one. So support the project on their Kickstarter page until Sep27 - those pledging 200$ or more will get their pre-ordered set of the finalized Revolights! (via technabob)
grayagent - ode 2011 ver2 nsfw
A compilation of video shorts and content work during my 2011 West Coast thru South tour from Seattle thru San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, and Tampa Bay. Pardon the differences in color and contrast as these scenes were not originally intended to be one video. (via vimeo)
planetdamage's tuesday linkbox (from nuclear cars to steampunk lofts)
Too much on my mind right now. These are but a few you sent in, special thanks to Dawe_, Ripla and Armitage Corto for the recommendations.
This is a NYC loft apartment for sale in Chelsea that's going for $1,750,000 BUT ALREADY COMES PRE STEAMPUNK DECORATED. Because that's a big selling point. Also: secret passageways and hidden rooms. I'm watching you undress through the eyes of a painting! (via geekologie)
Scientists say that just eight grams of thorium could be enough to power a vehicle for somewhere around 300,000 miles of driving. If this all sounds a little far-fetched, it may pay to remember that thorium is already on automakers' radar. Cadillac introduced the thorium-powered World Thorium Fuel Concept at the 2009 Chicago Auto Show. (via autoblog.com)
To celebrate the launch of upcoming fantasy game Dragon Age: Origins, EA Games held Wardens' Quest, a 24 hour gaming marathon at London's County Hall. The event saw teams from around the world competing for a $50,000 prize pot. The focus of the gamers was tested as they were joined by six medieval beauties, check out the behind the scenes movie here.
In the upcoming faux documentary Ghosts With Shit Jobs, the West has been in a state of financial ruin for decades, and the indigenous North Americas (or "ghosts") are outsourced labor for China and India. What forms of employment are available? Among several careers, living spambot, robot baby technician, and silk collector. (via io9)
Portal: No Escape (Portal fanfilm by Dan Trachtenberg)
A woman wakes up in a room with no memory of who she is or how she got there... This is a short set in the world of the Portal video games created by Valve Software. Recommended viewing in HD in FULLSCREEN with sound UP...
Escape from City 17 part 2
The sequel for 2009 Half-Life 2 fanfilm Escape from City 17 is nothing short of awesome. Showing off a dozen ways the story could develop into (and the inclusion of Julia Tourianski brings us a lot of drama and future tension, a great plot choice), this is a great reel to boost Kickstarter projects and investor pitches and the like. This is a MUST.
A story about the connection that grows between two people during the battle for city 17. Made in the same gritty guerrilla style as the original, it was made on a $250 budget, previously owned/donated software, time, and an HVX200 camera. (...) Escape From City 17 Part One was created as a long form spec commercial for Ian and David's commercial demo reel. They completed the second short in their spare time and want to thank everyone that enjoyed the first.
Danny Macaskill's factory trials riding video
Industrial Revolutions is the amazing new film from street trials riding star Danny Macaskill. Filmed and edited for Channel 4 's documentary Concrete Circus.
Industrial Revolutions sees Danny take his incredible bike skills into an industrial train yard and some derelict buildings.' Filmed in the beautiful Scottish countryside Danny Macaskill's latest film was directed by Stu Thomson (Cut Media/MTBcut) for Channel 4's documentary Concrete Circus.
Music is 'The Wolves' by Ben Howard courtesy of Universal Island Records.
UCF: Abstract Messiah, the trailer
Laszlo Kovacs and his crew of cyberpunk die-hards is still on the case. Following up on his 2006 movie UCF: Toronto Cybercide (reviewed that in the London issue of The Dose mag, last page if you're looking) here's a new one entitled UCF: Abstract Messiah. Life hasn't changed a bit so I'm still expecting the package to turn up in my mailbox (although the Hungarian postal service has a 50-50% chance of either delivering your stuff or making it disappear beyond a shabby-stinky veil of bad bureaucracy and an untraceable in-land logistics route), until that, do check out the project's trailer, Facebook page and hey, here's some more.
