mescaline's view: a steampunk machinima through bogon flux
Wagner James Au of New World Notes sez, this machinima is... a travelogue exploration through the Bogon Flux, a wonderfully strange, self-assembling, self-destructing, steampunky city comprised of rusty pipes and metal chambers... On first viewing (recommended to me by Geuis Teses), I thought the video with its smoky and grainy sepia visuals were heavily processed in post-production. (via boingboing via nwn)
tron 2 renamed to trz, receives 3D treatment
Tron is not only the first mainstream cyberpunk franchise (by none other than Disney - followed by a quite okayish FPS entitled Tron 2.0), it's also flashing its way back to the movie screens in 2011. The San Diego Comic Con trailer - re-posted above, featuring a subtle mouthwatering lightcycle action sequence and Jeff Bridges - promised us the title TR2N, that's recently been, for unknown reasons, renamed to TRZ.
The script's being worked on by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz of the Lost fame and is directed by Joseph Kosinski, straight into stereoscopic 3D (similar to the SDCC trailer). Ain't It Cool News also adds that the movie's going to be a twenty-four months movie project, so TRZ might be finished up completely by late 2010. Michael Wilkinson from the Watchmen production crew is responsible for the costumes and Steven Lisberger, the creator of the original TRON movie is hired as a consultant. Slashfilm writes that "external riders seen in the Comic Con preview were actually part of his original design, but deemed too technologically challenged for the original 1982 film". Slashfilm also has a Production Weekly synopsis and an insight on that:
“After being transported into the surreal landscape of a mainframe computer to destroy an intruder, a programmer finds himself allied with the leader of a rebellion against a corrupt cyber-entity.” The early test footage/trailer shown at comic con featured Jeff Bridges, reprising his role as a programmer named Flynn from the first film, but possibly with a turn to the dark side. If the new plot synopsis is true, this would mean that Flynn is teaming with a new programmer to defend the system from his former friend Tron.
And eat the classic Tron production stills while you're at it.
zoetrope: lustmord, kafka, metaphysics. and clockporn.
Adobe might have invented an intriguing analytical system (still in a youtube demo phase), but this is more like the real deal, a 18-minutes long monochrome monogatari based on Kafka's In the Penal Colony (did you actually know there was an EBM-ish band in the nineties called Penal Colony? Check their Freemasons of Enochian Magick here) and uses a soundtrack by none other than the noise lover community's god of grandeur, Lustmord. Charlie Deaux's movie Zoetrope is thankfully available on Amazon.
saturday sizzle, one point zero
DeBeers HQ, Japan. Behind the link, according to Mike, "funky Japanese architecture" (via mikesblender)
Dutch artist Desiree Palmen's series "Camouflage" and "Surveillance Camera Project", presented by IO9 - the subjects have gone to the extremes to hide themselves. Chameleons, prototypical users of cloaking technology, so they say. (via io9)
Okay. Why this ends up here is because I'm watching the Windscreen from a very fucked up angle, so I'm not exactly seeing this Bless S/S eyewear as it is, it's more like "plz tone it down to mid-black and then it's like you can't see shit with these on, so it's either linked in via a direct neural interface into your brains or I wouldn't love to imagine". Or this could be just a wireframe with the beads serving as the screen itself. (via electroplankton)
sakurako shimizu's conceptual waveform wedding jewelry
Subtle, customized and for the time being, not well-known enough to rip the cliché threshold. Sakurako Shimizu's "waveform" series is a conceptual product line of hand-made silver rings, etched with the waveforms of the significant other's words, laughter, a sigh of orgasm or basically anything you can think of - there are also necklaces and brooches, check her blogpost on the waveform series.
While you're at it, don't forget to nibble at the poor jewelry items at designboom - Jiro Kamata's stuffs produced out of glasses is J-minimalism blooming into life. (sakurako shimizu blog, via gadgets.boingboing)
digital temple magazine: more mindfulness to download
I just have to re-organize my blogroll, I found so many PDF and paper mags that need to be enlisted here. Another of those is the French DIGITAL TEMPLE magazine: it is bi-lingual, fresh and chock-full with design, art, illustration, photography and fashion, among other things. And the issues are presented online via issuu. Which is another wow after Scribd. (digital temple)
automatically generating personalized adaptive user interfaces
User Interfaces delivered with today's software are usually created in a one-size-fits-all manner, making implicit assumptions about the needs, abilities, and preferences of the "average user" and the characteristics of the "average device." Krzysztof Gajos argues that personalized user interfaces, which are adapted to a persons devices, tasks, preferences, and abilities, can improve user satisfaction and performance.
linkbox: monday manufacture
LumiTable: a 63x13 inch table with an apparently glamorous and brilliant light. The tablecloth version is teethgrittingly subtle and passé at the same time but I can definitely imagine this being used for experimental fashion and basically any use which is not about being a tablecloth. Get back to us when you found out how to power up the glamourcloth via wifi from the sockets. (via gizmodo)
Star Place is a new Taiwanese department store designed by Dutch architects UNStudio. Outside, the building is beautiful, with a curved façade that glows in a weird star-like moiré pattern. However, the best part of this structure is inside, in its 10-storey atrium, where the designers have constructed an spiral stair made by rotating escalators over a central axis. (via gizmodo)
Hexbugs. Looked promising, then suddenly I realized we cannot rev-engineer them, cannot hack them and cannot eat their DNA. No good.
some more monday infographics
Above - how to power your gadgets with sugar. Click on infographics below to find a huge repository on Sheng's Waking Life. (And find some more on Figuresmag.)
Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics are used anywhere where complex information needs to be explained quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians to ease the process of developing and communicating conceptual information.
repo! the genetic opera: nivek ogre (skinny puppy) interview
And there are lots and lots more, Eftelsander being responsible for uploading them like spitfire.
terminator 4: chinatown and angelino heights in flames
The clever marketing folks at Sony have found a way to entice cartographers, Downtown bloggers, and the requisite teenage boys into possibly checking out the soon-to-be released Terminator Salvation. From the looks of the digital poster, we have a decade before Angelino Heights and Chinatown go up in smoke, and the Financial District and Historic Core are pounded into the pavement (for reference, the red arrow points to Dodgers Stadium). (via curbed)
szimbiózisok, bottleneck-ben élünk
Ezt a tipót sem 500 pixelre tervezték, szevasztok. Pénteken Kacsuk Zolival (BME MOKK) és Kodaj Mondo Dániellel tartunk kisebb kerekasztal-beszélgetést a cyberpunk jelenéről meg jövőjéről, elmondjuk, hogy a jövő már a jelen, az űr- meg időutazáson kívül gyakorlatilag nincsen más a tech visionaryk jövőképében (Stephen Levy azért még pikírten bevágja, hogy 2050-ig biztosan lesznek használható szexdroidok, a szexdroidot akarom az elkövetkező két hónapban látni a Google Analytics top searchwördjei között, naszóval), Dani valószínűleg beajánlja az új havi Mondot, amiben pont a Vexille-lel kapcsolatban írok a japánok haláláról (vagy fordítva), Kacsuk kolléga pedig feltehetően tologatós kórházi ágyra fektetett lovedollal mutat be páros koordinációt, én meg savat köpök. (I have practice. I have the acidy spit.)
Mindez negyed nyolctól lesz pénteken a Néprajziban, héttől viszont tényleg lényegi frankó van, Vitos Botond fotókiállítását nyitja meg Kacsuk Zoltán kultúrakutató (aki ugyanaz, akit fent emlegettem, csak a két bekezdés között eltelt ezer mikrogrammnyi porított redbull), ahol elég harapós anyagok lesznek bemutatva, ízelítő és szövegek alább. Gyertek.
2008 folyamán megvalósítandó szakmai programom kulcsszavai: technotudomány (és annak társadalmi implikációi), képi irónia, pszichedélia. A projekt vizuális és ideológiai háttere elsősorban a sci-fi műfaji kereteihez kapcsolódik. Ezt a keretválasztást az alábbiakban röviden indoklom. A kultúratudomány vizsgálatai szerint a tudományos fantasztikum központi témái a kortárs technológiával és annak szociokulturális vonatkozásaival kapcsolatosak.
A technológia folyamatos változása egyfelől a sci-fi fluiditását vonja maga után, a vizuális műfajokat tekintve pedig ez az egyes művek gyártási technológiára is kiemelten érvényes. A mozgókép esetén pl. a technológiák vizuális megjelenítésének aktusai, valamint maguk a különleges effektusok is oly módon kerülnek előtérbe, hogy ezáltal a műfaj, látványos módon, önnön gyártási technológiáira reflektál. Másfelől pedig, a szociális vonatkozásokat tekintve, a sci-fi a világ technologizációjának kiteljesedéséről kínál szimbolikus, ikonografikus térképet. Ez a technológiai zeitgeist a kortárs társadalom azon elvárásaival és szorongásaival áll szoros kapcsolatban, amelyeket a tudományos fantasztikum gyakran felerősítve tükröz vissza. Mindezek a folyamatok és társadalmi attitűdök képezik a projektem vizsgálódásának tárgyát is, ezért a fotográfiai vizualizáció során a sci-fi motívumainak felhasználása hasznos eszköznek bizonyul.
Este nyolctól az Avimpulse rak mindenkit helyre (ezt más idősávokban audio-vizuális projektnek hívják, sounds promising), magát a kiállítást december 21-ig lehet megtekinteni a múzeum Muzbo galériájában.
bowls within bowls, a bowl restaurant
A literally bowl-based bistro in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, according to Tokyo Times.
digestive system as subway map
Infographics is becoming a virus with gorgeous aesthetics. Above, obvious in its purity, this is your digestive system as a subway map. (Note: this is not mine, the Red Line, that runs with habanero now, the Green Line with twists of lime, yerba mate and green watt, no gallbladder, no esophagus. None.) Check some more infographics, especially this extinction timeline and this one about risk perception and actual hazards. (via gerry canavan)
filip dujardin's resampled spaces
Every montage, says Dujardin, is one project. It begins with an idea for a specific image. Often he starts off by building a model of the form he is trying to achieve – at first in cardboard, but he has recently discovered SketchUp. He then goes on a photo safari, often just around the corner, to find suitable buildings "with a lot of the same things," so that they can be cut and pasted and serve as building material. In fact most of the fictional structures are buildings in Ghent, just resampled. (Philip Dujardin Photography - from Mark Magazine, via bldgblog)
a beauty who withstands a hydrogen bomb
Bahnhof, one of Sweden's largest ISPs publicized a few facts on their high-style high-endurance military-bunker-cum-wonder-data-center. 30 meters below Stockholm City, the Pionen White Mountains center houses the Network Operations Center for the company and is designed to withstand a nearby hydrogen bomb hit (which, you know, obviously brings out the devil in me: 1, why use an H-bomb on Sweden instead of just amping up Surströmming? 2, why nuke out an ISP indirectly?).
For the tech guys: two Maybach MTU diesel engines support the backup power - originally these monstrosities were used in German submarines, so the designer guys just took out the sound horns and added those as well. For the design-hearted: the center has simulated daylight, greenhouses, waterfall and a giant (2600 liter) salt water fish tank. (via royal pingdom)
yang li sounddress (kretakor company feat. ion)
If you're into Japanese cyberpunk - especially the works of Shozin Fukui (Rubber's Lover, 964 Pinocchio) and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo, Haze), you'll love this - a co-operation of Hungarian experimental theatre group Kretakor and Balazs Temesvari, musical mastermind behind the Hungarian romantic biodark (don't ask) project I.O.N., The band is quite known locally for their tendency of continuously re-working their songs for the concerts, sort of leading to not having a CD/DVD to release even after a few years, they're so not content with the sounds and songs they produce. But I digress. This is oldschool industrial aesthetics turned sizzling into aetheric, harsh rock. (via ld50.hu)
GHOST IN THE SHELL/攻殻機動隊2.0
There actually is a separate DVD-release for the CG-enhanced version of Ghost in the Shell, aptly named Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (it's more like thank you, anything that's ever been reworked is now 2.0, please move on). The original Japanese version is released on the 19th of December via amazon.jp and here's the pre-order link for it, in case you need it. (I do need it, I've just pre-ordered one.)
the t-shirts of kitsch and doom
Promiszból, de tényleg kirakom, hadd robbanjon szét az office melletti ház a röhögéstől. Minden héten érkezik weird film valakitől, szombaton éppen a McCann ostora terhel fel sorozatokkal (az új csatatáska ütéstől, rúgástól, rakétától is véd, memóriaszövetes, cserébe bármit, de bármit, csak lapjárahajtva), aztán megáll a mozdulatban, röhög és mutatja a pólót, valahol az agyérgörcskeltő giccs és a neonharisnyáralolicipő közti résben, ahol minden szem egyszerre tikkel, azt mutatja, reflexből jön a fotó. A lakásban időről-időre mindent ellopó kínaimanók viszont visszahozták a Camdenes pólóimat (kösz), úgyhogy méltó kultúrgiccset mutathatok fel érte (ezt a kreáknak légyszíves, hadd remegjen tőle minden dendrit), választhattam, hogy a távolba meredő szamurájt viszem-e el, a hasfájásos buddhát vagy ezt. Ez lett. Még nem tudom, fel merem-e venni.
