Here is an example of how one work of art can lead to a string of others.
The above is a stop motion video incorporating a cracking silhouette animation that is in turn inspired by a mind blowing song. And in turn that song has it’s own history of inspirations.
rarely, just rarely, does such a trail of creation result in something so downright marvelous.
Enjoy.
Bad Apple!!
Arrange= Masayoshi Minoshima Lyrics= Haruka Vocal= nomico
Outside.
Everywhere I go I am monitored. The cameras on every street corner and shop doorway identify my face, my gait, and even my silhouette. A myriad sensors in the walls and floors track the tags in my shoes, my coat, my arm.
I am free to go where I please, but it is not free for me to do so. Every metre I drive, or pedal, or walk makes me poorer as the owners of the ground beneath me take their dues in taxes and fees. Just occupying space that belongs to someone else incurs an automated charge. And every space is owned by someone. Even window shopping isn’t free.
The government, the police, the supermarket; they all know where I’ve been, where I am, where I will be. They take this information, without permission, as their right, and use it to tax me, to investigate me, to advertise at me.
I don’t go out much.
Inside.
Most household objects collect data on their environment and use. Everything I do is monitored directly, or inferred. What I remove from the fridge, how long I spend in bed, even my health is checked by the toilet and the mirrors.
If I am not working I am losing money. Every song I play I am charged for, each and every time I listen to it. Each time I read an ePage, a micro-payment is billed to me. Every film I watch or info-stream I access is charged per view, per bit. Every game world I escape to costs me by the second to inhabit. And on top of the charges, all the books, songs, films and games are saturated in advertising. I am assured the charges would be much higher if this were not so. Occasionally I see my own work. My hateful job is placing products in novels.
These words I have typed will be monitored and profiled. I may get a visit from my “Neighbourhood Mentor”. He might confiscate my most prized possessions, my original paper copies of “1984” and “Brave New World”. He doesn’t appreciate irony.
Another fine message to those dangerous whackos at the Cult of Scientology.
This electronically modified didgeridoo produces a quite amazing sound that combines the natural sound of the instrument with computer audio synthesis and manipulation.
Play the video and then follow the link below to learn more.
This might not be the finest crafted of gifts, but the concept and thought behind it are wonderful.
It is a gift box that only opens at a certain location. A kind of reverse-geocache.
Read the full story behind it and details of its creation here.
These “reversible destiny” apartments in the Mitaka area of western Tokyo are quite something. They look constructed from some kind of giant futuristic lego. Their interiors are every bit as challanging as their exteriors too, with uneven floors, hidden power sockets, oddly placed doorways and climeable walls.
Take a look at them here. And take a virtual tour here.
I’ts wonderful that something like this is commercially viable. I’m not sure what they will look like in a few decades time, but I bet they’ll still be more appealing than some of the shoebox crap I see around me.
I play a fair bit of Unreal, Battlefield and similar games and must confess to prefering the sniper rifle as a weapon and the tactics of a sniper as a way of playing the games. I do sometimes get called a “camper”, but for me, a carefully prepared and skillfully executed single shot kill from a distance is worth countless kills obtained by frantic bunny hopping and keyboard mashing.
One person I have taken an interest in is Vasily Zaytsev, a real life WWII Soviet sniper who recorded 242 verified kills and who played, along with those he trained, a very important role in the battle for Stalingrad.
Unusually for such “heroes” he survived the war and died at the age of 76 in Kiev in 1991.
A fictionized version of his time in Stalingrad was released as a film “Enemy at the Gates” a few years ago, but perhaps of more interest is a book that Vasily Zaytsev wrote himself, titled “Notes of a Sniper:For us There is no Land Beyond the Volga”, that gives a direct insight into his life. An english translation was publish around the time of the film but is already out of print.
Just for clarity I have no interest in owning or operating real weapons, nor would I ever sign up to any kind of job where I might be expected to use one - but from a gaming point of view the perspective of those who have “played the game” for real is interesting.
For more information search for Vasily Zaitsev or Vasily Zaytsev (spellings seem to differ).
Stories of secret underground bunkers, refuges and even cities have always fascinated me, so it was quite a suprise to find that there is one not too far from me.
100 feet beneath the village of Corsham in Wiltshire, England, is a secret subterranean cold war city called Burlington, which the British Government was to have retreated to in the event of a nuclear war.
Immense and impressive as it was, and still is to some extent, it somehow doesn’t seem adequate.
One of the escalators connecting the city with the surface.
Buzz Aldrin was one of my few childhood heroes, and certainly my favourite of the Apollo astronauts, both for his achievements in the Apllo program and in his life in general.
The video below is something I came across recently, and, whilst the man himself might have mixed emotions at his actions, there is something immensly satisfying about seeing a disrespectful nutter being delt with in such a firm and final fashion - especially by a man of Aldrin’s age. The action is towards the end of the interview.
Doubly satisfying that the judge who sat on the hearing where the the nutter tried to sue Aldrin for the incident threw the case out saying he had it coming.
Have you ever stood alone at the window of a hotel room high up above a city and watched the world go by below?
If you have, watching the video below will recapture something of that experience.
Who are all those people? What are they doing? Where are they going?
In some of the shots you can see the Park Hyatt Hotel, as featured in the film “Lost in Translation”.
Visit the photographer’s, Samuel Cockedey, site here.