Film classics in a few minutes

In this site there are animated film classics with bunnies and duration of 30 sec. There are films from Star War and Casablanca to Titanic and Borat. Kill Bill was the best I found!

http://www.angryalien.com

internet sencorship

an interesting site on internet sencorship with loads of factual information and analysis

http://opennet.net/

Here is a great artist that creates virtual realities into buildings and walls.
enjoy!
http://www.ericgrohemurals.com/projects.html

-Moira

Usefull links...

At least these are working for me:

When you've got group of people who find it hard to decide when can they have a meeting/piknik/get together, try: http://www.doodle.ch/main.html

And when you have a date, but you're not sure if enough people will show up:
http://www.nimenhuuto.com/

Try those if you need to get organized!

-essi t.

ZBrush 3

Get familiar with new digital technologies by creating real versions of the shapes and bodies of (human) creatures. Try out the latest version of a digital art creation software for 30 days: ZBrush 3.


Check gallery

Too human

The robot in the post below gives me the creeps. The legs move way too naturally. They should put some wheels on it or something like that.

Uncanny Valley:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

"Big Dog" robot

I'm not sure if this has been posted already, but anyway.. more robots!

Photos taken before and after death

"This sombre series of portraits taken of people before and after they had died is a challenging and poignant study. The work by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta, who recorded interviews with the subjects in their final days, reveals much about dying - and living. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2008/mar/31/lifebeforedeath?picture=333325401

I cant decide is this terrible or good thing. Its suppose to be goog thing, because we dont see bodies anymore. This was different in old days when people actually see their dead relatives etc. Although, this photos are a little bit distracting.

Well needed criticism for todays games

Here are some funny video reviews of new games. Remember not to take them too seriously. :)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation

i´ll be watching you (or at least eavesdropping)

There are a few places left where safety cameras can´t be seen. Luckily there is a Finnish site of eavesdropping so that everything that happens in Finland will be saved and publiced.

The idea of this site is described like this: You are safe nowhere. Everything you say might come (and will come) out in http://www.salakuunneltua.fi/

Read what you did yesterday.

Nose eyes

You might have checked out Ronckeri's post about "photoshopped pictures of celebrities with their mouths as eyes", and now there's pictures where the noses are eyes, check them out too:
http://www.freakingnews.com/Nose-Eyes-Pictures--1880-0.asp

I think these pictures are as skillfully made, but in a way I think the mouth pictures were better.

Some animation art

These clips are openings from the movies "Ghost in the Shell" and "Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence". Both movies tell about society where most people are artificially improved (if not complete androids) and both of these openings base their aesthetics upon creating an artificial human being. First movie was made 1995 and the second 2004 so this is also a good chance to compare animation techniques and the use of computer graphics in newer and a bit older movies.

Fleshing out the Iron Men - A Brief Glance at the Industrial Culture

Prologue – Tate Modern, London, 26th May 2007 – UBS Opening Weekend

The noise is deafening.

I’m sitting in the ticket queue high up in the corridors of the new Tate, a modern art gallery whipped up from the remains of an old gas factory. In front of me is a 30-foot drop to the loading docks, where outgoing trucks were once filled with canisters containing highly flammable and potentially hazardous vapors. Beneath the railing are black tapestries, set in continous motion by the breeze coming from below. My traveling partner and production associate JM and I examine the expressions of the unsuspecting bypassers, who remain oblivious to the source of the racket, yet painfully aware of its existence.

I notice the curators voice turns electric as certain frequencies of his speech are blotted out by a painstakingly well-tuned digital crackle. No overlapping sound is ever heard, aside from a ferocious hum, which could just as well be coming from a jet turbine. Yet no turbine I’ve ever heard of suffices merely to hum.

Now, it’s as if tens of fingernails screech across a glassy surface, like a group of marauders breaking in an entry to the lower levels of Tate. An alarmed mother escorts her offsprings past us, with the little ones covering their ears with real fear in their eyes. Their guardian is not far behind.

An elderly john addresses the curator. I point him out to JM just as a ferocious, booming sound rises from the depths, shaking the old boy to his bowels. Our joy can hardly be distinguished through the sound barrier as the curator does his finest Stephen Hawking impersonation yet and advises the john to walk the other way. He does so, only turning to give us the most vilifying look he can muster. Our laughter filters out in spurts, sounding weak and shallow. Not really a laugh at all.

On this side of the museum, all those remaining seem to be at odds with the nauseating noise. JM and I are actually waiting for tickets to the show itself.

Nothing like a soundcheck of Throbbing Gristle to brighten your day.

Tate Modern; waiting for TG. You can see me for a split second (00:02) as the camera pans left in the beginning. Look up front and try seeing red.

‘Wreckers of Civilization’ – Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, Tory MP

The logo of the label, Industrial Records, seemingly depicts a chimney at Auschwitz death camp, while the sleeve has glued-on, xeroxed information strips. In reality, however, the chimney is that of Tate Modern, and the release is decidedly anti-commercialist. This is the first-ever released recording of Throbbing Gristle, The Second Annual Report (IR 0002, 1977). A previous report had been filed, yet would be held back from mass consumption for another 25 years.

Throbbing Gristle perform ‘Discipline’ in 1980.

Formed in the late 70’s, Throbbing Gristle was the UK industrial group that single-handedly put the punk in cyber, before there even was such a term in fields of literature or film, let alone music. The piercing-eyed frontman Genesis P-Orridge and fetish photography model Cosey Fanny Tutti had already gained notoriety as 'sex artists' with their performance group COUM Transmissions. Once joined with sound engineers Chris Carter and Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson, COUM morphed into TG, and in the course the next five or so years, churned out three original studio records (The Second Annual Report, D.O.A: Third and Final Report and 20 Jazz Funk Greats), along with numerous 7’ singles such as Zyklon B Zombie and countless live recordings.

Challenging by default, TG flirted openly with Nazi imagery and pornography, poised to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. Musically, they were among the first to introduce the use of pre-recorded samples, which has since become a commonplace technique in live music. Their sound was a collection of distorted, deliberately viliful soundscapes, pushing the analog equipment to its knees, while smeared with Genesis’ provocative lyrics (when not describing real-life murders in depth [Very Friendly], Gen would pose as Her Royal Highness, beseeching Prince Phillip for anal sex [Last Exit]).

TG thrived in the same era and atmosphere as the Royalists' long-standing redheaded stepchild, John Lydon, and his iconic group of punks, The Sex Pistols. While both groups contributed notably into creating a gap between the Baby Boomers and the would-be MTV Generation, the 'Pistols rose to greater public awareness, partly due to their sensationalistic management in the hands of Malcolm McLaren, who for instance made sure God Save the Queen would heard all over London on Her Majesty's jubilee.

Then again, TG was never after the things that destroyed The Sex Pistols. They themselves conceived the group as an attack against the music industry in general. On May 29th 1981, following an American tour wrapping up in a Kezar Pavilion, San Francisco (which Genesis dubbed ‘The Stadium of Dead Souls’), TG folded their tents and ominously proclaimed, “The mission is terminated”.

You know for the life of me I can't remember anymore about the actual music. I can remember closing my eyes during one piece and floating off into the 4th dimension (no drugs here just TG). I can remember jumping up and down because of the intense beat, and I can remember screaming along with the rest of the audience as they yelled back at Genesis during 'Heathen Earth'. The show ended within the usual 60 minutes with a short version of 'Discipline'.

At the end there was no screaming for more. I think the audience was too mesmerised by the last 60 minutes to really do anything. The group stayed on stage and started packing things up. Genesis talked with the audience for a while and I spoke with peter for a few minutes. As I said at the beginning it wasn't your average rock concert, it was more a happening, an event and one I'll remember for a long time to come.

- Review of the last show

Of Human Bondage

Genesis P-Orridge and Alex Fergusson of Alternative TV soon formed a new group called Psychic TV, with Genesis now focusing more on creating a loose group of audio-visual artists than a traditional musical outfit. Genesis would also form Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, an artistic collective studying magic and various philosophies to further his cause. Christopherson of TG fame would soon follow suit, providing his insight to work on the visual elements of TOPY and PTV. He would collaborate on the album soundscapes with one Geff Ruston, later known as Jhonn Balance. Ruston, incidentally, had became acquainted with Genesis at the tender age of 15, while interviewing him for a school paper during the TG era.

Genesis and Christopherson introduce the concept of PTV.

The first PTV albums, Force the Hand of Chance (1982) and Dreams Less Sweet (1983) were decidedly poppier than the TG output, while Genesis would however make it clear that TOPY and PTV were interconnected. Force The Hand Of Chance featured a ‘message’ from the Temple, a spoken-word declaration by Genesis, rising against the ultra-conservative powers that be. This message would later serve as the introduction to a highly controversial TOPY video Thee Ritual ov Psychick Youth.

Genesis P-Orridge sends a message from the TOPY. Video directed by Derek Jarman.

“When the image comes to life it is super 8 film with that Mexican gibberish I had mentioned. The scene is a hotel room, no more establishing shots than that. A kid that looks to be early to middle teens is ambling about in his boxer shorts. He shoots up with the help of a dude that looks exactly like Dr. Francis B. Gross from Faces of Death. The doctor then puts needles under the boy's skin and hooks electrodes to them and begins to shock him. The reaction looks genuine, he convulses and shakes with natural motion. But they also seem to be enjoying the madness. The drugs perhaps, or perhaps not, or some sort of sadistic S+M game is being performed.

The above scenario plays out with little or no edits or cuts. The film jumps and pops like reels were changed. But the worst is yet to come.”

- A deciption of Thee Ritual ov Psychick Youth tape

Thee Ritual ov Psychick Youth would surface in Finland as a title in 1996. It was featured on the list of banned pornographic releases by VET, the Finnish Board of Film Classification. Other notable bans include Tun Fei Mou's Men Behind the Sun (1988), a movie based on the atrocities committed by the Japanese in World War 2 on Russian and Chinese POW's, and Faces of Death (1978), a creaky collage of various recorded death scenes introduced by the cooky aforementioned 'doctor' Francis B. Gröss (as in 'gross'). Perhaps not porn, nor altogether real, but the VET was never too picky on what does get mentioned alongside Peruskoulun pillut (Grade School Cunts) and Raped by a Dog 2.

In 1982, Balance and Christopherson formed an industrial music duo dubbed COIL as a sideproject to keep themselves busy during PTV's various hiatus’. The following year, they decided to make COIL their No.1 priority, taking the noise-elements from the PTV sound with them. The next phases of PTV would see Genesis moving further away from his industrial roots in favor of improvisational pop/jazz and later, acid house, but the industrialism wasn’t quite finished with him yet.

‘It made my bowels churn’ – Clive Barker, novelist

Now focusing solely on COIL, Christopherson retained interest in mechanical instrumentals and heavy sampling. While he and Balance soon decided against recording vocals for the albums, their 1985 cover of Tainted Love, a happy-go-lucky Gloria Jones original now morphed into a haunting love-letter to friends and relations in the gay community, would remain a hit in numerous nightclubs around the AIDS-stricken western world.



Tainted Love by COIL (dir. Peter Christopherson)

With albums like Scatology (1984) and Horse Rotovator (1986), COIL was closely observing the dying echo of TG’s footsteps in the music halls. Christopherson noted that some sounds on the records had been apparently been used by other people to summon demons, whilst he candidly hoped their album might offer similar results. Comments and soundscapes such as those seemed to click with horror novelist Clive Barker, who was at the time adapting his short story The Hellbound Heart into a feature film screenplay. The resulting screenplay featured daemons in S&M apparel that could be summoned by magickal apparatus, The Lament Configuration. Once called, they’d introduce the summoner to the thin line between pain and pleasure, serving as the ultimate masochist’s dream. Hellraiser was born.

COIL would eventually be asked to write the soundtrack. While the screenplay was riddled with hooks (both literate and literal), Barker had in his hands the makings of a truly horrifying little film, which could be released for a profit with both his name and COIL’s slapped on the cover. Unfortunately, soon after principal photography began, the raw material was met with enthusiasm by the American representatives situated in the UK. The budget soon ballooned, while the very nature of Barker’s visceral prose was now compromised, as stateside, it was acceptable to tear people to bits on screen, yet the presentation of S&M sex proved to be too strong for the would-be censors.

Another artistic setback was the lukewarm reception of COIL’s theme music, as it was deemed too intense, and might marginalize Barker’s work to the art house crowds – yet even they might prove to be too squeamish to attend.

Clips from Hellraiser (1987) featuring COIL’s unused theme music.

While ultimately a tad watered-down end result, Hellraiser was a vital shot in the arm for the long-suffering UK horror film tradition. What was soon to follow would bring cyberpunk into cinemas (starring local EastEnders) the same way Barker had attempted to commercialize kinky sex. Hardware (1990) was South African native Richard Stanley’s feature film debut, and it set up a run-down future into The Roundhouse in Camden.

The Roundhouse is a notable art venue, which in its glory days hosted the first gig of the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, while also entertaining other counterculture luminaries such as The Doors and Led Zeppelin. Fittingly, The Roundhouse is often credited for kicking up the UK punk movement on July 4th 1976, when the American three-cord band The Ramones brought the house down in a watershed moment with future members of UK bands The Clash, The Damned - and of course The Sex Pistols - in the audience. Since then, the venue had fallen on hard times, and it was as if the cradle of punk was merely waiting for a child crude enough to nurture. The world-views of the industrial culture soared in this bleak environment, where radioactive parents were ordered for mass sterilizations, those with their own flats locked up to smoke legalized dope and channel-surf.

What was coming from the telly were videos courtesy of the San Francisco-based Mark Pauline’s Survival Research Laboratory (incl. Menacing Machine Mayhem, A Scenic Harvest from the Kingdom of Pain, and A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief). Pauline’s brainchild was founded in 1978, and could be described as the hardwired counterpart of Genesis P-Orridge’s Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth; as the goal was always to bring together various technicians and have them create various cybernetic performance artists from bits and pieces – in other words, makeshift ‘bots acting like trippy artists.

Excerpt of A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief (1988) by Survival Research Laboratories; directed by Jon Reiss

Fittingly, Hardware follows the SRL tradition by having the first droid of the industrial era literally put itself together from various household appliances before attaching it’s own death-head (complete with stars n’ stripes) to the vacuum-cleaner torso. Another interesting sidepoint in Hardware marrying industrialism with punk is the fact that John Lydon's new band, Public Image Ltd., is featured on the soundtrack with the memorable chorus of The Order of Death ('This is what you want, this is what you get') serving as a self-fulfilling prophecy, voiced out (of all people!) by the now industrially-inclined Sex Pistols frontman. While never actually the thinking man’s character piece, Hardware is rather ominous in the way it reflects the change of cultural climate in the UK.

The UK theatrical trailer for Hardware (1990).

No Country for Bold Men

As it turned out, some of the channel-surf footage featured in Hardware was in fact from Thee Ritual ov Psychick Youth, courtesy of aforementioned Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson. Stanley’s film never became the precursor of a new era in the history of British horror. Instead, it managed to cram much of the industrial culture of the past decade or so into one film, while the writing was already on the wall.

On February 15^th 1992, Genesis had travelled to Kathmandu with his wife and two daughters, unware that his Brighton home was being searched by 23 officers of the Obscene Publications Squad, the very same people who’d exchanged blows with the local horror film community in the early 80’s, when rental stores and retailers were raided in search for the so-called ‘video nasties’.

On February 19th, Channel Four would air an episode of their investigative documentary series Dispatches, dubbed Beyond Belief. The episode boasted that it would unveil “new evidence of the existence of Satanism and the satanic abuse of children”, relying heavily on the Psychick Youth material orchestrated by Genesis, and to a (faux) testimony of a witness who’d allegedly committed an abortion to accommodate the wishes of the Temple. Ironically, at this point Gen had severed all ties to the Temple and had personally tried to shut it down.

After the programme was aired, a national helpline phone number appeared on the screen. During the aftermath, 191 calls were made, with almost half of them by current victims or survivors of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA).

- Satan in Suburbia: A Fortean Times article discussing the Satanic cults

- Beyond Reason: An article discussing the Channel 4 documentary

Genesis, however, was one of the many victims of a deliberate witchhunt. Devil-worshipping and child snatching had gradually become hot topics amongst the general public in the UK and US, with (unsubstantiated) true-crime tell-all books such as Michelle Remembers painting dim pictures on a bleak canvas since 1980. While the facts turned out dubious, the eponymous Michelle Smith would later find the love of her life in co-author Lawrence Pazder, who coincidentally was her psychiatrist during the young lady's hour of need.

An FBI report on Satanic Ritual Abuse by supervisory special agent Kenneth V. Lanning (filed ominously on the same year as Genesis’ house was ransacked) brings up a vital point which relates to individual cases as well as the stance taken by some media outlets at large.

“When, however, therapists and other professionals begin to conduct training, publish articles, and communicate through the media, the consequences become greater, and therefore the level of proof must be greater. The amount of corroboration necessary to act upon allegations of abuse is dependent upon the consequences of such action. We need to be concerned about the distribution and publication of unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre sexual abuse.

Information needs to be disseminated to encourage communication and research about the phenomena. The risks, however, of intervenor and victim "contagion" and public hysteria are potential negative aspects of such dissemination. Because of the highly emotional and religious nature of this topic, there is a greater possibility that the spreading of information will result in a kind of self- fulfilling prophecy.”

- A 1992 FBI report on Satanic Ritual Abuse

While Genesis left the UK in self-imposed exile [to San Francisco, where Throbbing Gristle had been laid to rest over a decade earlier] on the threat of losing the custody of his daughters, his and Christopherson’s work on ‘bizarre sexual abuse’ would live on in various stateside incarnations. Regardless, it could be said that Genesis' scandalous branding was nothing but the last nail in the coffin of the movement began in the late 70’s.

Nailbiter

Industrial music, honed to brutal perfection on one end by Throbbing Gristle, had since been taken over by groups such as Killing Joke, Ministry and KMFDM. A distinct watershed moment was when Ministry, which had started out as a guitarless band, opened their album The Land of Rape and Honey (1988) to the grinding electric guitar riff of “Stigmata” – with the cover art naturally featuring a burned corpse from the Buchenwald concentration camp. The track received a certain symbolic layer when it was featured on Richard Stanley’s Hardware. In the scene, a sculptress customizes a scrap metal droid head into a centerpiece of her latest installation. Complete with star n' stripes, remember?

Droid head decorated to the beat of Ministry (while video footage of GWAR can be seen in the telly, preceded by a glimpse of Thee Ritual ov Psychick Youth)

Trent Reznor had released his debut album Pretty Hate Machine (1989) under the moniker Nine Inch Nails to a commercial and critical success, but felt the record label was shoehorning him into an increasing uncomfortable, radio-friendly mold. Therefore Reznor went into hiding, and ultimately came back with the EP Broken (1992), a decidedly heavier entry, which was almost completely absolved of the cheesy 80’s synth sounds that riddle Pretty Hate Machine.

With the release of Broken, Reznor would soon be liberated from his recording agreement. He celebrated his newly-found freedom by creating a controversial music video for the single track “Happiness in Slavery”. Reznor had discovered SRL’s A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief, and hired its director Jon Reiss to helm a promo video, which features the S&M performance artist Bob Flanagan strapped in an autonomious killing machine and subjected to what can be described as “bizarre sexual abuse”. While Flanagan had self-inflicted a notable amount of damage to his body (including a nail through his penis), his demise in the video is achieved by clever editing and special effects.

Throughout the video, it is implied that Flanagan’s character atleast partially enjoys the treatment to which he’s subjected to. The ritualistic preparations and ecstatic response strongly echo those very bits and pieces of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser which were left on the cutting room floor.

(right) Bob Flanagan in “Happiness in Slavery” promo video (dir. Jon Reiss).

But Reznor wasn’t done yet. He’d completed a minute-long video for Broken’s opening track, the instrumental “Pinion” and a more typical live performance video for the Grammy-winning “Wish”. He then wanted to thematically connect all the videos, so that they could be watched back to back. Little before, he’d been introduced to one Peter Christopherson of COIL, who came up with the idea of shooting the fourth, adjoining video for the track “Gave Up”.

“The theme involved, elements of ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer‘ - where your point of view is that of a hand held camera of the abductors. You‘re riding about L.A. and you see this kid on the street. Next thing. you know, that kid is tied up in a garage somewhere. Inside the garage is a TV, and on that TV you‘ll see the beginning of one of our videos, it zooms into the video and at the end it zooms out and whatever was happening in the video starts getting done to the kid. This eventually leads to the last thing - ‘Gave Up’ - which is the most extreme thing I‘ve ever seen in my whole life.”

- Trent Reznor

Apart from Henry (1986), Christopherson’s take reminded of films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Snuff (1976) and Last House on Dead End Street (1977), all of which utilized a cinéma vérité form to provide a drop of realism and were linked to real-life atrocities by either publicity-seeking filmmakers or concerned citizens. Of course, there was also the shadow of Thee Ritual ov Psychick Youth hanging over his head.

Nine Inch Nails: The Broken Movie (dir. Peter Christopherson, Jon Reiss et al)

The end result, known as The Broken Movie (1992), has received little coverage ever since its completion. While Jon Reiss’ “Happiness in Slavery” video has been released as a part of NIN’s Closure DVD, the full movie still lingers in obscurity.

Jon Reiss would ultimately direct a more traditional video for “Gave Up”, which would feature a familiar face on guitar - without the ever-present future makeup. Brian Warner hadn’t yet adopted his stage persona, despite hanging out in Reznor’s newly-found studio at 10050 Cielo Drive, where filmmaker Roman Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered in 1969 by the cohorts of one Charles Manson.

Trans-Men

In the years following the crusade against Genesis, many of the shakers and movers during the golden years of the UK’s industrial culture had left the country behind in favor of American environment and financiers. Both Clive Barker and Richard Stanley had their sophomore feature films (Nightbreed [1990] and Dust Devil [1992], respectively) re-cut to a depressing degree, while their Hollywood careers would abruptly halt with compromised productions failing to attract notable box-office success (Lord of Illusions [1995] and The Island of Dr. Moreau [1996], respectively).

The others didn’t fare much better.

07 AM, April 11th, 1995.

Houdini Mansion, Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.

Genesis P-Orridge had been invited to the home of famed producer Rick Rubin by post-punk art rockers Love and Rockets, who were currently under contract with Rubin’s record label, working on the would-be album Sweet F.A. (1996) in his home studio. Someone had lit candles in the studio to set the mood - only to completely kill it. What resulted was an early morning fire in the compound, which – among other things - burned PTV’s sample library, which Genesis had brought with him.

Once the fire was noted, it was already too late. Genesis found himself in the second floor, with his companions already evacuated. He began crawling out to imagined safety through the only accessible route he could find – a second-story window. With the flames already nipping his heels, Genesis escaped a rather unpleasant end by falling onto a row of concrete stairs. The fall broke his wrist, some ribs and shattered his left elbow.

The Houdini Mansion is a well-known dormatory of Hollywood ghost stories; the fall of Genesis nearly became one of them.

The immediate consequences included Genesis spending 10 days at the Cedars-Sinai Memorial Hospital and all parties readying their legal teams for a long and tiring court case. Lady Jane Bryer, a former nurse and by then a PTV associate, came to the divorced Gen’s aid as he recorded the vocals for the groups album Trip/Reset (1995), essentially bedridden.

Meanwhile, the fields of industrial music was once again changing. Little over a year before, Trent Reznor had released The Downward Spiral (1994), a concept album about the beauty of suicide. Reznor’s protege Brian Warner gave up to the ghost and was already gearing up for his own breakthrough as Marilyn Manson, with the upcoming album carrying his new title, Antichrist Superstar (1996). Both albums would drastically shape the general perception of industrial music, and would make Reznor and Manson the poster boys of the genre in the closing hours of the 20^th century.

At the same time, there was doubt over whether Genesis P-Orridge could ever again play a guitar. Last of the Old Country industrial engineers had fallen to the pavement, and there were no more heroes of yesteryear to look up to.

To new height

Early 2004, Genesis P-Orridge unveiled a new lineup of Psychic TV as PTV3, featuring, among others, his spouse Lady Jaye Bryer P-Orridge. Genesis also announced the Breaking Sex project he’d undertaken with Lady Jaye. The purpose of the project was to create a pandrogynic individual; one mind in two bodies, thus perfecting the hermaphroditic state. Musically, Gen’s immediate goal was to record and release a new album under the PTV3 moniker.

On May 16th, the wreckers of civilization shared the stage for the first time in 23 years in London Astoria. Throbbing Gristle had ended their long silent era and, judging by the looks gathered by Gen’s cleavage, hadn’t lost their ability to shock those taking certain matters too seriously. More importantly, the music had remained fresh, as Peter Christopherson and Chris Carter had replaced their analog decks with iMacs, while Genesis' banshee howl still shook the crowds to the core.

By the end of the year, Christopherson’s former living partner and the other half COIL, Jhonn Balance, died after falling from the second floor of his house in an accident eerily reminding that of Genesis. Following Balance’s death, Christopherson announced that COIL as an entity “has ceased to exist”.

Throbbing Gristle, however, would soldier on.

L: Detail from “Sex”, Chapman bros. 2003. R: Psychic TV’s Force the Hand of Chance (1982).

TG's following show in Camber Sands in December was curated by the Chapman brothers, a duo of apiring artists, who’d carved a niche of themselves in bringing industrialism-influenced artworks into UK galleries, not balking in front of subject such as sex, death, genocide or machinery devised solely for torture.

PTV3's album Hell is Invisible... Heaven is Her/E (2006) was a competently executed and well-flowing rock album, with lyrics describing Genesis rediscovering his place in the world. The band would go on a European tour in late 2007, which would be canceled abruptly on the eve of the Helsinki show in Tavastia on October 1st. A week later, Lady Jaye Bryer P-Orridge would pass away in the couple's New York home.

Robots returned to the cinemas with the release of Michael Bay's blockbuster Transformers (2006). Capitalizing on the box-office appeal of Bay's entry, Richard Stanley is now developing Hardware 2: Ground Zero, a sequel/remake to Hardware. The trend of remaking classic horror films, such as the Bay-produced remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, has resulted in Clive Barker developing the remake of Hellraiser.

TG have released their first new, full-fledged studio album in 25 years, dubbed Part Two: The Endless Not.

The culture once young and unpredictable has now reached a stage of prestige and nostalgia.

Epilogue – Tate Modern, London, 26th May 2007 – UBS Opening Weekend

Walking back to the subway station from Tate Modern, I remain silent. Convinced that I’ve never experienced as many hallucinations in such a contained timeframe without the use of psychedelic drugs, I refrain from telling JM that towards the end of the show I was convinced I saw the Devil himself, trying to contact me from beyond time, beyond matter.

The last image of Derek Jarman’s last short film is a medium shot of a man leaning on the balcony railing, smoking. The image lasts almost 30 seconds. The minute it appears, I feel... inspired. For a moment, I believe I am the receiving of some sort of encoded information which is launched through the unison of image and sound, only to be lodged deep into my cranium.

The show ends, but I do not wake up.

Unlike Genesis P-Orridge and Jhonn Balance, the man remained on the edge.


Some missions are never terminated.

Information overload!

a database of all things "beyond" everyday reality. Really interesting/confusing...
Especially check out the "random"-button on top left corner!

http://deoxy.org/

Just ice

NU KARAOKE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzCR2MbrU

Interesting article about cyborgs etc.

Visit this page to read about cyborgs from the scientific point of view in Finnish (sorry). Highly interesting!!! Recommended! http://www.uta.fi/~mt63532/docs/kyborgi.html

Ad

Something very nice.

http://www.peliculasponder.com/2004/content/directors/gi_01.htm

Freedom of speech in internet.

Couple of intresting sites
http://maddox.xmission.com/
http://www.saunalahti.fi/parazite/index.shtml

Virtual games in education

http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/arkisto.shtml/arkistot/kotimaa/2008/03/621833

Photoshop plastic surgery

Own photoshop (skills) -Be beautiful!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wCg5iFHBmRc

Pretty cool. Even though I wonder if it's done backwards..

And one more human robot

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RuxFJcG9SEo&feature=related

This one is also pretty amazing. The robot is actually communicating with her maker.

Amazing human robot from Japan

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9whQWw41Hio

Isn't it amazing? Robots are getting very realistic. I'm wondering how long does it take to make them actually work as salesmen/women, guides, guards etc.

Scary babies!

What a sweet little baby! Her name is Mimosa. But there is something rather special about her. Find it out here.

Stuff

Wonderfully shot and edited amateur clips. Pay special attention to the effects.
Batman vs. Alien vs. Predator
Lighsaber fight

and then the greatest ad ever
holiday fun

enjoy, Sari

Titanic as it should be. And R. Kelly

Why spend tons of money and make a crappy movie that is way too long? This says it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LtYk7wsFnk

And if you have tons of time to spend, check out the urban opera or "hip-hopera" of R. Kelly parts 1-22. And there is more to come! Yeah! Here are the first parts:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eUVLNghzLtI

And MadTV version of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7putw2A4FiI

Haha to you all.

mikko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LBnd068pDM

...cool digital effects also included

Japanese tetris

We´ve all propably seen this but it´s still great. Videogames are best when taken to real life.

Advertising space

With modern technology marketing people can find more advertising space - in space. In this interesting video clip we can see how Pepsi takes over the Moon. It's only an animation but it doesn't mean it couldn't happen. The Moon has great potential when it comes to advertising. Even though it's not full all the time. But hey, you can't see billboards all the time either. Very often there's a tree or some other obstacle blocking the view. And the Moon reaches more people than the billboards - obviously.

BBC news story on digital filmmaking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7284266.stm

philosophy from terminator

Would this be the point where A.I and cyborgs should be classified with same rights as humans?

Clip is from Terminator spin-off series. Ballet dancing girl is a terminator who apparently is developing some humane attributes.

Robotic lifeform

"According to Ugobe, each Pleo will "learn" from its experiences and environment through a sophisticated artificial intelligence and develop an individual personality." Read more here.

MoreRubic's cube solving, this time by an independently 'thinking' robot

even more impressive than the one made out of Lego blocks in my oppinion...

Here's a free little physics game. Quote from the site:

Phun is free for non-commercial use. This means you can download it, copy it etc, just don't make money using it (don't sell it or use it for promotional puposes, but it's ok for you to use it at work while your boss isn't looking).




Download it here! -> http://www.acc.umu.se/~emilk/downloads.html

(Don't forget to check out the "help.txt" file in the Phun -folder)

Bunch of more or less controversial videos of so called future weapons.
Too bad they left out the grat, newly adopted US railgun program. Be sure to
watch the video no. 8 ("dread"-system) and it's utterly informative content.

Evolução Galinácea. O famoso viral da Dove, evolution, ainda está inspirando muita gente. A última paródia foi para a Foster Farms, chamada de "transformation", o vídeo mostra a evolução de uma galinha toda desfacelada, num galo perfeito.

Are you hungry?

Would you like to have spaghetti or rice?

"Mindgames"

Next year we might already be playing games that allow you to control some things simply USING your BRAINS.
I think the guy on the vid said that the sdk for this device is already put out for the developers.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/22/gdc08-brain-control-emotiv-headset-round-two/

product homepage:
http://www.emotiv.com/

theo jansen and the magic of kinetic sculpting

no need for high tech-robots or virtual fooling around:
theo jansen has done it all, in a kinetic way!
if you haven't seen this yet, check it out.
(might be familiar from the BMW commercial.)

lyhyesti:
mies rakentaa futuristisia low-tech-rakennelmia
jotka toimivat tuulella.



website about him :

http://www.strandbeest.com/index.html



animaris rhinoceros in youtube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2KkGFuRLew&feature=related

the facebook anthem

sing along in the chorus! "i'm getting bored of facebook..."

Photoshop skills

Found a fascinating site with photoshopped pictures of celebrities with their mouths as eyes. it sounded rather dull to begin with, but they are actually remarkably well made. have a look here.

Regarding hackers

Found this video while browsing the web this evening, and thought it's quite interesting. It's basically a Fox news-clip about a hacker group called the anonymous, that has stolen myspace accounts and similar pranks "for teh lulz", which means for the fun of it.

i'm not entirely sure, but i reckon this has something to do with the flood of passwords a few months back, when several thousands of myspace, irc-galleria and e-mail passwords were released on the internet, and people were advised to change them as soon as possible.

as a sidenote, an acquaintance of one of my friends works on f-secure, and he has stated unofficially, that facebook WILL be soonish used to steal peoples personal information and possibly identities aswell. consider yourselves warned...

Whatever happened to Bugs Bunny?

New kind of game experience almost for free!

Hello folks

Do you know what is TrackIr? If not, check it out. Kinda fun to have a free look around when playing. Especially if you like simulator games or 1st person shooters. TrackIr is quite expensive, so here's something for you: A link to freelook.org, which tells you how to make it almost without any cost. All you need is webcam and little led light. Have fun! (I did this and it works fine...)

Here is a video showing that something similar can be done with Wii.

Modern man

Surveillancesaver

SurveillanceSaver is an OS X screensaver by Michael Zoellner that shows live images/video of over 400 network surveillance cameras worldwide. It's currently in its alpha state but pretty awesome as it is.. Zoellner also has some other projects listed on his site, f.ex. a "mixed reality chainsaw" ? Could be worth checking out.

SurveillanceSaver for OS X:

http://i.document.m05.de/?page_id=438

A Windows version has recently been ported, too:

http://i.document.m05.de/?p=459

Todays digital culture links!

Hello you fellow readers and writers!

I have couple of links for you.

Firstly, some cool Finnish anti-ads and secondly some wicked hacker stuff. Household hacker is a block site where our friendly neighbourhood hacker teaches us how to "hack" different kind of stuff. 

Random comic strip

(in case it's impossible to read clearly, clicking on the image will direct you to a more visible picture)

i recall there being some discussion about this agenda last week, so i thought it might be worth posting this comic strip onto the blog for all to see. it's taken from the userfriendly webcomic, which revolvs around actual topics in virtuality, and news concerning it.

Gadget built of Lego Technics solves the Rubic's cube

Just like the topic says, a gadget build of Lego Technic blocks and wires solves the Rubic's cube, which i doubt too many of our group can do even without a programmed gadget ;)

Anyone got Zune?

It's all about the image really…

Movie I would like to see...(where's the pac-man when you need it?)

Everyone's posting some youtube or other shitty "what I do in the internet"-links here, so I do the same. Ain't that the idea of blogging, right?

Those were the times...

WARM EARS!

Here are some interesting podcasts to keep your ears warm during this cold winter.

Science:
Skeptics Guide to the Universe
The Naked Scientists

Games (Theory and gaming):
1UP Podcasts
Gamasutra

Comics:
Golden Age of Comic Books
Comic Geek Speak (excellent collection of interviews)

Movies:
Mondo Movie!

And just for fun (warning, some are K-18):
Archive Penn Jillets radio shows
Old Time Radio!
Zombie Astronaut! Audio sci-fi & suspence
Fetish Flame
Great Sex Games podcasts

Why I prefer not to use Macs

Okies, this rant isn't obviously made in a serious fashion, but i found it worth a laugh or two, especially when, in my personal experience, Macs are weird like that.

I have nothing against Macs, i just prefer a pc (oh, don't even think about crying about how bugged pc's are...I know they're flawed. I just happen to be used to using them)

Some links and stuff

Since we're supposed to post something here at some point I thought I'd share some of the places I like to visit regularly.. I also highly recommend subscribing to rss feeds whenever you find some interesting blog or whatever place you like! Helps to keep you up-to-date and know exactly when new stuff has been posted. (I personally use a firefox add-on called Sage, if you don't even know what an rss feed is, start here)

Them links:

Gaming related
Kotaku, 4 color rebellion, Destructoid, The Escapist, British Gaming Blog, Gametrailers.com, GoNintendo

Random inspiration, images, design stuff
swissmiss, FFFOUND!, Dark Roasted Blend, It's Knuttz, Piclens, a firefox add-on for image browsing through flickr, google images etc

Miscellaneous & interesting
mental floss, Boing Boing, 10 Zen Monkeys, The Presurfer, Damn Interesting, Digg, Didn't You Hear..., Random Good Stuff, Neatorama, Anarchaia, Slashdot

Webcomics!
Bob the angry flower, Dresden Codak, Joe Hates Crappy Movies, Multiplex, Questionable Content, The Perry Bible Fellowship, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, The Unfeasible Adventures of Beaver & Steve, VG Cats, Penny Arcade, White Ninja Comics, Orneryboy, Sinfest, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Grumps, Captain Excelsior

It's needless to say that if you'll add all those sites to an rss feed reader and start browsing through them (+ a bunch of webcomics) every day, it'll probably show as a steep decrease in work efficiency. But who cares? It's fun. Being addicted to the Internets is super fun.

SoundNetwork

If you are interested in digital and electronic sound and music check out SoundNetwork. Opportunities for presenting work, and festival listings etc

http://soundnetwork.omweb.org

Futuresonic Festival

Check out the Futuresonic Festival coming up in Manchester, UK. Over Vappu weekend, so you've got time to hop on the plane.....;-)

http://www.futuresonic.com

Suvi Lindén - Eroa!

http://www.adressit.com/suvi_linden

Latest very topical discussion on net censorship in Finland.