Digital Culture –| 2008

The “sophisticated and lethal special operations program” that Bob Woodward alluded to in his recent 60 Minutes interview:

“This is very sensitive and very top secret, but there are secret operational capabilities that have been developed by the military to locate, target and kill leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders. That is one of the true breakthroughs,” Woodward told Pelley.

“But what are we talking about here? It’s some kind of surveillance? Some kind of targeted way of taking out just the people that you’re looking for?” Pelley asked.

“I’d love to go through the details, but I’m not going to,” Woodward replied…. “If you were an al-Qaida leader … and you knew about what they were able to do, you’d get your ass outta town.”

Feathers from Marcus Schappi on Vimeo.

Sensor Experiment 2 – Flashier Menu from Marcus Schappi on Vimeo.

Sensor Experiment 1 from Marcus Schappi on Vimeo.

Cheers,

~ Marcus

This week I was going to review Snow Crash but ended up devoted all my time fixing the Sci-Fi essay. Thanks, Dan, for the initial input. Instead, I might as well ask you guys to proofread my draft Sci-Fi Essay, provided that:

• PETRA DOES NOT READ THE DRAFT VERSION (Do NOT download the fiction if you’re Petra!)
• NO-ONE SPOILED IT FOR PETRA

I’m glad that my post followed the heavy New World Order stuff since I was toying with the idea of Absolute Control over a human being – I think my idea was pretty extreme but if you guys thought of any more absolute way to dominate population, please let me know.

Also, if possible, you can download and read my direct influence as well – a 40 pages comic, read right to left. If I have to describe it in a single word, it would be “mindf*ck”.

DOWNLOAD PETE’S COMIC INFLUENCE HERE – Thus Spoken Kishibe Rohan (~20Mb in ZIP)

DOWNLOAD PETE’S SCI-FI DRAFT ESSAY HERE – Made In Heaven (127Kb in DOC)

Ah, pardon the English. I’ll get around to find someone to proofread it for me soon.

Till Next Time.

The New World Order is Here!

Rockefeller Reveals 9/11 FRAUD to Aaron Russo:

Do you have Facebook?

Google’s MASTER PLAN!

Rockefeller Interview & Real ID/RFID Conspiracy:

Check it out here http://www.sendspace.com/file/yk3bxg! ROBOT MONKEY BRAIN.

Welcome to the first edition of The Cultist. Occasionally, my post has nothing to do with Eastern Culture so, well, I can’t really put this under The Otaku Way. Here in The Cultist, I’ll be talking about stuff that happened in class. And nothing’s bigger than stuff that’s being shown last week – Brazil.

Brazil is a 1985 dystopian black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. The film got its name from the namesake theme song “Aquarela do Brasil”. An almost satiric take on the dystrophic totalitarian government found in George Orwell’s 1984. It has been known that Orwell wrote 1984 to be about the year 1948, and such Brazil has been jokingly referred to as 1984 for the year 1984. It is a gloomy story and unusual protagonists with an extremely unforgiving ending. Not seeing the last fifteen seconds in the director’s cut and you might as well not bother with the film.

Hey, Just like Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, but without bikini-clad girls

Boy meets girl, a story template number two out of two, according to the story writing textbook. I personally do not think that this film is about the story at all but it gives us an opportunity to follow the protagonist, Sam Lawry, while he explores this dystopia world. Each place that Sam has visited reminisces of our world albeit push to the very extreme, and not on the happy-go-lucky side either. Sam’s apartment is full of machines and gadgets that is cold and always out of order, a running joke that gradually get worse up to the point of inhospitable towards the end of the film. The restaurant, a reminiscence of French surrealist film, features large, colourful air ducts and unexpectedly serves slop of food – each dish so indistinguishable from each other you need a tag on the plate to know what the hell you’re eating. There is the fire-breathing house-making industrial plant that contains workers who wear radioactive protective gear playing volleyball, for example.

A Voice Mail

Everything is at an utmost extreme but Gillian is able to keep the film’s balance. While the fantastic explosive setting is very much in your face, it is contrasted by the dull, mind-numbing Ministry buildings in which it is still very much in your face, but muted.

Dessert is served!

Lawry is a very un-likable hero. Unless you are a paranoid wuss and your greatest desire is to become the finest stalker and making life-changing decisions base on the contents of your dreams, you cannot sympathise with Lawry. Being a paranoid jerk can be cool, and we see it all the time in other fictions, but Lawry can make himself as repulsive as the world he lived in. I am still banking on the thought that everything from the middle of the film is only just his imagination since I’m sure there is NO WAY that a girl can fall in love with someone after **SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT** he tracked her down, got her fired from her job, was caught in a terrorist attack AND accuse her of being a terrorist, being a total perv, and get her killed… twice.

The Freedom Fighter Heat Engineer Tuttle is an opposite, altogether. If any film can make a blue-collar job looks cool, up to the point of inspire people to pursuit career in that industry, then this is it. Tuttle is smart, righteous, and full of surprise. In fact, several references of this film in pop culture were actually Tuttle’s reference – an extraordinary feat when consider that he is just a minor character.

The sound uses a large number of counter point. A grim setting or grim situation is countered by cheerful sound and producing even sharper contrast within the scene. For example, **SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT** in the Church scene towards the end, even though it was a funeral, albeit a cheap one, and Lawry is still being hunted down, the whole atmosphere is just comical. Sounds echoed back and forth while happy-but-not-quite-there music is playing. It culminated up to the coffin sequence in which the music transited to a more dramatic theme.

In conclusion, the visual of this movie is top notch. There is no question at why this film attained its cult status since it brought up so many questions in regards to our own government in such a satirical, explosive way.

5/5 stars from me!

Till next time,

Well the title maybe a little misleading, my fault. But honestly, this piece of work freaked me out when I first layed my eyes on it. I thought it’s a interactive piece that you can caliberate your face and the biohead does whatever emotion you do. BUT I was wrong, it’s not what I think it is, the so called Biohead just keeps on talking and babbling about selfish and other random stuff, somehow I find it a little disturbing. Remind me of watching the horror movie series called “Saw”. Those you who have seen it  may already understand what I’m saying, others who don’t, well, watch it at your own risk…..For me, this piece of work didn’t work at all.

One thing that I noticed within the installations was the Heart Library Project by George Khut. It is less creepy than most other installations and I found it quite relaxing. As you holding the two stick sensors they will pick up your heart rate and display it onto the screen on the roof, in an artistic way. This work is suitable for medical purposes, and the usage range is hugly expandable. I will be looking forward to this piece of work. It just makes me feel calm. I think most of you may agree with me on this one if you have experienced it at the show.

The Giver of Names by David Rokeby was a tad dissapointing. Conceptually it was quite interesting, however after interacting with it and trying to figure out the correlation between the objects examined and the resultant poem, I could find no connection. I resorted to using my own object a stiped scarf and got the following poem, may use for an artwork concept of my own for fun, however the poem had no connection to my scarf:

A molecular solid

in the center

can excessively cling to the last child

that is the olive-drab cord.

Until this coloured moment

        opposite the coloured solid,

a mouse-coloured schedule

in the center

will continuously crowd together.

Ok classmates what do you think?

… Yes, very haunting. Apologise for the previous post – I’ve already deleted it! ^_^ For those who haven’t seen it yet, considered yourself lucky. When there’s a force, there’s always a counterforce, and so I’ll stride to craft more jolly posts for a while. We can start from this one. In conclusion, let’s never talk about it again

Right, let’s get back on track, which is my reflection on the exhibition. Seeing the real thing as oppose to the image is exceptionally different! It is my first ever installation art exhibition that I went through. Two works stand out for me so far. One is Rokeby’s Very Nervous System in which, and I’m not alone here I think, I have the most fun “playing”. On my mind, I was trying to solve the puzzle of figuring out how to make a certain sound and essentially taking “control” of the system. It is quite a disturbing feeling after I came back when I asked myself “why did you try to attempt something like that?”

I came to a conclusion that no matter what anyone said, we regard technology as a tool still. As a tool, we want to learn how to use it – to take control. I did not see a single person who waves his hand, got his first sound respond, and thought “Better leave it alone”. They try out what kind of result this foreign system, this foreign tool, can produce.

This is nothing new – Rokeby expected it, Manovich talked about it, and I’m sure both geniuses didn’t come up with that themselves. But, still, it’s quite a revelation to let myself be truly absorbed in the system while knowing full well what the expected behaviour is.

So this is what I took away from this piece of artwork:

Until we see technology as something else other than our tools, to charm people you make a system that can be dominated while to repel then you make a system that they cannot be fully in control. Critical, I think, especially in installation art since it’s all about the relationship between the system and the audience.

I’m looking forward to any example in responds, if you guys have’em…

Next up is Time and motion study by John Tonkin. His work deals with fragments, memories, and more importantly in my opinion, digital traces.

In everyday life, we leave digital traces everywhere. Think about when we log in to check our email, when we visit websites, when we send or receive text messages, when we swipe the door open with our security pass, when we dip that ticket while getting on the bus, and so on and so on.

Unlike your hair or your fingerprints, digital trace can be collect and categorise.

Again comes back to week 1’s argument – how much trace do you left be hind and how much does other people have the right to “look at”

As Dan was saying in the second week, an analogy of a restaurant is a good one. If a man who is suspicion of being a terrorist enters a restaurant – he left a trace and it got picked up. Three days later another terrorist suspect enters the same restaurant. Maybe the food was good but the restaurant “looks like” the terrorist’s hideout.

This is not statistic. This is “montage”.

I’m very interested in what kind of traces we can dig up digitally and the applications of those traces. If anybody has some more examples, I’d love to see them too!

OK, In reply to the ZBrush thing, Russ, I think you are the man I need to ask!

For Wacom, there’s Bamboo, Graphire, Intous, and you are probably be using Cintiq yourself. But for 3D, there’s gotta be the next level up, right? Especially when you’re doing something like this:

and this

Well, in this video tour of Japanese figurine studio, check out around 04:00 minutes. That’s a 3D pen set for 3D modelling!!

What’s it call!?!? Anyone!?

Oh, and Moe Anthropomorphism is still not cool!

hey guys – here’s the snapshot of the remaining six on Saturday at 4pm (just a minute before we hit the town’s best restaurant!)

Two more things:

[1] As briefly mentioned, can you all please put up a post, reflecting on your favourite piece in this exhibition (and possibly also talk about the one that didn’t work for you at all)

and [2] to Pete, can you please remove these horror imgs again – it was lovely of you to share them with us, however since they don’t really extend our discussions and they make me almost feel sick … please! thx

See you! *P*