FROM THE DAMAGE VAULT: An interview with Jimmy Edgar [NERO Homme #2]
My interview with Jimmy Edgar for fashion/altcult magazine NERO Homme #2 has finally ended up online this week. Further comments aside, go read it now.
REGULAR RECAP ROMP [2015.004]
Weekly news recap from Planet://Damage, a magnet of cyberpunk, glitch, music production and anything else that can look black and neon-tinted at the same time. Enjoy your stay.
This week's "best find" title goes hands down to the Mothmeister duo. Their seriously thwarted taxidermy photos depict a world not unlike the one I'm working on in my novel at the moment and their photos are brilliant, both technically and aesthetically. And they're clearly disturbing, according to a lot of commenters who blame it on their fear of clowns, a phobia I'm unable to relate to, maybe because I wasn't scared of It in the first place? Still, if you're as much in awe as I am (and I hope you are), go check out the post on BoredPanda that began it all, then go and follow Mothmeister on Instagram!
Click on READ MORE for obviously more poor impulse control about music and tech!
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REVIEW: Black Nail Cabaret - Satisfaction EP (2014)
Black Nail Cabaret's singer-and-songwriter Emke has been something of an example to me, of how to stick with one idea and run with it until your feet bleed and then run some more: she's taken the synth noir girl duo Black Nail Cabaret, one of Hungary's best-kept secrets to a great length, I still remember how they started out in an era when our alternative scene had its neon-filled heydays.
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REGULAR RECAP ROMP [2015.002]
Weekly news recap from Planet://Damage, a magnet of cyberpunk, glitch, music production and anything else that can look black and neon-tinted at the same time. Enjoy your stay.
Scarlett Johansson is reported to play Motoko Kusanagi in DreamWorks' live-action reinterpretation of GHOST IN THE SHELL and boy, did that raise an army of haters on the cyberpunk and anime boards. I remember one similar occasion from a few years back, when there were talks of Hayden Christensen playing Case in the Neuromancer movie (which is supposed to be directed by Vincenzo Natali and insiders have been really silent about that one) and the vocal minorify of the interwebs went berzerk ballistic on his ass. Ramifications for that aside, it's interesting to see how anime stereotypes and gender conditioning gets in the way for people to actually be able to imagine how Johansson could very well do the Major. One of last year's best movie experiences for me was clearly UNDER THE SKIN, a film of Kubrickesque dark chemistry with a hearty vat of WTF. If she could pull THAT off, Kusanagi's going to be a relatively easy ride. Check this Variety source with a lot of namedropping.
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this was 2014: dreams in pockets
i have a hyper-velocity religion metric rack
i caught the centre bullet first
and i wonder what i'm going through
It's been a blink of a blind eye, 2014. I've succumbed to the whole fiftyfiftyish conundrum this year: [there's a good side to bad and a bad side to good to equalish amounts, so all is good at the end]. Regardless, this year's been 15% good, 85% bad and the whole conundrum can go fuck itself, bidding it kthxbai with the last days of 2k14. Even wording this makes me feel... strange. My year in London made me realize quite fast that even though in Hungary we are well used to drama blogging, trauma news and catastrophy awareness, that's less the case, stabbing westwards - everyone has someone who's dying and noone puts it in the shopwindow. So I really sat down, shrink theory and all, to count the things that were good (good first!) and bad - yeah, it was still a bad year. Which makes the good points stronger. And makes me want to ditch the half-assed waiting even more and launch the products and projects we've been brainstorming in times of woe, the tracks I was composing at post-3am insomnia bubbles, the blog posts I've never posted, the slam poetry drafts that ended up in the strangest mailboxes on the strangest hilltops. (Yes, I can hear you reaching out and listening.)
Q3-Q4 was something I can easily call a period of the dark night of the soul, with all its occult implications and whatnot but it sounds needlessly dramatic so I opened up my mega folder of EBM, industrial and new beat to find a nineties' release title that fits this year. I really wanted to stick to Skinny Puppy releases (after their Eye Vs Spy tour with Front Line Assembly, Haujobb and Youth Code I can only hope they'll repeat that in Europe in 2015!) but Too Dark Park and Last Rights or even Inquisition sounded way too catastrophe-ridden.. so I stuck with Dreams in Pockets, an EP by Insekt, from 1993. Those dreams might even be hatching, as we speak.
KLING KLANG
Better known as "work". My amazing friend TheLastLaugh Julie is behind this wording: and this is a very vocal thank-you to her that she helped me fight through the very fucking worst weeks of this year. I owe you a lot for that and everything else, Jules ;)
- Wrote a new book, it's non-fiction and it needs some extra insight and addition from others, but it's mostly ready. 2015 Q1 will be about wrapping that up and either finding a publisher or releasing it independently (on Amazon, most probably.. do you guys have any ideas, insight or experience re:self-publishing?). A note to all my friends on this globe and beyond: it's in English! Those of you on Instagram: you might have seen a few thumbnails already!
- My first novel is still in synopsis form - but it's gotten a lot more wicked since I turned my ideas into plot summary words this January. All the trauma experiences I had this year (I have more lives than a feline) gave me a great idea and mindset for the first chapter. Yes, it's going to be a head-on mindfuck, yes it's also related to new technology and it's also related to ancient tech we still haven't figured out how to use decently (and no I'm not talking about organic anal bleach here). Stay tuned for more.
- Had a number of lectures and talks this year: re-visited International Business School Budapest to teach youngsters about social media, PR pitfalls and digital marketing; talked about music profiling at a Virus event hosted by Kati Oltai and properly mindwarped some five hundred devs about the future of mobile tech at HWSW!App - and the list goes on.
- I'm NDA'd about a lot of things I did this year - but they mostly had to do with infographics and scripts. I'll let you guys know more once we get greenlit for one of the projects that we especially liked working on. (We've been expecting that email in December, guess we have to wait some more.)
Photo: HWSW.
Photo: @aorcsik.
MUSIC
Music was probably the best thing that happened to me this year. I stopped writing music in 1997 and that was one of the worst decisions I made that promptly started a domino of many, much more worse decisions. So I just decided that all the time I spent procrastinating with social media, gaming and whatever else could be put to proper use with turning off the internet and going back to mad audio knob-fiddling! Best times ever.
- Bought RENOISE and got a M-Audio Oxygen 49 controller and started jotting down ideas. Renoise is goddamn amazing! When I was making tracks back in the days, I mostly used FastTracker, so getting back to a very similar workflow and arrangement is something that appeals to me a lot. Also, cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy, Download and SubCon uses and endorses Renoise, so what could really go wrong?
- I have a lot of ideas and patterns and half-songs (stored in either Renoise or CAUSTIC, another great music making software, not as complex as Renoise but infinitely fun, especially its modular synth module!) Those on Instagram: a couple of 15-sec blips are posted there and you might notice that I love arps a lot.
- The first track I made this year is entitled GLITCH BABY GO, a complete rework of Syskon from quite a few years back. My musician friends were totally supportive and gave me great feedback - thank you Zoog/Angelspit, Istvan from FA4S, Lhasa Mencur, Emke/Black Nail Cabaret and all you other soundmakers, you know who you are!
- A remix is in the making and another remix for a 2015 release is being talked about. Watch this space for more strangeness!
PERSONAL
Total disaster, a trainwreck. I might happily add, though, that I really have the life expectancy of a whole ballroom of cats. If I have any guardian angels, chances are, they're very, very drunk by this time of year. Not really wanting to add specifics. Move on, everyone. Oh yeah, one more thing to add: this year's SHE PAST AWAY and DEATH IN JUNE gigs were great! Also Björk's Biophilia live screenings were touching beyond words. Yep, we went to see it twice with the amazing Brigiri. And now I want to buy hang drums.
Do I get an achievement for ending up in a crossword puzzle? (Thx, Kolos, I owe you one for this :))
Funny how I always end up not having photos about me and my friends together (or myself), so I'm really happy to have this - straightening the LDN/BUD axis a bit with Emke and K. Mostly talking about Arturia, Nordleads and mike sensitivities, if I remember right. AND Star Wars.
Yeah, still hiding circuitry under slabs of colored paper.
And that's a new creative corner. Without the tee. Usually.
And something of an inspiration board that I quickly compiled from all the flyers and cards I found while figuring out where I might have put my notes from a few years ago. Nope, didn't find it, but this one totally made the search worthwhile.
People are usually startled when they see this. The lodge has mostly been closed this year so the few people who have actually seen this were... mostly baffled. Good, but completely beside the point.
BEST MUSIC THIS YEAR?
Expect a post about this super soon: Angelspit, Black Nail Cabaret, Biosphere, The Future Sound of London or Perturbator released some amazing music this year and they deserve your attention and hard-earned YouTube money. If it's not this year, it's early next year. Beware! Also, some terrific S13 mixes to end up in my ears this year!
HUMANMEAT IS NEONGREEN, 2015 IS HAVOK.
NEW MUSIC: Glitch Baby Go
Hello, friends, stalkers, random link waltzers, intelligence community ninjas and various demons with Minimoog filters as their filth neurons. On top of the page there's a new track called GLITCH BABY GO that I did - something I was basically working on in September (apart from a load of freelance design & script works for zaibatsus). I loved working on that as I haven't been properly pouring out my headmeat babies through music, only through words or graphic design - this was definitely a different approach. (One that requires less coffee but more headphones, then meeting more people to listen to your track on their phones, tablets, computers, car stereo, normal stereo, partyplace and the occult little sound system you made from their cat's hymen.)
Most of my musician or producer friends I was talking to were usually advocates of one DAW over the others: this obviously saying a lot about their workflow or underlying concept of production. Most recommendations were clearly pointing towards Ableton, a few towards FL Studio... and my choice to work with Renoise, a DAW that basically grew out of oldschool tracker software made my friends question my common sense, because writing music in anything that looks like Excel is just bad karma, they said. Well, I grew up on FastTracker and whenever I hear music it runs from top to bottom in my head, not from left to right. That's one thing. The other is: Renoise does look a bit more intimidating than Ableton but that sort of non-userfriendly and very mathematical feel makes you go more creative and more understanding of what you're trying to accomplish. No, it's not easy but for people who love their obsctacles in order to make them more creative, it's a godsend.
Glitch Baby Go grew out of Syskon, one of my favourite tracks that I've done back in the 90s. Changed most of the instruments, kicks, turned the bassline from a collection of three very similar offset-shifted bass samples to a combination of three very different sounding instruments, added a lot of samples from William Gibson's Neuromancer audiobook and some glitch vocals, did some mastering... I particularly liked messing around with the Glitchmachines Hysteresis glitch delay and the FerricTDS tape dynamics simulator, both VST plugins free.
Good glitching - more stuff coming up soon. Hopefully sooner than later. Heh heh. Heh. Hrrrr.
DAMAGE CAPTURE FILE 03: a tree in the shape of WTF [cyberpunk, glitch and counterculture]
Hello. Etape 3 for Capture File: a coffeebreakful voyeurism into cultural products of cyberpunk, futurepresent, glitch culture and whatnot, every Friday from now on in the eurozone. This week: @dawe_'s idea of what it can be like in my head nowadays in the form of a Japanese abstract/glitch video (above, HiDM2_9 by Japanese visual cacophony masters BRDG), followed by stuff like: a possible reason for the Neuromancer movie's delay, news about the Blade Runner 2 script, loads of music finds and some music production links as well. If you have anything to add, share or comment, do so in the comments or drop me a mail to info@planedamage.com. And, yeah, have a great weekend.
BALLISTIC AUDIO LOOT:
My recent ballistic audio loot is pretty much governed by a refueled interest to write music again. I was into *FastTracker 2.08 a lot at the end of the nineties (you can check some of *my stuff I've uploaded to Soundcloud), a bit of *Rebirth.. and after reacting quite badly to a Hungarian music producer's reponse (who thought that you can only make music with real gear, not softsynths... a year later Yonderboi's LP came out, all done on a single PC... fate is apparently not without a sense of irony) I finished writing music. Time to re-evaluate. So I'm pretty much motivated by lots of oldschool stuff at the moment. (Or I'm just getting old and nostalgic, could be either at this point.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0W8rPPbelI
VANDALAZE's new EP "Dog Jerk" is something I've listened to a lot on Bandcamp recently.. love the cheesy 80s sound with the industrialish/cyberpunkish overtones Cory flavours his tracks with - combine that with the Dog Jerk music video's look that clearly has a lot in common with early MTV days, it\s just a must-have. Review will be coming up soon on it, until that, *grab this EP from slimetrax.bandcamp!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgPHVTDjbFA
Synthwave, outrun electro, retro electro or however you call it, a heartfelt return to the 80's pop/synth sound is making a comeback now and I've been listening around for powerful artists.. if you want to take a quick bite, *PERTURBATOR is the guy you'll need. Amazing production quality, great tracks, very coherent production, mind-blowing atmosphere. His recent new album Dangerous Days is a further proof of godlike qualities. If you want to grab more synthwave stuff, try *CARPENTER BRUT or *VOGEL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5dHl2kDyh4
There's always room on my Nexus for soothing ambients. Pete Namlook & Mixmaster Morris' project DREAMFISH is something I don't delete from my music-storing devices ever, but here's a close contender, the first track off the 2011 album "Someone Gave Me Religion" by Arnaud Rebotini (of the Black Strobe fame). Delete the ambient channel from GTA IV and play this in your car on repeat! (As a subtle side effect, it's gonna rain. Always.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STcVIPvr6lE
I have a lot of demoscene music in my queue, but this one should be the very first, a mixtape of Amiga tracks with a whole lot of beat to them... and be prepared for some great demoscene materials in the upcoming Capture Files!
MOVIE NEWS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUwxc8LmY5k
Opinions on AUTOMATA, the latest android-craze movie featuring Antonio Banderas went (and are still going) from fiery to icy.. personally I would really love to see a different and realistic take on AI portrayal, without big budget movie clichés, as a form of compromising for a wider audience. The possibility is there but I won't say anything until more materials emerge... shown from October 10th in the USA. And as for other news:
- Minority Report TV show reportedly in development: "The director is reportedly working to turn his classic sci-fi film into a television show, which would be produced by his company Amblin Entertainment. Amblin is reportedly looking toward Max Borenstein, writer of this year's Godzilla, to write and create the series — it isn't clear if Borenstein has signed on just yet, but he has been thanking people who congratulate him on Twitter.
- Peter Hoffman Can't Escape Prosecution Over Film Tax Credit Fraud: Hoffman, who is an executive producer on the upcoming $60 million budgeted Neuromancer, is known as an important middleman between Louisiana tax breaks and film companies. The case figures to be closely watched by insiders.
- Blade Runner 2 script finished and "damn good" according to Ridley Scott: The story will bring back Harrison Ford, who starred in the 1982 film as one of the eponymous replicant hunters. Scott says that Ford's character is "a survivor after all these years," which, certainly, is a curious fact in and of itself given the ambiguous ending of certain cuts of the film.
MUSIC TO LOOK OUT FOR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6GpiJbFzSk
*THE FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON, one of my favourite projects of all time, returns with Environment Five, an album that contains 13 all-new tracks that were composed in the first half of 2014! It's a concept album focusing on "the space / time / dimension that exists when we die". That's gonna be some real interesting bardo work when this gets released on September 15th!
Texan splatter industrial gods *MENTALLO & THE FIXER release the 3CD pack `*Zothera` on Alfa Matrix this autumn. Two CDs contain their seminal albums Revelations 23 and Where Angels Fear to Tread, whereas the third CD entitled Apocrypha would contain rarities, remixes and the like. Release: Sep 26th, expect a review a lot sooner!
New-wave EBM powerhouse duo *YOUTH CODE are about to punch us all in the face with their new EP "A Place to Stand" that comes to us sooner than a month via *Dais. Pitchfork *shared a track off the new LP (embedded on top) - is that an indication as to where the new LP is headed? Release: Sep 23th!
*Tympanik Audio's always amazingly cerebral compilation Emerging Organisms just got to its fifth etape. Contains stuff from a whole generation of great new artists, from Zinovia to Idlefon, from Tangent to Ocoeur... release: Oct 7th!
STUFF THAT WILL SEND YOU REELING:
http://vimeo.com/102919605
Mike Winkelmann aka *beeple. His stuff came to me on half a dozen platforms in a week or so, so I have to share his greatness with you: his site's *here and one of the best sites this year, The Creators Project, recently released *this post about him.
These are "audio life forms", 3D objects that react to bird sounds in a droolingly glitchy matter. Amazing. Visualizing is done by Andy Thomas who shared a lot more from his amazing work *on his site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGkfEZk4t1M
cEvin Key of *Skinny Puppy telling great stuff about the bass grandiosity of *SubPac and the not so great stuff about how touring can turn your ears into flipflops.
Facial projection mapping. I got this from literally everyone, a bit sad that I ended up sharing this with you a lot later.
MUSIC PRODUCTION LINKS
A buddy of mine started writing music in *FRACT OSC (which is a game about returning sound into a silent world and also about setting up a sequencer and some oscillators in the meanwhile) and I'm busy making an ambient tracks with *Caustic's Modular synth but I fail every time because the loop I made sounds so good I just put it on repeat while I'm working on my new book and then two hours later I realize I didn't tweak a single knob. Caustic's actually free for PC, so feel free to download it and have a go, the *YouTube tutorials are AMAZING.
It's one thing that the *Glitchmachines site is full of amazing high-res wallpapers (they're not categorized as wallpapers per se, but it's hard not to use them as wallpapers when they lok this good) but they also have a HUGE batch of free sample packs (around 1.5 gigs altogether) and also two great plugins, one for buffer effect, the other one's for glitch delay. I'm weeping now, obviously.
PREVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy
TL;DR: Javaslom, IMAX3D. Ha nekem volt időm megírni, neked is legyen elolvasni, részletezem dühös punk szóvirágokkal, hogy miért.
Túlzófokig csúsztatott pozitív csalódás és értetlenség habzó elegye vagyok.
Magyarázom.Mila Kunis nyári wachowskista szabadesésére, a Jupiter Ascendingre hegyeztük magunkat egész nyáron, a filmipar eltolta a randit jövő februárra, a lógó arcunk mellett ittmaradt Laurence Fishburne indie scifije, az egészen furcsa hangulatot keltő The Signal, meg a csapból is robbanáshangokkal folyó szenzációmaradék, a 2008-ban rebootolt Marvel-szupercsapatos egészestés-teljespupillás, a Guardians of the Galaxy. A marketing puszta ereje persze elég ahhoz, hogy bármit áttoljon a fogyasztók már így is kellemetlenül vékony tűréshártyáján (ízlelgessük ezt a fogalmat még egy kicsit), de nem tudok kellemetlenül zsánerelitista dühös kérdőjel lenni, amikor megkérdezem, hogy tényleg a Blue Swede Hooked On a Feelingje kell, hogy szóljon a jövőben bármilyen műszerfal és bármilyen zenelejátszó környékéről? Nem kvantumambient, nem a fehangzásrólkete huszadik árnyalatáról elnevezett pupillapuhító zaj, nem flex-egyszerűségű spacepunk, hanem... értitek. (A magyarázat persze adott, az emberi főhős Peter Star-Lord Quillt a nyolcvanas években vitték el a Földről, amilyen zenék akkor beragadtak neki, azt a hangzást vitte magával az Univerzumba. Siouxsie Sioux, Joan Jett, Nina Hagen. Ennyit mondanék az űrbe vihető , a theremint meg a TB-303at inkább bedugom az ágyneműtartóba, ne is kerüljön egy lapra az oldalra kikacsintós, kalapbancsajozós funk emlékével sem.)
Persze, vélem érteni a marketinget, észak-am piacra célzunk, paperback-gyűjtögető apák tinédzserkori emlékeire, a családjaikra, az egyértelmű geek targetmasszára. Persze, kell a comic reliefként és női fogyasztók figyelmére mágnesező mosómedve (Rocket Raccoon) meg a Vin Diesel hangján háromszavazó borderline vegán öntudat (Groot), az emberi főhős (Space-Lord) botor lúzerséggel színezett tinédszer attitűdje meg mindennapos brit túlélési mechanizmus, ha a briteket megfogtuk, mindenkit megfogtunk az európai kontinensen. Széttárt kezekkel padlózok a konyhapadlómon, persze, hogy elmegyek megnézni a csapattal moziba, hogyne mennék, de most hallok először a Marvel-univerzum ezen szegletéről, továbbá ha már space operát szeretnék, akkor Mass Effect, Cowboy Bebop remake (de csak Keanuval) vagy egy jól irányzott Firefly restart. Így is elég sok hiány van az űrben már, miért tennénk bele a bro-kultusz világmegmentő képzetét, csak azt ne. És tényleg, miért Blue Swede? Hollywood arra tenyésztette ki Celldwellert meg Blue Stahlit, hogy ha a futura egy hajszálnyit is megjelenik, akkor ők gyártsák le a hangokat hozzá.
Így esett, hogy reggel tízkor (ha ismersz, itt már hangosan nevetsz) egy jól kinkelt tumblrszendvics közepén (balra 5149eszter, jobbra kanly) félig alvó húsködként, egy indokolatlanul kék, mondjuk ki: unheimlich 3D szemüveg alatt remegek meg, ahogy a képernyő azt mondja nekem, beugrókérdés: elszámol nekem egy sietve lerenderelt alagútban tíztől egyig, próbáljak közben nem hányni a motion sicknesstől, attól csorog minden szekundum, ha sikerül, továbbmehetnek a pupilláim.
Továbbmentek.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbHFSf47MIQ
Így lett a Guardians of the Galaxy életem első filmje, amiben értelmét látom a 3D-nek, ami nagy szó, mert a Tron rebootot is levett szemüveggel néztem meg (utána pedig a Király utcai templomon keresztül próbáltam többször is bemenni a Kuplungba, úgyhogy előfordulhat, hogy félrecsúszott a mozgásérzékelésem, de így jár az, aki a tudomány nevében). Az első negyedóra, mondjuk ki, túl részletgazdag lett, amit mondathat velem a kávéhiány is, meg az is, hogy többször le akartam állítani a filmet, hogy visszatekerhessek egy pár részletre. A vizuál ugyanis sűrű, színpompás és gyors, pont elég ahhoz, hogy a hozzám hasonló, túltolt ingerküszöbű dühös felkiáltójeleket is megfogja. (Mielőtt megkérdezed, nem sikerült visszatekerni.) A film kezdeti felütése, a meglepően gyors dobbantás a The Kyln max-sec börtönéből tökéletes preview, lejön belőle, hogy a részletgazdaság és a látványvilág gond nélkül adja el a filmet, a történet pedig csak viccként van a filmben, pontosabban szólva: azért van történetünk, hogy kellően sok helyzetkomikumot lehessen elszórni, szituációst és karakterek közöttit egyaránt.
Eladták nekem az egészet, Eszter, érted?, bukik ki belőlem valahol hat perc környékén, AHAKUSSNÉZEK, ő valahogy így reagál rá, úgyhogy tudom, hogy őt is megvették, pedig egymás mellett egész gonosz kritikusként foglaltunk helyet, kitettek nekünk egy repülő mosómedvére szögezett, animált Photoshop color pickert, mi pedig lenyeltük engedelmesen. Amúgy szólok, jó íze volt és mosómedve ide vagy oda, az eddigiekből ítélve a legjobb comic relief karakter bőven Groot és Rocket Raccoon kettőse lesz, várom is a spinoffot belőlük, a többi karakteről ugyanis kellően kétdimenziós és kétjellegű, Gamora szép és halálos, Drax dühös és erős, Star-Lord pedig szemtelen és emberi, én pedig minden végtagommal harcolok azellen, hogy ne egy embernek drukkoljak egy különböző fajoktól hemzsegő univerzumban. Kötözködnivaló tehát bőven van, ahogy egy középre főzött mainstream film esetében ez a spacepunkoktól bőven elvárható, a coolness factor és a hangulat viszont átvisz mindent. Mindent. Még a Blue Swede szemöldöktépő zenéjét is.
Úgyhogy augusztus 14, premier.
Az IMDB reviewk ezrei szerint 9/10 a film.
Hajlok arra, hogy azt mondjam: megértem, miért.
det schlecht fabriek
"CVs are very much like olives, opera, anal sex and the elusive mother-in-law: they’re the product of acquired taste."
I have a new book draft finished and sent out to a group of fierce pre-readers, hullo and everything, been a few months since I last posted anything - I've been thinking a lot. (A lot of my good friends would pass me another mug of DEATH COFFEE to me at this point without a word and look amused. Come join me, said the DEATH COFFEE PARTY TRAIN.) Got three synopses on my desk - two for books, one for a movie -, which is also littered with (yes, sentient coffeemugs) specials of >>Computer Music about music making (there's a free Windows version of >>Caustic, the best music making app for Android and >>Bitwig Studio has also been released, gaining traction and awesome reviews), a shitload of books to read (like >>Assimilate, a volume of academic essays on EBM/industrial, as rockingly reviewed by @rotnoxious into Auxiliary a couple of months ago, >>check page 29 here), the CDEP of my best friend's new band has also found its way here, together with an assortment of very black and highly dysfunctional Blackburn safety light chargers.
So the desk is chaotic, littered. Heaving. And the mind's similar, something like MEMORY. An insane amount of people who are merely the photographs of themselves. No novas against the skyline, no promises fulfilled, no appreciation mustered from the remainder of a chemical halo of goodwill. An insane amount of experience. An insane amount of burning backups. An insane amount of coping.
Great releases so far this year: >>Attrition, >>Angelspit, >>BAAL, >>Defrag, >>Illuha, >>Swans, >>Vaniish...actually owing a couple of you guys mixes and reviews as well. With one book draft penned and more work to compensate for all the [yeah, whatever], it should arrive to you a lot faster now.
On that happy note, martial artists and horses.
The next round is on you.
Literally.
If you're still reading this - drop me a few lines to planetdamage at gmail. I like to know my readers. And I miss the scent of novelty.
See you around. Soon.
pd.LIFESIGN [2014 march]
straying not for the lesser sentiment of folly but for the greater sentiment of dereliction, someplace else this is a tree in the shape of hatred
Three months of unevenly distributed focus is what happened. Sometimes I drank a coffee and then went out to the kitchen to make another one and I didn't fully realize a day passed and I hadn't noticed. Living on borrowed Tumblr attention deficit time. There were weeks of toothache, I remember that, because I now know the map of street samurai grey clinics who do things in your mouth that you don't want to fully remember. On other weeks projects flourished and exams were passed gloriously, like driving theory and gun & rifle theory and practice, because fuck you that's why. Post-thirtyish fear of closure, typical of our generation. Then there were long weeks when I couldn't write and that meant trouble (Zinta was the first to call me trouble and she was SO right about that) because three books mean a lot of stress if two of them need serious worldbuilding. So I started writing a fourth one because I could easily do 20 pages a day about abstract visuals. Quite a tricky period to wade through, waist deep in bad timing and worse circumstances but things just never give themselves easily, do they.
But do I fucking hate telling you all my projects are in progress, so at least one book's coming out by Q3. Hopefully two altogether by the end of the year but after all the challenges that seem to end up on my windshield... let me digress.
Kopi luwak is off my bucket list. Comes via cold drip with a faint fruity touch and I might even think it's overhyped. Italian triple ristretto is still Hiroshima strength for the mind.
#whatsinmybag - nowadays with a whole lot more painkillers
Don't even ask.
Took up Yang style taiji after long years of hiatus and as it's springtime, my original Sinred is out from the freemasonic shed - this was taken during an urban tour: this was the place where I loved for one and a half decades and more importantly, this is the place where ld50.hu was conceived, born and raised.
Which inevitably leads us to my next point, which is...
AD RIPOFF: blackphone / else mobile
Politically correct rephrasing would go for inspiration or idea osmosis but I'm sick to the guts with polcorrect even after a year of London. So, my friend Dawe_ (who happened to hand over the first draft translation of my debut book yesterday) sent me this video just a few minutes ago about an Android phone called BLACKPHONE which, according to promised details, could be Snowden's favourite phone if it comes to its privacy settings. Here's the vid. Watch it. I'll tell you what my problems are after the break.
Introduction to Blackphone from BLACKPHONE on Vimeo.
So, my problem is that I know where this could have come from and there's a strong chance it did. Five years ago The Visionare produced an image video for this company called ELSE MOBILE and the music was done by one of my favourite musicians ever, Ben Lukas Boysen aka HECQ. Copy's VERY similar, protagonist character type very similar, AR-enriched shots very similar.
What's your take on this?
If you want a good ad, go for this instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtqfT6gPygU
UPDATE 1
The Blackphone ad in question has been removed. Here's a new one for you. Visually different, copywise it still strikes a few familiar chords but then again, what doesn't?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WczXWirN9oo
The big bad Planet://Damage post for 2013
Hi.
Let's recap.
Day One of 2k13, North London. Circle of friends, merriment. Cold. Working for a startup that's just like my old community site in Budapest, only that it's ran and paid for by coders who believe real content is cats and a community is not forged by giving it time to fertilize itself and let people loosen up enough. I rebel in the name of almost a decade of experience. This, obviously, gets me fired. (Good luck, North London startup!)
With a sudden and muchly unexpected turn of events, a move back to Budapest, a place I called home for a long period of time, with bike and all. Things suddently get moving. Living again in a freemason lodge. Still not a joke. Started working on a novel with a fellow Hungarian writer. Continuous progress bar movement until completion. Started working on my own novel, details to follow. English translation of my debut non-fiction book Damage Report is still underway. Also, a bit of an academic publication in a book about how the internet changes your thought patterns. (Porn, obviously.) Also, ended up in a list of the most creative 25 Hungarians. Upping the stakes, isn't it.
Last day of 2k13, Budapest. Circle of friends, merriment.
Thanks for making my life easier this year. Or harder. Or, as it often happened, both.
Better luck next year.
PIXELY STUFF
STATS FOR YOU STALKER LOT
(via lastfm.dontdrinkandroot.net)
LES BEST GASMS OV EAR IN 2013
.youth code
Photo by Rick Rodney.
My all-out-all-in favourites this year. The most frantic newcomers in the 2k13 eargasm bunch, they're re-pushing the boundaries of EBM and re-staging the splatter - doing it very well indeed! I'm a complete sucker for Mentallo & The Fixer (most of the regular readers know this) and YC works in a similar vein but with more sweat and less psychedelia, forging 4-minute tracks instead of ten-minute long DMT epics. If you want anger, frustration and sheer tension ventillated in your stems (not just brain, any stem will do), they're for you. Their recent winter mixtape is a Hiroshima strength coffee bukkake in itself. Start your new year with buying all their shit. Seriously. (Here's the video that's love at first hearing.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnEod0IozYw
.attrition
Photo by Holger Karas.
Attrition's been my love object since their Hidden Agenda LP in 2001, sensual dark electro (fetish electro, I might have said this a few times) at its best, completely fit for flogging. The new album (The Unraveller of Angels) is a worthy sequel to everything that's coming out of their Cave - and its teaser, the Narcissist EP brings you the track that I simply had to call THE BEST TRACK OF 2013. Dragged me back from hell multiple times. Depression, tooth ache, plane travels, you name it. This is a pick-me-up-cure-it-all baby.
.john costello
And via Martin I got to know the stuff of his Engram collaborator John Costello. Sinfully catchy retro synth-techno, a Numanesque touch here, an angry vocal distortion there. What's not to love?
.download
Both Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly released an album this year (Weapon and Echogenetic, respectively) but I didn't find either of them particularly ear-gripping: surprisingly enough, the cEvin Key sideproject DOWNLOAD's ripe and succulent mindfuck entitled LingAM easily claims one of the thrones with its mixture of weird nineties electronica and mega funk glitch. None of the tracks miss a single beat. If you want some hardcore psychedelica, this is it.
.atom tm
That album easily pulled me through the worst half of the year with my face first. Lassigue Bendthaus is a household name for me and Uwe's project Atom TM came almost the closest to that sounds with this glaringly minimal glitch beat of an orgasm. (I completely do NOT get the Pete Townshend cover but apart from that, this is double decker music on long, long autumns and winters.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jp0q0swv4k
.comaduster
Comaduster with his new album Hollow Worlds ended up on loads of 2013 best posts and that's with a good reason. Glitch, drum'n'bass, Tympanik-worthy electronica, great vocals, amazing production value. It's actually so good I stopped listening to it not to OD on it.
.juno reactor
Ben Watkins releases new album! Turns out he's back on track making supreme music! (Which we banged during forest biking, but that's a longer story.) Classic psy trance with organic tribal infusions, a bit of ethno on the side.
.phantom love
Photo via rockit.it
Got Phantom Love's first EP for my birthday from a wonderful lady called Julie, she introduced me to Phantom Love who/that turned out to be a side project of Mushy. A few years ago I fell in love with Farah's track Law of Life and Phantom Love sounded a lot like it, so it was instant love on the first hearing. New EP's equally powrful, slowly pulsing, minimal sex electro. That whole EP is about nothing else, really. Fuck the Buddha Bar chillout lovemaking sessions. This is the soundtrack for anything carnal.
.neuroticfish
It's great to know that Neuroticfish is back - especially that I've been on their "final" gig at the Leipzig Wave-Gotik-Treffen: their four-track EP Limited Behaviour is just one track short of being the perfect party stomper accessory and their even newer track Silence is an even better proof that the new LP (hopefully in 2014?) will be the one new injection the scene needs. (Well, it will be another injection of 2004 but I'm not too much convinced by the way Combichrist, Funker Vogt and Suicide Commando is heading, so for me at least, that's a more favorable turn of events.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywfs07VFdpM
.chvrches
Photo by Eliot Lee Hazel.
Easily the cheesist contender in this whole package of love, Chvrches came home with me from London as a part of the indie virus (together with the sadly disbanded The Good Natured and the amazing but supercommercial Charli XCX - whose first single Nuclear Seasons is still an amazing witch housey production) and frankly, I don't seem to mind. I'd love to see them turn broodier and more glitchy or splattery but that's probably not happening in this quantum shithole of a universe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y7kP98ty1g
.lycia
Not enough gothic this year (although The Cemetary Girls' Opus Vitae was still a must-have!), but the new Lycia LP entitled Quiet Moments is a jewel, dark, foreboding, catastrophe-inducing and loving it for every dark thunderclap.
.access to arasaka
Rob didn't leave us without any audio material this year, thank heavens! Although released on CRL instead of Tympanik, his weirdly Voltairean EP "écrasez l'infâme" lends you the same distant air of glitch electronica as his previous materials, maybe with a slightly less sense of urgency. If you don't know what I'm talking about, stream his wonderfully mind-awakening stuff on the Bandcamp link below.
.best radio: SUBCONRADIO
Listened to a lot of weird Skinny Puppy-related stuff through SubConRadio - not entirely surprising as it's maintained by Key and friends. Soundhound or Shazam doesn't even have a single axis with these tracks, so good luck upping your active track recognition skills. Even di.fm's weird space channel doesn't come close to the coolness of this stream.
.best desktop music app: SCROBLR.FM
Finally a scrobbler that includes Google Music, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube. Nuff said.
.best mobile music app: CAUSTIC 3
However much of a late-comer Caustic is to the 2013 party, it's easily the best music-making app on the Android platform, sending any and all DAWs and soft synths off the charts to the depths below. (Okay, SunVox still has a chance, but most of you won't have enough time to master its UI, if you do, why not use a desktop DAW?) Check the trailer below and decide for yourself. (And, oh, the PC version is completely free! Not that the Android version would put you into serious debt..)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AC-w1Ts-aw
.five series this year
- ALMOST HUMAN
- BLACK MIRROR
- ORPHAN BLACK
- PERSON OF INTEREST
- UTOPIA
And surprisingly, Ghost in the Shell: Arise is not among them.
2014 will bring you more content from me and that's a promise.
You ROCK the world this Old Year's Last Day.
See you soon.
DAMAGE REPORT: szindrómára stockholm
" Közmegegyezésre épülő hallucináció, melyet minden országban törvényes felhasználók milliárdjai tapasztalnak meg naponta, egészen a számtani alapfogalmakat tanuló gyermekekig… Az emberi világrendszer összes számítógépének tárolóiból származó adatok grafikus megjelenítése. Hihetetlen összetettség. Az elme nem-terébe nyújtózó fényvonalak, adatgalaxisok és adatcsillagzatok. Mint a távolodó városi fények…"
(William Gibson: Neurománc)
0, HOMMAGE
Eredetileg, tiszteletadásként is, csehtamásos-bereményis stílgyakban terítettem volna a kis- és nagy- elé, hogy mit tett velem az internet, f-moll, disz-moll, ezt tetted velem, irén, szomorú madár a dashboard tetején, hideg a kávé, benne olvadt koponyás cukorkanál, mint a kibaszott szerelmünk meg a daguerrotípia, irén, kétezerhétszáz olvasatlan levél, egyiktől sem könnyebb a bőrönd, sem a lélek november elsején, spamekből sajog a lelkem, arad-tizenhárom EBM a dashboard tetején, írd meg nekem, irén, kredencen pohár víz, milyen finom, tüttürűrü, tüttürűrü. Saccperre ilyen egy szocmédia (szocháló, szocház) előtt hajnaligragadó tinédzser, majd egyetemista, majd munkanélküli (javítsd, állásnélküli) estéje, lejtője, élete - színre, formára és szagra
meg az ártatlanság idő előtti nettóplusz elvesztése; amiről hallani sem akartam, azt még meg is mutatják, majd persze újra meg is nézem saját akaratból (ez a legrosszabb, hol az alufóliasisak), majd lájkolom, hogy el ne felejtsem továbbküldeni, persze napi harminc (háromszáz) ilyen után kafkai a közöny. A KÖZÖNY. Aztán ráfrissítek a dashre, a readerre, a glassra, az életemre. Megint.
Szóval:
az internet, mint a neon horizontot unottan bámuló, energiaitaltól és ingertúltengéstől fásult, felhőkarcoló szélén ülő koravén tinédzser popkulturális metaforája (és a szerző portréja), avagy miért perelném be az internetet, ha nem lenne Stockholm-szindrómám, ez egy új cím, én adtam ennek.
A [szindrómára stockholm] az Eötvös Kiadó 2013 decemberében megjelenő, Veszelszki Ágnes által szerkesztett A világhálóba keveredett ember című tanulmánykötetben jelenik meg. Jelent meg. Fog megjelenni. Idő sem létezik, miért küzdesz egyáltalán.A szöveg a szerkesztő előzetes engedélyével szerepel itt - a kötetben szereplő változat némi stilisztikai változtatást tartalmazhat. Kávé sincs bennem, nem értem, miért küzdök egyáltalán.
MEGKATTINTOD.
A tanulmánykötet Facebook-oldala.
Könyvajánló, tartalomjegyzék.KÖNYVBEMUTATÓ.
A bálnacet szemében (Jónás Kézműves Sörház, Fővám tér 11-12), december 16-án, este hattól. Facebook event itt.Ez volt a kötelező önreklám, megyünk tovább.
Ja amúgy gyertek könyvbemutatóra, dedikálok bármit bárkinek bárhova, bocs, ha becsúszik pár sigil.
Proj on.
1, A MEMÓRIÁD MEG EGY KITŰZŐ (AZ EXOMEMÓRIA DISZKRÉT BÁJAI)
"Az okos mindent tud, a még okosabb meg tudja, hogy hol kell keresni" - a hetente rendszerszerűen másnak tulajdonított mondás 2k13-ra jobban bevésődött a fiatal generációnak, mint a jaigensálsapka. Éppen tegnap veszítettem jelentős összeget a még névtelen, de az elmúlt hónapokban egyre gyakoribb antijátékon: az fizeti az asztaltársaság teljes fogyasztását, aki először veszi elő a zsebéből (vagy az asztal közepére feltornyozott kupacból) a telefonját, mi meg éppen nem tudtuk, ki festette a mellettünk ékeskedő festményt, de ott a szignó, keressünk rá a… snitt, kétségbeesetten keresem a főpincér szemét, színváltoztatom az íriszemet, hátha a kedvezmény... hát nem.
A gadget-kodependencia (a 24/7 online-kodependencia, a szinte kötelező érvényű örök standby, a párna mellől alig kiforduló első reggeli Gmail-, Facebook-, Twitter- és Instagram-check, a lutraalbum halász-vadász ösztönét meglovagoló Foursquare-t a maga gamificationjével már hadd ne említsem), az EU- és startup-pénznyelők éppen lefutott buzzwordje, a cloud, a blogegyszerűen indítható wikik egymásra tornyozódó rétegei a nagy néprétegek számára (elől) kidobták a lexikális tudást az ablakon és még utána is köptek egyet - az információbeszerzés és -feldolgozás (és mint olyan, a 21. század komplett szociális és üzleti élete) teljességét mostantól az energiaszektor tartja sakkban (a Snowden-botrány így is új felvonást hozott az information age végére, ha nem éppen annak végjátékát), legjobb esetben is dinamót hajthatunk, ha lemerül az elem annak bármelyik értelmében, akkor az internet addig nem él, amíg nem helyezzük át új platformra mind az információtárolást, mind annak fenntartását. Kíváncsian várom a véráramból táplálkozó iPhone, majd router koncepcióját, csak hogy az FMCG-szektor bevételéhez is hozzájárulhassak valamelyest.
A mandzsettagomb helyén virító exomemória kényelmetlenül kényelmes fogalmával majd az oktatásügy vívhat evolúciós küzdelmet. Nem mintha a barlangrajzoktól kezdve a nagykönyvtárakig nem beszélhetnénk ugyanúgy exomemóriákról, de a hozzáférési sebesség és adatsűrűség valahol elmossa az emberek agyában a tényt, hogy a legtöbbjére azért emlékezni sem ártana. Két generációval később kellemetlenebb és időszerűbb lesz ezt visszaolvasnunk. Amúgy.
INTERMEZZO
Tegnap (igen, törzshely) hallottam egy viccet: hogyan ismerhetsz meg egy embert a legjobban? Úgy, hogy lemásolod. Túl gyorsan jöttünk rá, hogy ez igazából nem vicc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7drBeuxX814
2, PERSZE HOGY PARALÍZIS, PERSZE HOGY ADHD
Poszt-hidegháborús kémfilmekben megnyitott vízcsap mellett adják le az igazi titkokat: a poloskák ugyanis képtelenek kiszűrni a fehér zajként folyó csapvíz mögül az emberi hangot. (A barna mögül sem, munkahelyre ajánlom, persze a fizetésemelési ajánlatot se hallod meg, de hát valamit valamiért.) Pont ilyen a web is, na még egy linket, na még csak a harminc megnyitott tabot, a keleti parton most ébrednek fel és most posztolják ki a reggeli kávé mellett az új linkeket, akkor azt még megvárom. Ja hogy már hajnal van. Akkor már nem is alszok. Alszom. De ezt még meg kell néznem a neten, hogy hogy írják helyesen. Mi az hogy Grétsy, mi az hogy Chomsky, mitől komparatív nyelvészet, mi az hogy okkult lingvisztika, miért John Dee, biztos szabadkőművesek. A borgesi Aleph tökéletes paralízist kalapál az arcom közepébe, kapkodást vagy éppen túlzott, óráig is elnyúló előzetes mérlegelést, még utánanézek a flownak, ahogy zuhan a toronyház tetejéről.
Tabok számában, inboxban felgyűlt olvasatlanban (értsd, hasznosszennyes) kvantált fogalom az ADHD, amit hiába gyógyszerezne a DSM-IV-TR, diagnózisa öröktéves: nincs krónikus figyelemhiányosság a gyerekeknél, ők hardkódolva érkeznek ezzel, nálunk sincs, csak mindig van még valamit csinálni, így veszíti el a világ lassan az érdeklődést a szex iránt is (ilyen azért soha ne történjen meg), mindent láttunk már, mindent megcsináltunk, mindig van továbbhorgolni az extrémet kétszer is, a chan-gag-tumblr hármas biztos kézzel építi a wtflandet, epilepszia színű passportom lesz oda, ha olyan koncepciózus iratokat nyomtatnak majd nekem, mint amilyet a laibachista NSK adott.
Épp ezek miatt unalmas (annyira 2012, annyira huszadik századi, annyira OLD) minden, a Folyamat cerebrálisra vált és kiteljesedik a Weltschmerz igazi értelme: a test sosem képes meghaladni a szellem igényeit, legfeljebb majd akkor, amikor az internetszolgáltatók pincéiben nyitott megaillegál szexklubokban full body suitok, fétis- és orgiaszoftverek lesznek. (Jahogy vannak, valóságnak hívják és az is egy hagymahéj. Milyen meta.) Remekbeszabott konzumerista zárványpontok és zombibuborékok lettünk, no way out no way out no fucking way out, kivéve, ha kiírjuk magunkat a nagynarratívából, a britek már persze tesznek arról is, hogy ilyen ne történhessen meg, a pornó mellett az okkult is tiltott tartalomnak számít majd hamarosan a szolgáltatóknál, így múlik el a világ dicsősége mellett Blake, Yeats és Conan Doyle is.
3, LOCAL IS THE NEW GLOBAL
"Csak olyan embernek vagyok hajlandó hinni, aki egy kilométeren belül él", mondja egy éppen Ázsiát járó barátom. A kábelmodem mellől magát szopadék göndörhajú modellnek kiadó párhónapos mexikói kölyökkutya ijesztő reality checkje ugyanolyan aktuális, mint 25 éve: fizikai, kézzelfogható, triplecheckelhető bizonyíték kell ahhoz, hogy valami tényleg igaz legyen, a kávé jó, a kávé rossz, a kenyér rákot okoz, mégsem, hadd maradjak meg az egészségtelen, de boldog halálnál inkább annak minden tudatlanságával felvértezve. A paranoia (vagy bullshit detector, BSD, hogy legyen még egy hitelességet sugárzó anagramma) örökre belém égett, józanparasztiésszel és médiatapasztalattal vegyesen - randira, állásinterjúra, újemberhez több körös háttércheck kell, magyar cikkhez külföldi forrást kell keresni, hogy hol a félrefordítás vagy a kihagyás, külföldi cikknél kulcsszavakat, hogy hol az ellenoldal, majd az egészet (mindent, bármit) urbanlegend- és hoax-szűrőkön, háziasszonyok pletykákkal megszórt hosszas telefonbeszélgetéssel is fogyaszthatják.
A hírcímek befektetőknek szánt kattintásgenerátorok, az investigative journalism bozóttűzön keresztüli menekülés (note: mindig is az volt), inkább hadd lássam, hogy mi történik a környékemen, abban jobban megbízom. Hinni persze kell valamiben, mindig kell valamiben és mindig kell valaminek, de én inkább meghallgatnék mindenkit és nem hinnék el senkinek semmit. Olykor, kávé nélkül magamnak sem. (Olykor, kávé nélkül remek reality show alapanyag lennék, a média a maya sokadik rétegét fekteti elém, én pedig egyre újabb és újabb christophernolani szintekre ébrednék fel a sokadik képzelt valóságban.)
A paranoia aztán az univerzum narratív gépezetében is megül, a darkwebből előkapart, izgalmasabbnál izgalmasabb és szubverzívnél is szubverzívebb cikkek felett ülök, hogy mindez igaz vagy szándékosan plántált, gondosan kicsiszolt hazugság, hogy a hozzám hasonlóakat megvezessék? A Question Everything globális, vicsorgó tépőfogas paranoiára bíztat minket a folyamatos társadalmi-gazdasági-politikai csatornázás és terelgetés miatt, így kezdett el az összes szubverzív barát kényszeresen sportolni és hobbizni harminc közelében és felette, így hal ki a láng, így múlunk ki mi is csendesen, hegymászó-biztonságikötések, DIY-csavartrükkök és házi receptek végtelen halmai között.
4, GEVULOT
Aztán jött a fantomcsörgés és a fiktív értesítők bal zsebben haldokló érzete, a mai napig szeretném azt hinni, hogy a bal combom ágyékmagasságban külön tudatra ébredt és jelez, ha munkaemailem jött vagy bringázni hívnak, aztán persze lehet hogy csak öregszem, de örülnék, ha nem. Az ilyen internetérzék jó százaléka mintakövetés, akár rá is érezhetnék tudat alatt, hogy mikor jönnek leveleim, de a Zeitgeist új gondolkodást követel meg tőlünk, új sebességet, új reakcióidőt, új kommunikációt, új nyelvet, új érzékeink ugyan miért ne alakulhatnának ki, gondolja Stirlitz. Hannu Rajaniemi újvonalas scifije, a The Quantum Thief גְּבוּלוֹת névre hallgató fogalma pont ilyen: a gevulot egyszerre technológia, hatodik (vagy sokadik) érzék és privacy-alapú védőmechanizmus: ezzel lehet emlékezni, hozzáférni az exomemóriához (mint tudásbázishoz, mint kollektív tudatossághoz) vagy az egyes találkozók privacyjét és nyíltságát szabályozni. A mintakövetők, nemzetvédelmi adatelemzők és anomáliaként élő tinédzserek scifikben létező, szinesztéziáig menő adatérzékelése valóságért kiált.
5, KTHXBAI
Úgyhogy enyhén luddita blues, az internet nélkül egy évig nemcsak létezni, de élni is tudó Paul Millert irigylem, értékválság is volt, amikor félre kellett ütnöm a hírportálos ajánlatot, hogy meddig vagyok képes utánozni az internetnélküliség bódhiszattváját, semeddig, bringán is csak azért nem netezek, mert vagy erősebb a maslowi túlélőreflex, vagy megint bekanyarodtam a hattizenhetes rakpartos lány mögé. Sikerélményt akarok és két kardvágásból győztes ütközetet, az internetek meg egy pavlovi gombbal megadják nekem, az agyam jutalomközpontjai karácsonyfaként világítanak, ha van áram, főként, hogy alapvető emberi jog lett az elme áramvonalas, kandírozott mandarinzselé színű tápláléka, jó kis szimbiózis lett ez, irén, sildessapkás amerikai turista gonosz énem, csak zabál, csak zabál, nekem csak a kredencszéli víz jut, az is langyos már, az internet meg széttárja az ölét, túl sok neme van, mind világít.
[PDHU] ilyen lesz az új regény
Annyit rebesgettem már fű alatt, hogy na két regény lesz jövőre, hogy ideje lenne már elárulni is valamit legalább az egyikről.
Olyan lesz az egyik, mint ez a kép.
p.o.n.t.o.s.a.n.
PS: Igen, untam, hogy nem blogolok már magyarul, úgyhogy!
Yeah. Expect more Hungarian posts. (English posts will keep you grounded here, though.)
pd.LIFESIGN [2013 november]
Two months since the last lifesign blip, so hi and everything. Got a few pictures for you from a Tuesday talk I held at an ELTE university event about "Future Shock by way of Toffler and Rushkoff interspersed with my overtly chaotic take on anything". For those of you who've attended: that chain of associations was a hydra, I know! Thanks for keeping the pace, the faith, the eyes in those sockets.
Writer Viktor Kubiszyn and le moi at the ELTE event. Photo by the lovely Panka Jancso.
A twin from the Land of Meta: this is how a heartwarming polaroidproof of ROCK gets to be made (Top one by me, bottom one by Sajtos.) Find more pics here at ELTE Online.
ON ANOTHER NOTE
Kreativ.hu published their list of the 25 Most Creative Hungarians in 2013 - I'm apparently one of them. That's quite an honour being vouched in to a talented company of creators, but then again, these people at Kreativ haven't seen me in the morning hours without coffee. Heh heh. Heh. Hhhhrhh. So yeah, mag's just out of the printer's and that's really a quick shot (the image photo was shot by Balazs Kassai), online version should be up soonish! ROCK!
MORE NOTES OF ROCK
Oh. For those of you who asked me why I fell off the face of the webs of the inter - sorry for not sploshing a diarrhea of links over you. I'm working on two books simultaneously with visible/public results or pimpage in 2014 - if everyone sticks to their deadlines and the gods think it's time for ROCK EVALUATION, of course. Apart from that, life's a kipu of trickery, great moments, bad juju and a weird soap opera. And great music. Watch this space for more.
Oh, and I'm a level 65 ele arrow ranger in Path of Exile. I think it says it all.
Always,
ROBOCOP remake Second Trailer launches - finally has brains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPLSpmAtc1Q
Classic first-generation cyberpunk's been having a mild comeback: the new episode of Deus Ex (best aspect: music), the relaunch of the Shadowrun universe, the remake of Total Recall (best aspect: music), the renewed plans for the movie adaptation of Neuromancer (no words from the four-minute trailer screened at the American Film Market 2013 event), the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell (and the new OVA called Arise), the script for Blade Runner 2.. moviewise it's all coming together nicely.
The Robocop franchise is also under rehash - and the second trailer for the movie (screening from Feb 14th, 2014) sports a few great ideas about market penetration and the creative brainstorm (however much I might loathe the word). How do you introduce a robotic father figure into a robophobic society? By human sacrifice, of course. How can you chip off all those splinters of disinterest or hostility? José Padilha will show you how. (And it's going to come in black.)
New info on NEUROMANCER: THE MOVIE - teaser imminent, script finished a long time ago
SCRIPT
Vincenzo Natali, the actual director incarnate to helm William Gibson's visionary cyberpunk work has launched his horror movie Haunter. The exclusive Crave Online interview with him also sheds some light on his involvement and the state of the script. If you're interested, head over to Crave for more intel on Haunter, Splice and a lot more!
What’s the latest progress on Neuromancer?
It continues. It seems to be indomitable. It’s a long haul, like all good things and all things like it that are audacious and challenging. It’s not on the fast track but it’s very much alive and I’m hopeful.
How close do you think the script is to a final draft?
Oh, the script has been ready for years. That’s not the holdup. The challenging part of this is putting the money together. It’s big movie.
So you cracked the script?
I think I have, yes. Strangely, that wasn’t the hard part. I benefited, first of all, from developing the script very much with the influence of William Gibson, which was tremendously helpful. Then I also had, frankly, the benefit of looking at all the versions previous to mine and learning from their mistakes. I had a lot of beta testing before I went in and did my version. Actually, I’m quite faithful to the book. I basically went back to the book and made some alterations to contemporize it but it’s in there. The book is very dense, but the trick is just kind of knowing what strands to follow. In fact, it wasn’t all that difficult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0jmewhXeU
TEASER REEL
Seven Arts Entertainment, according to their press release on Yahoo, is going to screen a four-minutes long teaser reel at the American Film Market 2013 (starting on November 8th, which luckily coincides with the debut of Almost Human, a cyberpunkish TV series that seems to be quite the rehash of the series Total Recall 2070 that noone seems to remember.) Read the complete press release here.
At the upcoming American Film Market, the Company will introduce a four-minute teaser reel for its upcoming production "Neuromancer", created by the renowned previsualization house The Third Floor, Inc. ("Third Floor").
CEO Kate Hoffman stated, "I am thrilled that Seven Arts' association with Tony Lytle has got off to such a great start and have every confidence in continued success going forward. We are also very excited by the Third Floor previsualization which we believe will progress the production of our film based on the legendary science fiction novel "Neuromancer"."
All in all, ladies and gents, this November seems to fulfill quite a promise - hold on to your neon coffeemugs and retinas until the blast.
If you're interested about more intel about the movie adaptation of the seminal cyberpunk novel, check out these links, also brought to you by planetdamage.com:
- Neuromancer cast list ideas: with ideas from Rob of Access to Arasaka, Matt Joyce of cyberpunk magazine Machete Girl or Klint of technoccult.com
- A business/investor panel on Neuromancer with some short lists if you don't want to go through an hour-length talk on the movie that's going to make you cringe... also Natali's got amazing mindfucking ideas about the actual representation of the Matrix...
- ...and a business info about Neuromancer being a Hungarian co-production?
FIVE DROPS A DAY 10/15: zapped by teen angst
FIVE DROPS A DAY features five tracks from the past 24 hours that decided to rent some time there, gorgeously and joyously whoring themselves around for work, zoneruns or whatever else. Never avoid any situation when a track decides to whore itself (herself, himself, hirself) in your luminous brainmeat. Click on read more for the YouTube embeds. Have a nice one.
2 PUISSANCE 30 - Transpyramid Express
ASSEMBLAGE 23 - Light
HECQ - Sura
ROTERSAND - Almost Fanatic
STROMKERN - Perfect Sunrise (Waveform remix by Icon of Coil)
Read more
PROJECTION MAPPING: Box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6JcybgDFo
Box explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping on moving surfaces. The short film documents a live performance, captured entirely in camera.
Bot & Dolly produced this work to serve as both an artistic statement and technical demonstration. It is the culmination of multiple technologies, including large scale robotics, projection mapping, and software engineering. We believe this methodology has tremendous potential to radically transform theatrical presentations, and define new genres of expression.
Find out exactly how "Box" was created in our exclusive behind the scenes video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL6...
planetdamage: lifesign, 2013 september
Relocated to Budapest last week, packages and bike arrived surprisingly intact (if you ever need BUD-LDN / LDN-BUD package transport, contact Meliza:London). Numerous project meetings, reading up on band biographies and UI design. Fighting procrastination and webfloating. Yes, this is a new word. Mostly listening to amazing new finds such as Youth Code, Cold Cave, Dead When I Found Her or numerous 242 side projects such as Holy Gang, Modern Cubism or MORF. Apparently Clock DVA released a new album as well entitled Post-Sign. Blog/site restart after un/successful reacclimatization. If you want good content, subscribe to my Facebook feed, if you want personal (fucking stalkers), go to Instagram. Or drop me an email instead, I tend to like those.
Nothing is True, Everything's Permitted.
PERSONAL: the last loot from london
And this morning marks the arrival of my last Amazon order, goddamnit, Plane tickets bought, countdown is now officially on, boxing at 90%, deadline in 5 hours for something amazing.
SUPPORT THIS ARTIST: Neon Shudder
neon shudder is the project of jhm, an east coast us artist looking to express cyberpunk and electronic themes in their music. only in its infant stages, neon shudder is set to release the “signal.run” ep as of 1.31.13 via bandcamp.com
more info + music @ neonshudder.bandcamp.com
Monsieur JHM of Neon Shudder sent me a few links to see how I like his EPs - and indeed I do, analog approximations of nullsweat jacks and chromeburns. If the notion "every thought has a sound" is as valid as I think it is, Neon Shudder's another strong contestant in keeping the vast and infinite gridine alive.
Go support this dude.
planetdamage: lifesign, 2013 august
UPDATE: So yeah, it really might be 2013 and not 2012. That just explains the whole London limbo phenomenon in greater detail. Thanks, @honeymooncroon, appreciate the reality check :)
Relocating to Budapest from London in... two days? Two weeks? It was great and eventful and eye-opening in loads of ways, met lovely and amazing people and most of my recollections of events, realizations and cultural deep structure diving are just too weird to describe. But I'm waving goodbye to all of it and moving onwards. Even this relocation is temporary, everything is. (So, umm, is temporariness temporary? there's a black loop to entangle.) Most of the stuff (apart from The Original Sinred) that I need to get moved is books, a whole lot of them, most of them coming from Magma Books, Forbidden Planet and Oxfams scattered throughout North London. And I'm afraid I'll have to order a few more before I'm really leaving, like Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen and Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock. Great title, by the way.
As for everything else: the Damage Report translation is a lumbering beast but it's coming - no release dates yet, though. That book might need a decent overhaul and that requires some time. Also: whatever I've said about The Dose so far will not happen - the deal we've done this January got defaulted horridly. All the concepts and ideas that were grown during the production period will be shifted to a new project. There are a couple of infographics and publication ideas along the way - watch this space for more.
If I'm not dead, detained, desecrated or abducted to a higher dimension, I'll see you guys in September. Until that - expect the occasional info fragments and links. Wish I could reveal more but I just can't yet. Have a great summer or whatever else you're having in August/September. Damage out.
