N.U.D.E.@ - Natural Ultimate Digital Experiment
If barely legal girls wired into some VR mainframe security hardlines had their own fashion niche, P.A.S.S. with her Christmas morning smile would be their idol. However, she ends up as a chibi tamagotchi for cyberpunk otakus with rooms not much bigger than claustrophy-rich dorm toilets lined up with shelves of manga, tinted with colors of scattered Skittles and bukkake beige.
N.U.D.E.@'s been the sleeping hit for 2003 and apart from Gamespot, a few minor sites (such as The Armchair Empire) and a FAQ compiled by a few dedicated players, nobody remembers it anymore, the game sinking with the original XBOX platform, us in despair. But still, if you had your own Japanese-speaking gal who would gladly operate your laptop and sing sad birthday songs to you, would you care?
Go watch Condition:Human instead.
blasted mechanism - grab a song
grab a song that makes you feel strong
(released on July 27th for YT)
nawlz: updates on the net's best cyberpunk comics
Todd of Jawbone.TV just informed me about some updates concerning one of the most imaginative, pure, drug- and neonlight-laden interactive comics art project that's ever come to the Net called NAWLZ. (Hungarian readers might remember, I very briefly covered it last December.) So, this is hard work and global collaboration sparked and fueled by nineties cyberpunk anime and thrives to show how designer culture might look like if we were 50 years into the future. Check nawlz.com to see how you, if you're an artist or someone to rip them off, could form a new platform of content distribution. Sutu mentions in the interview that he'd love to publish his comics - count me in for one happy customer monkey. If you're interested in the work process - and you know you are - check the remaining two videos here on jawbone.tv.
blasted mechanism: power rangerst néztek, inka istenek lettek
Let me get this straight: the Portuguese experimental tribal jungle crossover rock (yes, I made that up, get over it) project Blasted Mechanism is one unique and masterful combat dawg, mixing a skullful of peyotl with all the tweaked fashion of the tokusatsu movies (now in neon) with a tribal herd of trigger-happy Predators and imagine how they would feel after they have won the intergalactic soccer championship and now they rock with the divine cock out. Both video tracks come off their latest album Mind at Large.
Amikor cirka tizennyolc hónappal ezelőtt az Apollo 440 tagjaival beszélgettem, arra a kérdésre, hogy mégis mi az egyetlen dolog, ami igazán inspirálja őket a stúdiómunkában, gondolkodás nélkül (vagy hosszú évek gyakorlásának eredményeként) harsogták unisono, hogy a foci, a portugál Blasted Mechanism esetében viszont sziszegnivalóan hosszú a lista. Keverjétek egy koponyányi peyotlba a Power Rangers és a tokusatsu-filmek összes rossz útra tért uniformisfétisét a Predatorok törzsi szemléletével, esztétikájával és dreadlockjaival, az inka panteon világvégehozó jókedvével meg a sarki new age boltból hozott, hónalj alá szorítható idegenekkel: az eredmény a portugál zenei élet egyik legegyedibb, frenetikus koncertélményt garantáló csapata meg a kép, hogy ilyenek a modernkori inka istenek, amikor éppen guitarheróznak azon, amit mi valóságként ismerünk. Einstandolták a neont, a Juno Reactor hiányzik már csak belőlük. Tényleg. Ha ezek hozzák el a világvégét 2012-ben, kérem magamnak a teljes első sort, tartsd meg az aprót is magadnak.
gamer: living, breathing sex dolls
Brian Taylor describes the game's dynamic as "much like the adult industry", with people being paid to enter into various sexual situations, some willingly, and some less willingly. Regardless, within gameplay these human sex dolls must surrender completely to the gamer's control. Despite the game's vibrant candy colors and glittery aesthetic, Taylor confesses "it's a very dark place." (via io9)
the book of eli: just like fallout, only with tom waits
Denzel Washington goes Fallout in The Book of Eli, a 2010-scheduled post-apocalyptic extravaganza. Kotaku's already drawing parallels with the Fallout universe which is as obvious as anything, so really, get over it. Apart from Washington, the cast includes, first and foremost, Tom Waits himself as an Engineer (you could only top that with Ron Perlman as the Engineer's evil twin brother. But I'll include his dark swamp cabaret vaudeville here just in case), Mila Kunis (her Max Payne appearance hopefully forecasts annihilating mutant hordes with attitude and a leather-covered ass) and Michael Gambon. (UPDATE: And yes, Gary Oldman himself is there as well - who just managed to blurt out there's a new Batman movie in the works including him in the cast.)
worthless and weak
Work it out for yourselves. (Originally from boingboing, and yes, it really is a game over screen.)
tron legacy trailer: watch and embed!
The TRON Legacy trailer surfaced on the net a good 12 hours ago - unfortunately, YouTube has made all Legacy trailers non-embeddable (this is how I managed to not via CPC's post) - help comes from Hungarian blogger Aeon Flux. Sit back, hit fullscreen, enjoy. (And embed, while you still can. Embed disable for a movie trailer in 2009? Disney, eat fuck.) (via aeon flux)
tetsuo the bullet man: tsukamoto's english-speaking sequel
That's a good day to be an IO9 reader now. According to them, Shinya Tsukamoto revealed his newest project at the Comic Con: Tetsuo the Bullet Man will be his new sequel to one of the most authentic cyberpunk monogatari so far. The English-speaking movie (to be released in 2010) is about Anthony, a guy working in Tokyo who transforms into Tetsuo after his son is called after the encounter of the "evil driver", a character who's basically creating Tetsuos in the first two movies. Join the Tetsuo Project here.
comic con: new rage and borderlands trailers
Lovers of the post-apocalypse, save up your precious new yen. Both iD's new mutant basher FPS Rage and the new Diabloesque first person role-playing shooter Borderlands are out with new trailers. Borderlands debuts Oct 20th in the US, 23rd everywhere else - as for Rage, there's no rock solid dates, still.
comic con: tr2n renamed to tron legacy
IO9 reports from Comic Con: apparently the sequel to the first Disney cyberpunk TRON is no longer called TR2N but Tron Legacy and apart from the brief lightcycle run we've seen in the first trailer, we find out that Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is living inside glowing vectorland and after 20 years his son gets a hunch and goes out to find him. (via io9) This is supplemented by a new site called Flynn Lives that apparently serves as a perfect basis for future augmented reality games. According to IMDB, Tron 2.0 - as they call it - is scheduled for the big screen in 2011.
obscure but retrieved 002: residuos
This pretty well-hiden piece comes from Chile, 2007. A subtle Battle Angel Alita infusion into the post-apocalyptic barren wastelands of the Fallout universe comes out as RESIDUOS (translates as waste), more like a 3D portfolio practice than anything and that's really without a story whatsoever - still a decent 80 seconds while you hose your bowels with ristrettos.
obscure but retrieved 001: voiden
Hours spent on YouTube, following links after links into depths you wouldn't have imagined you could go to during your working hours. Our gorgeous intelligence finds us neat but meaningless cyberpunkish, post-apocalyptic, grey-tinted hard eyecandies for us to devour, the first being VOIDEN. It was meant to be a Poser series, but no sequels have been posted since December 28, 2007. Think kindly of the dead and deceased.
An oppressed people struggle to rid themselves of the reign of terror imposed on them by Voiden with the help of a small group of mercenaries lead by Novan, the last of the Hybridtrons, a military cyborg race now permanently banned from Voiden. This is a Saga rooted in the tradition of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or even Star Trek or Blade Runner, more episodes are coming, so sit and enjoy!
penfield's electrode: japanese girls and brain hacks for hire
Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was something we'd have called a radio shack afficionado back in the days, only he did it to brains. If you ever wondered who found out the 0day vulnerability on the brain not feeling any pain directly, Penfield was surely one neurogeek to exploit that. According to what Michael Talbot wrote in The Holographic Universe,
While operating on the brains of epileptics, he would electrically stimulate various areas of their brain cells. To his amazement he found that when he stimulated the temporal lobes (the region of the brain behind the temples) of one of his fully conscious patients, they reexperienced memories of past episodes from their lives in vivid detail. One man suddenly relived a conversation he had had with friends in South Africa; a boy heard his mother talking on the telephone and after several touches from Penfield's electrode was able to repeat her entire conversation; a woman found herself in her kitchen and could hear her son playing outside.
This will serve as a gorgeous intro to YouTube user brainmove's "Repressed adolescent web-series in da house... ", PENFIELD'S ELECTRODE. Smooth Japanese narrative with low angle shots, heavy dose of after-effects and some shots of a mutating mental patient that reminds me of Metalosis Maligna. Tune in when we manage to find out more about this small jewel!
headscan pattern recognition lyrics available
It might not actually come to you as a surprise (to me it did anyways), but Headscan's Pattern Recognition lyrics are available on their site.
coilhouse issue 03 up for grabs
Is there anything you guys actually buy on paper instead of reading online? That was one of the key thoughts I asked myself when I killed off The Dose PDFs and I just might have completely missed the point. Coilhouse is one example of the Quality Paper Mag and the very milestone of The Critical Third Issue looks like it's just been stormed by gloriously: features on Kowloon Walled City, Boing Boing mind diva Xeni Jardin or Marina Bychkova's doll art are just one of the few. Grab the mag while you still can. I own them all.
tron reboot episode 2: 40 seconds of the neon-edged absurd
Ben Hansford's Tron comedy series is back with another 40 seconds. Top-notch visuals are seriously degraded by the lack of storyline and the comedy aspect of it all. Sad, sad.
spacebook: seeing everything. or nothing.
The papers we read and the TV we watch, the internet we browse and the products we consume. An almost-manifesto of the zeitgeist that's founded upon geographic data visualization, however ugly and uncool it sounds. I had the honor of meeting Carlo Ratti back in Brussels a few months ago where he held a presentation on his project Senseable City Lab - if you check out the videos on YouTube, you'll basically come across the wet dreams of the 80's geeks - how does a city's information sea ripple when an event causes people to communicate?
Spacebook is a project to design an interactive house whose walls gradfually change in transparency with changes in local environmental conditions and the presence or absence of people inside and outside the space. The project uses a new type of glass that was recently patented at the SENSEable City Lab. (spacebook @ mit.edu)
Watch the video. It is like Anonymous meeting Byron frock intelligentsiya with a smirk. We build glass walls, not spaces. Spacebook is our first real glassbox, all surfaces in every direction molded from transparent glass with uninhibitive 360 degrees views. It allows us to see everything. Or nothing. We can choose.
black nail cabaret: new songs, new cabaret look
It was six months ago that I wrote about Black Nail Cabaret - a dark candy cabaret musical project of two friends, founders of the (now thankfully defunct) Hungarian horror performance group Art Macabre. Emke and Soffy started with their cover song of Rihanna's Umbrella (below) and now their MySpace has undergone something of a revamp - new pictures (courtesy of Balazs Kassai) and a few demo songs. Remember what Zoog said to newcomer bands? Never, never release a demo. Remember what else he said? Don't give up.
lila hús, rút, szibarita fémváz: hol tart a magyar cyberpunk?
A valós élet és az elképzelhetetlenül szilárd animehajú, éjszakai multiplayer meccsekben brillírozott reflexű, ötezer dolláros baszadékhangú narrátorokkal figyelmesre élhajtott játékok közös halmaza a headshot: viszlát a fánkszagú ing mögé szíjazott kevlárnak meg a szív fölé rejtett, háborút megjárt, dohányszagú nagyapától örökölt cigarettásdoboznak, ha fejbelőnek, százharmincöt fokban megcsúszik a világ, lekapcsolják a villanyt, albumborító marad a vérfoltból utánad az aszfalton.
Ilyen headshotot sikerült bekapnom egy klasszikus gyerekverstől, hogyaztmondja Oravecz Imre majdnemhaikuja (7-8-9), gyűjtöttem a bélyeget, apa hozott három kilót, azóta nem gyűjtök bélyeget, most meg nézz fel a Google Trends grafikonra és értelmezd a lényeget, ez történt a cyberpunkkal is, neonegestül-esőbenhackerestül, ahogy kell. Most huszonöt éves a Neurománc, a sci-fi portálok egymás után robbantják a cikkeket, hogy naprakész-e még a múlt évszázad legjelentősebb víziója és ha körbenézel, naprakész annyiból, hogy jelen lett belőle. (UPDATE 1: Marvin - róla a cikk következő részében lesz szó - azt mondja, Siv Wideberg svédgyermekversíró követte ezt el, nem Oravecz. Boldog vagyok, hogy a svédek is írnak haikukat. Thx, Marvin!)
Cyberspace helyett megkaptuk az internetet, többmillió felhasználó közös megegyezésen alapuló hallucinációját, az adatforgalmat ábrázoló térképet, ahol a nagyvárosok, szerverparkok és az egyetemi kampuszok lüktető szupernóvák, a nagyhatalmak és az országokon átnyúló multicégek köszönik, jól vannak, Afrika gyakorlatilag már a jelen pillanatban is szeparált teszttelep, hackereink, designer drugjaink vannak, az ázsiai kultúra már régen fúzióban van az európaival, a kilencvenes évek összes csecse eszköze az adatkesztyűtől a VR-sisakig meg egyszerűen ergonómiai kurvaanyjának bizonyult.
A Trends hevült szemű szomorúnosztalgia helyett bemondja a frankót: három éve stagnál a cyberpunk, gyakorlatilag döglött, bármi is legyen az, az ébrentartó érdeklődés egyik fókuszpontja pedig Magyarország, elvégre is mi pipáltuk ki a világ jó dolgait hologramoktól a telefonközponton és a tévén keresztül a művérig, üljön le, elégtelen.
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tron comedy web series launches on youtube
Don't get too overexcited on the new Tron series. Tron Reboot basically equals comedy humour with classic Tron design and a whiff of commedia dell'arte bad. Expect new episode (previous was 93 seconds, barely enough for a gag reflex) on the 14th of July. If you're in for the more serious stuff, expect TR2N media launched on the new Comic-Con. (via cpc)
real drive: milyen az élet a ghost in the shell után?
Óvatosan meglépett, cukormázas addendumnak ígérkezik a japán cyberpunk halódó lajstromában Masamune Shirow új, egyébként tavalyi, kevesek által ismert animéje, a Real Drive (RD 潜脳調査室 RD Sennō Chōsashitsu). Nyolcvanon túli főhőssel indítani olyan volt, mint Bruce Sterling Holy Fire-jét kézhezkapni és kétszer olvasni el az első fejezeteket, hogy bevésődjön: új lapra írt történetről van szó, nincs katedrálisban triplaszaltózó amorózó óriásmecha meg luxuspavilonok előtt instant agymosott lakosság. (original RD page in Japanese)
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new mechwarrior announced
The lady to the left, she's familiar? Thought so. Reactor online, sensors online, weapons online, all systems nominal. Yes. That's how you and me and half the mech loving community started each mission in MechWarrior 2. Fourteen years passed and Carole Ruggier (apparently she's the voice talent behind the mech pilot voiceovers) could still make a small fortune from mech ringtones. Hopes up? Not quite.
Piranha Games announced a new mech game in the series (simply naming it MechWarrior, announced for PC and Xbox 360) and you know what the video and article comments miss the most? That's right, it's "the girl with the voiceovers". Arduous mech fights, battle units constructed with painful care, wonders of cockpit claustrophobia (with the occasional wireframe rendering). The footage below, that's in-game. The voiceovers? You will change it, will you not. (via ign)
One of the key features is a sense of information warfare, using everything from unmanned drones surveying the battlefield from above to light scout mechs relaying information to teammates. (...) The designers want to reward you for picking a mech and sticking with it -- you will gain experience and become better at piloting your chosen mech, and that will translate into better accuracy and damage with weapon systems. (...) While the developers didn't go into how many mechs will make the game, based on the video trailer and the discussions, we know of at least four. There's the Jenner (light class), both the Warhammer and the Rifleman(heavy class), and an Atlas Prime, a feared assault-class mech.
UPDATE 1: Not completely sure about the exact person of the voiceover girl being Ms. Ruggier. Anyone with better intel?
blomkamp's district 9 to premiere 14th of august
These are times for good science fiction. Seriously. First, it's Duncan "Zowie Bowie" Jones with his rendition of alienation with his superbly shot Moon (featuring Sam Rockwell as himself and Kevin Spacey as Kevin Spacey's voice! HAL revisited! another sample source for oldschool psy and electro-industrial musicians! who all love David Bowie anyways!) and now - actually, on the 14th of August - it's time for Neill Blomkamp's alien apartheid action movie District 9. I've previously mentioned Blomkamp's work, so check up on that - aliens have been stranded on Earth for 28 years with the zaibatsu Multi-National United creating regulated zones to herd them up. So far, the trailers have shown us interrogation scenes, aliens confessing to want to go home, earthlings who are afraid and lots of warning signs. The new trailer is here and it shows us physically superior creatures, monstrous mecha technology that's actually able to catch an RPG in mid-air without too much of a hassle. And some sort of a spray that transforms humans into something the military calls freaks. Gorgeous. These are times for good science fiction.