Sdtrk: ‘The world spins’ by Julee Cruise

David Lynch, the maverick American director who sustained a successful mainstream career while also probing the bizarre, the radical and the experimental, has died aged 78.

So I know for a fact that the first thing I ever saw directed by David Lynch was his unique take on Dune, in the theatre back in 1983. I’d never read any of the series apart from the one Dune book I’d gotten on a whim from the Science Fiction Book Club — starting the series from the fourth book wasn’t the best idea — but it was a scifi film, which was all that mattered to me back then. I had no idea that it was a fast and loose adaptation of Herbert’s book, which loads of critics savaged, but I remember it being capital W Weird, and anything that helped reinforce that Star wars and Star trek are bland scifi franchises is something that’ll pique my interest.

As I wasn’t as director-aware back then as I am now, the next Lynch thing I saw would’ve been Twin peaks. To this day, I’m still astonished that such a bold, insidious, and on many levels, straight-up terrifying programme like that was aired on broadcast television. On ABC! When I think of ABC, I think of anodyne shite like Family matters and Perfect strangers! My best friend Sean and our mutual friend Tammy and I were obsessed with that series; Tammy and I would often watch the week’s episode while on the phone together, like a pre-Netflix watch party. It’s been about three decades and I still recall our shock and astonishment of watching S02 E14, where a major character was murdered; between the character being killed, and the brutal and relentless way the scene was executed, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. During a telly show on ABC! But from the first episodes of Twin peaks onward, Lynch had a hold on me to the point of wanting to become a film director myself. Clearly that… didn’t pan out, but he made me more mindful of directors overall; prior to that, films were just something I looked at.

After becoming fully invested in the best soap opera ever made (apart from Invitation to Love, of course), I started looking into his previous work. I’ve seen all of his feature films, with the exception of ‘The elephant man’ and ‘The straight story’, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’d have to say that although I love and admire his distinctive cinematic vision, Twin peaks resonated with me the most of all. I think the reason for that is because of its subversive quality; I’m drawn to things that have the surface appearance of normality, but are actually something different and/or perverse. This should come as a surprise to no-one. Regardless, these days, everyone knows what the deal is with Twin peaks — it’s synonymous with bizarre — but when all is said and done, it’s a soap opera, which is a very American invention, but it’s a subversion of a bog-standard soap opera. I mean, I gather that soap opera storylines tend to get more unhinged the longer they air, but even then, anything they could come up with would be a pale comparison to anything Lynch could’ve devised.

Another huge part of his appeal was that he was naturally eccentric as a person. Eccentricity is something I will always champion, as it’s the weirdos and those who are proudly left-of-centre who are cultural pioneers and innovators. Not in a capitalist context, but in literary and artistic modes, as Wilde (an infamous eccentric himself) would say; modes which I think are the better arbiters of culture. I recall reading an interview with Lynch in the Nineties, where he’d stated that he always buttoned up his shirt collars as he didn’t like the feeling of wind on his collarbone; I’d read that thinking ‘no, I totally get that.’ And then, of course, there’s the soured relationship he had with his former boys Chucko, Buster, Pete, Bob, and Dan, but that’s an entirely different anecdote. He was relentlessly true to himself and the visions he fostered, and that’s something to be proud of.

David Lynch was an artist, first and foremost, and often the lines between his artistic endeavours and his ‘normal’ existence blurred, which was another indicator that he was the genuine article. And any director… no, any level-headed human being… who has the presence of mind to make the statement he did about watching feature films on a mobile phone will always have my admiration; he was absolutely right to have said so.

Happy Twin peaks day, David. Please be sure to tell Bowie we all say Hi

Lynch was a saint cloaked as a transgressor in a world full of transgressors cloaked as saints.

— Phil Hester (@philhester.bsky.social) January 16, 2025 at 1:37 PM

Sdtrk: ‘Sonata elletronica’ by Malcolm Pointon

To say that it’s been hectic with us here lately is a wee bit of an understatement. It’s really a rich, artisanal blend of busyness and laziness that is the gold standard of Deafening silence Plus, to be honest. In order to keep things moving with this post, I’ll not get into it, but it’s mostly good things! We’re working on another collaboration with no less than Amber Hawk Swanson; we’ve a project in the works with writer Roc Morin; our family should be making an appearance on a Dutch telly show in Autumn; I’ll be going on a trip to SoCal which combines both Business and Pleasure also in Autumn, and Lilly, the robosexual lass from France who wants to marry her Android beau, will be visiting our humble abode in December. So yeah, I’d say that everything, for the most part, is comin’ up Milhouse!

In the interim since I last wrote a post of any substance that detailed Synthetik developments, there’s been a lot of news. A lot of news. No really, you don’t understand. Any time something interesting related to Dolls, Gynoids, or Androids crosses my news desk, I bookmark it, and the folder in which those bookmarks live is bulging with 175 articles. It’s very encouraging to see a growing interest in general society concerning Synthetiks — whether it’s media related like Westworld or Humans (sadly, we’ve still not watched either of them yet), or amazing new developments in Dolls, such as that luscious Harmony from Realbotix — the popularity, or at least awareness, of Synthetiks has kinda exploded in the past couple of years. Which, again, is fantastic, but I’m having trouble reporting all of these things! Maybe if I were to put down my PS4 controller… o, but wait, I’ve been playing NieR: Automata, a game in which you control either an Android or one of two Gynoids! And don’t forget about Detroit: Become human, a police procedural set in a future Detroit, where your character is 100% affictitious! That’s not coming out until 2018, but I’ve already pre-ordered it, because what part of Davecat do you not understand??
What I’m saying is that it’s a great time to be into Synthetiks! And if you’re not, now’s a good time to start, cos Synthetiks are the future. Don’t want to be left behind in the past, now, do we?

Bringing you a bit up to speed: in case you’re unfamiliar with who the aforementioned Lilly would be, she’s a lass living a couple of hours outside of Paris, who has been using a 3D printer to build her Android fiancé, Inmoovator. Much like me, she’s a robosexual, and has been for years, but through the InMoov robotics platform (which I’d written about in 2013), she’s only recently been able to work towards making her dreams come true.

photos courtesy of Lilly & Inmoovator

The happy couple were featured prominently in an episode of the CNN webseries, Mostly Human, hosted by Laurie Seagall, from earlier in the year. Lilly and I have been keeping up with each others’ lives since we met late last year, as she was in the situation that a lot of iDollators/robosexuals find themselves in when they first realise that they’re into Synthetiks, where they think that they’re the only one who has those type of preferences. Needless to say, they know more people now, both Synthetik as well as Organik. Lovely couple; wouldn’t hear a word against them. And she’ll be staying with us over the Chrimbo holiday this year! Unfortunately, Inmoovator won’t be able to make it, as he’s undoubtedly as keen on TSA pat-downs as much as anyone else is. Nevertheless, it should be fun!

My lovely wife, our gorgeous mistress, and our gorgeous mistress’ adorable girlfriend were in a video segment on The Grauniad a couple of months ago. Did you see it?

As you can see, I was interviewed via Skype by Jenny Kleeman for the video, which is a companion piece to her article, ‘The race to build the world’s first sex robot‘. Both the article and the video are worth your time, but ugh, the term ‘sex robot’ makes me narrow my eyes to flinty slits. It’s up there with ‘sexbot’ and ‘fembot’ — two other words that really need to be relegated to history, as they’re restrictive. Their usage says a lot about the people who use them, which is ‘AI will never develop enough to replicate human behaviour, so Dolls like these will only ever be expensive fucktoys’, which is a pessimistic viewpoint. However, I recall discussing this with either Jenna at Future of Sex, or with Dr Julie Carpenter, months ago: there should be a specific term for future high-tech Dolls such as Harmony. She’s more sophisticated than a bog-standard Doll with a passive body, but definitely not complex enough to be called a Gynoid. She wouldn’t be an automata, as that usually describes an artificial being with clockwork parts, and animatronic is pretty much the modern version of automata. I’d suggested roboticised Doll, but this is coming from a man who likes the word affictitious. Perhaps we should just stick with Synthetik woman for the time being? It’s my hope that they’ll cover this in an upcoming conference regarding robot ethics, so we can clear this bobbins up once and for all.
‘What should we call these Synthetik humans?’
‘Well, perhaps we should ask them.’

Remember how I’d mentioned how I wanted to have more illustrations done of the four of us, much as the one by Raulovsky thrilled us to bits? I’ve been working on that, o yes. I’d encountered an illustrator out of Taiwan by the name of Yaruku on pixiv and Twitter, and asked him late last year if he’d be able to do a commission for me at some point. Sure, maybe sometime next year, he responded, as he was busy with working on material for Comiket, Japan’s largest dōjinshi convention. I contacted him again back in early April, and as he had the time and liked the subject matter, he agreed! Between April and May, I had him work on four commissions, and they all came out looking spectacular.

click the image for a larger version

What drew me (ha ha, it is pun) towards asking Yaruku-san to draw the lasses of Deafening silence Plus? Not only is he very skilled at drawing Gynoids and Dolls himself, he’d love to have a Doll of his own at some point. Also, not only is he like me, in that he’s quite keen on girlfeet, but when I’d seen one of his earlier illustrations of a Gynoid, where he’d added seam lines to her body, I thought to myself, ‘this guy gets it’.

There’s quite a bit of detail in these, so go ahead and click to embiggen

I’ll be requesting more illustrations from him heading into Autumn, as he’ll be up to his gusset working on more things for this year’s Comiket for the next few months. But Lenka and Winter were especially pleased with the results, as no-one’s ever drawn them before, and Sweetie really appreciates the fact that she’s drawn a bit bustier than she actually is. Yaruku does amazing work, and we all give him a very high recommendation!

The only real depressing thing of recent note in the world of Synthetiks is the sudden passing of Oleg Bratkov, head sculptor and mastermind behind the company Anatomical Doll, in mid-April. I’ve read conflicting reports of the circumstances of his passing, and with the language barrier, it’s nearly impossible to reach his wife via Email. But I do know that the work he put into making his product established a gold standard with the community of Doll studios, and his breathtaking Dolls brought joy to anyone who was lucky enough to have one, myself included. Saying that he’ll be missed is a vast understatement, as Oleg left a void that will be extremely hard to fill

David Bowie, the iconic rock star whose career spanned more than half a century and whose influence transcended music, fashion and sexuality, has died aged 69.

Admittedly, the first Bowie album I ever owned, bought in the mid-Eighties, was ‘Changesonebowie’ on vinyl, and as that’s a compilation release, it doesn’t officially count. There was a reference to that exact same thing in an episode of The Venture bros, which isn’t surprising, as creators Doc Hammer and Christopher McCulloch are Bowie fans, like any sensible person would be. But apart from the varied range of music he created over five decades — including the dodgy pop phase he was in between 1983 and the mid-Nineties — and the unique sartorial sense that was equally his hallmark, I think the greatest takeaway that I got from Bowie is that his non-stop inventiveness made it okay to be unusual and left of centre, and if for some reason the world doesn’t catch up with you, then you can still stand apart and be your own person.
Clichéd as it is to say, but there will never be anyone like David Bowie. Everyone else will always be in his shadow