Sdtrk: ‘Papercuts’ by Broadcast

By my own admission, I’m not altogether keen on most modern (i.e., anything after the mid-Nineties) art, but this is a notable exception by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang that I spotted on the Random board of WAKAchan:

AWHUMPA thumpa thump thud arf etc

The wolves were produced in Quanzhou, China, from January to June of 2006. The commissioned local workshop in Cai’s hometown specializes in manufacturing remarkable, life-sized replicas of animals. First, small clay models were created as movement studies, out of which Cai subsequently developed Head On’s artist editions of cast resin wolves. However, the realistic and lifelike 99 wolves that grew out of these models and drawings possess no literal remnants of wolves: they are fabricated from painted sheepskins and stuffed with hay and metal wires, with plastic lending contour to their faces and marbles for eyes.
taken from this article

Seems that when he’s not having RealWolves colliding with glass panes, he works a lot with pyrotechnics or gunpowder, as evidenced on his site on Artsy.net. These are concepts I can get behind!

Sdtrk: ‘Menta’ by Sutcliffe Jügend

In hanging out with the lads on a Saturday eve a few months ago, we had to stop at a wine store (really, it was more like a party store with higher aspirations, but they’ll have to work much harder, as they’re located in Macomb county) for some drinkies. In browsing their beverages selection, we’d noticed a couple of metal tubs filled with these bizarre articles:

The Missus thought it tasted awful as well. And technically,
she has no tastebuds

Yes, it is exactly what it appears to be — water in a bag, under the unsettling name of ‘Pure Pouch’. We should be thankful that they didn’t decide to go with what was probably their first name choice, ‘Water In A Bag’, as you really wouldn’t be able to get much more bog-standard than that if you tried. Now that I think about it, yes you could; ever see the film ‘Repo man’? All the grocery stores were stocked with the most generic of foodstuffs and dry goods: every single item was packaged in a white container with a light blue stripe and a generic serif typeface proclaiming ‘Cereal’, ‘Baked Beans’, ‘Tissue Paper’, etc etc.

‘HEY! He’s talking to jooooo’

Pure Pouch’s packaging is far too ornate compared to that sort of thing. That’s a point in their favour, I guess.

What spasm of anti-creativity produced this? Did the boss of Waterco. Inc. suddenly say one day, ‘We’ve got all this water just sitting there in our many enormous storage tanks; what the living hell are we gonna do with all of it??’ *sees employee sipping a Capri Sun, snaps fingers* ‘WE’LL PUT IT IN BAGS AND SELL IT!! BY GOD, THAT’S WHAT WE’LL DO!! IT’S A LICENCE TO PRINT MONEY!!’ Then he fires the bloke drinking the Capri Sun, cos that’d be like having a Pepsi while working at the Coca-cola plant.
It’s like I always say: find a niche and fill it; if there isn’t a niche, make one and then fill it. And yet I bought a Pure Pouch! Technically, I bought four, as they were four for $1. Ehh, that dollar wasn’t doing me any good anyways. But it does remind one of the old saw ‘What does Evian spell backwards?’

Unfortunately, much as you’d expect, the water tastes like plastic bag. Not a positive selling point. Later that eve, I gave one to SafeTinspector, who emptied his at an alarming speed, and I took the other two home in order to study them further. Did I leave one in goshou’s van by accident? *thinks* Do I really care at this point?
Perhaps I’ll freeze the ones I have, relabel them (using a Sharpie), and sell them as Ice Pouch! Ahh, the entrepreneurial spirit is truly unstoppabubble.

O, and in case you’re keeping score, this would be the second time I’ve written about brackish, unappetising water

Sdtrk: ‘Decades’ by Joy division

In doing some research on my Most Favourite Subject, this quote by roboticist David Hanson from an article last year in the Toronto Star stood out:

‘If we don’t give [robots] faces, if we don’t teach them how to be a part of the human family in the future, then they will be cold and faceless and they will be scary. They’ll jeopardize our existence on this planet,’ he says. ‘We need to start planting the seeds in the technology of compassion and wisdom.’

‘Otherwise they will just be ruthless.’
the rest of the article is here

In other news, I’m at almost a total loss as to what to write about next, as evidenced by the subj.title. This happens every now and again; I just have to dig in my spurs and ride it out. Something will come up, I’m sure. Right?

Technorati tags: Android, Gynoid, Synthetik, David Hanson

Sdtrk: ‘Becoming more like Alfie’ by The Divine comedy

‘What else could I buy instead of a RealDoll’? I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.

If you were intending to buy a RealDoll for US$7000.00, you could instead buy:

four seconds of the US war on Iraq nine thousand, three hundred and thirty-three packets of itching powder six cheap flights from the northern hemisphere to Australia forty-nine second-hand 28″ CRT televisions seventy felt bowler hats eight hundred and sixty-three litres of Red Bull energy drink one twentieth of a terraced house on an English council estate eighteen kilolitres of unleaded gasoline (in America) one hundred and thirty-one thousand, five hundred and twenty-eight 5mm light-emitting diodes three thousand, nine hundred and thirty-two lottery tickets, probably worthless

What are you thinking of buying?

I might buy for UK pounds sterlingCanadian dollarsAustralian dollarsEurosUS dollars

Here’s something to consider: what would I do with 863 litres of Red Bull? I know! Kill myself.
How many of these will $7000 USD purchase, I wonder?

More than likely just one, but you really can’t put a price on a structure(s) that exterminate all rational thought

Sdtrk: ‘Where were you?’ by the Mekons

This is so cute, it’s giving me cavities.

‘Exact change? Stitch that, I’ve got a bus pass’

Mystery cat takes regular bus to the shops
Daily Mail | 9th April 2007

Bus drivers have nicknamed a white cat Macavity after it has started using the No 331 several mornings a week.

The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings – he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.

The cat was nicknamed Macavity after the mystery cat in T.S Elliot’s poem. He gets on the bus in front of a row of 1950s semi-detached houses and jumps off at a row of shops down the road which include a fish and chip shop.

Driver Bill Khunkhun, 49, who first saw the cat jumping from the bus in January, said: “It is really odd, the first time I saw the cat jumping off the bus with a group of passengers. I hadn’t seen it get on which was a bit confusing.

“The next day I pulled up on Churchill Road to let a couple of passengers on. As soon as I opened the doors the cat ran towards the bus, jumped on and ran under one of the seats, I don’t think any of the passengers noticed.

“Because I had seen it jump off the day before I carried on driving and sure enough when I stopped just down the road he jumped off – I don’t know why he would catch the bus but he seems to like it. I told some of the other drivers on this route and they have seen him too.”
the rest of the article is here

I love the shot of Macavity in the top left corner. He’s like ‘What? What??‘ Plus, he’s heterochromatic — he has one blue eye and one green eye. He’s a David Bowie kitty!

You have to ask yourself: what would possess a cat to not only take the bus on a regular basis, but make the same stops? It’s apparent that the entire concept of animal intelligence is vastly understudied. My guess is that he’s saving up for driving lessons

Sdtrk: ‘Beautiful dreams’ by Twiggy

Good news, bad news, humans. Good news first: I’ve just received my copy of Moon wiring club’s ‘I’m more than a memory now’, from the lovely spectres at Blank Workshop. A number of weeks ago, I’d stumbled across their MySpace site, after having seen it linked on one of the MySpace pages of an artist on the seminal Ghost box label. Much like Ghost box, Blank Workshop’s overall (hazy) focus is that of ‘eldritchtronica’ — samples from obscure British television programmes fusing with various beats and other found sounds. They’re not as sinister as say, Eric Zann, but more than a couple of Moon wiring club’s tracks have an uneasy atmosphere lying beneath their surface, a bit like ‘The Wicker man’ redone as a childrens’ telly programme for the UK; if you can somehow picture that, you’ve got the general idea.
Blank Workshop have a pop-up .mp3 jukebox on their site; you should give it your attention. Especially while you’re checking out their rather esoteric information and history. Quite good!

So the bad news? Hanging out with Derek at Jeff‘s luxurious estates last Saturday eve found us watching the live-action Cutey Honey DVD. A fun film, directed by Hideaki ‘Scruffy Beard and Midlife-Crisis’ Anno, and featuring the rather supple Eriko Sato as the busty Gynoid who fights evildoers, it was exactly as described — a live-action anime movie. But the thing that really captured my attention was the soundtrack for the fillum, as it was very Shibuya-kei / Pizzicato five-esque. So I’m on a goddamned quest to find the soundtrack, and I can’t seem to locate it online anywhere, neither through legitimate means or from our friends the INTERNET PIRATES. I’m debating whether or not to go to Anime Central — what is that, next month? — in order to perform a search-and-destroypurchase mission for that damn Cd. Those tunes were catchy.

Things. I find that I have to buy things quite often. Don’t get me wrong though; I’m not knocking retail therapy at all, it’s just that I wish things were easier to acquire, so I could spend less time hunting them down, and more time acquiring more things. AND THUS THE SERPENT EATS ITS TAIL

Sdtrk: ‘An invitation to Shoebox Garden’ by Moon wiring club

Finding this on YouTube was certainly an unexpected surprise! Actual footage of Kobayashi Labs’ Android SAYA. Nice!

I’ve always gotten little digs in about her somewhat mediocre appearance and older technology — if you’ll recall, she unfortunately didn’t rate too well in that poll I’d held a couple of months ago* — but seeing her in motion, she looks… not entirely unattractive, actually.

Doing a bit of investigative digging round, I discovered why the sudden resurgence in news about our SAYA; according to this article in Plastic Bamboo, she was purchased by a university in Israel, in order to help kickstart their own robotics programme. I approve!

And as per her custom, Sidore-chan’s got another intriguing pair of videos on her Dailymotion page that should prove, err, intriguing. Happy 23rd!

*To be fair, the pic I’d selected for Android SAYA was a bit crap

Technorati tags: Android, Gynoid, Synthetik, Kobayashi Labs