Today has not been a great day. It started off with unadulterated excitement as I contemplated playing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves tonight, but those happy thoughts soon turned to disappointment when I found out a shipping delay by a certain distributor would result in me only picking up my copy tomorrow. Now I’m completely apathetic about the situation. I guess that’s a good indication of how my feelings are so easily ruled by modern technology.
Graphic designer/illustrator Andy Rementer knows a thing or two about the influence of technology on our world, and in his Techno Tuesday comic, he takes a funny look at that. See some of comics after the jump.
If you’re a fan of vinyl toys and LEGO, I postulate that you have just jizzed in your pants or soon will. Created by Pixar animator and obvious LEGO fan Angus MacLane, the CubeDude Lego Icons series features over 120 charming miniature representations of dudes from movies and TV to cartoons and comics. The characters are instantly recognizable and so very awesome. See a very small selection after the jump.
Well technically blood head. I first heard about British sculptor Marc Quinn when he revealed Sphinx (a sculpture of Kate Moss in a yoga pose) in 2007. I wasn’t that impressed to tell you the truth. Anyway, today I was browsing Neatorama and I saw Quinn’s signature piece, which quite literally blew me away. The work is entitled Self and is made entirely from 4.5 litres of his own blood which has been frozen in a mould of his head. It’s definitely gruesome and perhaps even nauseating for some, but it’s also so human that it’s strangely alluring.
The delicate frost crystals gathered on the “skin” and the underlying deep scarlet of the frozen blood almost make me want to lick it. Eeew can’t believe I just wrote that, but it’s true. Self is an on going project, Quinn makes another blood cast of his head every five years which will result in a unique and visceral record of the artist aging.
For those who find this work a little over the top but totally cool, you can see more of Quinn’s works which include giant pieces of pop corn, beautiful plants frozen forever in liquid silicone, enormous orchids, and a huge sculpture of Darth Vader’s head at FACTUM ARTE.
No offense to Cape Town, y’all a great and all and all, but the few months I spent in Durban a few years ago were entertaining to say the least. I won’t name any names (mainly because I forgot them after the night’s worth of boozing), but the people were awesome, and it really was a jol wherever we went.
Friend, fellow gamer, and multi-tasker Macross just sent me a video that brought all those feelings back. Straight outta Durban, by way of Chatsworth, it’s the hilarious hip hop artist Rajiv with I Get The Stekkies (you get the bats). Check it out.
According to Facebook, Rajiv’s rhymes will be featured in The ATTACK of the INDIAN WEREWOLF movie, a horror spoof set in Durban. Awesome on both counts!
I have trouble remembering names, and cover it up by telling people that I never forget a face. I haven’t had to test that theory, until now. The BBC has a face memory test up on their website to determine how good you are at remembering things. It’s composed of three parts, and at the end of it, you are scored on two things – how well you remembered the photos you were presented with (this tests your recognition memory), and how well you matched the photos to the section they were taken from (this tests your ‘temporal’ memory).
Sleep scientists say that your recognition memory isn’t affected by sleep loss, whereas your temporal memory is. I went to sleep at 1:41 this morning (thank you Batman: Arkham Asylum) and my test results seems to prove that theory – recognition score: 95%, temporal memory score: 82%.
Take the face memory test and drop us a comment with your scores.
A literal version video is like an official music video with one main (and potentially hilarious) difference – the original lyrics are replaced with ones that describe what is happening visually in the video.
The 1980s lends itself perfectly to this kind of thing, more specifically, the music video for Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. The literal video version of Tyler’s hit has been viewed over 4 million times. Why? Because it has dancing ninjas who know how to twirl. Honest. Check it below.
That was most amusing. Find more literal video versions at YouTube.
Hey, I’m in a movie. And so are you. Unfortunately, it’s not a thrilling Hollywood adventure flick where you or I save the world, get the girl, and live happily ever after. It’s quite the opposite.
In The Age of Stupid, the year is 2055 and climate change has devastated the earth, and the last surviving person, The Archivist (Pete Postlethwaite), has assembled an archive of all of humanity’s works of art, literature, and culture in a giant library. He combs through series of documentary footage from 2008, pondering the actions (or inactions) that have brought on the bleak future he lives in. He asks the question: “Why didn’t we stop climate change when we still had the chance?” Take a look at the trailer below.
Directed by Franny Armstrong, the drama-documentary-animation hybrid took three years to make and was financed through “crowd-funding” – 220 people donated between £500 and £35,000 in exchange for “shares”. The Age of Stupid was released internationally on September 21st and 22nd, in a live-via-solar-powered-satellite premiere in over 45 countries, including South Africa. I’m always late to the party so I missed it at The Labia in Cape Town, and I can’t seem to find it on the SterKinekor listings neither. Pity.
Digital artist Macoto Murayama makes the most detailed computer-generated illustrations of flowers. Murayama dissects real plants and observes them under a magnifying glass before rendering the geometric structures on his computer.
Murayama takes anywhere from three days to a month to create each piece. The results are truly incredible, showing the beauty and complexity of flowers. Take a look at some of them below.
See the full list of images and descriptions at The Telegraph.
Grumpy-looking Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most acclaimed composers of all time, and YouTube user smalin has put the composer’s Symphony No. 5 through a Music Animation Machine MIDI file player to produce a video where you can actually see the music. The different colours in the graphical score represent the instruments that are playing. Have a look at the video below, not only is it fantastically done, it is also 7 minutes of pleasant listening.
