January 21, 2013
Escape From Tomorrow is a 2013 American fantasy-horror film. It is the debut film of writer-director Randy Moore, and stars Roy Abramsohn as a man having increasingly disturbing experiences and visions during the last day of a family vacation to the Walt Disney World theme park. After its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, it became one of the most popular films there.
The film gained national media attention because Moore and his cast and crew made most of it on location at both Disney World and Disneyland without the consent or apparently even the awareness of The Walt Disney Company, which owns and operates both parks and has a reputation for being fiercely protective of its intellectual property. They used guerilla filmmaking techniques such as keeping their scripts on their iPhones to avoid attracting attention, and shooting on handheld video cameras similar to those used by the park’s many visitors. After principal photography was complete, Moore was so determined to keep the project a secret from Disney that he edited it in South Korea, and Sundance similarly declined to discuss the film in detail before it was shown.
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January 18, 2013
The Antagonist Movement is a cultural movement formed in New York City in 2000. The group grew out of desperation and in reaction to the New York art market. The movement primarily involves visual arts, literature, film, art manifestos and graphic design. It articulates its anti-commercial politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in the art market and focuses its efforts on creating non-commercial cultural works and venues.
Its purpose is to ridicule the meaninglessness, superficiality and artificiality of the commercial art world. Antagonist activities have included public gatherings, demonstrations, the publication of art/literary journals, the production of documentary films, a clothing line, weekly art shows, writers nights, and a public access television show.
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January 9, 2013
‘Burning Chrome‘ is a short story, written by William Gibson and first published in ‘Omni’ in 1982. Gibson first read the story at a science fiction convention in Denver in the autumn of 1981, to an audience of four people, among them Bruce Sterling (who Gibson later said ‘completely got it’). It was collected with the rest of Gibson’s early short fiction in a 1986 volume of the same name.
‘Burning Chrome’ tells the story of two hackers who breaking into computer systems for profit. The two main characters are Bobby Quine who specializes in software and Automatic Jack whose field is hardware. A third character in the story is Rikki, a girl with whom Bobby becomes infatuated and for whom he wants to become wealthy. Automatic Jack acquires a piece of Russian hacking software that is very sophisticated and hard to trace. The rest of the story unfolds with Bobby deciding to break into the system of a notorious and vicious criminal called Chrome, who handles money transfers for organized crime, and Automatic Jack reluctantly agreeing to help.
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January 9, 2013
‘Neuromancer‘ is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and winner of the science-fiction ‘triple crown’ — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson’s first novel and the beginning of the ‘Sprawl’ trilogy (which takes place in a near-future world dominated by corporations and ubiquitous technology, after a limited World War III).
The novel tells the story of a washed-up computer hacker hired by a mysterious employer to work on a dangerous hack. ‘Neuromancer’ is considered the archetypal cyberpunk work. Gibson himself coined the term ‘cyberspace’ in his novelette ‘Burning Chrome,’ published in 1982 by ‘Omni’ magazine.
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January 9, 2013
MSTRKRFT (pronounced ‘Master-craft’) is an electronic music duo from Toronto. The group was started in 2005 by Jesse F. Keeler of Death from Above 1979 and Al-P (Alex Puodziukas) formerly of the Ontario electropop group Girlsareshort. Al-P was also the producer for Death from Above 1979’s album ‘You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine’ as well as several of (Jesse’s former band) Black Cat #13’s records.
The duo have been close friends, as well as work partners, for a long time. MSTRKRFT also produced Die Mannequin’s first EP, ‘How to Kill,’ and Magneta Lane’s second LP, ‘Dancing With Daggers.’ The band took out the vowels from their name in order to avoid trademark infringement with Mastercraft, a Canadian tools company. MSTRKRFT have been commissioned to remix songs by such artists as Death From Above 1979, Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry, Justice, Bloc Party, Ayumi Hamasaki, Metric, Wolfmother, Annie, and The Kills.
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January 9, 2013
Mount Kimbie is a British electronic music duo consisting of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos. They formed the group in London in 2008 and released their debut album ‘Crooks & Lovers’ in 2010 in the UK to critical acclaim. Mount Kimbie are currently working on their second album which will be released on Warp Records. Arguably responsible for the term ‘post-dubstep,’ the duo has released a series of EPs and their highly praised debut album.
‘The Guardian’ described the pair as ‘leading an exploratory breakaway from bass-heavy dubstep towards a lighter, hazier style of electronica rich with drowsy ambience and chopped-up found sounds.’ The pair are closely linked to friend, producer and ‘BBC Sound of’ 2011 runner-up, James Blake. He has collaborated with them live and lent his skills to the remixing of ‘Maybes,’ as well as contributing elements to ‘Crooks & Lovers.’
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January 8, 2013
Anamanaguchi is a chiptune indie rock or ‘chip-punk’ band from New York City that ‘makes loud, fast music with a NES from 1985.’ The band has four members: lead songwriter Peter Berkman, bassist James DeVito, guitarist Ary Warnaar and drummer Luke Silas. Like other chiptune artists, Anamanaguchi creates music using synthesizers. However, unlike most chiptune bands, they use video game hardware from the mid-to-late 1980s: namely an NES and a Game Boy.
Berkman has stated that their music isn’t just based around video game music and that much of it is inspired by ‘[s]imple pop stuff, like Weezer and the Beach Boys.’ The band composed music for the videogame adaptation of the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ graphic novels, ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game.’ In 2010 it was announced that Anamanaguchi would appear in the popular music video game ‘Rock Band’ with the track ‘Airbrushed.’ The band’s song ‘Jetpack Blues, Sunset Hues’ is the current theme to Chris Hardwick’s ‘The Nerdist Podcast.’
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January 8, 2013
Packard Jennings (b. 1970) is an American artist who appropriates pop culture symbols and references to create new meaning using a variety of media including printmaking, sculpture, animation, video, and pamphleteering.
In his early career he modified billboards, a common practice of culture jammers. Jennings’s work often deals with the philosophy of anarchism, how it’s represented in the media, and the representation of a naive utopia primarily through primitivism, not to be confused with anarchism or anarchy.
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January 7, 2013
The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had eight episodes spanning 49 years (one episode every seven years) and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC.
The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films material from those of the fourteen who choose to participate.
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January 1, 2013
Mexican pointy boots (botas picudas mexicanas) are a style of pointed fashion boots made with elongated toes. The boots are said to have originated in Matehuala in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. The came to popularity at the same time as ‘tribal guarachero’ music (‘a mixture of Pre-Columbian and African sounds mixed with fast cumbia bass and electro-house beats’). and the boots have become a preferred footwear for the all-male troupes that dance to the tribal music. They are made by elongating normal boots by as much as 5 feet (1.5 m), causing the toes to curl up toward the knees. Decorative alterations incorporate paint and sequins and can go as far as adding flashing LED lights, disco balls and even mirrors.
Boys and men that wear the pointy boots have formed all-male troupes to compete in danceoffs at local nightclubs to tribal music. Participants in the contests spend weeks choreographing their dance moves and fabricating their outfits which commonly include ‘matching western shirts and skinny jeans to accentuate their footwear.’ In Matehuala, prize money ranges from $100 to $500. The prize often includes a bottle of whiskey. The dance troupes have reportedly become so popular that they are being ‘hired to dance at weddings, for quinceañeras, celebrations of the Virgin of Guadalupe, bachelorette parties, and even rosary ceremonies for the dead.’
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December 29, 2012
The tragic mulatto [muh-lat-oh] is a stereotypical fictional character that appeared in American literature during the 19th and 20th centuries, from the 1840s.
The ‘tragic mulatto’ is an archetypical mixed-race person (a ‘mulatto’), who is assumed to be sad, or even suicidal, because they fail to completely fit in the ‘white world’ or the ‘black world.’ As such, the ‘tragic mulatto’ is depicted as the victim of the society they live in, a society divided by race.
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December 29, 2012
Negative capability describes the capacity of human beings to transcend and revise their contexts. The term has been used by poets and philosophers to describe the ability of the individual to perceive, think, and operate beyond any presupposition of a predetermined capacity of the human being.
It further captures the rejection of the constraints of any context, and the ability to experience phenomenon free from epistemological bounds, as well as to assert one’s own will and individuality upon their activity. The term was first used by the Romantic poet John Keats to critique those who sought to categorize all experience and phenomena and turn them into a theory of knowledge.
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