Sony’s follow up their commercial where they threw a whole lot of balls down a San Fransisco Street. This time a - presumably - soon to be demolished housing estate is bombarded with paintball fireworks and terrorised by an inexplicable clown:
It really must be seen in motion. NOW!
And if flying paint is your thing, then OIO will keep you sated for the time being.
The Long Tomorrow is a short, twelve page, comic produced in 1956-76 which tells the noir story of a private detective hired to pick up a parcel for a sultry dame. It has a stock noir plot and the writing is pretty terrible.
But the art and the world it depicted was visionary; a world that is one giant, teeming, vertical metropolis. A super dense cityscape with skybridges and anti-gravity chutes. If it is familiar, then it is because Moebius was a big influence on Ridley Scott and The Long Tomorrow depicts a world strikingly similar to Scott’s Los Angeles in Blade Runner.
William Gibson too, was aware of Moebius’ art and cites it as an influence in the germination of cyberpunk and the future imperfect:
“Years later, I was having lunch with Ridley, and when the conversation turned to inspiration, we were both very clear about our debt to the Metal Hurlant [the original Heavy Metal magazine] school of the ’70s–Moebius and the others. But it was also obvious that Scott understood the importance of information density to perceptual overload. When Blade Runner works best, it induces a lyrical sort of information sickness, that quintessentially postmodern cocktail of ecstasy and dread. It was what cyberpunk was supposed to be all about.”
Take a look at the entire comic here.
In amongst the colour seperated dom-ino, yellow rhino, and aluminium mountains (bus stops?) of James Angus’ show at the MCA are a series of buildings that have been torqued and twisted into moebius strips.
Lakeshore Drive. 2005
Palazzo della Civilta Italiana. 2005
Pecha Kucha Sydney Volume 01 was held last week and was a great success. Bunkered beneath Seidler’s Fungal Folly on Martin Place, the 150 odd punters saw eleven fantastically diverse presenters.
Among the things shown were a green-wall salad bar, the eco city of Dongtan, Museum to Architecture constructed out of serial transformations of project homes, an ode to caravans and caravanning, an analysis of virtual ‘weight’ demonstrated by a jet fighter swallowing a truck, and of course; a bunch of very nice buildings.
Chris Major and David Welsh from Welsh + Major Architects. started the evening off with a series of images
Katie Hepworth and Miriam Mlecek of Transit Lounge
Kevin Finn of Open Manifesto
Mike Horne from Turf Design
Dagmar Reinhardt of Frau Reindhardt und Herr Jung
Sarah Benton of Terroir.
Kasia Wydrowski from Eskimo Design
Marissa Looby a student at UTS.
Bernard Whitcher of Whitcher Matyear
Davina Rooney from Arup.
The next Pecha Kucha will be on the 30th November at the same venue. I will send out the word closer to the date but if you are super keen and wnat ot put your name down early, send me an email now and I will lock you in.
And I thought the swamp donkey was hardcore. Boy was I wrong:
(Click image for link to video)
Check out Swiss hip-hop crew, Liricas Analas getting massive in this youtube video of their track ‘Siemis’.
The baths are already a rather primal place - the mass of the stone dug into the side of a mountain, the silver coiffured ladies wading in steaming pools, black leather curtains and fourteen different types of muesli at the buffet. However add a hip-hop posse all clad in white, some super mystical monks in red, a medieval knight (dude! don’t go in the flower pool! You’ll rust/drown!) and ancient mask held aloft and all of sudden things get are bound to get a whole lot heavier.
(Click image for link to video)
I do wonder how this crew/posse managed to sweet talk Mrs Zumthor and her fellow directors into allowing them to film their epic masterpiece of wordcraft in the baths. As anyone who has ever visited the baths would know it is difficult enough to smuggle in a digital camera let alone a suit of armour. An accordion, maybe. Suit of armour? No.
Youtube Link.
And thanks to David N for the heads up.
[update] Matt points out that Janet Jackson too has bathed in Vals for a video clip. It is a little less Fransiscan Monk than Liricas Analas’s effort though.