·~{dRNn}~·

We wanted to give you a shave like no other you ever had. We said, It’s about time a man’s face got a little loving. We said, With Ubik’s self-winding Swiss chromium never-ending blade, the days of scrape-scrape are over. So try Ubik. And be loved. Warning: use only as directed. And with caution.

HI, the sentence opening this post correspond to one of the most strange, delirious and provocative novels I ever read: UBIK by Philip K. Dick. It is enough to say that I was severed influence by this author during my university years.

Regression and restoration
UBIK (lat: ubique) makes us to think about the nature of reality and how we perceive it, a recursive theme in Dick’s work. Besides aspects related to limits between live and death (half-life); in UBIK Dick explores one interesting aspect: the obsession with consumerism and the influence of technology and advertisement in this game. Coloured with control mind exerted by psychics who influence our desire for a certain product.

In UBIK there is a group of people with psychic powers which suffered an attack while working for Rucinter’s organisation. As a consequence every consumable seems to rotten faster and reality to suffer a regressive state, the only wait to scape or delay this process: a magic all-mighty and ubiquitous product: UBIK. It has reminded me briefly a series of post my friend Cesar has dedicated to talk about publicity and design and the forces in both practices towards making something desirable and the standardisation of consumption. Dick used a SF metaphor to explore the smoke-walls of our society and in doing so UBIK appears as a complex and delirious book but on the other hand Dick points to the deeply rooted believe that consumption is a magic wand to solve all matters and consequently the ones with power over that image are the ones that rule. Something my good friend Cesar is overlooking.

If you have not read that book do not worry soon the factory-of-dreams is going to produce a film about UBIK.

While researching for concepts about animation for my thesis work I found this a great old animation referred in The technique of film animation by John Halas and Roger Manvell. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

More Info about Tuslava here, and a short review here:

With the screen split asymmetrically, one part in positive, the other negative, the film documents the evolution of simple celled organic forms into chains of cells then more complex images from tribal cultures and contemporary modernist concepts. The images react, interpenetrates, perhaps attack, absorb and separate, until a final symbiosis (or redemption?) is achieved. Written by Stewart Naunton {snaunton@online.ru}

HI,
Starflyer a short clip I did with some other fellows is being shown, this time in the Freimarkt Bremen web-site. There, under Freimarkt Videos is the link to Starflyer and to Our youth another clip done last winter term. In the picture you can see where to click.

For more information about starflyer and the youtube version please visit here.

Many thanks for any comment!

P.D. Freimarkt web-site has been updated from now on the videos are available here

Hi,
my thesis topic and a word cloud draft scheme of my first chapter.

Machinima has a weird origin, and a weird definition too: machine+cinema. But basically it means producing video real-time recordings using 3d game engines. It is a cultural movement that assemblage three conceptual forces: Puppetry, cinematic language and video game simulations; and dissimilar communities: video game players and film makers. Machinima also exemplify the DIY mentality in our current media production.

Its origins:
Using video games as source material for video existed before the name was coined. Here two examples of mid 90’s. Check them out :). Both pieces release in 1996 but in two different contexts: an art gallery and a game community. Weird isn’t it?

Miracle, Milton Manetas, 1996

Diary of a camper, The Rangers, 1996

Hi, we tend to think that mixing media is a new trend but looking back in history sometimes it surprises us with examples that show the opposite. A question I got recently is if mixing, remixing and hybrid media already exist before algorithmic revolution then What is so special about current digital mixing?

Again in the Internet archive, I found this old animation-video which is a mix of text, animation and real footage in a unique package, everything . In “Now you’re talking” (1927) a poor and mistreated telephone has to visit a doctor, a dream its owner would not forget. Check it out!