Christopher Lantz

Laurie Anderson - Difficult Listening Hour (by LukeK79)

A case before the German Federal Court of Justice has ended with a man being awarded damages for an erroneous Internet disconnection by his ISP. He sued on the grounds that being deprived of the Internet resulted in economic harm, and the court agreed:

But the plaintiff is entitled to compensation for the lost DSL line because the Internet has been a crucial part of people's economic living standards for a while now, the court ruled.

The internet is important because it offers access to information in the form of text, images, video and audio files. Almost all subjects are covered on the Internet, from light entertainment to highly scientific topics, the court said.

Because of its availability, the Internet increasingly replaces other media such as encyclopedias, magazines or TV, and it also enables a global exchange between its users via email, forums, blogs and social networks, the court said. In addition, the internet is increasingly used for the initiation and conclusion of contracts as well as for legal transactions and the fulfilment of public service obligations, it added.

Internet connection crucial to everyday life, German federal court rules [Loek Essers/IDG]

(via /.)

The music video for the rap song “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore has taken off since it was uploaded to YouTube in August of last year. Know something about how it spread online or any parodies that have come about since? Jump in on the meme research forum thread!

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Scotland’s national tourist board at VisitScotland are gearing for the Year of Natural Scotland 2013 to celebrate their land and reputation. To generate interest from tourists, they dressed up two adorable Shetland ponies (named Fivla and Vitamin) in cardigans and had photographer Rob McDougall capture their cute and warm new looks in various beautiful landscapes throughout Scotland. You can view more photos of the ponies at the VisitScotland blog.

The Shetland Pony ambassadors from our photos come courtesy of Thordale Shetland Stud Centre, and are wearing jumpers made of Shetland wool created by local Shetland knitter Doreen Brown, of Shetland Collection.

photos by Rob McDougall

video via Daily Mail

via PetaPixel

Last week, Democratic Representative from California Zoe Lofgren submitted a proposal titled “Aaron’s law” to the House, intending to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act decriminalizing the act of violating a site’s terms of service.

At Feministing, Zerlina collects some useful Hillary Clinton gifs from yesterday's Benghazi hearings: "How to deal with a mansplainer starring Hillary Clinton."

A number of Irish graphic designers got together and visually demonstrated some inane and hilarious client feedback. If you've ever worked in advertising you know these are tame.

(via 22 Words)

Filed under: Television, Video, Animation

If you're going by sheer number of costumes spotted at last year's San Diego Comic-Con, Fionna and Cake (the gender-swapped versions of Adventure Time's Finn and Jake) are the single most popular characters ever created. If that's the case, then ... Read more

 

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Who you tryin’ to get crazy with, ese? Don’t you know I’m loco?

via http://allanpeters.com/blog/?p=6299

THE BOXER REBELLION: THE RUNNER HD from MARC & ISH on Vimeo.

This video (Hannah May and Andrea Chovanova) is gorgeous and sexy, but not exempt from emotional grittiness – I really love it, but wanted to warn you that it’s got a jagged ending. The creators – who made that sexy Renault ad I liked last year – explain,

UK directing duo marc & ish created this film with The Boxer Rebellion. They gave us the track and we took the idea of honesty from the lyrics and created a narrative that would be both completely surprising and utterly compelling. We wanted to make a something that was seriously playful and naughty, but also might be profound, raw and honest.

Two “it” girls come home from a party and we compress 24 hours of a drunken roller-coaster of highs and lows, passion and heartache into 4 minutes. We wanted to explore a frenzied relationship, present the viewer with something that might be seen at first glance as controversial or sensational, but break through this…. break through the fashionista styling, photo-shoot imagery, the beauty, the sexuality, the crazy night out… and try and find an intimate humanity that is shockingly real.

Petter Kverneng’s now-infamous one million likes plea leads to snarky parodies on Facebook.

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It is definitely now the future.

A new venture is joining the effort to extract mineral resources on asteroids. The announcement of plans by Deep Space Industries to exploit the rare metals present in the space rocks turns asteroid mining into a two-horse race. The other venture, Planetary Resources, went public with its proposals last year.

Michael sez, "Someone has gone to the trouble (I don't know how but would suspect using Melodyne DNA or somesuch) of processing REM's minor-scale downer hit 'Losing My Religion' so that all the minor notes are now major. When I followed the link I thought it'd be a cover, but no, it's the original, processed. It's uncanny - the song is just as familiar as always but the impact is utterly different. Kind of like finding a colour print of a film you'd only known in black and white, or seeing Garfield minus Garfield for the first time. I like it."

Major Scaled #2 : REM - "Recovering My Religion" (Thanks, Michael!)

From Veronica Varlow: "The story behind it is even more intense, as the girl featured in the video is Tora, who was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed her father and step-mother and six others. ... Burke Heffner directed this brilliant video - they built a make-shift room furnished with stuff from craigslist and built it over a swimming pool. They sank it while she played and filmed underwater."

From the 1996 film Vibrations. (via @chris_carter_)

“Are ye legal age adults ready to watch some porn?”

Adult film company WoodRocket has released SpongeKnob SquareNuts, a live-action hardcore porn parody of the animated kids show, SpongeBob SquarePants. The movie’s trailer gives a short (and censored) sneak preview of the wrong that will be found in the full 15-minute flick. The film is directed by Lee Roy Myers who claims on Twitter that he makes “vaginas funny.”

via Guyism, Gawker

These words to live by are provided by Jake the dog from the animation television series Adventure Time.

The Sundance Film Festival has treated Brit Marling exceptionally well over the past few years. She was the big breakout story of the 2011 event, with the one-two punch of Mike Cahill’s Another Earth and Zal Batmanglij‘s The Sound of My Voice, and she got to return in 2012 with Nicholas Jarecki‘s Arbitrage. This year, she’s back once again with Batmanglij for The East, a thriller about a shadowy anarchist collective (called The East, hence the title) and a private intelligence operative (Marling) who goes undercover to stop it. The first trailer has just hit the web, and you can watch it after the jump.

Click over to Apple for HD, or watch an embed below via The Playlist.

Yes, that’s Ellen Page voicing those menacing threats. The cold edge in her tone may come as a surprise if you know her primarily as the lovable, whip-smart lead of Juno, but those who’ve seen her in Hard Candy should be well aware of just how intimidating this sweet-faced actress can be. In The East, she plays a member of the group and the ex-girlfriend of its charismatic leader Benji (Alexander Skarsgård) — who just so happens to have attracted the romantic interest of Marling’s undercover agent. Uh-oh.

We haven’t seen too many reviews for The East yet, but the few that have come out so far seem mostly positive. The Playlist calls it “stylish and sincere,” while HitFix praised Batmanglij’s “serious directorial chops” even as the reviewer admitted to not being able to take it too seriously. Look for more reactions (including our own) to emerge in the coming days.

Fox Searchlight hasn’t set a release date for The East just yet, but expect to see it in theaters sometime this year.

In THE EAST, Sarah Moss (Marling) is a brilliant operative for an elite private intelligence firm whose top objective is to ruthlessly protect the interests of their A-list corporate clientele. She is assigned to go undercover to infiltrate an anarchist collective known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations. Living amongst them in an effort to get closer to their members, Sarah finds herself unexpectedly torn between two worlds as she starts to fall in love with the group’s charismatic leader, finding her life and her priorities irrevocably changed.

• Casting Bits: Nicole Kidman Options ‘The Family Fang’, Olivia Wilde, Jessica Biel, Judy Greer, Etc. Shortlisted for ‘Burt Wonderstone’, Shiloh Fernandez Joins ‘The East’
• Casting Bits: Patricia Clarkson in ‘The East’, Octavia Spencer in Diablo Cody Project, Michael Angarano in ‘The English Teacher’
• Casting Bits: M.C. Gainey in ‘Django Unchained’, Rose McGowan in ‘Napa’, Toby Kebbell in ‘The East’
• Casting Bits: Ellen Page Joins ‘The East’, Anthony Mackie Developing Jesse Owens Biopic, Tom Everett Scott Boards ‘Us & Them’
• Alexander Skarsgård Joins Brit Marling in ‘The East’
• ‘The East’ Is A Tense Eco Thriller About Infiltrating Fight Club’s Project Mayhem [Sundance 2013 Review]

Welcome to the world of the weirdest massage ever.

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via http://butdoesitfloat.com/It-s-not-possible-to-live-in-this-age-if-you-don-t-have-a-sense-of

Well done indeed.

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gpoy

Internet activists celebrate the one year anniversary of blackout protests by declaring January 18th as the Internet Freedom Day.

Lets start 2013 with something of a round up. A quick reality check, refresh, and splash of Eau de toilette. 

What we have here then is a brief sampler straight from the Sci-Fi-O-Rama barometer, a long awaited update on a selection of the finest, past featured contemporary artists.

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Silence Televison

We begin this post sandwiched between the wonderful work of Peruvian Designer and Illustrator Gianmarco Magnani, better known in design circles as Silence Televsion. Heading the article is a simply stunning metallic screenprint celebrating Robert Zemeckis’s 1989 blockbusting sequel ‘Back to the Future II’, a recent commission for Mondo, whom we have of course interviewed before, In fact Mondo is a common theme here as you’ll see…

The Mondo Screenprint alas is long since sold out, though I imagine as with other Mondo material they’ll circulate occasionally in eBay (set up a watched search).  What I particularly love about this DeLorean DMC-12 rendering, aside from the typical hyper detail is of course the angle, admittedly it’s a while since I last saw the film, but I can’t remember ever seeing a shot of the car at this viewpoint, can you?

Just to further extend upon some of the details; chipped and scratched paint, an actual real world design flaw the short lived car manufacturer was infamously haunted by. For me though the mastery of the illustration lies within the assorted wiring & tubing that circumnavigates the vehicle slivering inside and out. Designing this mayhem must surely be the most enthralling part, techno illustration with a distinctly psychedelic edge. All of this of course is similar in ethos to the work Japanese cyberpunk maestro Katsuhiro Otomo of whom Gianmarco pays tribute too below.

‘Akira’ developed for Mondo Gallery

Once again this is another Mondo commissioned limited edition screenprint, a beautiful design that’s very true to the styling of the Otomo originals. For myself as a teenager Akira offered probably the most complete escapist Sci-Fi, but admittedly as 36 year old I’ve paid less attention recently.  Studying this piece It’s strikes me that I never realised how very 80′s it all is, particularly Kaneda’s jacket with it’s asymmetric fasteners, power shoulder padding and oversized collars. It’s construction presumably would be red leather, though dyed suede and corduroy could work too… anyway I digress!

I hope to bring you more from both Gianmarco Magnani and Katsuhiro Otomo this year, in the meantime it’s certainly worth bookmarking and tracking the Silence Television blog.

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Tyler Stout

Continuing with the Mondo related artists theme, here’s a taster of the work of Illustrator Tyler Stout, another master of deadeye minutia  whose style is set apart by a more frenetic edge,  clearly seen below with this Gremlins 2 inspired sample. This T Shirt print  - at time of press – is still available if you follow this link to the Mondo Store.  Just a quick note on the original Gremlins movie, IMHO it’s got to be one the best Christmas movies no? for me it’s up there with Die hard. Bollocks to It’s a Wonderful Life…

‘Berserker’

Below we have another classy movie led illustration featuring probably the best helmet ever designed for the silver screen, which appeared of course in quite possibly the greatest sci-fi film ever made. Alien, what more do you need to know? Actually one thing I’m not 100% sure on who the character actually is, the title reads simply ‘Navigator’. Well nothing wrong with a little mystery I guess!

As a quick sidenote it’s nice to see Tyler has included the original Weyland Yutani winged shoulder patch, this of course was orginally designed by John Mollo whom I profiled mid 2011 (Oscar winning Starwars costume designer). If you’ve not had a look you can check that post out here.

‘Navigator’

For more information on Tyler Stout visit his site & shop here at www.tstout.com, or see a selection of his work featured as part of the Sci-Fi-O-Rama special feature on Mondo.

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Martin Ansin

Staying with the Mondo connection we move on towards Martin Ansin an artist I’ve somehow managed to not include on Sci-Fi-O-Rama  before (ok, admittedly I’ve been slack of late). Here the subject matter for this limited edition screenprint is Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil‘, the classic dystopian satire that was released in cinemas back in 1985. With regards to the print, lets start by saying it doesn’t get much better than this; composition, mood, colouring and of course the rendering itself are all as close to perfection as one might dare to quantify. Love the diffused texturing, really helps to bring the whole thing to life. I’ve included the poster and two close ups of the detail. Wow!

Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’

So just art from a single ‘super sample’ here, Martin is definitely someone I wish to profile properly, in the meantime though you can marvel at more from his gloriously rich and expansive portfolio via martinansin.com - utterly, utterly enviable!

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Jasper Goodall

Moving out beyond Mondo territory we home in upon Jasper Goodall another personal  favourite of mine, and of whom I featured back in 2011 (you can read that here). I’ve chosen a couple of fairly recent images via his site. Note that upo visiting the home page is in fact a blog reel so do  be sure to scroll down and view the perfect balance between lavish commercial illustration and personal projects. I’ve pulled out a couple of examples of which I’ll annotate below.

‘Druck Berlin’ 2011

Here we have an image that totally encapsulates the essence  of what Jasper does best  - sublime beauty with a gleefully sinister edge – a totally mesmorising style. This offset 2 colour piece, was produced as part of the 2011 ‘Druck Berlin‘ screenprinting festival.

‘Five Deities’

Following on heres a a Vimeo short (above) that pushes the tribalist face masks further, Jasper notes this video is a ‘bit of a new direction’. It’s a supremely atmospheric piece with subtle but very effective animation, perfectly synchronised with an eerily atmospheric score.

As I footnote I must say it is always a pleasure to check out Jasper’s site, there really is something effortlessly cool that exudes from his work. What would be nice is to somehow absorb the genius via the osmosis of viewing, hasn’t quite worked for me yet!

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Simen Johan

Next up we have a return to the work of Norwegian born artist Simen Johan whom I first featured back in 2009. Though his site has an extensive bio it hasn’t been updated past 2011 so I’m not 100% sure what Simen is working on at the moment, presumably still exhibiting. Definitely an artist I’d like to focus on again this year so watch this space for a more in depth profile. In the meantime here’s a little more from the breathtakingly beautiful “Until The Kingdom Comes”.

‘Until the Kingdom Comes’

Underpinned by unrivalled technical prowess Simen’s work resonates with layer upon layer of mystique and otherworldly magic.  If wish to see further enchanting samples from ‘Until The Kingdom Comes’ visit www.simenjohan.com.

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Vincent Fournier

Finally we follow up with another photographic based artist you may well be familiar with, Vincent Fourier. whose imagery constantly circles pops up the major design sites. Suffice to say Fourier has an extremely interesting and diverse portfolio that I thoroughly  recommend perusing. I’ll skim the surface and pull out a few examples to give you the lead in.

‘TV Tower’ and ‘The National Congress Palace’

Two brilliantly composed, almost painterly photographs taken from Vincents 2012 project ‘Brasilia’, a study of one of the world’s most modern cities, certainly in terms of utopian 20th century thinking.

Brasilia, the federal capital of Brazil since 1960 was conceived and developed in the mid 1950′s, it’s a masterpiece of large scale urban planning and development, and a glittering reflection of the modernist themes of the day.  Viewed from above the Brasilia appears as a plane or butterfly, and at it’s visionary helm were a group of three that included urban planner Lúcio Costa, landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx and Oscar Niemeyer as the principal architect. A a quick side note; all three of these men were extremely long lived, and in fact Niemeyer who is considered as one of the fathers of modern architecture lived to an astonishing 104 years of age, only passing away on December 5th 2012. ‘O belo Brasil!’ The key to a life longevity?

‘Kjell Henriksen Observatory #1 [KHO], Adventdalen, Spitsbergen Island, Norway, 2010′

From the steamy sub tropical savanna of Brasilia we warp to the icy wastes of Spitsbergen, a vast and empty archipelago that lies deep inside the Arctic Circle. This another sample from Vincent’s extensive ‘Space Project’ series.

What could possibly be more real world Sci-Fi than a row of hi-tech telescopes, nestled in desolation, scanning the universe through convex glass blisters? Well perhaps only this…

‘Kobian Robot #1 [Takanishi Laboratory], Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, 2010′

We bookend this post with an image taken from Vincent’s ongoing ‘The Man Macine’ series. A fly-on-the-wall, impartial study of mankind’s nascent flirtation with robotics and automatons, It’s both fascinating and strangely moving.

For more on Vincent Fournier, check out his site at www.vincentfournier.co.uk or for visit vice.com for this ‘picture-perfect’ 2011 interview: http://www.vice.com/picture-perfect/vincent-fournier 

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So that’s that, there and back again. A somewhat disjointed post, or at best a rambling stream of consciousness, still, I hope there’s something you’ve enjoyed. More posts to follow soon.