↑Computer Choppers of West Linn, Oregon, builds custom computers, laptops, and electronics on request. Additionally they manufacture “limited-run specialty items,” of which the above pictured, 24karat goldplated MacBook Pro with diamonds is an example. Besides the fictional Auric Goldfinger, another ↵potential customer for items like those meanwhile is deceased … … Continue reading
There really is no use in having manuscripts merrily rotting away in drawers and on HDDs. So here are some pieces of mine, on cyberanthropology, appropriation, and game modding: KNORR, ALEXANDER. 2008. ↓maxmod—eine Ethnographie der cyberculture: Exposé des Habilitationsprojektes [128KB | .pdf]. [unpublished manuscript] KNORR, ALEXANDER. 2007. ↓Game modding [136KB | .pdf]. [unpublished manuscript] KNORR, ALEXANDER. 2007. ↓Die kulturelle Aneignung des Spielraums: Vom virtuosen Spielen zum Modifizieren und zurück. [ 220KB | .pdf]. [second version of the manuscript] Scheduled for publication in Shooter: Ein Computerspiel-Genre in multidisziplinärer Perspektive [working title], edited by Matthias Bopp, Peter C. Krell and Serjoscha Wiemer. … Continue reading
A matching sneaker, I even bought a matching sneaker—it’s that serious. But allow me to start at the beginning. The things I am dealing with more or less dictate that I am working on a PC and not on a Mac. Computer games—’nough said, I guess. Accordingly all my three laptops, which I collected over the years, are PCs, too. The best laptop I ever had was an absolutely no-name thing. I bought a chassis from a company called Nature and had some geeks, who appeared when the iron curtain fell, pry in the components I wanted. Besides its … Continue reading
JAHN-SUDMANN, ANDREAS AND RALF STOCKMANN (eds.). 2008. “↑Computer games as a sociocultural phenomenon: Games without frontiers—war without tears“. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. … Continue reading
the nine deaths of alex black Finally the (SLurl:) ↑City of Abaddon—my home—is put to use for what it truly is predestined: ↑machinima making. With permission from ↑Detect Surface writeress ↑Noelani Mahana films “The nine deaths of Alex Black” there, shooting of episode one is said to be completed. I have not talked to Noelani herself yet, but seemingly it all began, when ↑Looker Lumet, who ↑discovered Abaddon in last year’s October, ↑took her there for a photo session. Later a ↑whole set of ↑Alex-Black posters was made. The picture above is a detail from one of the images … Continue reading
This time by “Max” I do not refer to “↑Max Payne“, but to anthropologist ↑Maximilian Forte, who offers the course ↑Cyberspace Ethnography at Concordia University, Montreal. Besides this, on all account read his article ↑Another Revolution Missed? Anthropology of Cyberspace at ↑Open Anthropology. via e-mail from warauduati, who has taken to abundantly praising my work—tnx a lot, my man :-) … Continue reading
When Marcello Gandini showed his concept drawings for the projected successor to the Lamborghini “Miura,” the LP500 prototype, to Nucchio Bertone, the latter exclaimed “Countach!”—the Piemontese equivalent to “fuck me sideways!” Ferruccio Lamborghini, who was present, decided that the exclamation should stick, and stick it did. Although the “Countach” was not the first wedge-shaped sportscar, and although it was not the first car which had scissor doors, opening to the front and upwards, it was the most radical and futuristic design of its times. The car is extremely flat, wide, aggressively pointed, and sports elegant flowing lines, decidedly distinct … Continue reading
Some day back in the 1980s I got my hands on some SciFi-movie aficionado book, which, among many other things, contained concept paintings for “↑Blade Runner“ (1982) by ↑Syd Mead, who is labelled as “visual futurist” in the movie’s credits. Above is a detail of the interior of the policecruiser—not the “Spinner,” piloted by Gaff, but the surface vehicle driven by Deckard—as Mead envisioned it. What struck me back then was the dashboard being dominated by flatscreens. Flat panel display devices like ↵LCD or plasma screens were not exactly the standard in the 1970s and ’80s. My first idea … Continue reading
The computer game “↑Max Payne“ (MP, 2001) was ↑banned in Germany, due to “socioethical disorienting effects,” it supposedly causes. In July of 2002 “↑America’s Army“ (AA) was released—since then I am wondering why nobody over here has the idea to ban that game. AA, which is distributed for free over the Internet and on free DVDs, is a tactical multiplayer first-person shooter owned by the United States Government and released as a global public relations initiative to help with U.S. Army recruitment. […] Professor Michael Zyda, the director and founder of the MOVES Institute, acknowledged “↑Counter-Strike“ (CS) as the … Continue reading