This is a moc [my own creation] ↑version of the Space Battleship Yamato by afol [adult fan of LEGO] ↑Mark Rodrigues. The original stems from the ↑franchise of the same name and is itself based on the Imperial Japanese Navy’s ↑Yamato class battleships which were in service during World War II. It’s neither steam- nor dieselpunk, of course, but retrofitted futurism for sure. … Continue reading
Most of the art in the wonderful ↵Blade Runner Sketchbook is by ‘visual futurist’ ↑Syd Mead, but I remembered that illustrator Jim Burns, whom, like Mead, I do admire since childhood, also did design work on ‘Blade Runner’ (Scott 1982). But his name is neither to be found in the sketchbook nor in the full cast and crew at IMDb. Now I found an ↑interview with Jim Burns which clears the matter up: [Anthony Brockway:] You did a bit of work on the Blade Runner film back in the Eighties. What did that entail exactly? Jim Burns: Here’s … Continue reading
When students or other interested parties ask me what anthropologists could do outside academia, in the industry in particular, I maintain a threefold answer. In the industry anthropologists 1) do research on organizations—amounting to something like consultancy, 2) do market research, and 3) are participating in product design—especially user-centered design comes to mind. Well, as it seems anthropologists had a hand in the ↑meanwhile available new series LEGO friends, which triggered some ↑discussion on gendered toys. Businessweek has a ↑longer story on LEGO friends, and ↑Andrew wrote at ↑the brothers brick: ‘For those of you out there who’ve made statements … Continue reading
zeph’s pop culture quiz #10 Why did the jet crash? Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] UPDATE (11 January 2012): And I thought you all were sci-fi movie specialists ;-) … Continue reading
A picture book entitled Namennayo! (Don’t Mess Around with Me!) and commercial goods modeled on those in the book are caricatures of ↑bosozoku symbolism and display a crucial aspect of such symbols and the commercial exploitation of them. This work, which was published in 1981, and had a sales of about 335,000 copies by the summer of 1983, features a cat called ↑Matakichi. Throughout the book there are numerous pictures of cats who stand upright wearing human clothes. miniature props (auch as motorcycles, cars, and buildings) are also provided. The plot concerns Matakichi’s youthful experimentation with several expressive styles including … Continue reading
The first anthology of essays by ↑William Gibson is out: ‘↑Distrust that particular flavor.’ GIBSON, WILLIAM FORD. 2012. Distrust that particular flavor. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. via ↑entry at ↑boingboing … Continue reading
Not exactly new news, but the to my eye yet meager download numbers make spreading it compulsory: Project Gutenberg stores ↑eleven short stories by Philip K. Dick in multiple formats for free and legal download. Additionally ↑open culture links to free audio book versions [.mp3] of four of these stories, and to the 1994 TV-documentary ‘↑Philip K Dick: A Day in the Afterlife‘—go and watch … it features, among others, Terry Gilliam and Elvis Costello. via ↑entry at ↑kueperpunk—tnx! … Continue reading
Tom Wolfe’s book on the history of the U.S. Space program reads like a novel, and the film has that same fictional quality. It covers the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager to the Mercury 7 astronauts, showing that no one had a clue how to run a space program or how to select people to be in it. Thrilling, funny, charming and electrifying all at once. Thus wrote ↑Tom Vogel at IMDb on the novel ‘↑The Right Stuff‘ (Wolfe 1979) and the ↑movie of the same name (Kaufman 1983). It couldn’t be summed up better, and I … Continue reading
Here are two sketches— from pages 32 and 35 in the sketchbook—for Rick Deckard’s (Harrison Ford) apartment as seen in ‘↑Blade Runner‘ (Scott 1982). Note the distinctive relief ornamentation on the faces of the concrete cubes, inspired by the texture blocks designed and used by ↑Frank Lloyd Wright for ↵Ennis House: SCOTT, RIDLEY. 1982. Blade runner [motion picture]. Burbank: Warner Brothers. SCROGGY, DAVID (ed.). 1982. Blade runner sketchbook. San Diego: Blue Dolphin. blade runner sketchbook from [HP] via Facebook—tnx! … Continue reading
↓Barefoot into Cyberspace is an inside account of radical hacker culture and the forces that shape it, told in the year WikiLeaks took subversive geek politics into the mainstream. Including some of the earliest on-record material with Julian Assange you are likely to read, Barefoot Into Cyberspace is the ultimate guided tour of the hopes and ideals that are increasingly shaping world events. Beginning at the Chaos Communications Congress of December 2009, where WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg first presented their world-changing plans to a select audience of the planet’s most skilful and motivated hackers, Barefoot Into … Continue reading