Painless Damage
I am completely hooked on Truck Dismount. The objective of the game is to inflict the most damage to the driver of the truck as it crashes against a wall. With many variables you can change the outcome of the crash. While you’re at it, also try Stair Dismount….same concept but with a guy thrown down some stairs! The graphics are low-poly, but the physics are pretty gruesome! screeeeetchhhhhh!!!! Crashhh!%&$”/
Cool Sounds
In 1965 Steve Reich was experimenting with audio tapes, cutting and looping them. He was playing two identical tapes of the voice of a preacher. One of the tapes was going slightly faster, and he felt that the sound mas moving around. He’d just made a new audio discovery: phasing.
It became a song called “It’s gonna rain”
Try it at home! You will need a friend with a DJ setup (two turntables) and two identical LP’s. First sync them up, then try accelerating or slowing down one of them. The sound will appear as if it were moving. Wow, phasing!
Try to find a better version of the song. It’s worth hearing. And wear headphones, it accentuates the effect.
Download 64Kbps 3.5MB
Read an interview about it
Scratching the Surface
The ever increasing quest to streamline, simplify, and standardize the process used to manufacture furniture, has given us simple surfaces and textures with their identities torn away. People are now used to, and expect a flat, shiny, nonporous texture in their objects. We have associated shininess with new. After an object looses its shine, it is time to replace it.
The beauty and richness of an old piece of furniture could be calculated based on how much work it took to select the wood, sculpt it, bring out the best that could be found inside the material and the finish. These pieces have a value (not only commercial) and a uniqueness that cannot be found in modern furniture. Nowadays pureness of line and surface are the most sought after virtue by furniture manufacturers. I understand its a trend, but I see it as a dead end road. A better alternative is to immerse current day technologies in the pursuit of the complex. All the carving and turning can now be programed into a C+C machine. Stop cutting in a straight line…Yes I too know the power of the monolith (2001 Space Odyssey)….But the richness of the curve and the uneven surface offers more.
Punk leaflets had an appeal that could only be achieved by repetitive photocopying of a photocopy. The clone of a clone of clone would start having defects that would show on the deformation of the fonts and graphics. Noise, creates new interpretations in an old medium. Grunge and dirt appeared as a visual tool. Cinema and graphics embraced it. and showered us with this new look.
Until fairly recently electronic music thrived on its perfection (a lot still does). The 4/4 perfect rhythm quantized aesthetic. For the past few years and specially recently it is looking to dirty it’s squeaky image, inserting noise and naturally produced sounds in the recordings.
Analog inside your Digital.
It is easier to hide use and abuse in an object if it has an uneven surface treatment. Materials should continually change due to their use. Skateboards look way cooler when their paint has been scratched. It comes out of a factory mass produced and after many grinds and flips, it becomes a one of a kind object.
Apply noise, randomness to the surface, color, and texture. Put a little mother nature back into design. Do not control the whole process. Let aberrations sneak into the final product.
Nick, scratch, bump, and grind the perfect lacquered surface.
Globes of Wonder
Visualizing information on planet earth is hard, specially if one is using the same old political map. World Processor has different globes of the world that portray different info. It is an installation, but their site has at least 50 of the more than 200 globes they’ve made.
Scare Tactics
Who would’ve thought that some of the toughest soldiers in the world cross-dress to scare their enemies? Interesting article in Slate about Charles Taylor’s militia.
Don’t Believe Your Eyes
Here are two optical illusions (one / two) that are unbelievable. They were taken from this japanese website.
Dark Secrets
I am completely enamored of the paintings by Mark Ryden. Dark, mysterious, secret, a parallel universe…I thought this is how the world looked when you drink absinthe. (it’s not)
I had never heard of him before; I stumbled into his website and now I desperately want one.
Strongbad Email
Homestar Runner is a website full of great cartoons, but the one that really gets me laughing is Strongbad email. People write him email and he answers them. Be sure to check out what he thinks about techno!
Do you have a minute?
Recent polls reveal that some people have never been polled. Until recently.
