STELLAVISTA

What´s Wrong With This Picture

2010-09-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Poppers Pig

2010-05-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

The (not) poppers pig over at out.com

We Are The Muzak Makers

2010-01-28T01:10:00.001-08:00

And We Are The Dreamers Of Your Dreams!

A StellaVista re-branding for the troubled Muzak-Corporation. Unfortunately they went for the Sarah Palin-lookalike instead.

lost in here forever

2009-12-30T00:58:00.000-08:00

i had the most ballardian experience on a lay-over in hong kong: trapped in a shopping mall!

i was excited to be back in hong kong after 18 years. we hopped on the airport-express which took us to kowloon in 15 minutes. i had planned to walk around the area, go to the star-ferry and transfer to hong kong island. after exiting at kowloon station at 8am we found ourselves in the middle of the still closed “elements shopping mall” (which, according to wikipedia, caters to the upper middle class). finding any exit from this huge, multilevelled labyrinth of closed gucci-stores became a real nightmare experience, soundtracked by an endless stream of x-mas-muzak.

After 20 minutes we arrived at the main entrance, but were told by a guardian that we could not use this exit as the place was still closed. we had to go back to find another way. finally emerging to the earth surface we found ourselves inside immaculate gardens, surrounded by massive residential high-rise blocks that formed a circle around us. all attempts to pass these buildings towards the waterfront were blocked by fences or guards.

i knew where i wanted to go but it was impossible to reach. combine this with jet-lag after an 11 hour flight and the strange memory of a place that has changed tremendously during the past 2 decades and you feel like walking through an unpleasant dream.

We finally decided to find the train-station again and went straight to the island to get our dose of hong kong insanity.

In Every Dream Home...

2009-12-04T11:57:00.000-08:00

Found this pic this morning on my tumblr and couldn´t stop looking at it! I have no idea where it came from and why it is there. It originally linked to 4chan but it must have been removed. You have to see it bigger that´s why I put it up in my header.

Maybe it´s just me but I find this picture incredibly amazing and disturbing. It´s the closest thing that seems to have fallen straight out of a nightmare. The colours, the perspective, the man looking into the camera: everything seems to be related to that...thing in the background.

It´s either that or it´s Grace Jones taking a family snap-shot

Coneycopia

2009-10-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

coneycopia .

Beautiful time-lapse video of New York and Coney Island by Graham Elliott.

wink wink inudge inudge

2009-09-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

Play with me!

inudge

Let There Be Music

2009-08-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

Prefab Sprout will indeed release a new album in early september! "Let´s change the world with music" (not more not less) will be the first PS-album in eight years.

From what I gather the album was actually planned to be the follow-up to "Jordan: The Comeback" from 1990, titled "Earth: The story so far". Apparently the record company was bored by the spiritual tone of the material and shelved it.

Listening to the album opener "Let there be music" it appears that the whole record could have been put into the vaults, waiting for it´s release 20 years later. "Let there be music" is bonafide Prefab Sprout radio-pop (where it will never be played, of course). I am listening to it on endless repeat right now.
So are these actually only demos recorded roughly 20 years ago? It doesn´t really matter! It´s Prefab Sprout, it´s timeless (regardless of a gated snare and Paddy´s Vadder Abraham-beard).

I think the heroes of back in the day should do remixes for this: Frankie Knuckles, Mashall Jefferson, Justin Robertson... oh, I forgot: they were actually giving remix jobs to the Future Sound of London back then.

Timelapse Kingdom

2009-07-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

Walt Disney, was wise enough to film the building of Disneyland from various angles over its whole construction period, in colour! From specially built towers time-lapse cameras would capture the transformation of a boring orange grove into the mythological black hole of 20th century fantasies.

It´s fascinating to watch and the commentary is very informative.

Observing the naked land, building of the entrance and main street.

world of tomorrow: from zero to three days before opening. Building of cinderella´s fibreglass and plywood castle.

Other parts: creation of Frontierland. The next part covers the making of the Jungle Cruise in Adeventure Land. This is especially interesting as it shows the whole building process without time-lapse in gorgeous colour.
The last part shows the testing of the finished Jungle-ride and an aerial view of the park on opening day.

Peace Monsters

2009-07-03T02:13:00.001-07:00

Artist Moritz Reichelt created a new series of works titled "Peace Monsters" for the "Embedded Art"-Exhibition.

EMBEDDED ART was an interdisciplinary exhibition focussing on the societal shifts caused by the universal desire for security. Showing only works realised on location or against a background of research into future security.

Reichelt´s five paintings portrait real people, esoteric developers of futuristic weapons, army strategies, psi and psychotronic warfare.

Victor Selivanov. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm.
Visionary theorist of so-called "non-lethal-weapons", including chemicals like Fentanyl-Gas. This gas was used to "free" the hostages of the Moscow musical-theater, but in the process 170 people have been killed by the substance.
Selivanov writes theoretical-strategic essays on psychological warfare. In one of his lectures on psychotronic weapons (weapons that influence the brain), he refers an experiment of well-known mathematician Buridan (Buridan´s ass): a donkey is offered two bales of hay, identical in size and placed exactly in the same distance from the animal. The donkey is unable to decide and starves to death.

Colonel John B. Alexander. Acryicl on canvas, 150 x 150 cm.
He is the godfather of the esoteric think-tank-scene of the US-military. Supposedly retired. He was commanding an army department that experimented with psi-phenomena, like "walking through walls" or "killing with thoughts". He is consulting the German government about new technology and weapons. He is regarded as the "pope" of "non-lethal-weapons" and he promotes them since the early 1990s. Back then he was located in the Los Alamos Institutes, where -among other things- the atomic bomb was conceived.

James "Jim" Channon. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm.
He is an esoteric military-guru and army-networker who lives in Hawaii. Channon invented the "1st Earth Battallion", a utpian peace-army that is supposed to establish a new world order by means of tricky psychological interventions. He likes to be seen as a shaman. He furthermore gives scientology-esque lectures, which should teach the participants to become perfect, universe-centered warriors. He is currently planning to establish an outlet of his consulting business in the game "Second Life".

Janet Morris. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm.
Ex-hipie, science-fiction author, weapon producer and horse-breeder.
As leader of the development dept. of CIA-linked "Global Security Council" she propagates so called "non-leathal-weapons". She writes strategic papers for the US-Army. Her favourite citation is: "Stop killing your customers". As chairman of weapon company "M2" (they offer nano-technological weapons) she breeds an old horse breed that is preferably used as police-horses. She is also a busy author of slightly rassist novels in which she likes to orchestrate the "eternal war between good and evil." Her books are mostly published as companion pieces to foreign assignments of the US military.

John "Jack" Cover. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm.
He is the inventor of the taser-gun, an electronic close combat weapon. The Taser is manufactured by Taser Inc. who refer to it as a "electronic human control device". The Taser is increasingly used by polics and security companies to arrest people.
Cover was inspired by the pulp nover "Electric Rifle" by Thomas A. Swift. Covers patented his weapon in 1970 on an older patent by a German gunsmith H.G. Cordes who had invented an electric wale-harpoon.

"When Brad and I Take Road-Trips..."

2009-07-02T04:55:00.000-07:00

This is the ultimate star-portrait!
"When Brad and I take a road-trip we love a Taco Bell and a roadside motel."

Sure, that´s why Mrs. Jolie is pictured flying around in a private plane with her skirt up to her thighs.

This photo and the caption are the ultimate ballardian statement: sex, technology and bizarre fame meet 300 meters over the desert ground.

I guess this was shot by Annie Leibovitz and appeared in Vogue.

Alchemists of Sound

2009-06-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

Everything you ever wanted to know about the legendary BBC Radiohonic workshop! Even if you never wanted to know anything about it in the first place, do yourself a favour and watch this six part documentary. It´s an hour well spent!

Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6

All You Can Eat

2009-06-17T02:41:00.001-07:00

"I´m the pack-man, eat everything I can"! This harsh electro-funk track exploited the "Pac Man"-fever of the early eighties and became a classic of the emerging breakdance/electro scene of that time.
Produced by Bobby Robinson, who is in the music business since the mid-fifties, "I´m the pack man" was chosen as the opening track for the seminal compilation series "Street Sounds Electro 1" which rocked the world with the freshest electro and fantastic live-mixing.

Ming & Ping

2009-06-17T02:32:00.000-07:00

Ming & Ping are identical twin(k)s from Hong Kong and their full on 80´s electro-pop is damned catchy.

Their second album "Causeway Army" was already released in 2007 but it seems they are trying to go for the international market now with a new video clip for "Legends of Nothing". With the right amount of exposure in all the relevant beach-clubs and sangria bars this could become a huge summer-hit.

Meek

2009-06-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

The Strange Story of Joe Meek

Watch |

Watch in |

Nothing New but Normal (and Robert Rental)

2009-06-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

Rare footage of The Normal (aka Daniel Miller) and Robert Rental performing live during the Rough Trade Tour in 1979

Night Dubbin´

2009-06-11T11:51:00.001-07:00

Dimitri From Paris and The Idjut Boys interviewed by The Village Voice about their new, 3-CD box "Night Dubbin`" that celebrates New York Disco of the eighties with strong emphasis on Francois Kevorkian

The Vyrotonin Decision

2009-06-11T00:46:00.000-07:00

The Vyrotonin Decision by Matt McCormick is a post modern disaster epic featuring thirty-six appropriated television commercials from 1971. using a hole punch, junk store splicer, and lots of tape and glue, the vyrotonin decision is a hand-made film constructed from the images and sounds of dumpster-rescued television studio discards from the days before video replaced 16mm production. the vyrotonin decision mocks the formula of current hollywood blockbusters while re-inventing some of televisions most embarrassing moments.

Following

2009-06-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here´s a great essay and video-montage from The L Magazine about "tracking shots" in the movies.

Down in the Subway

2009-06-03T03:03:00.000-07:00

Russian artist Alex Andreev claims that it is forbidden to take photos in the Moscow subway system. His disturbing and surreal evidence could be the reason why...

Warning!

2009-06-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

After Edgar Schlepper unpacked the new guitar-synthesizer he had ordered for his music-shop he immediately called his friend Hans Müller and they spend a drunken night toying around with this new device. Müller, who worked at a record company must have seen the potential of their experiments and the two formed Warning. They called themselves Ed Vanguard and Mike Yonder, put on black robes and Darth-Vader-esque masks and invented (and buried) death-metal-doom-disco.

The German producer duo hit it big when their bizarre and disturbing single "Why can the bodies fly" was used as the memorable soundtrack for a 1982 episode of popular TV-crime program "Tatort" (Crime-scene).

In the now classic episode "Peggy hat Angst" (Peggy is afraid), the killer listens to the song over and over while playing bongos. He terrorizes women by playing the song over the phone late at night. He finally kills one of his victims (a fashion-model) while she is on the phone talking to a model-friend. We only hear the music blaring through the speaker overlaid with the screams of the dying woman.

On the next day, people stormed the record-stores demanding the single which soon climbed to #11 in the charts.

This spooky novelty song with its totally disembodied voices and hilariously “dark” lyrics is a lost classic. Outside of doom-metal you won´t hear a voice like that and even today "Why can the bodies fly" sounds as strange as it did in 1982.
Check the cheap video and dig the backing-girls cooing "they killed it" over the simulated puking of the vocalist!

Take KISS in their disco-phase, bury with Italo disco and Munich Machine and witness the missing link between Amanda Lear and The Sisters of Mercy rising from it´s disco grave.

Warning released two albums which some goth-heads regard as very influential.

Today, Edgar Schlepper is producing audio-plays while Hans Müller died in 2004.

Mmmmmbience

2009-05-17T04:29:00.000-07:00

Oh, I like this collaborative music project by Darren Solomon!
He asks people to send him short music or spoken word videos which he then puts up on one site. You can play them simultaneously or as you wish by starting the videos and control the volume of each individual clip.
This way, Youtube is turned into your own multitrack mixer. It sounds more like KLF´s "Chill-Out" than Cabaret Voltaire.

Bump!

2009-05-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Evolution of Scooter (or Bumper-) cars made by Reverchon in France. From top to bottom: 1950, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1980

Drivin´ n´ smokin´

I don´t know what she is trying to sell, but I can tell when she did it

Nice detail of a vintage scooter made by Ihle

Another classic Ihle-car: The Mercedes-scooter

1000 Tears Deep

2009-05-09T05:51:00.000-07:00

When Blumfeld released "Tausend Tränen tief" and their third album "Old Nobody" in 1999 their fans went berzerk, but not in a good way. It was a bit like when KISS went disco, or as a commenter on Youtube puts it: "when this came out it was the end! We were almost a youth-culture, we had lived with "Ich Maschine" and "L´Etat et Moi" every day. With "Old Nobody" we felt like abused children!".

Nine years prior Blumfeld, along with a handful of other German bands were the heads of a new indie-rock movement that combined guitar feedback and intellectual, German lyrics. After an almost five year hiatus the release of this new record must have felt as if Blumfeld have grown up and grown old at the same time.

"Tausend Tränen Tief" could be mistaken as a German George Michael song and it became a great success for the band, bringing in new listeners via a radio-friendly, timeless love song. One to be played at future funerals.

The video is a stroke of genius! We see Helmut Berger, the notorious, forgotten world star getting dressed up in a hotel suite. In between, Jochen Distelmeyer, Blumfeld´s voaclist is sitting in a taxi, driving through the night. Fireworks illuminate the sky and finally the two meet in the lobby. Formal handshake, champagne is ready, Berger refuses to drink. They begin to talk, Distelmeyer makes Berger laugh, the ice is broken. Is it the first meeting to discuss the idea of the video we have just seen? Early morning, Berger walks alone along a foggy lake, he fades away. The end.

Watch and listen:

The stunt casting of Berger secured heavy rotation on all music channels and today "Tausend Tränen tief" is a classic of German pop music, a genre that still has not that many contenders.

Anyway, it has to be said that Berger really owns his part. The way he flips through the selection of his suits, the moments of inner turmoil as he is riding the elevator... A legendary person who happily enjoys being a legend for pay, for this one day.

As with most great songs, the lyrics are almost banal. I tried to translate the words as close as possible, including some awkward grammatical terms, trying to saty true to the ambivalence of the original lyrics.

"Thousand Tears Deep"
within me
thousand tears deep
sounds an old song
it could mean so much
into the day
it wants to be with you
it sings to you only
of new possibilities

come to me in the night
we hold each other tight
until the day awakes
kiss me then
as if it was the first time

with you
into a different blue
we share a dream
a picture from different times
like you are a part of me
I am a part of you
I can feel it
the way we touch

a song of two people
how love feels
we flow in rhythm
to the sun
everything is earthly
the world lies dark
we float as a whole
the night belongs to us

within me
thousand tears deep
sounds an old song
it could mean so much.

Decapitate your Mate!

2009-05-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

"He´s behind you, he´s got swine flu!" Funny, clever and sexy Mike Skinner aka The Streets launched a great and biting viral comment on the swine flu paranoia. If you consider a mix of cleverly edited gory scenes from various horror films set to Mike´s rap as NSFW, you should probably watch it at home.

Dreamlando

2009-05-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

As far as I can think back, I was always fascinated with Japan, amusement parks and tacky, mass-produced kitsch.

All of these obsessions seem to have met at "Nara Dreamland", or "Nara Dorīmurando" as the Japanese would say it.

clicking on pics increases the magic!

"Nara Dreamland" opened in 1961, near the city of Nara. It is always said that the Japanese like to copy things, while making them better in the process. "Dreamland" on the other hand just copied "Disneyland", there was nothing better about it.

Some parts of "Dreamland", like the entrance and train-station look like a carbon copy of its Californian inspiration. The whole layout of the park, the castle and most of the rides are also copied.

The fact that the park opened just six years after Disneyland shows what an impact Disney´s ideas must have had worldwide. Upon closer inspection "Dreamland" might have taken the ideas but certainly not the imagination and devotion that made Disney parks such a lasting success.

Where Disney´s imagineers went all the way to create convincing and immersive worlds, "Dreamland" used cardboard, concrete and plastic. This makes it so much more interesting for me.

Through the years, the park must have lost it´s artificial magic as the owners jusr added random rides and coasters without integrating them into the faux-Disney-look. With the opening of the immensely popular Tokyo Disneyland in 1983 the naive 20 year old forerunner in Nara must have appeared like an embryonic version from a parallel universe.

Neglect and dwindling visitor numbers took its toll on "Dreamland". Throughout the late nineties and early 00s the park was almost looking abandoned. By the end of august 2006 the "Dreamland" closed its doors forever.

Here you can witness "Nara Dreamland" on opening day in 1961. The resemblance the park had to Disneyland in this early phase is uncanny and amazing. The second video is even longer and shows more of original rides like the "Jungle Cruise".

The last video shows bits of Dreamland in its later days, when the crowds have gone and only a handful of school-children are stumbling across the cracked concrete.

A bizarre photo-trip to Dreamland, shortly before it was closed can be enjoyed here.

Tripping Round The Acid House

2009-05-03T05:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a very interesting British TV feature, "A Trip Round Acid House" that mainly focusses on the media reaction (from demonization to exploitation) towards the exploding youth culture of the late 1980´s.

Part two and part three.

Memorabilia

2009-05-01T08:28:00.001-07:00

Lyric excerpt "Memorabilia" by Soft Cell

Counterpoint

2009-04-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

Not much is known about Delphic, apart from the fact that they are from Manchester.

Their first single "Counterpoint" is released on Belgian R&S records (go figure) and it sounds like the inevitable "crosspoint" of recent indie-dance productions like Cut Copy, Friendly Fires, more upbeat Junior Boys and fellow Manchester legends New Order and Section 25.

The Sequencer is back in poppy dance rock and "Counterpoint" hits straight on the twelve. The video, on the other hand, is a bit shitty.

Remember

2009-04-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Andy Time

2009-04-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Some pictures taken from TIME Magazine, showing Andy Warhol at various social gatherings. I feel that I have been to almost all those parties, since he told his diary about where he had been, who had been there and how much he had paid for the taxi to get there. Sometimes, when he was hanging with someone really rich, they would have a private limousine and Andy would be very happy.

Bob Guccione, Pia Zadora, Andy Warhol, Meshulam Riklis

Andy Treat: Andy and the delicious Treat Williams

Shooting Pia Zadora

When I visited the USA for the first time in 1990 I pretty soon found out that renting a limousine wouldn´t cost us much more than taking a taxi. I thought that Andy was such a child...

Andy walks with Nicki De Saint Phalle

with Laurie Anderson and something ugly on the wall

Andy was right, of course. Today it has become the ultimate tourist attraction to ride around with your small-town friends in a rented stretch limo (preferably a ridiculous, 12 meter Hummer). You can feel as v.i.p as you like as long as you don´t leave the car. After that you still have to queue up for the club and you´ll never know if they let you in. Feeling special because you ride in a limousine is still very, very childish...but you´ll always look better on photos.

Bette, Balloons, Ashtray

Barbie & Andy

Rip Up My Passion Pit

2009-04-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the urban chiffre of finger thick layered, half ripped-off posters and flyers, Passion Pit´s new video "The Reeling" tries to create this decayed and frayed look. According to the production company Humble, the process of destroying and re-creating the footage took about a month.
Looking cheap was never easy!

Fashion Pack

2009-04-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

It was night and suddenly I felt like dancing.
I took a cab to show me to the disco scene.

He said: "O.k., you wanna see those crazy people, hustling at the door to get into Studio 54?!"

When I was in, everybody was travolting!
The fashion queens, the models and the movie stars.
Andy snapping, Margeaux dancing with Scavullo. Liza dancing on the floor and Bianca walking through the door.

Who is In?
Who is out?
Tell me, tell me, tell me!

Who is in?
Who is out?
Famous and trendy?!

"In-People" always have to smile in "Vogue".
They only travel by Concorde.
Doing things YOU can´t afford!

They are the fashion pack. The people you see in the magazines.
They are the fashion pack. They are always smiling in their limousines.

They only come out after dark, got to keep on their trendy tracks.
They are the fashion pack.

Rockstars sniffing, while Marisa is posing.
Bianca counting her paintings, the models of Zoli´s flirting...

Hey! what's your name?
Didn't I see you in "Interview" last month, or was it the "Ritz"?
Gee, You're so famous!
May I have your autograph?
Thanks! I will keep it forever!!!

Lyrics excerpt "The Fashion Pack", lyrics by Amanda Lear, 1979

Come To Gucci

2009-04-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

What happened to Chris Cunningham? His short-films for "Come to Daddy" and "All is full of love" are probably some of the best promo-clips of all time. The latter was most likely the pinnacle of the music-video age. It all went downhill afterwards and even Cunningham himself could never live up to the promise of his artistic masterpiece.

He might have felt so too as he directed fewer and fewer music-clips. For some time he was allegedly set to direct a Hollywood version of William Gibson´s "Neuromancer", but he eventually opted out of the production.

Apparently, Cunningham is not the most ambitious person and he worked himself into a position where he can quietly chose to direct some advertisements and do photo-shootings to pay the rent while pursuing his obsessions. Something I find very sympathetic!

For the fragrance campaign "Flora" by Gucci he recorded a new version of Donna Summer´s "I Feel Love", complete with newly sung vocals by the Diva herself. According to Gucci the perfume is addressing "the sensitive, young girl."

The advertising face is Australian model Abbey Lee (who strongly resembles Vanessa Paradis), wearing a silk dress with floral print. Shot in a cornfield in Latvia, Lee is captured standing in the middle of more than 40000 silky flowers dancing in rhythm of wind and the (beatless) music.

It´s pretty pretty and has some typical Cunningham-moments (the levitating girl, the transforming, mirrored dress and dissolving body). Of course it is still a bit bland and underwhelming ( I heard many voices who say that the fragrance is also bland). I wonder if there is a law that every fragrance-ad has to end with a bored, female voice reciting the name of the product and the brand?!

Pacific Ocean Park (Pt. 4) - Who Will Buy?!

2009-04-22T01:43:00.000-07:00

I can´t believe that I never found this one before! Nancy Sinatra performing a song in the closed down Pacific Ocean Park! She even poses on the top of the "Sea Serpent"-coaster and the camera moves around with her in a great panning shot. Sometimes things just fall together...

I am not too wild about the song "Who will buy" from the musical "Oliver!" (it must be a musical if it´s got an exclamation mark) but everything is well when the hilarious dance break sends the "West Side Story"-ballet into wild dance routines inside the coaster´s wooden structure.

Here is the whole thing:

Project Level-D

2009-04-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

I think I have read most of the JG Ballard obituaries, tributes, essays and reviews since yesterday. Thanks to Simon Sellars´ brilliant Ballardian-Twitter service and the Guardian collection, it was easy to almost overdose on the theme. Reading all this made me hyper-aware of the ballardian reality that surrounds us and the following is as ballardian as it gets.

For some time I am intrigued by the dubious, ever increasing interest in female dolls and figurines that cater to grown-up, mostly Japanese men. But the new, ultra-realistic silicon sex dolls that enjoy growing popularity are beyond creepy.

Generations away from your typical, cheap, blow-up-doll from yesterday, the creations from the Superior Structure Artistic Silicon Doll Team, or shorter: Project Level-D are looking amazingly real. Horribly real.

Look at the facial expressions and the suggestive, pseudo innocent poses in which the various models are presented. They either appear sad, melancholic or as if they just died, still inviting you to do whatever you like to their multi-joined latex bodies.

Meet the proud owner of a harem of Level-D models. This young man, who decided that he just could not get along with real women, paid ca. $6.000,- for every one of his "girls".

Will it be long before the next generation of "animated" models will invade the living- and bedrooms of these men?

Commercial and Nasty

2009-04-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

"Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time."
Quote by JG Ballard

"What I Believe" by James Graham Ballard

2009-04-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

"I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.

I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.

I believe in the forgotten runways of Wake Island, pointing towards the Pacifics of our imaginations.

I believe in the mysterious beauty of Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the haunted smiles of filling station personnel; in my dream of Margaret Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel watched by a tubercular filling station attendant.

I believe in the beauty of all women, in the treachery of their imaginations, so close to my heart; in the junction of their disenchanted bodies with the enchanted chromium rails of supermarket counters; in their warm tolerance of my perversions.

I believe in the death of tomorrow, in the exhaustion of time, in our search for a new time within the smiles of auto-route waitresses and the tired eyes of air-traffic controllers at out-of-season airports.

I believe in the genital organs of great men and women, in the body postures of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Di, in the sweet odors emanating from their lips as they regard the cameras of the entire world.

I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers, in the disease stored up for the human race by the Apollo astronauts.

I believe in nothing.

I believe in Max Ernst, Delvaux, Dali, Titian, Goya, Leonardo, Vermeer, Chirico, Magritte, Redon, Duerer, Tanguy, the Facteur Cheval, the Watts Towers, Boecklin, Francis Bacon, and all the invisible artists within the psychiatric institutions of the planet.

I believe in the impossibility of existence, in the humour of mountains, in the absurdity of electromagnetism, in the farce of geometry, in the cruelty of arithmetic, in the murderous intent of logic.

I believe in adolescent women, in their corruption by their own leg stances, in the purity of their disheveled bodies, in the traces of their pudenda left in the bathrooms of shabby motels.

I believe in flight, in the beauty of the wing, and in the beauty of everything that has ever flown, in the stone thrown by a small child that carries with it the wisdom of statesmen and midwives.

I believe in the gentleness of the surgeon’s knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.

I believe in the light cast by video-recorders in department store windows, in the messianic insights of the radiator grilles of showroom automobiles, in the elegance of the oil stains on the engine nacelles of 747s parked on airport tarmacs.

I believe in the non-existence of the past, in the death of the future, and the infinite possibilities of the present.

I believe in the derangement of the senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift, Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka.

I believe in the designers of the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, the Berlin Fuehrerbunker, the Wake Island runways.

I believe in the body odors of Princess Di.

I believe in the next five minutes.

I believe in the history of my feet.

I believe in migraines, the boredom of afternoons, the fear of calendars, the treachery of clocks.

I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.

I believe in the perversions, in the infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.

I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.

I believe in Tokyo, Benidorm, La Grande Motte, Wake Island, Eniwetok, Dealey Plaza.

I believe in alcoholism, venereal disease, fever and exhaustion.

I believe in pain.

I believe in despair.

I believe in all children.

I believe in maps, diagrams, codes, chess-games, puzzles, airline timetables, airport indicator signs.

I believe all excuses.

I believe all reasons.

I believe all hallucinations.

I believe all anger.

I believe all mythologies, memories, lies, fantasies, evasions.

I believe in the mystery and melancholy of a hand, in the kindness of trees, in the wisdom of light."

J.G. Ballard, 1984

Now: Zero! James Graham Ballard, 1930 - 2009

2009-04-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

When I found out this morning that James Graham Ballard had died yesterday I was shocked and deeply sad. It almost felt like a distant, but beloved family member was dead. A strange reaction towards the passing of a person I have never met in my life. On the other hand: JG Ballard´s writing and his thoughts have accompanied my life and shaped my world view for the last 25 years.

I constantly re-visit his amazing short-stories, one of which gave the name to this blog. His novels pushed open windows in my mind that would never close again. His interviews provided a constant stream of brilliant insights into the mind of a person who had the ability to see right through the veneer of the human condition. As an admirer of surrealism and pop-art, he was one of the first to understand, decipher and describe the psychological effects the all surrounding media-landscape, technology and architecture are having on our "inner space".

In "The Intensive Care Unit", written in the late 60s or early 70s, he describes the first family meeting of people who live in a future society where physical contact has grown out of fashion. Communication and intimacy is only possible via a closed circuit TV-screen.
What sounds like a drab premise for a thinly disguised parable turns into a gripping story thanks to Ballard´s fantastic imagination. The way he describes the couple´s intimate moments as a series of expertly montaged close-ups of their bodies (private parts are blurred with filters), their honeymoon being spent by watching the same documentaries of some foreign holiday-resort, is written so well that one almost anticipates this hilarious dystopia.

Another brilliant short story from "Myths of the near future" is the wonderfully titled "Motel Architecture". Here we meet a "film critic" who has retreated to live in a self-contained "solarium", where he has devoted himself to analyse the famous "shower scene" from "Psycho" over and over again.
Sitting in a glorified wheelchair, he re-plays the sequence on multiple screens, hoping to finally reveal the hidden geometry that the scene supposedly contains. Only looked after by a cleaning woman, he is totally secluded from any outside reality. Soon he believes that a strange intruder is hiding inside his solarium. He can hear him breath and he catches glimpses of the stranger on surveillance videos.

The conclusion to the story doesn´t come as a big surprise, but Ballard follows the nightmare logic of his visions to the inevitable end. Written in 1978, years before the home-video revolution was sweeping the western world, he painted a bleak but perversely attractive picture of a society that could hardly wait to retreat into their homes and heads, eagerly devoting themselves to their private obsessions.

That was one of Ballard´s remarkable aspects: He never came across as a finger pointing, grumpy man who intended to change our silly ways. Like his protagonists, he embraced the present and the future, knowing that the age of reason had already come to an end.

10 Years ago I moved temporarily into a house that was designed by Le Corbusier. It was like living inside JGB´s "High Rise". Although the sporadic acts of violence never seemed to occur, I was aware of Ballard 24/7. I was prepared to climb to the top!

Here is a couple of obituaries, essays and clippings I gathered today:
The Guardian´s obituary by David Pringle.

The most dedicated and sophisticated Ballardian has an obituary by site owner Simon Sellars.

Re/Search publisher Vale notes his first thought upon hearing of Ballard´s death: “There’s no thinker left alive that I can totally trust. They’re all dead.”

"Cult" is certainly a questionable attribute. BBC NEWS: Cult Author JG Ballard dies at 78

A good article from Filmmaker Magazine.

This is what IFC had to say.

Another obituary from The Telegraph

A very touching collection of readers comments from BBC News: Have your say. Your memories of JG Ballard

Megablog Boing Boing is also deeply influenced by JGB.

Here is a Canadian info/fan site dedicated to the man himself: JG Ballard.

More Thoughts on the death of JG Ballard by Robin Brown

A Personal Obituary by Vicky Lamburn

How the pitiful NME sees it. (They are, of course, forgetting to name "Warm Leatherette" and "The Comsat Angels")

Last but not least, on the lighter side of things: Total Film dreams up pitches for 9 Ballard Stories That Must Be Filmed

"Enslavement designed as mass entertainment."

NYC 1961vs. 2009

2009-04-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

An interesting collection of New York City photos taken in 1961 placed next to shots from this year. Nice to see that apart from new neon lights, many places still look relatively unchanged after 48 years.

See them all: New York City 1961 vs. 2009

Fun In Numbers

2009-04-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Since I am posting more about abandoned amusement parks, I thought it would be nice to reverse the trend for the spring and do something else. For those who are interested in numbers, here is an interesting pdf-file listing the global theme-park attendance for 2008, compiled by the Themed Entertainment Association.
There are charts for USA, Europe, Asia, Mexico and the Pacific Rim as well as combined listings. For the US there is also a breakdown explaining the gains and losses towards the last season, indicating where and when the recession has hit first.

It´s no big surprise that Disney is blocking the top positions on every continent where the mouse is present. More than 17 million people are visiting The Magic Kindom in Florida each year, making it the top park on the list.

Video Vexations

2009-04-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

The Black Dog have put up a short movie with visualisations for musical excerpts from their upcoming "Further Vexations" album. It´s not especially spectacular, but it fits the very nice music.

As a friend of mine used to say: "Nothing new but normal".

OMG! Tiga´s Shoes!

2009-04-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

I always wanted to love Tiga since his stupendous "Hot in Herre"-cover! But his later releases always left me a bit cold and underwhelmed. Fun, but just a little bit too forced.

It´s the same with his new "Shoes". A song that tries hard to tick all the right boxes but ends up sounding like a novelty record from ages ago. I am probably thinking too much about it. "Shoes" will certainly become a club smash for a few weeks. It will have people dancing and acting out the lines for each other.
"Do you remember that `OMG SHOES!´ skit from back in the day?" - "Yeah! Good times!"

What more could you want from a track like that? What about a video that employs a make-up artist by the name of Christian Fritzenwanker?! Here you go!
Go, Tiga!

Dark Park

2009-04-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

My hero Troy Paiva is still out every full moon to catch his vision of Lost America. Between releasing two books ("Lost America" and "Night Visions") he is kind enough to share his amazing work on his Flickr-site.

His nocturnal journeys have recently led him to one of my favourite subjects: An abandoned amusement park! I posted a selection of a similar project by another photographer recently, but when Mr. Paiva clicks his way through a lost and dark fun-park, it is sure to be something special.

I would love to invite Troy Paiva to come to Berlin to pay a full-moon visit to the spectacularly creepy "Spree Park", the former East-German amusement park which is left to rot since 2001!

Click pics to enlarge!

Rear Projection

2009-04-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Busy bee John Waters has just opened a new exhibition of his hilarious work at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.

Brilliantly titled Rear Projection, John gathers another wild mix of his screen-shot collages and distortions (Children who smoke) and all new, giant pop-art sculptures of Ike Turner playing with a Tina marionette, leaking poppers-bottles (which he admits using not for sex but on rollercoasters only!) and ridiculously expensive Hollywood cosmetic.

Once more, Waters fiendishly turns his obsessions into an entertaining and acidic show of satire, art and consumerism that caters to film freaks, pop-art fans and hillbillies alike.

More pictures and details. ahd check out the private Tour below! It´s almost like being there...

Tone Matrix

2009-04-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

Andre Michelle, the genius programmer who is also responsible for the fantastic Hobnox Audio Tool (I wrote about it frequently last year), has come up with a new, nifty audio-game: The Tone Matrix!

Tone Matrix is a simple flash-based sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. You have a square filled with more squares which you can activate and de-activate by clicking them. This way you can easily create "gamelan-esque" sequences or minimal rhythms that you can vary constantly. The pattern can be totally hypnotising and playing with this thing is seriously addictive.

After coming up with a bunch of geometric patterns I soon began to write words into the grid just to see how text patterns might sound.

This simple idea is apparently based on the fantastic Tenori-On by Yamaha. Thanks Andre for providing these amazing toys for free!

Buy Nothing! Pay Now!

2009-04-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

It´s now three month after the Designers Republic closed their doors, and now CR Blog has published an article about the relevance and the dialectic dilemma of the influential company.

It´s an entertaining read that focusses on the different stages of tDR`s work, as they moved from logo parody to "digital baroque" and later to abstract and obscure pseudo-architecture, while the mainstream followed, copied and eventually even hired them.

Do It Yourself - The Story of Rough Trade

2009-04-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Do yourself a favour and watch this great BBC 4 documentary "Do It Yourself - The Story of Rough Trade", if you haven´t done already.
From its humble beginnings as a small record shop filled with records which owner Geoff Travis had brought back from America, to its rise as a major distribution force of independent music and one of the most influential labels of the 1980s.

It´s especially interesting to follow the rise and fall (and rise) of a couple of devoted people who never wanted to be part of the mainstream music industry but soon found out that they needed hits, "Top of the pops" and binding contracts to sustain their growing business.

It is a whopping 88 minutes, but there are lots of worse things you can waste your time on...

Flori 62

2009-04-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is not a nostalgic post about a floral exhibition in the sixties, but a reminder that Florian Schneider, the recently retired founding member of Kraftwerk is 62 today.

Apparently, Schneider uses his new leisure time to walk around music-trade-fairs only to make occasional cameo appearances. Here we see him popping into a clip that shows sequencer guru Sebastian Niessen explaining his famous SAM-16. The guy that appears in the frame like Lefty, the Salesman at 1:18 is indeed Mr. Schneider himself.

Click here for the video on Sonic State News.

Of course this has only some very small entertainment value for a very small crowd of people, so don´t bother to watch if you landed on this site by googling for "pre-te3ns".

Overlit Chrome

2009-04-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

American photo- or hyperrealism was a very successful art form in Germany during the 1970s.

I think that these ultra-realistic paintings offered many non-Americans a much more comfortable grip and understanding of the "American Dream". For many left-leaning critics Pop-Art embraced consumerism and the banality of art a bit too friendly and carefree.

Photorealism, on the other hand baffled with spectacular painting techniques and a completely irony-free, piercing stare into the American landscape. The shiny, glaring surface on many paintings was either over saturated with colours or so overexposed, almost bleached by the sun, that you´d reach for your sunglasses instinctively.

Suburban scenes of people standing in front of their houses and cars, sunbathing inhabitants next to the countless backyard pools, details of cars, reflecting showrooms, diners, close-ups of candy and dripping jelly-cakes, fractures of baroque neon-signs by day and crashed limousines rotting in high grass. You almost feel like a voyeur.

Like failed attempts of the perfect advertisement, glimpses into a mostly empty world that is filled with useless and decorative place holders.

I think that photorealism is still amazing because it managed to transform a seemingly banal picture into something worth looking at by subjecting it to imaginary sunlight.

Today, Photoshop allows us to create pictures that are so hyper-perfect that the unreal effect is nearly the same. It also allows us to create a picture in "photorealistic style" with the help of a filter. It makes it much more interesting to see what they saw.

I always loved photorealism because it pictured (and suggested) exactly what I liked and what I missed growing up in rebuilt but still scarred Germany: The vast spaces, the tacky colours, the bizarre chrome, the humming of air-condition, lonely palm trees and kidney-shaped pools.

The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin is currently hosting "Picturing America - Photorealism in the 1970s", which is the first extensive exhibition in Germany for 30 years, covering the most prominent works of Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Tom Blackwell, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Franz Gertsch, Ralph Goings, Ron Kleeman, Richard McLean, Malcolm Morley, Stephen Posen, John Salt, Ben Schonzeit and Paul Staiger

Doris birth Day

2009-04-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

8 1/5 reminded me that the very funny Doris Day was born 85 years ago today! Happy birthday, Doris! You always looked great in the kitchen...

Mbube

2009-04-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

"Mbube" is most likely one of the most famous melodies known on this planet. The history behind this haunting Zulu-song, which would later be known throughout the world as "Wimoweh" and/or "The Lion sleeps tonight" is as ramified and mysterious as the jungle it evokes with its chants and wailing, ghostly voice.

Salomon Linda, who conceived the melody one afternoon in South-Africa´s only recording studio in the 1930s, sold all the rights to the owner of the record company for a minimal amount of cash. In return he was "allowed" to work as a packer in the small company. During the decades, several people would take on the song and changed it until it became an enduring mega-seller. I found it quite surprising that the song, which is widely believed to be an ancient African lullaby, was written in the 1930s and that it was transformed by several composers who conveniently forgot to mention Salomon Linda as the original author.

For some downloadable versions of "Mbube/The Lion sleeps tonight" and a short write-up of the story head to Any Major Dude. The complete and riveting history of the song from it´s conception to the long law-suits during the naughties can be read in this fascinating story.

This is the original recording of "Mbube" by Salomon Linda and the Evening Birds.

Terminus

2009-04-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

"Perhaps the ending state of the human race will resemble a well-run airport where no planes ever take off!"

(click pic: make big)

Quote: J.G. Ballard in conversation, 2003
Amazing night photography of abandoned terminal at San Francisco International Airport by 4Pizon.

My Other Voice

2009-04-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

Confession: I love The Sparks in theory only!

I adore their style and image, the humour, the irony, their fantastic album covers (esp. "Propaganda" and "Indiscreet") and the influence they had on everything that was good in pop-music during the last (almost) 40 years!
But with the exception of a few songs I can´t really bring myself to listen to them. It bugs me, because I really want to like them, not only because of their hilarious, epic song-titles ("Rock n Roll people in a Disco world", "I thought I told you to wait in the car", "Angst in my pants", "Lighten up Morrissey) but the fact that they are most likely the coolest, most perfect R/Pop band ever!

But then there is "No. 1 in Heaven", the album that fused pop, rock and electronic disco like nothing that was ever done before. An epic in only six songs that explodes with the last song, the title track. My favourite song on the album, and probably my favourite Sparks song is the morbid and experimental "My other voice". This strange, slow and delirious song is placed between the hectic "Beat the clock" and "The No. 1 song in Heaven". It could be considered a bit of a downer and it is probably the strangest song on an already strange album.

I always saw "My other voice" as a sort of Overture for "The No 1 song in heaven". If the latter was the one you´d hear all over in paradise, "My other voice" was the sound you´d hear while dying on the dancefloor, going through a quick purgatory and presto: angel choirs!

Now listen to My Other Voice

There is a backwards hi-hat sequence running throughout the whole song, it dazzles the mind and plays with the listeners perception of time. Elements are added one after another: A clumsy bassline, fluttering, slowed down disco percussion, ethereal voices that grow into an otherworldly crescendo that aims to go higher and higher. Shortly before the voices evaporate into thin air there is something like a demented surf guitar which soon turns out to be a vocoderized voice "humming" a half-conscious melody.

At this point in this experimental flow of ascending sounds and descending melodies the humming voice, as if coming from far away instructs us to "Listen to my other voice". Only then does the relative darkness of the track open up to Russel Maels most angelic voice. But his sweet, yearning voice says words that are more of a threat than a consolation: "You´re so independent but that´s gonna change real soon. With my other voice I can destroy this room. I´ll wrap my voice around you and I drag you everywhere. My other voice."

He then yanks the vocoder back on and gets even more sinister and demonic: You think you´re romantic. Well, I´ll whisper in your ear. I´ll be all you hear for years and years and years. You may be deaf to everything, you wont be deaf to me: My other voice..
The last syllables are pitched so high that the voice drifts off into the atmosphere. Slowly, all instruments fade away until only the backwards hi-hat is all that is left.

I can only imagine the effect this must have had on a crowd of drugged up dancers in Studio 54...

The Amazing Helen Levitt. 1913 - 2009.

2009-03-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

Helen Levitt´s photos are very "Now". Often grotesque and funny, sometimes sad. They are perfect for "re-blogging" and you could also print bold words over them. Of course, they are also displayed in museums.

Last year I read a short interview with the famous New Yorker street photographer that made me love her and her pictures even more. When she was asked how she so quickly learned to use colour-photography in 1959 she just answers: "Why? You take a colour film, you put it in your camera, you start to shoot!"

The quiet woman who refused to be photographed also claimed that she never showed any personal interest in her objects. "No, I never talked to anyone. I always walked on immediately", was her answer she gave to German magazine "Der Spiegel".

In the 1940s Levitt could not live from her work, so she became a cutter, worked with Luis Bunuel and later started to make her own influential and acclaimed short-films. She died yesterday, aged 95.

Directed by StellaVista

2009-03-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

I have become a director yesterday! Thanks to this funky Text-To-Movie Program that lets you easily direct a scene with up to two characters. I was amazed at how easy and intuitive the process is. You can chose different settings, characters and languages (which in return allow you to let your characters speak with strong accents). Camera angles, expressions, movements and sounds can be easily selected and you can drag and drop them everywhere into your script.
In a relatively short while I came up with three short "music"-clips.

My first attempt has a Kevin Spacey look-a-like performing an excerpt of The Talking Heads´ "Once in a lifetime".

Next I went to Düsseldorf where tourists ask you the way to the "Kling Klang Studio" instead of the central station. Here I had lots of fun to teach the computer to speak with a German and French accent. "Ja tvoi sluga! Ja tvoi Rabotnik!"

I then managed to sneak into the Pet Shop Boy Mansion, where some fundamental questions were being discussed. "Love, etc?" is my most ambitious project today. But will the audience love me?

If you sign in for a free account you can also "remix" every film as you wish. George Lucas must have had his hands in this.

It´s great fun to play around with. You can call me Alan Smithee now.

Mathématiques Modernes

2009-03-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

Mathématiques Modernes was a French synth-pop duo that was only active between 1980 and 1981. Edwige Braun-Belmore and Claude Arto hit the new-wave dancefloors with the amazing "Disco Rough", a nervous, angular synth-stomper that was just right for the time. Slightly chaotic and full of atonal bleeps, Edwige has full control over her detached and half-spoken lyrics. It sounds like The Normal with a super snotty attitude and/or French charm.

Their only full lengths album "Les Visiteurs du Soir", which shows them gazing over a post-apocalyptic Paris like they auditioned for a French re-make of "Village of the Damned" after they killed their Au-Pair, is full of short, hectic pop songs with titles like "Boy be my toy", "A+B+C" or "Athletical Mystery". I picked this up for small money many years ago and it seems to be a collectors item now.

Alor clicques le tiny arrow and get Disco Rough!

BambiRama

2009-03-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

Don´t Look At The Camera!

2009-03-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

For quite some time I had the creeping fear that "Brave New World", "1984" and their celluloid remixes "THX 1138" and "Brazil" were not only painting a bleak and sarcastic dystopia, but that they actually were self fulfilling prophecies and a how-to-manual for governments to implement the "benevolent dictatorship" that is being created around us.

Boing Boing reported about the latest, incredibly creepy public awareness posters, which are currently popping up in London (see above). This craziness is paid for by the taxpayers who are in retrospect treated like complete idiots by the people who are behind this paranoid and pathetic attempts at mass-hypnosis. You could almost mistake if for satire.

Not only do these messages tell you that it is o.k. to sniff through other people´s trash and report them if you find anything that is beyond your way of understanding, they also expect you to unsee the millions of CCTV cameras that are suspecting you to be a potential criminal. Observing the observers is suspicious! Don´t notice the man behind the curtain!

This really screams for a "Improv Everywhere"-stunt! Thousands of identically dressed people with hats and sun-glasses need to show up in front of every open CCTV camera and stare at it for a few minutes.

The other, much easier reaction already happened in the comments section of the thread: People created instant piss-takes of the posters! I guess this shows how deeply unsettling these posters really are.

Fear makes advertisers happy!

While I was typing up this post, a follow-up article appeared on Boing Boing that reported the remixing of the posters. The comments are full of great, sarcastic takes on the governMENTAL idiocy.

Back from Barcelona

2009-03-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

Back from the most beautiful city in the world, where even the millions of finely honed decorations on the splendid facades have fractal decorations. A city that looks like it grew out of the sea, made of fossil stones, plants and shellfish

We walked the streets, the beaches, the mountains and bars like mad and we actually feel like we need a vacation from the vacation. But as we arrived sunburnt and thinly dressed in cold, grey, snowy Berlin we just wanted to go back.

What else is to say about Barcelona? The architecture is just so ripe and overflowing without being overly decadent. People are very friendly and helpful and despite the fact that the city is full of tourists you never get that rip-off feeling that follows you around places like Paris (which doesn´t even have a beach, nor an Amanda Lear exhibition).

I am not spending much time with taking good photos, and I think that it´s impossible to catch the beauty of Barcelona on film. So it was a nice coincidence that a tram ride through Barcelona appeared in Youtube a few days ago. I didn´t recognize much of it, since the footage was taken in 1908! By the time Catalan Modernism was almost finished but the main focus of this clip is the movement and watching the people on the streets. The piano music is very nice and soothing.

The same video (with another, more silent-movie soundtrack) that compares the old with current views, can be seen here.

Blofeld Seams

2009-03-24T06:24:00.000-07:00

Spy Vibe traces the origins of the stylish Nehru Jacket through 60s pop-culture. I always loved the collar-less shirt that Sean Connery wore in "Dr. No", but in retrospect the Bond-villains were making a much bolder statement by making these "Blofeld seams" a fashion trend for megalomaniacs.

Off to Barcelona

2009-03-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

I am off to one of my favourite cities in the world: Barcelona!

It´s been some years since I´ve been to this amazing city for the last time and I am really looking forward to walk the streets and hang out in my favourite hi-rise hotel again: Hotel Arts on a high-up floor on the right hand side, facing the sea and the city is one of the best places to be.

Stella will be back next week.

This Used To Be "This Used To Be The Future"

2009-03-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

"This used to be the future" is a track from the bonus CD of the upcoming, new Pet Shop Boys album "Yes". The special gimmick: vocals are not only sung by Neil Tennant, but also by Chris Low and Phil Oakey from The Human League.

MARCH 23 UPDATE:
This used to be "This Used to be the Future": After the song was taken down due to our beloved copyright violation bla bla (after all there is no such thing as free promotion?!) there is now the "Ken Saint X-tended Mix", which is surprisingly good and very close to the "original" version. I wonder how long this will be up...

What Use?!

2009-03-17T04:16:00.001-07:00

"Give me new noise! Give me new affection! Strange new toys from another world. I need to see more than just three dimensions. Stranger than fiction. Faster than light."

Listen: Tuxedomoon: What Use (1980)

Simon Reynolds did a very interesting interview with Steven Brown from legendary art-collective Tuxedomoon.

Abstract Raquel

2009-03-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Raquel Welsh a true Stellavista Ultramodel goes far out in this abstract dance from her 1970s TV special. Hard to say what´s more amazing: The Ruta de la Amistad sculptures from the Mexico City Olympics, the music or the outlandish dance routines.

Peter Saville Q&A

2009-03-14T13:03:00.000-07:00

Some clips of a Peter Saville Q&A from the D&AD President's Lecture from March 12 can be found here.

Below is Saville talking about Banksy and his disdain of the British Gallery scene. I think this is the most interesting of the clips. Some of them just prove that designers are not necessarily more interesting than anybody else.

Peter Saville Q&A: What do you think of Banksy? from D&AD on Vimeo.

Con Hair

2009-03-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

From the introduction of Worth 1000´s latest photoshop contest:
It's not easy being a professional graphic designer. Often they're asked to create a movie poster with nothing more to go on than the title. And if the email has a typo in it, things get even more confusing. All it takes is one wrong letter to really foul things up. You should have seen the posters they first designed for "Snakes on a Plate", "A Fight at the Opera", and "Mobster House"! (We won't discuss the original poster for "Tucker"... )

The rules of this contest were: take a popular movie and swap one and only one letter of its title OR add or subtract one and only one letter of its title.

Some of these are very funny and clever, thanks to the fact that the English language has so many words that actually work. These are only 4 from 53! click posters for full cinemascope experience.

Bow Down! They Are The Superions!

2009-03-12T03:11:00.000-07:00

urprisingly, The B-52s released a new album last year after aeons and now Fred Schneider is already fronting a new band which could finally bring pure Exotica back into the mainstream (or not).

With collaborators Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall they are The Superions. Formally called The DelMorons, the trio has released "Totally Nude Island" as a single late last year. The original version is a slow, lilting panoptikum of Martin Denny/Les Baxter-style exotiki, complete with the sounds of crashing waves and bird calls. This aural concoction is completed with Fred Schneider reciting the legend of totally nude island like a horny and tipsy National Geographics narrator at a suburban backyard luau.

The invocation of getting nekkid ends with the hilarious cop-out line: If you have any inhibitions cast them aside! Put on a strategically placed shell and raise a little hell on totally nude island.

Then there is the Ursula 1000 version of "Totally Nude Island" which ups the tempo that adds an irresistible groove to the whole thing. If the song passes you by on first listen, play it again and you will be hooked!

VJ Tom Yaz has created a video for each version. If you are into horny animals and vintage tits you should watch the original. In the remix video the women are better dressed, while 50s beefcake guys are showing their stuff. So basically, there is a straight and a gay version. You should -of course- watch both. They are the Superions after all!

The Superions - Totally Nude Island

The Superions - Totally Nude Island (Ursula 1000 Remix

Thunder! Lightning! Frightening!

2009-03-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

"Knock on Wood", the Eddie Floyd song was given the disco treatment by Amii Stewart in 1978. Produced by new-comer Barry Leng it has a similar devastating and in-your-face-sound as Donna Summer´s "I Feel Love".

Although, "Knock on Wood" is less electronic and alien, the frantic, storming drums and the accelerated soul-freight-train-sound shared a similar vision.
"Knock on Wood" can still light up a dance-floor. The fantastic vocals of beautiful Amii Stewart are very forgiving when pitching up the speed to every required BPM.

One year later, the producers of French disco project Sheila B. Devotion ripped off the the song for their "Seven lonely Days", which is actually an (uncredited) carbon copy of "Knock on Wood".

The always great site Freaky Trigger is currently discussing the song in their "Freaky Triggers Top 100 Tracks of all Time"-series. Amii sits comfortably at No. 32!

What A Pousseur!

2009-03-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

Henri Pousseur, Belgian composer was one of the first to compose electronic music in the mid 1950s. He worked extensively in the first electronic studios in Milan and Cologne before he founded his own studio in Brussels. Back then, these studios were mostly financed by broadcast organisations and large companies.
Pousseur´s compositions are complex and dense, often using the 12-tone technique and tape manipulations. He also composed many pieces for clarinet and full orchestra.

Henri Pousseur died on March 6 in Brussels, shortly before his 80th birthday.

Here is a short excerpt of one of his electronic compositions, "Paraboles-Mix" from 1972, set to some fractal graphics. The original lasts more than 40 minutes:

Von Braun

2009-03-09T09:50:00.001-07:00

We had loads of Braun products. My father was really into them during their heyday. Sadly many things were lost or broken and so they vanished with the years. I still have and use a wonderful Braun Super-8 projector and when I have to buy now consumer products I make sure to check out what Braun has to offer. Since Braun stopped offering entertainment products, the only consistent and typical Braun design can now only be found in their kitchen products.
I wonder if Apple has already seen the new Braun Pocket Shaver, which is a refreshing step forward back to classic Braun. New stuff to rip-off.

The pictures are from various sources I saved over the years. Most can be found in the Dieter Rahm Pool.

Northern Electronic Soul

2009-03-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

A message from Black Dog Towers:

Further Vexations is our artistic response to 21st century rat on your neighbour smokefree britain. It is an attempt to capture and express our emotional frustrations, and the trials and tribulations of living in an un-democratic surveillance society.

The seeds of nihilist despair and apathy are well and truly sown amongst the citizens of Airstrip One. We've helplessly watched with mounting horror, while the government trashed the country, signed away it's sovereignty to Brussels (with a flourish of a specially minted silver pen), sold off precious national industries and assets at next to bargain basement prices, and indulged itself with two utterly pointless wars which it couldn't afford. We were promised a vote. A referendum. A chance to change things but an unelected politician chancellor man decided not to bother. To say we are pissed off about it, would be an understatement.

Only one year after their "Radio Scarecrow" release, The Black Dog bites back with new album "Further Vexations" on April 27.

Filled with rage and desperation of the current state of society and politics whose apathy resembles Plato´s allegory of the cave and Orwell rolled into a delicious pill that we are all too happy to swallow repeatedly.

"Further Vexations" is said to be a bit more aggressive and upbeat in its dark cynicism. There is more of a club vibe throughout the tracks, which can be streamed here or here.

Killing Cameras

2009-03-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

In 1960 "Peeping Tom" caused a scandal that eventually ended the career of director Michael Powell. In this twisted thriller Karl Heinz Böhm (who successfully got rid of his "Sissi"-image with this) plays a psychotic camera-man who kills women with the tripod of his camera while filming their death. He collects his films and watches them over and over again and at one point even attempts to screen it to a woman he feels attracted to.

Something about this idea must have hit too close to home for critics and audiences at the time. "Peeping Tom" was throwing the voyeurism of an anonymous audience back in their faces. It one-upped Hitchcock´s "Rear Window" from six years earlier. Whereas Hitchcock made the audience watch through the eyes of the lovable, handicapped voyeur, Powell forces us to witness the action through the eyes of the killer AND through the camera lens.
In a way "Peeping Tom" anticipated the video-age by more than twenty years and one might get the impression that the audience somehow knew it.

Why am I writing this? Well, I just found an interesting toy commercial from 1964 that tried to sell a "killing camera" to teenage James Bond-fans. The Mattel Agent Zero M Movie Shot provides this young trenchcoat wearing styler with a camera that turns into a machine-gun. It even shoots through the campy bag that can be bought separately!

I have no idea how parents reacted to this toy and I would have been great if it really was a camera. I would certainly have wanted one. Check also the unbelievable "Agent M Sonic Blaster" which was a gigantic bazooka that fired compressed air!

Automatic Everything

2009-03-06T04:32:00.000-08:00

In 2009 everything is coming up robots, but is there still anything romantic about the man-machine?

"Terminator: Salvation" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" will both have giant robots smashing things up this year. The former will also have it´s own roller-coaster: "Terminator Salvation: The Coaster" will open at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California. But -strange marketing ahoy- it will be a wooden coaster. So robotic!

Then there is the news that the re-make of "Tron" will have a soundtrack provided by Daft Punk. On a smaller level, Röyksopp´s next single -a duet with Robyn- will be called "The Girl and the Robot" and most recently every politician is eager to have a photo taken on which they generously reach out their hand to shake the mechanical extremities of some robot. Say hello to our new overlords.

Robots and art are always a good combination and now someone wrote the first robo-drama for humans and robots. The machines were supplied by Mitsubishi and judging from this still-shot, the whole thing looks very serious.

All this robo-love brings a few metallic words to my head: "I am your automatic lover. beep." Let´s have a few looks and listen to Dee D. Jacksons notorious, cheesy but groovy eurobo-hit "Automatic Lover". Any song that opens with the words "Love in space in time, there´s no more feeling" and goes on with immortal lines such as "He´s programmed to receive automatic satisfaction" is a classic in my book.

Dee D is/was a clever British girl who used to produce sci-fi short films and comissioned the fabled Giorgio Moroder and members of his Munich Machine to do some soundtrack work. From there she took the idea to produce a record which turned out to be the brilliantly titled "Cosmic Curves". "Automatic Lover" and the follow-up "Meteor Man", produced with Gary Unwin and Keith Forsey in Munich became world wide mega hits.

Today, Dee D Jackson lives in Italy and runs her own record label where she reportedly releases hip-hop and trance records. I was secretly hoping that she became a robotics scientist, but running a record label in sunny Turin is certainly not a bad career choice. It goes without saying that she has a superbly awful website, complete with badly scanned photos. Must visit!

Kuts Thru You

2009-03-05T05:07:00.000-08:00

Since yesterday the series of Youtube mash-ups of Israeli musician and artist Kutiman are spreading like wildfire through the net. The original Thru-You-site, where the videos are hosted is currently down, but some people have captured the clips and put them up on Youtube.

Kutiman takes small parts out of Youtube videos of amateur musicians and instrument presentations. He loops them and creates new songs out of the bits and pieces. It´s audio-visual sampling in its purest form and the results are simply amazing! The idea is not new but the artful and musical expertise with which it is done is stunning and very impressive.

"Babylon Band" gives a good impression on how the music and the video works.

"This is what it became", on a reggae tip

"Just a Lady" is just beautiful!

You can watch all seven videos and a short "how-it-was-done"-clip by Kutiman here.

Happy Families of Movie Land

2009-03-04T03:56:00.000-08:00

For weird, geeky fan-art you should check out Crazy Cult. There is lots of very funny, nerdy and imaginative stuff to be found.

I particularly like these family portraits of infamous not-so-happy-movie families by Kirk Demarais. Make sure to visit his website(s) and watch his great short-film Flip.

It´s More Fun To Cloud-Compute

2009-03-02T04:23:00.000-08:00

Back in August of last year I posted about the computerised kinetic sculptures of Joe Gilbertson and the similar, very sophisticated advertising installation at the BMW museum.

IBM has borrowed the same idea for a presentation at this year´s CeBIT fair to explain the concept of "Cloud Computing" in a graphic way. The scale of the presentation is a bit smaller (yes, it´s got less balls) than the BMW version but the balls are magically changing colour!
However, the thing I like best about this is the female voice that talks in this very soothing, Westworld-voice with ambient sounds playing in the background.

found on Basic Thinking.

Super Sonic Birthday

2009-03-02T03:22:00.000-08:00

40 years ago today the Concorde took off for its maiden flight. Although it would last another seven years until the supersonic jet would carry it´s first jet-set passengers.

When I saw the Concorde for the first time on the runway I was surprised how small the jet actually looked, and I remembered how I had read some comments by passengers who complained about the tiny interior of the plane. How typical: Flying at kerosene guzzling Mach 2.23 while eating from custom made china all they could think of is how small the rocket-shaped jet was.

Once, while I was waiting to fly out of JFK with British Airways, a computer malfunction kept the passengers from checking in and for some reason the Concorde travellers would not be allowed to wait in the exclusive lounge. Instead they had to wait with us regular travellers which became a very interesting, slightly nasty experience. It turned out that most of these Concorde travellers were not exactly the Bianca Jagger-type. Instead they were mostly regular, middle-class people with issues who had saved a very long time for a one-way trip with the legendary jet. As soon as their trip deviated from their jet-set fantasy, they were seriously pissed. A matter that got only worse when they got served free champagne...

The last time I have seen the Concorde was at a CSD party in London´s Clapham common. While Björn Again were doing their rendition of "Dancing Queen" and fireworks were going off, the Concorde was majestically crossing the sky, surrounded by explosions of light as thousands of people were cheering this perfect moment!

You can buy a variety of interesting and ugly Concorde memorabilia including cutlery and a whole jet engine, which will only cost you one million Pound Sterling!

After the Russian Tupolev copycat (which also looks amazing) never really "took off", there are currently plans for the "son of Concorde", new supersonic jets that would reach up to 5 Mach. London to Sydney in five hours! Both planes are now grounded and exhibited in an aviation museum in Germany.

I-Joy Riders

2009-03-02T01:29:00.000-08:00

This commercial for the iJoy Ride is...erm, strange and hilarious! I guess this caters to the women who are feeding Extenze to their husbands only to find out that it doesn´t work as advertised. But hey, it only simulates a gentle horse ride...

Dream On

2009-03-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

What a fantastic ANTHEM!
"Dream On", sung by great, Swedish pop-star Robyn and The Ark member Ola Salo first appeared in 2006 on Christian Falk´s solo album "People Say". This is the original video for the single that was only released in Sweden:

Thugs and badmen
punks and lifers
locked up interns
pigs and snitches

Rest your weary heads, all is well

You won't be strip-searched, torn up tonight
you won't be cut up, bleeding tonight
you won't be strung out, cold, shaking to your bones
wishing you were anywhere else but right here
So dream on

Thieves and muggers
tricks and hustlers
cheats and traitors
scum and low-lives

Rest your weary heads, all is well

You won't be sad or broken tonight
you won't be squealed on, ripped off tonight
you won't be back-stabbed, double crossed, face down
teeth knocked out, lying in a gutter somewhere
So dream on

So dream on

Freaks and junkies
fakes and phonies
drunks and cowards
manic preachers

Rest your weary heads, all is well

You won't be pushed or messed with tonight
you won't be lied to, ruffed up tonight
You won't be insane, paranoid, obsessed
aimlessly wandering through the dark night
So dream on

So dream on

You won't be insane, paranoid, obsessed
aimlessly wandering through the dark night

So dream on

Late last year, the single got remixed and re-released, dropping Ola´s vocals while focussing on Robyn. I think the new video is a bit crap. But still: ANTHEM!

Kinetica Art Fair

2009-03-01T01:41:00.000-08:00

Carnivorous art, man-animal-machine hybrids, mechanical drawing machines, subliminal installations, pole dancing robots, light sculptures and cybernetics are some of the exhibits to be found at Kinetica Art Fair, the UK's first art fair dedicated to kinetic, robotic, sound, light and time-based art which runs from Feb. 27 through March 2nd in London.

Convertible

2009-02-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

Another spoof on the "Obama change"-campaign. Found on Jockohomo. This is by Tim Doyle and some of his work is even "glow in the dark", which makes everything a tad better.

Sample and Hold

2009-02-27T05:13:00.000-08:00

This lush and amazing rare-groove track by Lowell was the musical foundation of Massive Attack´s "Lately", and it came embedded in a great piece about sampling that Simon Reynolds wrote for The Guardian.

I think that everybody knew that "Massive Attack" were using tons of samples, more so that their whole sound and aesthetics revolved around sampling. So I guess that the current release of "Protected: Massive Samples", a collection of the original sources, won´t cause the same fuzz that surrounded a similar project that unveiled the foundations of many Daft Punk songs. It is still different how you use a sample, and especially how an audience perceives a song and the band that produces it.

With their huge, blown-up, stadium shows Daft Punk had turned into a rock-dinosaur, happy to regurgitate their own, limited repertoire over and over. Their boldness and twisted genius made them get away with lifting almost complete, fairly obscure, songs and making them their own.

Massive Attack on the other side made sure to work their samples around an idea that always tried to be something else. In the best case the end result would be something bigger than the sum of its parts. The question remains: which approach is more rockist? And why did it shock so many people when it was "revealed" that Daft Punk´s music was almost completely stitched together from old disco, funk and Barry Manilow records.

Did they see them as something "authentic" because they played to huge crowds which would normally not listen to "electro"? Maybe because they didn´t read the credits on the sleeves because they never bothered to buy the record?

You Make My House Shine

2009-02-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

Gee Mr. Tracy was a strange duo from Norwich, UK who had their very own idea of pop-music in the mid of the 1980s.
By 1985, the classic synth/vocal duo was on its way out. Soft Cell, D.A.F., Suicide, Sparks, OMD, had either disbanded, were on indefinite hiatus or were at low-points if their career.
Shortly before the Pet Shop Boys would seal this band model into a lasting time-capsule, Brick Smith and Vince Rogers took no prisoners with their minimal, electro-pop-punk.

At times Gee Mr. Tracy sounded like a parody of Suicide, with their monotonous, skeletal and very cheap sound. "Jet Girl" on their debut (and only) album was like a total piss-take on the Vega/Rev-sound and it could be seen as the missing link between Suicide and Sigue Sigue Sputnik (without the futuristic gadgets, the hi-tech production, the make-up and the hype).
The vocals were often shouted and apparently both band members liked to drink and singing about it.

In their short career as Gee Mr. Tracy (name refers to the "Tracy"-family of "The Thunderbirds") they actually wrote two fine pop-gems: "Permanent Swoon" and "Gee Mr. Tracy - You Make My House Shine", which I always wanted to hear in an updated house-remix.
What´s not to like in a song that has lines such as: "The doorbell plays Miles Davis, The biscuit tins are never empty, the milkman leaves us vodka (we drink it!)" and that starts with a dog barking in Japanese?!

Ooze Out and Away

2009-02-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Read two interviews, one with J.G. Ballard, one with David Cronenberg!

Both men were interviewed by Mark Dery for Rage Magazine in 1997 around the time Cronenberg´s vision of "Crash" hit the screens.

via boingboing

Rat Racing

2009-02-23T05:14:00.000-08:00

The Rat Race by James Clar

From the Website: "The Rat Race" is a piece jesting at the social ideal of the rat race, the idea that we are all rats in a competitive race to the top. Technology plays a key role in enhancing each rat but staying on top of technological progress (new software, programming languages, memes, etc) is a job onto itself. What technologies enhance our daily lives or make our work more streamlined? "The Rat Race" is a fusion of rat and technology.

Making things visible by blurring or obstructing them is a common aspect in Clar´s other works, which at times would love to have as light-objects in my home.

See "Circlesquare", "Square 2" and "Portal" which I would buy immediately. I also dig his Infinity Case and the idea to hang a black, semi-transparent curtain over a giant monitor over a busy Shinjuku-junction, calling it Tokyo Graffiti.

Vicious Pink - Techno Psycho Poppers

2009-02-21T12:12:00.001-08:00

I still can smell the vanilla-scented fog that would sweep over the dance floor when "Cccan´t You See" was played. As soon as the first, thinly sampled choir would come up, everybody made a beeline to the floor. Poppers, goths, the fetish-set and the riff-raff of every sexual preference. Vicious Pink united everyone for a few minutes.

Aptly named "Techno Psycho Poppers" by the press, Vicous Pink were catering first and foremost to the clubs. They started out as backing performers for Soft Cell and just went with the sleazy image. They had quite the imaginative merchandise for a club act.

Mondo Pre-Teen

2009-02-20T12:05:00.000-08:00

Pimping up kids to look like creepy adults seems to be a common ritual in Northern America and Papua New Guinea.

BLIP On My Radar

2009-02-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

I am currently fiddling around with Blip.FM. Since I never bothered to follow anyone on Twitter, this new social music site passed me by. After playing around with it a bit, I must say that it is a much easier way to find music than on the deceased Muxtape.

I signed up this afternoon and I am now collecting a track list that is deemed to become very eclectic.
Make sure to drop by at StellaVista´s Outer Base. Slip into something comfy and pour yourself a drink.

The server seems to be quite slow and overpowered at times. You also have to wonder about the legal aspect of the whole thing. As soon as you upload anything you are practically committing a crime. I am expecting Blip.fm to be shut down in Germany pretty soon (now, that I have found it...)

Codebreaker

2009-02-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

The video to "Fire (Jimmy Edgar Remix)" by Codebreaker is one of the best examples of animated tilt-shift photography I have seen.
The heavy snowstorm in this clip from Erik West must be exactly the one that´s coming down in Berlin at this very moment.
The song is quite nice too.

.

The Annual Brit Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Pop-Excellence Goes To The Pet Shop Boys

2009-02-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

A ten-minute medley (or potpourri as we used to say before the war) spawning the 25 year lasting career of the Pet Shop Boys was performed by the band at yesterdays BRIT AWARDS. PSB received an "Outstanding Contribution To Music Award" which justified this career mash-up.

In true PSB-fashion the show was a slightly odd and brittle performance of random imagery, unnecessary ballet, wacky wigs and Lady GaGa. All in all: A great success (minus the GaGa)

Sushi Assembly Line

2009-02-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

Make sure to watch in high-resolution

This is exactly the kind of late night programming that some German TV-programs would use to air: webcam movies from all over the world, vintage NASA space programs or station to station train rides through Siberia. Usually this would be better than the day time programming.

These guys here have put a video camera on a sushi conveyor and added some fragile music. This could go on for hours and I would only wish that the "creators" would have stayed out of it. Their presence is a bit annoying as is their "creative reasoning" why they did this. For once Youtube comments are bringing some focus to the table: "It´s just a camera on a conveyor belt in a sushi bar!"

Pull a Card

2009-02-18T04:32:00.000-08:00

Make sure to watch in high resolution

This charity campaign ad for "Shelter - The Homeless and Housing Charity" from the UK was done for free by Outsider and Framestore. Music was provided by Radiohead.

Even years after Pleix perfected this "dissolving architecture"-style, I am still amazed by these "drive-by" cgi effects. They are really getting better and better with these slo-mo, one-shot techniques.

Techno City

2009-02-18T04:22:00.000-08:00

New photos of abandoned future-ruins in Dubai? Tilt-shift photos of Brazilia? You guessed it, it´s just the real silicon valley inside your motherboard. Not a new idea as can be seen in the b/w pictures below, but these are nicely photographed and found here.

Enjoy some classic, proto-techno from Juan Atkins´Cybotron - Techno City (click arrow for embedded play)

Rendez Vous a Paris

2009-02-18T01:08:00.001-08:00

One day I´ll meet you in Paris. I promise.

This 8 minute Ferrari ride through Paris in the early morning hours is a fantastic short film by Claude Lelouch. "C'était un rendez-vous" was shot in 1976. Watch it quick because the copyFight holders are quick to erase all links.

Thank You For The MUZAK

2009-02-16T04:15:00.000-08:00

I was always fascinated by the bogus scientific stories about MUZAKs ability to turn potential shoppers into mindless consumer-robots. Never underestimate the power of subliminal easy-listening.

Originally invented in the 1930s to silence the creaking noises of elevators with soothing, nerve-calming music, Muzak Inc. soon applied the magic of pseudo-science to sell their background music. Make people stay longer and spend more, heighten the productivity of your work-drones, clear your train-stations of junkies: Muzak promised all this and now, in their 75th year of existence, they had to file for bankruptcy. The day the Muzak died!

To celebrate the company that would have loved to make us believe that they shaped the 20th century more than they actually did, have another listen to one of the only pop-songs that is about muzak:
Moonlight and Muzak by M.
And remember: Muzak mixed the bourgeoisie and the rebel!

Eye on Springfield

2009-02-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Eye on Springfield posts still shots of The Simpsons, a funny reminder of how good the show once was. The selections are exclusively chosen from seasons 1-9 which are widely regarded as the golden age of the series.