Oh. Dear. God. NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WARNING: If you like the Twilight “Books/movies” don’t read this post. Upon reading it you will most likely be filled with, at the very least, and intense dislike for my and, at worst, will want to stab me until I look as dead as Robert Pattinson’s expression.

Now, I’m not going to rant about why this is news or the fact that I find these movies to be not only based on awful source material but just bad films. Nope, that’s been done by the internet as a whole to the point that if the internet gained sentence based on content it would A) Be a mindless sex machine (thanks porn) and B) want to murder the Twilight Saga. So, with that out of the way I’m going to talk about one of the things I find to be just absolutely appalling about this series, which can be summed up in one moment.

After three books/movies of tedious prose and three films that feature little to no actual acting we’re finally treated to some vampire fuckin’. Now I could go on and on about how these books are blatantly espousing a “no sex before marriage, and then only for the baby-making” agenda, but I really want to talk about this moment after one of the most horrifying post-coital statements ever. Now, Bella, having been knocked fucking unconscious by the brutal banging only the pasty ass of Edward could deliver she awakens bruised and borderline broken. The room looks like an aging rock band just got done partying and Edward is apologizing for fucking this girl into unconsciousness (I really can’t stress how distressing that alone is).

Now here’s the kicker and the summation of why I hate this goddanmed series with a passion bordering on insane. She says “It’s not your fault.” You heard that right people. Let’s boil that down: “It’s okay to beat me and sexually harm me because you’re a man and that makes it my fault.”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?

That’s what this entire string of literary and cinematic feces really gets me about; the blatant misogyny. I’m a man, I can admit that and I have no right to claim what it’s like to be a woman, but by god I sure as shit align with many feminist notions. It constantly puts forth that it’s totally cool to be in an abusive relationship. Hell, you should want that teenage girls so long as the bastard smacking you around is so man-pretty that he sparkles like a stripper.

I had to get that out there. Even if it’s been said before. the fact that this is news is what really bothers me. How did we let this happen?

 

ACTING

Time to be Self-Serving

I’m actually kind of ashamed I haven’t posted about this yet, but better late than never I suppose.

Some of you may know that WSU Tri-Cities has its own Creative Arts journal. It’s called The Element. It’s open submission (like all journals) and accepts Art, Photography, Poetry and Prose. Now is a great time for me because with this I might be able to generate some great traffic. I myself am Head Editor for Prose and as such it is my job to judge weather a piece of writing is worthy of publication (all I’m looking for is a good story that is consistent and makes sense) and my co-Editors have very similar criteria for publication. The point is that I think its far better to have too many submission than to few. If you’re afraid we’ll know who you are and have some kind of bias (positive or negative) fear not because all submissions are blindly submitted to all the editors. There are no names for myself or the editors to associate with the work. Don’t worry about rejection, it happens and you can ask for feedback by the editors on the submission form. Seriously, I’ve been rejected (on numerous fronts) multiple times. Each time I get better and sometimes it’s just a matter of bad luck.

Anyway, please submit whatever you want to share. Stories, poems, photos, art projects of any kind; all can be submitted. If you get it published you get that bragging right. “I’m a published (writer, poet, artists, photographer)”

You can go here for submissions if you so chose.

Okay, back to being inane…

A Real Beast

The latest Bioshock Infinete trailer just hit the web and it is freakin’ awesome. First and foremost, Bioshock 2 was a direct sequel to the original but was not developed by the team that made the original. Infinite however, is being made by a lot of the core team behind the original Bioshock. Most important it is being written and supervised by ken Levine, the man behind the original.

Aside from being a really snappy trailer it actually has a lot jammed into it. First off the opening shot on the boat is actually a connection to the original Bioshock which has some very interesting story implications. What’s really cool about this trailer is the use of “Beast” by Nico Vega which has a very distinct kind of critique of America. The game itself takes place in 1912 in the fictional city of Columbia which floats in the sky and is currently locked in a civil war between the Vox Populi and The Founders.

Oh, Hell Yes!

FYI, these next two posts deal with some really awesome trailers. This one is all about the first trailer for Iron Man 3. I’m a big fan of comics and Marvel’s line has more books that I like than don’t. But now that The Avengers has come out and made a metric shit-load of cash (Joss Whedon for the WIN!)  Marvel is starting up “Phase Two” of their cinematic universe.  The first of those films (to conclude in Avengers 2) is Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 is written and directed by Shane Black who wrote and directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which is a phenomenal film) and has written the first two Lethal Weapon films and a host of other great movies. In short this movie has everything going for it and I would be shocked if it wasn’t less than completely awesome. Plus it’s taking story elements from the Extremis story of Iron Man which could have some really dark implications.

A Great Site for any Film Fan

One off absolute favorite sites on the internet is Mondotees.com. It’s an independent site that publishes art based on film and some television as well (though most of that is based on Adventure Time). The movie pieces are usually done in the style of a movie poster. The most popular works are those based on movies that came out that year. This year saw some really great pieces done. My favorite is Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods done in the style of M. C Escher’s House of Stairs. The best part is that if you’re fast enough you can actually buy some prints. The problem is that they only sell them for a very limited time once they are released. Check the site out and if the archive makes you jump up and down (like me) then get on the newsletter so you know when a new piece is up for grabs. The upside to that is that all the prints are made to order so they don’t “run out of stock”. Here are some kickass examples of what was put up this year.

 

By Phantom City Creative

 

By Jock

 

By Olly Moss

Something Truely Asinine

Okay, so apparently there’s a new digital watch that hides the time in the negative space of a maze. This article proves that I am not lying about this…though I wish I was. Then we could all rest a little better knowing that something like this was merely the delusion of a sleep deprived English Major. Sadly, that’s not how the world of watches works.

"Let's See those fuckers on the bus figure this out!"

What drew me to this was the potential to do something with this like, I don't know, a smartphone display were all your apps and whatnot are "hidden" in some artwork. I think that would be cool. Alas, I had to settle for a watch based on the idea that people "stealing" a galnce at your watch are a problem. As a result I have just one more example of human stupidity...which I really don't need any more off considering that it's election time.

Time over Space

First off, check out these photos.

Oh, and read the article as well. What I got from it was that this camera takes photos in a way that allows for some very interesting things to happen due to it being a Slit Camera. I saw those pictures, thought of the Photomontage project and immediatly wished I'd had a Slit Camera.

That takes some serious flexability

PTA

This is PTA. It may look violent and complicated but it's actually quite simple.

I just manipulated the outlines of the letters to make into unrecognizable shapes then switched the border to chalk scribble. By doing so it created this very violent looking splatter effect; I then set the fill color to black and the outline to red. I did try using other fonts and played around with (failingly, I might add) with using perspective mapping. I also applied the eraser tool and manipulated the positioning to make them overlap and combine.

Now, I didn’t choose the letters PTA at random. When I was in high school I was a teacher’s assistant for a semester. I quickly realized that teachers in my school didn’t give a damn about teaching anyone who wasn’t in an AP class. Every now and then, out of sheer boredom, I would scribble Please Teach All on scrap paper. I tried to make it look cool by stylizing the letters…but I can’t draw to save my life.

A Style of its own

I'm going to show you three little webisodes that are promotions for the upcoming video game Dishonored. Pay attention to the art style is all I have to say



 

 

 

 

I could go on about game lore and what not, but what I really want to talk about is the animation. The art design is intentionaly modeled after Victorian era cartoons found in British serials. The games setting of Dunwall was modeled directly after Victorian era London with steampunk and stylized industrial flares. I found them to be both disturbing, beautiful, and amazing.

Droping the Ban Hammer

Hey, everybody it's Banned Books Month. If you didn't notice all the sings aroudn the WSU TC campus allow me to explaine. This month we honor the works that were (or are) banned or contested from being put in public schools and libraries...I really didn't need to explaine that did I? Anyway for this years challaenged books check this out. (FYI, Fifty Shades of Grey shouldn't be banned but it should be hurled into the sun)
This brings to my mind the idea of censorship and what that means in art. The popular art forms that are tied to the entertainment industry have to deal with this more than anythign else.

What they use to dispose of Banned Books

Aren't Google Goggles a thing?

First off check out this video

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/03/sight-short-film_n_1739192.html?utm_hp_ref=film

Now. What you just saw was the potential future of Augmented Reality. AR is already used for certain smartphone games and even on the Nintendo 3DS. What it does is provide an overlay of reality...and disturbingly enough that short film is probably more accurate than you'd like to think.

Full disclosure, I have several stories I'm currently working on set in a future of rampant Agumented Reality. They are no where near as high minded as this but that doesn't mean I'm not trying to make them poignant...oh, and isn't Google working on something like this?

 

 

"Shut UP! I'm updating my Fcebook Page."



Best. Bouncy Castle. EVAR!

This is so very cool. Alan Parkinson is displaying his inflatable luminariums to the world. These infaltable spaces are illuminated (go figure) with colored light and shaped in ways so as to "awakens a sense of wonder in people" as Parkinson put it himself. Much like the perviously mentioned "Music Minutes" exhibit, this is another example of art not being confined to a particualr space. I just want to walk around in one of those things.

Seriously, I want to bounce around in this thing

Next up: Paint-lates (oh, God, I'm sorry for that)

Horrid pun title aside,  Kunsthal Rotterdam, a Dutch art museum is currently runnning showing an exhibit titled "Museum Minutes" The point of which is to show that people kinda suck at viewing art in exhibits. Though this is nothing new it got me thinking about "Mapping Outisde the Frame: Interactive and Locative Art Environments". The view of the art itself is not the artistic statment, but rather the commentary on the fact that most people spend very little time actually looking at a piece of art in an exhibit. This is achieved by put the viewer on a tredmill and putting a timer over the piece. I find it to be a delightfully funny jab.

I have a strong urge to have Ok Go music playing right now...

Forced Conversion

Okay, so film director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) has a new film coming out in 2013 called Pacific Rim where the major focus is giant robots beating the shit out of "kaiju" (which is the actual Japnesse term for gaint monsters like Godzilla and Mothra). That alone is just pure awesome. However, Legendary Pictures wanted it converted to 3D for piracy protection (can't torrent a 3D file yet) and a bigger ticket price. del Toro refused....adamently. But then this happend.

Studio interferance is nothing new, and del Toro is being diplomatic here...still doesn't mean I like it any less. Of course this in no way means I can't watch the 2D version when it hits theaters (I hope with all my heart that this movie is good.)

Rate of Frames: The Hobbit Controversy

For those who know or care: yes, this is old news, but I still want to discuss it if only to rant a little about how Hollywood investing in 3D has kinda screwed some things.

Let's start from the beginning. It was revealed by director Peter Jackson early on that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey would be filmed at both 24fps (Frames per second) and 48fps. This caused the interent to flip its shit...which is nothing new but always entertaining. So what's the big deal? Well people were more concerend about the whole 48fps filming. So what's the big deal? Well, film is shot at the speed of 24 frames per second. So every second a 24 frames of film have passed on screen. You may not notice it but all film has a kind of motion blur when people move and most lighting efffects are captured that way as well. When you dump up the frame rate you get less (or sometimes) no bluring. That may sound good, but it isn't. What ends up happening is the image becomes more crisp and clear...more HD if you will. The trade off there is that it look like it was shot on a video camera or live TV. So why do it? Simple: 3D effects look better and cause less strain when the film is moving faster becasue the motion blur is gone. Incidentally, CG effects also look better because the motion blur isn't interrupting the animation. Since this public backlash from both idiots with keyboards and actual journalists the 48fps version will only see a limited release.

This would not be a problem if Hollywood didn't want to make everythign 3D. Though it can be used for artistic expression, most of the time its a post-production conversion that is only done to get people to pay extra for a ticket. But i'm no done with my 3D talk. That leads right ino my next post...

Windows 8: Or, how the Indy Developer is getting reamed

In an attempt to fight video game scurvey--SHIT!--I mean piracy Microsoft is implementing a controversial new system for Windows 8. Essentially, what they're doing is requiring all software to be purchased through the Microssoft app store in order for it to even run. Now that's all well and good for big triple A releases, they can afford to lisence that, but the Independent game developer might not be so lucky. Not only that, but some major developers are going to have to kowtow to

Windows 8 and its hardware requirments. That could end up being problematic...just a little.

It's all very technical and I don't fully understand the logistics and specifics behind it, but I do understand that it is a giant pain in the ass. That, by the way, was Gabe Newell. He's the head of Valve studios the creators of the Half-Life video game sereis a well as Portal and Portal 2. He's also famous for beating around the bush.

 

Again, it all comes back to fighting piracy, which is good, by screwing over the people trying to make the product or those trying to buy it legitimately, which is bad.

That's right. I'ma talk about porn

And i'm not even gonna be comedic about it. What follows is me beign completly straight-faced about this. There is absoultly no sarcastic undertone to the followign writing.

A new search engine for the web has launched. It is aptly named Search.xxx
As we all may or may not know, it is incredably difficult to find porn on the interent of any kind whatsoever. In order to combat this lack of content browsing, ICM Registry has created a search engine designed for finding porn sites on the internet. Brave, brave people these.

Jesus, I'm sorry. I can't keep writing like this or I'm going to have a brain aneurysm. Okay, deep breaths....phew.

In all seriousness though this engine does bring up a topic that is acctually relevant to digital culture, and that is piracy. I can garantee that the majority of the sites that this engine links to are Tube sites (sites that stream content for free). I'd bet that the pornography indutry is the most pirated industry right up there with film and video games, but this engine is more or less activly enabling piracy...which is shitty on several level. You can get the much more professional story here...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/searchxxx-porn-search-engine_n_1921161.html

Behold, the new iPhone is upon us!

Lo, and he said unto them, "It shall have LTE and be all kinds of sleek"
Yes, the new iPhone is here, but unlike the rest of teh world, I'm not flipping out like a cirque du soleil performer on meth. Hey, I know it is a fantastic piece of tech and the original iPone started the whole Smartphone thing, but it's hard for me to get excited about somethign that's just going to be replaced and/or uptaded in a year. I'm not an Apple hater, I equally hate this entire culture we've built around yearly updating our equipment. I can't wait for the day when there's only one piece of hardware that is phone, computer, web terminal, etc. and all that will be sold is software. No more of this crap....that thing is pretty sweet though (but no NFC functionality? What the hell?)  http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/09/28/iphone-5-video-review

In the Deep Sea

After reading Ralf Nuhn’s article “From UNCAGED to Cyber-Spatialism” I couldn’t help but think of a very interesting conceptual video game (I will always work gaming into this blog if I can). Before I get into it check out the video and pay attention to the last couple minuets where immersion takes center stage in conversation.

Also, condom covered microphones...

 



 

Nuhn's idea about Cyber-Spatialism in UNCAGED immediately brought me to this game. A core concept, as I understand it, is that a virtual action has a real life effect. This is the same concept only the other direction. But wait, I can already hear the “But Jon, every video game is like that. You push a button and someone gets decapitated, blah, blah, blah.” True. But that is merely an interaction method. A controller is not much more than a stylized keyboard. The real thing I want to focus on is the way the mask of this game puts you in complete darkness (thus depriving you of visuals and, you know, sight) and how your breathing in and out affects the sound of the game that is fed back into your headphones.

It’s fascinating and unique. Reportedly people can’t play the game for more than about two minuets before pulling it off…though I’m sure halitosis might play some factor in this as well. It’s a great study in how people fear isolation, tight spaces, and silence so pervasive that the only sound you hear is your own heartbeat and breathing.

Most people tend to think of video games as an exercise of the id, but this right here proves that they can be studies in fear and the human mind as well.



Don't worry, I'm Still Alive

It has been far too long since I last chimed in on this blog. In order to make up for lost time I’ve decided to talk about typography. But instead of talking about a font or its usage, I’m going to show you a video that uses typography in a really kickass way. Enjoy.

 Brings a smile to my face every time

 

 

That was made by a loving fan of Valve's hit game Portal. The font is the same as what's seen in the game as well as the graphics of people being injured. What I find so enjoyable about this video is how the typography is used in junction with visuals to make a flowing, almost animated, video. I love it. Also, the game is just made of awesome and cake.