Anyway, I was forced to do away with democracy roughly a thousand years ago because it was endangering my empire.
I’ve been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. : gaming
A fantastic report on a game of Civilization II that has been running for 10 years. I agree with Nicolas in that these kinds of reports are rare, and the concept of long play is an interesting one to explore further.
From Banksy’s Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall. A perspective I can to some extent relate to, although I have to say I consider myself sickeningly well-behaved. As a model for society however, it falls flat, of course.
It’s becoming an all-too-familiar dynamic: artist uses dead animal in work, gets enormous amounts of attention from press.
In this case, Bart Jansen has converted his deceased cat Orville (who was run over by a car) into a remote controlled quadrocopter…
(via Vliegende kat is kunstwerk met explosief potentieel – musea en galerieën – VK)
Copenhagers: RETRO BOBBY (by Copenhagers)
Exchange your old toys for a haircut from your childhood. It’s nostalgia on steroids, baby.
Alper pointed me to this slightly retarded but at the same time engrossing reinterpretation of the computer RPG: missions and enemies are laid out on a grid. You finish or defeat them by clicking repeatedly (shades of Cow Clicker here). Then hover over the XP and money that appears to cash in. To get to the harder ones you need to level up and purchase kit. There is no declarative layer what so ever but it still works. Strange.
This coming November, you may be one of the millions who will purchase Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Before you start fantasizing about a Los Angeles under drone attack and the undercover soldiers who will save us all, you may want to think about the horrifying history of undercover operations and the actuality of drone wars today.
Refreshing analysis of the rise of populism in the Netherlands, arguing that it is not the result of politics bowing to gradual, natural change in society (the growing educational divide). But in stead, the result of the new right’s active campaign to influence public opinion. Which means that what is needed is active opinion shaping from other political movements, not pacification of populism.
Philip K. Dick after seeing parts of Blade Runner:
“…this indeed is not science fiction; it is not fantasy; it is exactly what Harrison said: futurism. The impact of Blade Runner is simply going to be overwhelming, both on the public and on creative people — and, I believe, on science fiction as a field.”
Just finished reading Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness. It is chockfull of worthwhile bits but towards the end are a few that I’ll just highlight. These offer a nice way of thinking about culture and how it can be actively changed.
Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. ‘Culture’ is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to.
(Emphasis mine.) And further on, some notes on how cultural works can legitimize tastes otherwise kept private:
For all that we mock those fake aesthetic enthusiasms in hopes of gaining respect, the opposite tendency is the more poignant, whereby we repress our true passions in order not to seem peculiar. […] It is books, poems and paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.
I like the encouragement to be public about the things you like but feel self conscious about. Those are probably the most interesting things. That might actually a good guideline for what to post here.
And to Botton’s list I’d add games and other contemporary aesthetic forms of course.
I really enjoyed reading this while at the same time seeing the whole New Aesthetic thing really take off. De Botton points out not much is needed to kick off a new movement:
A few buildings and a book have usually been sufficient to provide viable models for others to follow.
Or, you know, a tumblr and a few hacks. You don’t need a lot of cash to make a cultural movement happen. But you do need to be persistent.
In all of these tectonic shifts, the tenacity of the prime movers was every bit as important as the resources at their disposal.
So, persist.
(via Sarah van Sonsbeeck, artist)
Not too long ago I read Charles Stross’s Glasshouse, in which a faraday bag figures heavily. Leave it to artists like Sarah to make sci-fi a reality.