Selfsurprise

Break into his house at night and leave horrifying enigmatic self-portraits of yourself with an angry expression. I'm stuck in a bit of musical rut and want to expose myself to some new genres and bands. Any advice on where I should begin?

Julian Callos, Rebel

^ Is that kid Commander Keen? It's not a bad illustration by any means. Especially given that he seems to be being menaced by an incorporeal Masterchief. 7/10

Fight fire with fire by setting everything on fire. Then burn the disc or driver the game in contained on. I'm playing Skyrim and I want to know the best way of fighting Horkers. Any advice?

"I could destroy you in the blink of an eye puny man thing..." [/blinks] "Wait, I did it wrong. Give me sec, godammit! GAAAAAH!" [/sets everything, including himself, on fire]

Inspired by an old thread on the now rather dead last.fm forums. Name the ten most bizarre, amusing, potentially worrying and/or thought-provoking song titles you can recall. El Papa En Chándal (Pope In Tracksuit) by Mama Ladilla I'm Compressing The Comb On A Cockerel's Head by Budgie I Cannot Feel You As The Dogs Are Laughing And I Am Blind by Nurse With Wound British People In Hot Weather by The Fall Jesus Crossed His Arms As If To Fight Me by The Misanthrope Project They Turned Away, Together From The Horror, And Wrapped Their Arms Around Each Other, Then Picked Their Way Through The Carnage To The Car by Kylie Minoise La Historia Del Hombre Que Dejó Rusia Sin Vodka (The Story Of A Man Who Left Russia Without Vodka) by Mojinos Escozíos All I Wanna Do Is Touch Your Power Points by Loli Ripe We Were Stoned When We Thought Up The Title Of This And We Didn't Want To Give It A Name That We Had To Explain As 'Oh Yeah We Were Stoned When We Thought Of It' So We're Just Calling It Improvisational Jam 11-02-01 by !!! An Xbox Killed My Dog by Flying Lotus

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1. Drive boy dog boy Dirty numb angel boy In the doorway boy 2. She was a-lipstick boy She was a-beautiful boy And tears boy 3. And all in your inner space boy You had hands girls boy And steel boy 4. You had chemicals boy I've grown so close to you boy And you just groan boy 5. She said come over come over She smiled at you boy

Whilst browsing through my shelves in order to help an artsy friend recently, I stumbled upon a book I purchased several years ago and forgotten about. Pictured above, Stephen Wilson's Art + Science Now: How scientific research and technological innovation are becoming key to 21st-century aesthetics is full of stuff that could potentially prove inspiring any budding speculative futurologist and sci-fi enthusiast. It's primarily an illustrated guidebook of both individuals and groups working within visual/conceptual art, biology, physics, chemistry, technology, computer programming, and other multidisciplinary fields where the borders between art and science start becoming nebulous and ill-defined. I figured I'll select one artwork from the book that catches my eye at any given time and offer it up for your interest and perusal, as well as quote Wilson's short but succinct summaries of each piece. I've wanted to make some kind of art criticism thread for a while and I've always restrained myself from making an explicit "modern art" topic, because I'm not sure how interested many here would be in that subject. The thing about these artworks however is that you needn't be versed in heavy-going art theory or be familiar contemporary artists to appreciate some of the thought-provoking ideas that influence and inspire them. At least I hope that's how it will work! ;p The first artwork from the book I want to talk about was created by Polish bio-artist Mateusz Herczka. Mateusz Herczka, Life Support Systems: Vanda (2005) Computers control the care of Vanda orchids and monitor their life processes. The image shows eight plants with sensors and computer-controlled lights. As the project website explains, 'The goal is to create a virtual organism ... which can exist indefinitely, kept alive inside computer media in the form of a datastructure ... After the live individual is disconnected, its virtual counterpart will continue to generate signals which mimic the patterns of the original.' - Stephen Wilson The thing I find fascinating about this one is the idea a decidedly non-literal entity mimicking the processes of a pre-existing and unavoidably literal plant. Is the "datastructure" referred to in Wilson's description more like a digital clone of the orchids? Or does the collective input of all eight orchids result in something that is unique and distinct from the plants? Anybody else fascinated by the idea of a speculative artificial lifeform behaving more like a flower than the more anthropomorphised android and cyborg stand-ins common to science fiction? Finally, does the notion of a speculative artificial intelligence generated (possibly accidentally) from a network of plants or other non-human biological medium make the concept of A.I. more alien and outré?

I'd personally recommend the recent British TV series Black Mirror by the pessimistic comedian Charlie Brooker, although that show's premise is often more dystopian than utopian! In the tradition of psychological thrillers and speculative horror series like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, Black Mirror deals with uncanny and terrifying situations - often as a consequence of technological advancement and with overarching blackly comical elements. Brooker explained that each "episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality. But they're all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy." If you don't watch anything other than the first episode of the debut season (entitled National Anthem) then I honestly think you wouldn't of wasted your time. I won't give anything away, and in-fact the story plays it's opening gambit almost right from the beginning with a premise so absurd and potentially crass that a lesser scriptwriter would certainly not been able to pull it off. There are currently three seasons and the majority of it is marvellous, in my humble opinion.

^ There is something to said about the possibility that the internet is changing the way in which people think and accumulate knowledge. For all the accessibility and democratisation of information that the internet arguably brings, it also makes education and learning an almost peripheral thing. It's easy to disassociate new information from yourself when it's constantly available to you in a digital all-encompassing medium, like some sort of non-physical prosthetic of knowledge rather than the innate acquisition of knowledge. I think that's why I spend so much of my time and effort reading about contemporary art and visiting and engaging with art galleries. I hate the idea of just being a working class statistic defined by my retail job, so I invest in art in an attempt to be more than just another post-pedagogical subject in an age where personal interests and raison d'êtres are becoming increasingly nominal and commodified.

Daniel: "I'm going to write an extremely erudite letter to EA regarding their policy of killing games!" [/several days later the CEO of Electronic Arts receives at least fifty pages consisting entirely of "hdfgdgfyfyfysdijdsjxbhvzywtquydshdakldjldxfjsd"] EA's CEO: "...wat?"

1. If I could only call you my lady 2. Baby I could be your man 3. If I could only call you my lady 4. Baby I could be your man 5. Baby I could be your man, baby I could be your man.

This seems like my kind of thread... :3 THE HUMAN TYPO!!!! Captain Hair attempts to grow all over The Human Typo - who is composed entirely of all-caps white meme text and not-so-good grammar. The latter dastardly evildoer however misspells the former as CAPTON HARE, absorbing his essence and violently transforming into an innumerable horde of hopping text hares.

Ethel & Ernest: The animated film adaptation of Raymond Briggs dramatisation of his parents life and his own childhood, Briggs of course being the man responsible iconic books (and their extremely well known animated adaptations) The Snowman and Father Christmas. It's one of the most unpretentious and unashamedly nostalgic films I've ever seen, the characterisation of his parents was marvellously innocent yet grounded in the often sad circumstances they found themselves. There's something extremely novel about seeing a pre- and post-war English biography as a cartoon. Moved me quite deeply in several scenes, particularly the heartbreaking descent into dementia his mother suffers from in her twilight years. 9/10

Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak...

I had to look up who The Question was (I'm pretty clueless about comics) but I like the cut of this ideas jib teleportal :3 So long as one gets the narrative vs. gameplay balance right, I could imagine a game adaptation of this character being extremely fun, with the pace and tension of investigative and combat scenes playing off one another nicely.

I honestly think most of this stuff has become an artistic discipline in Youtuber baiting nihilism. Wilfully sub-par games on Steam are almost a medium in-of-themselves, distinct from traditional games and more akin to a kind of cultural terrorism. I find it difficult to not be impressed by the bloody-minded and unperturbed gall of their developers - either through impressively deliberate ignorance or out of majestically genocidal loathing towards everything beautiful and worthwhile in this world, or some hitherto unnamed assemblage of both mindsets. This made my day Jeb, thank you. For the sake of fairness though, I've accused my computer of far less reasonable things when my internet goes down.

Saw on the news this afternoon that Jill Saward died today. She was an English activist for victims of rape and sexual violence, after she herself was a victim of rape by three burglars in 1986, the later trial of which caused a national scandal about the fitness of the judicial system. I know we sometimes have a bit of an irreverent laugh regarding the 2016's death toll on this thread, so I apologize for the sudden nosedive into sobriety, but I felt genuinely sad about this news. Given how much of a terrifying rise in sexism and unkindness plagues the current cultural climate I do certainly hope her passing away doesn't prove to be portentous.

^ Shower thoughts are the best :3 I'd love to play in a recently liberated Canada or Neo-Mexico as you aptly titled the latter nation. Neo-Mexico in particular could have marvellously eccentric and history appropriating factions, whilst Canada could be menaced by nuclear snowstorms and horribly unique wildlife.

Likes cartoons from the good old days.

"Made you look!"

1. Pinkle! 2. Squirmy! 3. Blop! 4. Blap! 5. Blip!

I cut my toe nails this morning, but cut my left little toe a little too closely.