Posthuman Blues

"The Nietzsche Family Circus"

2009-07-10T15:25:00.002-05:00

The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote.

The concept is so simple, yet so insidiously hysterical, that you'll wish you'd thought of it yourself. Give it a shot.

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Post-Singularity hamster ball

2009-07-10T14:55:00.003-05:00

Spherical Robot 02 from Nils Völker on Vimeo.

(Found at Dvice.)

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The serenely apocalyptic world of Josh Keyes

2009-07-09T19:55:00.002-05:00

Josh Keyes' paintings portray a mythic, jarringly plausible near-future where the excesses of the 21st century have begun to recede into a pastoral landscape, inevitably "repurposed" by a burgeoning animal population.

(Thanks to @PinkTentacle.)

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Alien writing!

2009-07-09T19:31:00.004-05:00

Here's a helpful overview of arcane texts, some ostensibly extraterrestrial. Like crop glyphs, I find unknown alphabets aesthetically intriguing reminders of the overarching strangeness of reality in general. Note how some of the characters represented bear a general resemblance to entopic imagery, discussed here.

(Weirder yet, I learned of the site from none other than Bruce Sterling.)

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Link-dump #6

2009-07-08T22:58:00.002-05:00

Posthuman Blues Blog Serves up "Women in Tubes" (Watch that meme awaken from its pulp-bound slumber!)

Circular Evidence: Crop Circles and High Strangeness in the UK

Scientists claim sperm 'first'

Score One For The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis

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Link-dump #5

2009-07-07T21:24:00.002-05:00

Delicious Waste Liquids of the Future (1982)

Death Doesn't Lie

Tantalus Dinner by Ioli Sifakaki

A Sample of Synthetic Human Skin for Just 34 Euros

Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit

Virgin Galactic and the start of the Commercial Space Race

Primitive Living in Saijo, Hiroshima

One step closer to an artificial nerve cell

Physical reality of string theory demonstrated

Darpa's Handheld Nuclear Fusion Reactor

Futurist Visions of the Future

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"Peripetics"

2009-07-07T20:47:00.001-05:00

(Thanks to Beyond the Beyond.)

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John Keel (1930-2009)

2009-07-06T20:28:00.005-05:00

This morning I logged onto Twitter to discover that Fortean adventurer John Keel, author of "The Mothman Prophecies," died on July 3. Keel was ufology's own Man In Black, a genuine iconoclast who wedded scientific humility with ideas too strange even for the UFO community. (Keel has been a considerable influence on my own ideas about the "paranormal"; this blog is littered with references to his notion of the "electromagnetic superspectrum" from which seemingly occult forces materialize and vanish, adapting to our belief systems with such tenacity that few -- if any -- of us are ever the wiser.)

Fellow Keelians Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern offer their own remembrances here and here.

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Body-snatcher

2009-07-05T22:33:00.002-05:00

Lots of portentous ideas at work here. I like the notion of having a nonlocal electronic persona watching my back -- assuming, of course, that its needs are my needs.

(Thanks to Sentient Developments.)

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The fallout shelter of the 21st century?

2009-07-05T22:23:00.002-05:00

Extra Room from Bernd Hopfengaertner on Vimeo.

Learn more here.

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The eye of the beholder

2009-07-05T22:11:00.002-05:00

Self-Portrait Machine

Jen Hui Liao's Self-Portrait Machine is a device that takes a picture of the sitter and draws it but with the model's help. The wrists of the individual are tied to the machine and it is his or her hands that are guided to draw the lines that will eventually form the portrait.

The project started with the observation that nearly everything that surrounds us has been created by machines. Our personal identities are represented by the products of the man-machine relationship. The Self-Portrait Machine encapsulates this man-machine relationship. By co-operating with the machine, a self-portrait is generated. It is self-drawn but from an external viewpoint through controlled movement and limited possibility. Our choice of how we are represented is limited to what the machine will allow.

(Via Grinding.)

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"The Cosmic Puppets"

2009-07-04T19:02:00.003-05:00

This edition of Philip K. Dick's "The Cosmic Puppets" features a bona-fide tube-girl on the cover. (I've read the novel and don't remember any tube-girls figuring into the plot, but I digress . . .)

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Link-dump #4

2009-07-04T18:46:00.003-05:00

Ant mega-colony takes over world

Neuromancer at 25: What It Got Right, What It Got Wrong

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

LRO's First Moon Images

20 Scary Old School Surgical Tools

Autonomobile by Mike + Maaike

Aurora Borealis From Outta Space

RoboGeisha trailer is awesome, includes weaponized tempura shrimp

Astronaut Fashion: The Modern Spacesuit

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It's the whiskers.

2009-07-03T03:32:00.002-05:00

We can handle mechanical eyes, fingers and even claws. But forever-twitching whiskers, however necessary or helpful, are discomfitingly lifelike, casually erasing our preconceptions of "machine" and "organism" -- and something deep within the human psyche recoils from the resulting sense of dislocation, however slightly.

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Any cryptographers in the house?

2009-07-03T02:52:00.003-05:00

I don't think crop formations are created by paranormal forces. However, examples such as this serve as profound examples why crop glyphs, like all genuine works of art, wield the capacity to stir us in unexpected ways. The recent glyphic offerings from Britain deserve to be marveled at.

More information here.

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The meme that wouldn't die

2009-07-03T02:40:00.004-05:00

I was browsing vintage science fiction art today and found myself confronted with this:

That's right -- yet another tube-girl!

And while this isn't a "true" example of tube-girl art, it's damned close. (The woman in the illustration appears to be emerging from a vat of espresso.)

Now I'm wondering if I should expand my search from "Golden Age" pulps to more contemporary genre illustration . . .

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Moore-phology

2009-07-02T00:54:00.002-05:00

GrowShelter: Living, Growing Shelter for Plants, Animals and People

Consisting of three spherical shells embedded with seeds, the habitat is designed to evolve with the seasons - starting the cycle in spring, the spheres are embedded in a mixture of earth/mud/seed, and as summer approaches, the plants will be in bloom and the embedded food in the mud will create a mini haven for local animals and birds. The earth should weather away by fall and winter, leaving the permanent shells ready to be packed again for spring.

I anticipate a future world where cities and countrysides alike teem with amalgamations of gourd-like bio-engineered homes. Pitted with entrances, perhaps they'll recall the biomorphic sculptural forms of Henry Moore: vast inhabitable artworks that change over time in a choreography of adaptation and whimsy.

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Link-dump #3

2009-07-02T00:30:00.005-05:00

Public Utilities Group Confirms "Sewer Monster" Is Real, But Doesn't Know What It Is

On-Orbit Coffee Cup Design to Use in Spacecraft

Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

The Mickey Mouse Mask

Force feedback controller allows you to "touch" CGI objects

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UFOs and the pursuit of happiness

2009-07-02T00:12:00.002-05:00

So, have I really abandoned UFOs as an intellectual pursuit? Hardly -- although, in all fairness, I haven't indulged in the subject online recently.

Maybe I'm simply coming up for air before taking a deeper plunge into the abyss.

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Today's sketch

2009-06-30T01:07:00.002-05:00

Update: To view a colorized version (by friend Mike Clelland), click here.

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The art of John Wentz

2009-06-29T01:00:00.002-05:00

John Wentz's paintings occupy a realm defined by Big Science, transhuman alienation and jaundiced pop-mythology. Cryptic and cautionary, Wentz's visions of human relationships forged by the parameters of the 21st century compel us to reconcile the zeitgeist with our inner frontiers.

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Random sketch of the day

2009-06-28T00:50:00.003-05:00

This drawing probably reflects the balmy weather more than it offers any insight into my state of mind. For an almost-abandoned doodle, I kind of like how this came out.

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Triptych #11

2009-06-27T20:27:00.002-05:00

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The coolest art application on the Web?

2009-06-27T20:14:00.001-05:00

You decide.

(Thanks to @RitaJKing.)

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Link-dump #2

2009-06-27T20:06:00.003-05:00

Ultimate sidecar: man attaches full-sized car to his motorcycle

The Weirdest Object in the Solar System?

Past Climate Change Cannot Be Tied to Earth Passing Through Galactic Plane

Sex on a Drip: worth a flight to Singapore?

UFO seen over Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch

Gallery: Domestic robots with a taste for flesh

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