Ever wonder what your favorite album might look like as a physical object (and no, I’m not talking about moving back to CDs, tapes or vinyl)? The Microsonic Landscapes project from Mexico City has done exactly this by printing the sonic landscape of five artists as 3D plastic artifacts. Gorgeous, no?
It’s been a busy week here (and it’s only Wednesday) and I’ve been meaning to post the following for several days. So without further adieu:
The first episode of Brian Singer’s new web series H+. You’d better believe I’ll be watching the rest of these tonight.
With the advent of the smartphone, many Americans have grown used to the idea of having a computer on their person at all times. Wearable technologies like Google’s Project Glass are narrowing the boundary between us and our devices even further by attaching a computer to a person’s face and integrating the software directly into a user’s field of vision.
From “Cyborg America: inside the strange new world of basement body hackers“. While not necessarily a new concept, it’s a new take on the subject that looks really well done.
Amazing Martian art that was actually commissioned by NASA, proving that they have a sense of style even more so than Starhawk did.
Having played my fair share of text-based adventure games as a kid, I can tell you the joy that was getting to the occasional point when a crazy-awful illustration would pop onto the screen after multiple pages of story whizzed past. And when we progressed to mostly picture based games, the illustrations were an ever-present fact of storytelling, even if they didn’t really look all that fantastic.
Fast forward to now and we have io9 presenting us with haunting animated gifs in the style of vintage computer games by Uno Moralez. It’s like Zen & The Art of The Macintosh gone spooky.
I have always loved listening to music while I read. Every once in awhile I find an album that perfectly matches up with a book when I do this, like Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson and El Oso by Soul Coughing (especially “St. Louise is Listening“). And sometimes a novel is designed to be a complement to a record from the very start (much to my delight). Poe’s Haunted and her brother, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is the most notable and creepiest of these matches. So I’m always listening with a keen ear for synchronicities between the words I’m reading and the sounds with which I’m filling in the background.
While reading Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, I kept longing for a soundtrack to accompany the weirdly stilted world of Aomame, Tengo, Ushikawa, the Dowager, Fuka-Eri and Tamaru. As it would happen, Purity Ring’s “Fineshrine” popped onto my iTunes and perfectly captured the mood – and exploding ribs – of Murakami’s crazy book. “I bet I could dig up enough ethereal, oddball music to do a soundtrack justice,” I thought – and then quickly forgot. It’s Tumblr that should be credited with making the idea re-emerge and stick, though. The image above made its way into my infinite scroll and reminded me so much of Eriko Fukado that I recalled my playlist plan as I recognized how perfect it would be as artwork.
So here we are, 1Q84‘s musical accompaniment:
Download the entire playlist for your very own listen right now.
“I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”
Gore Vidal (1925-2012)