Paprika

Paprika is a feature length science fiction anime film that is based on the 1953 novel Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsu. The film was directed by Satoshi Kon who's directorial work’s include Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfather and Paranoia Agent to name a few. Paprika premiered in the 2006 Venice international film festival in September of that year and then showed at the Tokyo international film festival in October. After that it made its way across the world showing at other film festivals.

In the not to distant future a revolutionary new treatment in psychotherapy called PT is invented. The device used in this treatment is called the DC mini and it allows the user to view their patient’s dreams. Because this device is still in the trial stage it’s not available to the general public; but Paprika is using this device illegally to help people outside the research facility. Because this outside counselling is not officially sanctioned Paprika has to be very has to be very careful that the press does not get wind of the DC mini or herself. Before the government can authorise the DC mini to be used by anyone outside the research facility three of them are stolen. The inventor of the DC mini Dr. Kosaka Tokita (a morbidly obese child-at-heart genius) has failed to program the safety locks on the DC mini. Because the 3 DC minis were in this unfinished state when they were stolen the user can enter anyone's mind and makes them believe their dreams are reality. The chief of the department Dr. Torataro Shima is one of the first to fall victim when he thinks he is in a parade and jumps through a window almost killing himself. The team that created the DC mini and Paprika have to find out who stole the 3 devices and stop them from wreaking havoc around the city.

This is a very good anime. I loved the eye catching animation and the bright colour throughout the anime. This more then made up for the jumpy storyline. I think that yes, it is a good anime and yes, it does deserve all the praise and awards it got. But it could have been in a whole other class if the storyline was a bit longer. Saying that I would still recommend this anime if you like eye catching animation like Spirited Away because Paprika stands in a crowed of its own.
photos via photobucket

My favorite "Robot" music

ABSOLUT MACHINES

Dan Paluska (the other maker is Jeff Lieberman) - they have created the "ABSOLUT QUARTET", an "automated multi-instrumental orchestral machine, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture consisting of three instruments and thousands of parts, working together to create one piece of music. The main timbre is a marimba played by balls shot from a robotic cannon. Other components include a series of wineglasses played by little robotic fingers and an array of robotic percussive instruments.
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Lev and Thumpbot play Crazy

ROBOT BAND! LEV the thereminbot and his newly-built pal thumpbot play "Crazy" with help from a 20-year-old MT32 synthesizer. OK, Lev's a bit out of tune, but hey, ROBOTS. A tribute to The Ether & Aether Experiment's marvelous performance.


KORG DS-10

The KORG DS-10 is a music-creation software for the Nintendo DS that combines the superior interface of the Nintendo DS and the design concept of the famous MS-10 synthesizer.
The sound sources in the KORG DS-10 come from KORG - one of the world's top musical instrument producers - and no effort was spared in creating these ultra-high-quality sounds. The Nintendo DS's dual-screen touch panel is used to the fullest to provide a feel and operability that is unsurpassed, and combined with the sensory input mode at the touch-control screen, this unit can be appreciated by the complete novice as well as the seasoned professional.


Robot Drummer

The Robot Drummer at Gold Coast Big Day Out 2008

Chris Levine the Light Artist

The "Lightness of Being", a show by Chris Levine, the light artist, has just finished in East London. It was quite a breath of fresh air to go see a local exhibition that was more about making you be aware of the show's environment and not just about analysing the Queen's holograhic prints on a wall.


"His distinctive visual language and seemingly effortless control over his technological media has differentiated his work from the main stream. His images have resonant power that is both highly original and super modern. As organic and alive as they are focused and precise, the visual results are always compelling and have a sense of distilled purity."




Thanks for the photos Toshimi!
Quote from Chris Levine's Website.

Canvas the ultimate concept for PC

Canvas is a concept PC design by Kyle Cherry that brings in the laptop and tablet into one sleek design. I really hope someone picks up this design in the near future.





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The Secret Life of a Space Invader

A great little vid about the life of one of those evil pixelated aliens that tried to take over our world in videogames from the 1980's. See how a family is torn apart by the onset of a war with humans....
Originally made as a music video for Ken Ishii's "Space Invaders 2003" choon.

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Zombie AKA Skullboy Tattoo Interview

Mysterious Al kills it again with anoher mind blowing post on the 22 year old "Zombie". A man who has dedicated his body to the genre of horror and gore. He became an internet celebrity when blogs posted about his fully faced skull design and since then, BMEzine has been updating the world whenver he gets a new section done. As evil as he may look, I think he looks sick! A very brave human......




Read the interview HERE.


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Supadope Photography

* HandMade *, originally uploaded by SupaDope Photography.

Loving the work on Supadope Photography's Flickr account. The photos are always top-notch and really capture the rich colors of graffiti pieces.

Wicked Gifs

Sorry but my earlier posts in March about funny GIFS didn't work. But now I have sorted it out!


I would like to thank Jerome for emailing me this GIF



and a big up to Steve for these two gems!

Funny Jpegs

Every photographer knows that it aint easy to snap that perfect photo of someone being shat on at exactly the right moment. Luckily, a talented photographer was able to catch this pigeon in mid flight pooing his daily poo load on this poor Innocent little kid.. making this photo frigging hilarious! Although, I tend to believe this photo may have been taken in China where they love eating pigeon and this bird was probably just getting his own back.. (that's alot of poo).

















As these photos were emailed to us with no reference or source I cant give all the details on exactly where this photo was taken but it needs little explanation as to why many guys would vote to have this in all toilets... remember if you shake more than 3 times, its considered a wank.













I have a friend that can finish a Rubiks cube in less than five minutes on average.. which, to me is pretty damn good. Can any of you beat that? Below is Cube Art using only Rubiks cubes, not bad huh?













I don't blame this cat for thinking that this dude's hair is some kind of dead animal.. maybe he thinks it's his old mate Jack the Cat.. he is probably saying to himself 'hey you pussy, where have you been? You owe me $5 you cheap bitch! Come back here!'

Interesting Building Design

The Dancing House in the Czech Republic is the nickname given to an office building in downtown Prague, Czech Republic. It was designed by Croatian-born Czech architect Vlado Milunic in co-operation with Canadian architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot.


This unique piano house was built recently in An Hui Province, China. Inside of the violin is the escalator to the building. The building displays various city plans and development prospects in an effort to draw interest into the recently developed area.


The Robot Building, located in the Sathorn business district of Bangkok, Thailand was designed by Sumet Jumsai to reflect the computerization of banking; its architecture is a reaction against neoclassical and high-tech postmodern architecture.



Polish architect of the Crooked House, Szotynscy Zaleski, was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and the drawings of the Swedish artist and Sopot resident Per Dahlberg.


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Radioactive Marnon

I don't normally post about Kaiju toys, cos it's a whole other world of collecting that I'm too scared to delve into. However, this Dream Rocket X Rotofugi Marnon version I found HERE really stuck out to me.




I love the details on Radioactive Marnon's head, with the brains coming through and his fingertips have some wicked internal detailing too. Marnon's back is covered in lost souls with his tail made from the bottom soul puking its wretched guts out! A brilliant idea, that deserves a mention on our blog.

ESPVisuals Interview

Forgot to post this earlier, but PHilfy managed to hook ESPV up with an interview for Design Taxi, the Asia-based art/graphic design web mag. If you wanna know more about what we do, check us out HERE.

Sushi Art

"Sushi chef Ken Kawasumi shows a replica he created of Vincent van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' made of sushi at a press event in Tokyo Thursday, March 6, 2008. Kawasumi displayed his skill of transforming sushi into a colorful work of art at the special event celebrating the publishing of his new book 'The most simple way to make decorative sushi-rolls' in Japan." Probably the smelliest version of Van Gogh's Sunflowers too!

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Chris Kuksi New Sculpture

Amazing artist, Chris Kuksi has just finished his "Afterworld Transporter" sculpture, which is again, something to behold. The sheer level of detail of his work is mind-boggling!



See my original post on him HERE. You can then see his other beautiful works...

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Shocking inventions

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Brought to you by Thisisnotreal Ltd.

Banksymania

This is Banksys latest street work on the Essex Road, London N1. Romanywg filmed the spot for 1 hour on 6th March 2008 to see the crowd's reaction......

Thanks to MJAR for the hook-up

Tekkon Kinkreet

Tekkon Kinkreet or Tekkonkinkreet (the English version) is a feature length anime. It was released in Japan in 2006 and was adapted from the one volume manga series by Taiyo Mathumoto: Black and White. The film was originally supposed to be directed by Koji Morimoto who wanted to turn it into a 3D film. But after realizing that there is grate difficulty in expressing emotion in 3D, he lost interest in the project. Then Michael Arias was allowed to direct the film after he persuaded Studio 4ºC to give him a chance. This has made Michael Arias the first non-Japanese director of a major anime film. (So for all you aspiring non-Japanese that want to get into the anime business there is hope. But remember he has worked he non-Japanese butt off for many many many years prior to this film, and has lived and worked in Japan for over 15 years.)

Tekkon Kinkreet takes place in Takara Machi (Treasure city) and centres around two street kids Kuro (Black) and Shiro (White). They take care of each other like they were brothers. Kuro is older, very canny, and has a bit of a lust for blood but he also has a caring side. Shiro is younger in age and in the way he acts and his view of the world. They are known throughout the city as neko (cats), and when the yukaza and others try to take over the city, they fight back causing mayhem and destruction across the city.

I really liked this anime the storyline is very good for a feature length anime. Then two main characters draw you into the film and have you rooting for them the whole way through. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack music by Plaid . So if you’re looking for an anime that is an all rounder Tekkon Kinkreet is it. A shout out to Selph for telling me about this anime

The English trailer (I thought the Japanese one was better)

Secret Wars Series 2 Grand Final

I was nervous. It was the first time Cafe 1001 had hosted an event like Secret Wars and I was really worried that our regular punters wouldn't show. Fuck that. It was one in, one out by 10pm on a Friday night! The place was heaving and heads from all over came down to witness the live illustration event of the year. It was a really debated Final with loads of drama in the days to follow.....

Secret Wars Rules: 90 mins on the clock. Black pens only. Freestyle (no sketches). Go big or go home. The winner is decided by two judges and the third vote uses a crowd decibel reader to see which artist is cheered for more. I was unlucky enough to be one of the judges who would decide which artist would win a thousand quid. Yes, that's right 1,000 GBP for the winner!!!!!!

The following is a summary about what happened on that freaky Friday 29th Feb at the Secret Wars Series 2 Grand Final....


Illustrator WEN was on the left and Graffiti Artist ODISY on the right hand panel.
Both pieces were full of rib digging sarcasm aimed at each other which, in the heat of battle are definitely weapons of choice for a paint challenge.


After the 90 minutes, it was up to me and Andy from Edding to cast our votes. Andy preferred WEN's piece and I liked ODISY's more. (For reasons that I think become apparent later). In the end, it is meant to be up to the people and by jove, they wanted their voices to be heard. Both the WEN camp of supporters and ODISY'S followers were super loud, ODISY reached an ear-splitting 115 decibels but was out-shouted by the 122 decibel WEN crew!


This is a pic of me showing the crowd my ODISY vote and getting the finger from some WEN supporter! After the voting, Terry, from Monorex was almost lamped on the head by a rogue bottle of Becks slung over from somewhere in the ODISY camp! When money is involved, passions are set aflame too and the drama continued in the following days online.


Here was the happy man WEN who won the Final and received the thousand GBP prize...He pulled out a great piece on the night and the crowd seemed to think so too.


The full wall the following morning. The Cafe is pretty dark, so please excuse the red light and minimal lighting.


I loved the Odisy caricature being kicked in the nut region, with what I belive to be his testes, exiting his mouth. "Odisy's ikkle book of clever ideas" was a nice touch too. The piece was signed off with a "Nothing fancy, just a good ol' fashioned kick in the nuts"


In my opinion though, this was the piece and the artist that smashed it....ODISY's character (with a small skeleton and mini Freddy Krueger) burying WEN's caricature was sheer brilliance. "You're my Adversary?" and WEN's tombstone reading, "An Art Fag Got Served" This is one aspect that I think probably pissed off alot of WEN's supporters...people don't like to be called "Art Fags"...oh well, it's all in the name of the game.


For me, the part of ODISY's piece that assured my vote for him was seeing the I Love Banksy tattoo on WEN's already pen-raped arse and the huge bite mark out of the Scrawl Collective book. To me, that was the ultimate jibe and made me smile, cringe and big-up ODISY.


Apparently, alot of people thought that ODISY had been robbed of the title, not due to his inferior artistic skills, but cos WEN had a bigger crowd show up and support. This brings in the debate of what Secret Wars is actually being judged on; the art or the crowd or both?
This debate continued onto the Dark Daze blog where ODISY lets off a little steam and we hear 30 other heads' opinions about the whole concept and package of Secret Wars, including some words of wisdom from Terry, the organiser. If you haven't already read the Dark Daze entries, pls do, cos some of them are fucking funny as well as some being downright rude! Overall though, it makes for some very entertaining reading......

Long Live Secret Wars and all the Beef that inevitably follows it!

12 year Old Drummer Tony Royster Jr

This is a drum solo video with 12 year old Tony Royster Jr. I originally posted about a child prodigy drummer last year (CLICK HERE) and I have to say that this guy could possibly be better! If I was Royster Senior, I would turn him into the sickest death metal drummer the world had ever seen............Amazing!

Ultra Cool Fireplace Furniture

We, as humans, have been sucked into the aesthetics of fire since the dawn of man and shit ain't ever gonna change either. Now that we have made some brilliant technological advances over the years, it is now possible to have a fireplace in your livingroom without the need for a proper fireplace or chimney. Planika have created some furniture with built in special fireplaces that use a patened alcohol bio-fuel known as Fanola. It apparently is smokeless and has no known ecological/toxicological side-effects. Amazing! Marshmallows roasting over your coffee table, mmm-mmm.






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