Artist Istvan Horkay made this strangely mesmerizing film that combines Alice in Wonderland, the elephant man, 19th century theater, silent film, modern computer graphics, children’s illustration and digital readouts. There are three films going on at the same time in a beautiful triptych.
Author Archives: Cimaxion
Visions of the Future – Science Fiction Art of the Second Golden Age
This is an amazing and obsessive immersion in science fiction illustrations from what is known as the Second Golden Age. It’s mainly lots of cool science fiction imagery from the 1970s and 1980s.
Part 2
Parts 3 – 5 after the jump
Salvador Dali on ‘What’s My Line?’
Because he is 100% truthful, he drives the show’s host a little bit crazy.
The Angry Red Planet
“Cinemagic is not being shown to you now! But…”
Culture Shock, Level One – A Film by Bill Mousoulis
Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film posted a film by Bill Mousoulis called The Experimenting Angel. I liked it. So I’ve posted another of Mousoulis’ films. It features Jennifer Levy who returns from a long absence to Australia and feels dislocated while visiting a city. She wonders why the people seem so ‘deflated’ as they wander through various public/corporate spaces like malls. The film captures something increasingly common worldwide which is that quiet, blank, but seemingly normal behavior encouraged by any structure designed and erected with a corporate idea behind it. We all know how we are expected to behave when we walk past a row of Gaps, Starbucks, Banana Republics and Wetzle’s Pretzels. We obey. We perform the routine and go about our business making sure that we are perceived as correctly normal. We are guests in someone else’s house, even in our public spaces. We behave like new guests, ingratiating ourselves to the dome camera in the ceiling. The cell phone is the absolute symbol of complete obeisance to the corporate superstructure looming above us. We are told to engage in meaningless chatter while we walk, drive, breathe, eat, date, watch movies, run, bike, and work. We are told to do this until it seems like normal and seems to make perfect sense. It is as logical as being told to drop a penny on the ground every third step for every day of your life. Steve Jobs tells you to leave him a penny on the ground every third step of every day of your life… and you damn well do it. You know how many times Steve Jobs uses a cell phone during an average day? None. Why? Because he’s much smarter than you are.
Thugs Rape American Journalist in Effort to Intimidate Egypt’s Protesters
Update for February 20, 2011: Several days ago, after hearing this news, I posted the following article which is my opinion in a moment of anger. I went too far and made some ridiculous generalizations about the situation in Egypt where a profound and positive change is underway. I should not have characterized a great and noble revolution the way I did based on the alleged actions of a small group. Several commenters from Egypt have been very angry with me. Though I still await the further facts and details of this episode, I do apologize for my generalization and hasty remarks about a ‘pig revolution.’ They are foolish and do not convey my support for the revolution from its first day. I have also changed the title of this post to try to more accurately reflect what probably happened in Tahrir Square during the celebrations of Mubarak’s departure. I will compose a new article that will make my true feelings clear. My opinions here are not to be taken as news. They are simply the overheated and sometimes too angry reactions of an artist. Here are my original and far too general words:
A mob of approximately two hundred Egyptian men gang-raped CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan during celebrations of the Hosni Mubarak resignation in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
This is how Egyptian men celebrate the overthrow of a dictator.
I am not obligated to consistency of opinion on this web site. If something makes me angry I say I’m angry. If I see pigs celebrating a false victory, I say so. Egypt, you have apparently gone to the pigs. Two hundred men raping a woman during celebrations in a city square speaks volumes for your civilization or lack thereof. You are not part of an evolved world. You are outside of the conversation between nations. You rape.
Sure, every country has problems with rape. But my point is that if you see this kind of brutal gang attack during a celebration of joy and victory, you’ve got a statistical certainty that you’re dealing with a brutish general population of men for whom rape is common and widespread. You can’t walk into Times Square in New York and find 200 people willing to commit rape during a New Year’s celebration.
One dictator has been overthrown. What comes next will very likely be worse. A population that can place 200 rapists inside the same square to commit the same crime during a time of joy has sunk to its knees and has no business with the world of civilized nations. How many other women were raped in the square that we don’t know about? This problem of rape and oppression of women is rampant throughout the Middle East. It has deep roots in the region. It seems to be the normal state of existence which is encouraged by every government, whether run by a dictator or not. We will not see any true revolution in the Middle East until every oppressed woman turns to her rapist and stabs him in the throat. Perhaps women of the Middle East should organize such an event through Facebook. All women who have suffered rape arise at 4:00 am on the same day and eliminate their sleeping attackers. Governments would surely fall almost overnight because there would be no ministers or ‘royal princes’ left to reign.
We see this revolution unfold and we see people shouting for more freedom. But we do not see a single soul shout for women. Instead we see Egyptian men raping them. I will not join my fellow Americans in naively celebrating a pig revolution.
This does not mean that I do not support the revolution. I do support it. It simply means that I will not celebrate while ignoring the very serious problem of how women are treated in the Middle East. The situation is appalling and will cause revolutions to fail. You cannot have freedom and democracy where women are considered to be something less than men.