Day: February 13, 2009

Iron Man vs Robocop

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Bush era, Reagan era
Time of blandness in movies
Government functions handed over to corporations
Rogue CEOs
Mutilated character becomes cyborg
Vigilante style plot for knucklehead demographic
Handsome leading man, concerned female in Platonic relationship
Invincible body armor
Protagonist fights more powerful machine

Aside from all that, no comparison. Robocop is hands down the tougher, better film, with critique of American futurism and jingoism spread through the "background" in the form of satirical TV broadcasts and products such as the "6000 SUX" automobile.

Iron Man is pseudo critique, putting all Bush-era maleficent acts on the head of one all-powerful corporate type, while serving up "kill the vaguely Middle Eastern terrorists" hokum that's been in every blockbuster since the late '90s.

"Wormhole Resident"

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"Wormhole Resident" [mp3 removed]

More Reaktor Waveweaver sequencing played more or less live with added Machinedrum loops from the Linplug RMV sample library, plus some delay FX.

Update: A bass line will likely be added to the "break," so this is work in process.

Update: "Fat" trancy bassline added in middle and at end. Added 20 seconds.

lo-fi: 1991-2005

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The Abject Romance of Low Resolution, David Humphrey (full text offline):

The way an image copied or magnified many times breaks down into chaotic nonsense resembles the relation of figure and ground that Clement Greenberg saw as the structural grammar of Modernist painting. This relation could be considered a symbolic elaboration of the process of primary ego-differentiation. The struggle between a desire to lose one's boundaries and fearfulness of this loss, the promise of fulfillment and threat of dissolution, is the painter's romance of a return to origins, as well as the drama of degrading reproduction.

Static, Cheryl Edwards:

As the corporate entertainment world introduces greater levels of "virtuality" into films (Toy Story, Jurassic Park) and computer games (Myst, Tomb Raider II), many artists are headed in the opposite direction, toward a kind of a sublime indeterminacy. Blurred transmissions, imperfect copies, and other waste products of electronic and digital media are the model for this new aesthetic, which is both symbiotic to and aloof from the global information network.

Static, Alexander Ross:

The advent of the compact disc in all its sterile flawlessness brought about the realization that technological defects such as tape hiss, amp buzz, record groove ticks, and ultimately the computerized glitches sometimes heard on the CD itself were now interesting sounds never before utilized in conjunction with music. This, combined with the inexpensive home recording boom, coalesced into what became known as LO-FI.

"George Elliot re: Art on TV", Sally McKay quoting George Elliott, 1953:

Color of course, is the first element to be sacrificed if painting is put in front of the television camera. Can you imagine a Goodridge Roberts landscape without Roberts' very private blues and greens? Binning's subtleties of color are an important part of his charm. Varley's disturbing palette of piercing greens, blues, cold pinks and earth are essential to the uniqueness of Varley.
[...]
A painting needs an intellectual presence before it can work its magic. Placing anything between the viewer and the painting kills the viewer.