Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (鉄男: Tetsuo) is a 1989 Japanese cyberpunk film by cult-film director Shinya Tsukamoto produced by Japan Home Video. This, his third film, is an extremely graphic but also strikingly-filmed fantasy shot in the same low-budget, underground-production style as his first two films. Tetsuo established Tsukamoto internationally and created his worldwide cult following. It was followed by Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo:_The_Iron_Man

A strange man known only as the "metal fetishist", who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese "salaryman", out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of disease that is turning his body into scrap metal, and that his nemesis is not in fact dead but is somehow masterminding and guiding his rage and frustration-fueled transformation.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096251/plotsummary 

At the end of the 80s, when mainstream Japanese cinema was dead in the water and the decade's one original filmmaker, Sogo Ishii, was going through a creative crisis, along came a grainy, black & white 16 mm film that wiped the floor with anything made in Japan for several years.

Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo was a relentlessly energetic film made at a time when the energy had all but disappeared from Japanese film. The culmination of a decade's worth of short filmmaking and the crowning achievement on the activities of a private, experimental theatre group, Tetsuo had all the characteristics of unbridled zeal and amateur enthusiasm, and all the signs of true filmmaking talent.

The design of the iron man combines elements from the work of artist H.R. Giger, the aforementioned Jan Svankmayer as well as Japan's own kaiju films. The comparison to Godzilla and co is not just a visual one. The theme of mutation which lies at the heart of the big monster movies (particularly Ishiro Honda's first Godzilla / Gojira, 1954) is replayed here. But in Tetsuo, the damage is done on a much smaller scale: that of the individual. In that sense, Tsukamoto has much in common with David Cronenberg, an influence which is often mentioned. The two filmmakers share not only the fascination with the vulnerability and mutability of the flesh, but also find common sources for these mutations in sex.
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/tetsuoim.shtml

Almost 25 years after it first exploded in the face of moviegoers, Shinya Tsukamoto’s cyberpunk mindfuck, ‘Tetsuo: The Iron Man’ still continues to attract new fans unto its jittery cult. Tsukamoto is undoubtedly one of the most idiosyncratic filmmakers out there, even in the already gonzo world of Japanese cyberpunk cinema. ‘Tetsuo: The Iron Man’ is a film that is experienced more than passively watched. It is forged of scrap metal salvaged from a junkyard future where life is the marriage of man and machine, sex and death. In another sense, it is also a visceral, feature length industrial music video.  And for this, we have Chu Ishikawa to thank.

Ishikawa’s score for ‘Tetsuo: The Iron Man’ is a stunning example of late-80s Industrial music and a perfect fit for Tsukamoto’s twisted imagery. It pummels, scrapes, screeches and tears through the speakers. Often beginning as abstract soundscapes that flirt with Japanese noise music, rhythmic clatter inevitably rises out of the sonic detritus. The animalistic beats, themselves made of metal, drive the point home, intensifying the horror of the film.
http://mondoexploito.com/?p=2221

Tetsuo was Shinya Tsukamoto's ticket to world-wide cult fame. The movie is canonized as a part of Japanese movies 101 in the west and countless pages has been written about it, even though the movie is impossible to explain.

It is about the melding of flesh and metal and a battle or love scene between two or maybe three rivaling or maybe loving characters in different stages of flesh/machine transmutations. The story is impossible to follow. The camerawork should be impossible to follow as well, Tsukamoto is constantly shifting between extreme closeups, stop-motion scenes, angles and focus, think a music video director's commercial debut cranked up to the max and you get the idea. It is constantly pounding the viewer with new information, throbbing back and forth with a logic of its own but miraculously you always understand exactly what's going on. Camera wise that is. The music is a pounding noise mat composed by Chu Ishikawa and the obvious sound effects are quite fitting for the movie.

Tetsuo is the best cyberpunk movie ever made.

It is also beautiful.
http://www.kurutta.com/2009/08/tetsuo.html
 

Stefan Blomeier - They Have No Place In Paradise

 

Video by Darren Banks

“The Ultimate Shocker…”

Through the electrical wires of your home entertainment system, Stefan Blomeier is entering your apartment to bring you a radical assembly of lo-fi house and digital funk.
The Denmark native who recently released The Danish Traits through Ruralfaune’s Synth Series provides us with a pleasantly familiar vibe. The combination of imagery from Pulse and this arcade-hall anthem named They Have No Place In Paradise makes up for some legit 80s reminiscing – insert coin to continue.
Blomeier is preparing a release for London’s Public Information imprint as we speak. We’ll definitely keep you posted.
http://non-reality.com/2012/06/27/stefan-blomeier-they-have-no-place-in-paradise/ 

http://stefanblomeier.com/

Winkie's Diner

Mulholland Drive Diner Scene from Modern Scene on Vimeo.

This scene is amazing because Dan tells you exactly what happens in the dream, so when he confronts it and everything unfolds in the same manner he described, you'd think it'd take the scare tension away because you already know what's going to happen. You end up feeling every bit of dread the character does all the way up until that final moment.

I especially love the touch of the ENTRANCE sign hanging up on the wall that's pointing the opposite direction in which they are walking. Once they pass that point, there's no going back.
http://www.retrocrush.com/scary/1.html









If I had to pick a scariest moment, it’s the diner scene from Mulholland Dr. Even in a movie full of abstract digressions and symbolism, the scene has nothing to do with plot. It’s so simple, it’s almost stupid—a guy tells another guy about a bad dream, and then they go outside and see the bad dream is real. Part of the reason it’s so effective is that you know what’s going to happen. Lynch uses that knowledge to make it worse, to get to the primal nerve endings where it doesn’t matter if I’m a grown-up and I own a car and I have a job and I know that shadows at night don’t mean anything. The scene, like the best horror-movie scenes, stares viewers straight in the eye and then just keeps on staring.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/scariest-movie-scenes,64163/

Although it was hilarious when we watched it in company, the scene is sublimely creepy when seen alone, with headphones, in the dark. For all of Lynch’s difficult subject matter and idiosyncrasies, he knows how to craft a scene. Some might argue that’s all he knows how to do, and his movies are just a collection of such scenes. In any case, the tension here is terrific; the nervous laugh of the tormented man telling the story of his dream; the sinister ambient noise and muted background; his sheer panicked sweat, despite the Winkie’s air-conditioning. As the long shots travel down to the back of the diner, the viewer is filled with a dread much more powerful than the appearance of the actual dream man. It’s quite comical the way that he doesn’t so much step out from behind the wall, but looks wheeled out by some unseen gurney of spookery. All in all, the man is much more unsettling in the minds of the audience, which is exactly how Mr. Lynch wanted him to be.
http://www.fiveorama.com/2009_10_01_archive.html   

Drunken Bakers

The Drunken Bakers are characters in the British adult humour magazine Viz created by Barney Farmer and Lee Healey. 

The two bakers run a bakery together. Their names have never been mentioned; one has sparse black hair, the other has a bulbous nose and large phiz of fair (possibly blond) hair. They are drawn as - and have the personalities of - a pair of classic clown archetypes, an odd couple: the curly haired but balding one being short and aggressive, the taller being doleful. In one episode, they were drawn as wearing suits that were for the curly-haired one much too small, and for the taller one much too big - another classic clown trope. 

The presentation of the strip portrays a fatalistic style, where it is obvious that the bakers will never reform, their customers will never get proper service, and no-one is doing a thing about it. Some storylines fail to resolve themselves and end indeterminately, reinforcing the character's cyclical and depressing existence. (In a recent strip, one of the bakers is bitten by a stray dog he has befriended, but he doesn't notice. "Your mouth is pissing blood" remarks the other baker.) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_Bakers

Drunken Bakers is probably the most subtle and, in a way, philosophical Viz strip ever. Unlike the rest of the comic's more usual fare, it's not a satire on anything in particular and, despite the subject matter, is totally dissimilar to Eight Ace, the other regular Viz dipso. I've seen Drunken Bakers compared to Beckett in print before and think that's about right. The characters' drunkenness isn't funny, they're not comedy drunks - these are broken men, and men whose pain and suffering we only come to understand slowly through tiny snatches of information which occasionally bleed into the strip.
http://pessimystic-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/drunken-bakers.html

Not all contemporary video art has been conscripted into the Whitney Biennial. One exception is ''Drunken Bakers,'' a deft and pungent bit of appropriation by the British artist Mark Leckey. Its quarry is a raunchy British adult comic strip written by Barney Farmer and drawn by Lee Healey for Viz magazine. Given Mr. Leckey's fidelity to this source, his effort should probably be called an adaptation or an homage.

With ''Drunken Bakers,'' as with ''Shades of Destructors,'' Mr. Leckey raises his game considerably, but through simplicity not complication. He forsakes collage, color, youth and music, as well as moving images, to dwell on more advanced dissipation: that of two middle-aged Bumstead-like alcoholics haplessly lurching from one disaster and one drink to the next as they attempt to run a bakery. He has ingeniously filmed the comic strip with close-ups and jump-cuts, creating a kind of stop-action animation, and added a skillfully explicit soundtrack replete with convincing belches, slurps, breaking glass and vomiting. (The comic's speech balloons, which Mr. Leckey deleted, are read verbatim by Mr. Leckey and Steven Claydon, a member of Jack2Jack.)
Roberta Smith
NY Times review






























Comedy drunks have been around since drinks began, but few have been so utterly forlorn as The Drunken Bakers. As the name suggests, this cartoon strip - a semi-regular feature in that fine comic institution, Viz - concerns some bakers who get drunk. The essentials don't vary much: the average black-and-white, page-long episode sees a customer coming in with a simple request for, say, a wedding cake or some buns. With the best of intentions, the sweet-looking, white-haired pair head out back to gather ingredients and mix dough. But soon, one will quietly suggest a little drop of something - Drambuie or gin, perhaps - and the other will stoically agree. Before long, they're both staggering round a smoke-filled bakery surrounded by empty spirits bottles. Again. It's tricky to say what's so appealing about their slide from being worthy citizens to utterly wrecked lost souls. Writer Barney Farmer and artist Lee Healey imbue the strips with a real sense of despondency; these aren't drunks who have convivial escapades or adventures - they are drunks who drink, get drunk, pass out and burn the cakes. And being bakers somehow makes it worse: it seems such a wholesome occupation. Recently, one baker headed off for supplies and, in the next speech-free frame, was shown on his hands and knees in a shopping centre surrounded by liquid oozing out from a mess of broken glass and polythene. The look of sad befuddlement on his face was kind of moving. So, yes, clearly there are limits, plot-wise. But I'm hoping that for some while longer, Viz continues to show us the non-exploits of two bakers who, tragically, never quite manage to bake.
Steve Lowe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/sep/17/features11.g21

Infinite Jest @ DCA

Infinite Jest @ DCA

The word “epic” was at one time used in the context of a film or poem, but these days it’s an adjective for anything, what the Urban Dictionary describes as “the most overused word ever, next to fail.” What did mean “grand in scale” can now be applied to the most commonplace of activities or things, and so we come to this complex and beguiling show which is named after the thumping 1000+ page doorstop of a novel by the American writer David Foster Wallace 1. Across a diverse spread of works by three artists, patterns and mirroring repeat themselves in art that finds the sublime in everyday materials, using what the gallery handout describes as “circular narration, infinite loops and möbius strips”.  On the opening night, DCA Gallery Assistants were kitted out in football strips for William Mackrell’s “performative tool” 90 Minutes,  a concrete ball in the centre of the first room 2. Mackrell has also lit 1000 Candles placed in a circle on the floor, which flickered intermittently before surviving as a remnant for the show’s duration. The video still Deux Chevaux  pictures two horses struggling to pull a car of the same horsepower through Northumberland countryside, the artist teasing out poignancy from this futile act. Also in the first room, Cinthia Marcelle screens films of traffic being disrupted or disruptive in urban landscapes. In Volto ao Mondo (Round the World), white vans pour onto a tree-filled roundabout, and for Confronto fire jugglers interrupt a zebra crossing to the annoyance of impatient drivers. Next door in the second gallery Marcelle  shows Leitmotiv, a film of water flooding waves into an empty area. A more relaxed water feature in the main room  is Rob Pruitt’s Evian Fountain, the imported and mass-marketed liquid splashing serenely against cardboard boxes that hold the aspirational product. Pruitt twists pairs of blue jeans into mathematical symbols with Esprit de Corps: Borromean Knot and its companion piece Esprit de Corps / Mobius Strip 3. Next door the artist shows Pop-Pop’s Chocolate-Chip Cookies. These are two huge MDF discs, and DCA staff bake cookies that are placed into the sculpture for a mise en abyme effect, another example of the mirroring process taking place throughout the DCA's exhibition. Wallace was always a champion of the heartfelt and the playful, even when speaking through several layers of irony. This show succeeds by finding the marvellous in the everyday, and that’s what makes for an epic win.

1. A disclosure: your correspondent has never read the aforementioned book but I’m a confirmed DFW fan through his stellar gifts as a short story writer and essayist. Infinite Jest is regarded as a defining novel of the 90s and I fully intend to make a start on it during this exhibition’s run.
2. As punishment for failing to reach the 1994 World Cup finals, Saddam Hussain’s son Uday made the Iraqi football team play with a concrete ball. This knowledge makes the object appear both malevolent and absurd.
3. The iconic garment is made to signify the infinite and eternal, but the twisted legs are also a bit unnerving too, the cowboy limbs self-replicating endlessly forever.

 http://www.dca.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/infinite-jest.html

Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Stratten (February 28, 1960 – August 14, 1980) was a Canadian model and actress. Stratten was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for August 1979, Playmate of the Year in 1980 and was the second Playmate (after Lee Ann Michelle) born in the 1960s. Stratten appeared in three comedy films and at least two episodes of shows broadcast on US network television. She was murdered at age twenty by her estranged husband/manager Paul Snider, who committed suicide the same day. Her death inspired two motion pictures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Stratten

Dorothy Stratten's story was brief, glorious and tragic. She was born Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten on February 28, 1960 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She grew up in a rough neighborhood in Vancouver, but kept out of trouble and went through the motions of school. While not a beauty as a child, nor early teen, Stratten came into her own out of high school and attracted the attention of Paul Snider, a promoter and wannabe star. He started dating her and after seeing an advertisement for Playboy's 25th Anniversary Playmate search in 1978, convinced her to pose for photos. Playboy saw the potential in Stratten and flew her out to Los Angeles, California, where she became a candidate. Although she lost out to Candy Loving, Stratten was made a Playmate in the August 1979 issue of Playboy. Soon after, she was pressured into marrying Snider, who had a Svengali-like influence on her. After her centerfold came out, Stratten found work in a few movies, notably Americathon (1979) and Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979), as well as being the object of Richard Dawson's affection in an ABC-TV special shot at the Playboy mansion. Clearly, her star was on the rise. In 1980, it was revealed that Stratten would be tabbed as the Playmate of the Year by Playboy publisher and founder Hugh M. Hefner. While this was one of the crowning achievements of her career, things were not going well in her marriage to Snider. He bothered her on the set of the movie Galaxina (1980) and when Snider found out she was developing more than a friendly relationship with director Peter Bogdanovich, Snider grew increasingly frustrated. After a separation, Snider bought a shotgun and talked Stratten into coming to the apartment they used to share in West Los Angeles. Snider tied her up, sexually assaulted her and put the shotgun next to her face and pulled the trigger. Snider then turned the shotgun on himself to complete the murder-suicide. Since her death, Stratten has become something of a minor cult fixture, and has had two (one a television) movies, a song, and a couple of books written about her. The last movie she was in, They All Laughed (1981), was released after her death.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0833617/bio

Star 80 is a 1983 American film about the true story of Playboy Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered by her estranged husband Paul Snider in 1980. The film was directed by Bob Fosse, and starred Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts. The film was shot on location in Vancouver, British Columbia and Los Angeles, California; the death scene was filmed in the same house in which the murder-suicide actually took place. The story is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Village Voice article "Death of a Playmate" by Teresa Carpenter; the film's title was taken from Snider's vanity license plates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_80

Star 80, 1983 (****) a thoroughly absorbing dramatisation of the events leading up to the murder of Playboy centrefold extraordinaire Dorothy Stratten, and is even creepier than it first appears: Bob Fosse's attention to detail is disturbing, for example even the murder scene is shot in exactly the same room the crime took place, and this for a film made only shortly after her death; while Mariel Hemingway is intelligent and thoughtful in the main role, Eric Roberts, as Paul Snider the lowlife who discovered Stratten in Vancouver, hammily camps it up way too hard - in reality, Snider was clearly just another Stratten-obsessed straight loser (as is the thoroughly unpleasant Peter Bogdanovich, represented in the film under another name)
http://williambennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/fillmore-discos-69.html



Dorothy Stratten's life and death, and the piece written about it by Teresa Carpenter in the Village Voice, are the bases of Bob Fosse's new film, ''Star 80,'' which, like his ''Lenny'' and ''All That Jazz,'' is a dazzling display of cinematic pyrotechnics. Watching ''Star 80'' is like witnessing a huge sound-and-light show, one designed not to call up the history of the pyramids, the Parthenon or even the Brooklyn Bridge but a contemporary world where sleaziness has triumphed.
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/10/movies/screen-star-80-a-sex-symbol-s-life-and-death.html

Infinite Jest @ DCA 23.06.12 pictures.

To the DCA this evening for the opening of Infinite Jest. I took a few photos and here they are:
















































































































http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest

Zazou @ Kage, Dundee 22.06.12 pictures

To the Kage last night for Zazou, Dundee's premier nitespot. I took a few photos, and here they are:

The name of the club is Zazou

Pilots Stefan Blomeier and Il Discotto lose control of the vehicle.....

A psychedelic trip into the centre headspace......

full steam ahead obscure euro disco.......

cosmic space party crashes......

off piste italo smashes........

age of Aquarius weirdo guitar fuzz Charlie-don't-surf hotrods......

Zazou @ Facebook

Terry Fuckwitt

Terry Fuckwitt is a character in the British comic Viz.

He is understatedly captioned as "the unintelligent cartoon character". He is a brainless, notionless, mindless imbecile who mistakes gas bills for exam results and his neighbor for his mother. Terry looks the part as well: he is cross-eyed and has wild black hair sticking up ludicriously from his misshapen head in a style which appears to be dreadlocks. He also wears platform shoes, for no discernible reason. He is quite foul-mouthed and when he realizes that he has just done something stupid he will declare "Fuck me, I've got shit for brains, me." His frequent appraisals of his lack of intelligence are Terry's only correct statements.

He lives in suburban ignorance with his family, none of whom have any distinctive characteristics of their own: every story revolves around the ludicrous situations, scrapes and decisions involving the eponymous protagonist and the way those involved deal with him, usually in comedically violent slapstick. Terry's parents are always annoyed at their son's stupidity and often make unsuccessful attempts to get rid of him, such as by shoving him in a sack and throwing him into a river (which failed nonetheless). One strip shows Terry's frustrated father kicking him in the groin, even after Terry consents to do what is required of him. His father's violent contempt for him continues: when Terry somehow shrinks himself, he stomps him to death. A more recent strip shows Terry having a vase smashed on his head.

Terry is unable to make a sensible decision. When he was once asked by God to carry out a small favor in return for tonnes of gold and a place in heaven, and at the same time asked by Satan if he wanted to sell his soul for "a dried up piece of dog shit instead," Terry spent a few moments scratching his head before opting for the latter choice. Only after being tortured for four hundred billion years by demons in Hell did Terry conclude that he might have been better off making the other choice. Another strip featured him being asked if he murdered someone, to which he proudly declares Yes! (and regrets his mistake 10 years later).

The most stupid thing Terry ever did was to forget to turn up for his own comic strip. He appeared in the last frame asking if he was too late.

Most of the humor derives from outrageous and surreal misunderstandings. For example, at a day at the beach, Terry is told by his dad to go and find a suitable area for sunbathing. In the next frame, we see Terry standing near a small sandy hill and telling his father that he has found one. Terry's dad congratulates him on finding an isolated spot, but then points out the slight flaw in Terry's plan, namely that his proposed sunbathing spot is not on the beach but instead on the planet Pluto.

Often the first frame of every Terry Fuckwitt cartoon would have Terry cheerily greeting the readers saying he is off doing some activity (e.g., milking), only for the second frame to pan out showing that he is in totally the wrong place. For example, Terry is getting married, but it is revealed that he is not in a church, but in a nuclear power plant, and that his bride is a rod of uranium.

Such surrealness sometimes extends to the story development itself. Terry once went camping, only to be chastised by a farmer who "owned" the land, who was in turn chastised by a shop manager. Walking away, the farmer, calling himself a "fuckwit," realises his mistake – it is his land! The next frame features Terry's dad angrily storming out the back door of his house.

Perhaps the most bizarre example is when Terry was informed that he wasn't really Terry Fuckwitt at all, but rather Billy the Fish in disguise as Terry, which then segued into Billy's own strip.

The strip, like many others in the comic, often derives its humor from topical events. In early 2005, Terry was entered into the "Biggest Fuckwitt in the Country" contest after volunteering to be repeatedly hit in the crotch with a cricket bat and kicked in the head with a diving shoe non-stop for an hour. He only managed second place however, being beaten by Prince Harry's wearing of a Nazi uniform.



Due to the dubious surname of the character, the comic never puts it in its entirety on the front page, even though it habitually advertises each featured character thereon per issue. However, in the January 2007 issue, his name, via spoonerism, is changed to 'Ferry Tuckwitt' on the front page to work its way around the swearing (using the same effect with 'Boilt Spastard' for Spoilt Bastard); ironically, Terry did not actually appear in the issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Fuckwitt

Yuck 'n Yum CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (reminder) / June 24th

Good afternoon from YnY HQ,

Just to remind you that the deadline for submission to the Summer issue of YnY is this Sunday 24th June. As always, we very much look forward to receiving your submissions. We've added a wee reminder of 'How to submit' below, so please cast your eye over this before pressing send.

Also, by way of Guest Zine project update, many thanks to all who attended Michael Lacey’s zine launch on Saturday the 16th of June. The zine looks great and is available to purchase for a mere £2, we will announce stockists soon but in the meantime you can contact Michael directly to receive a copy, his email is kamikazebutler@gmail.com. Thanks to Leo Condie and MermaidS for putting on a smashing show for us and of course The Pipe Factory for letting us use their fantastic space. You can view pictures of the launch on our facebook page here. Val Norris is nearing completion of her guest zine and we are looking to launch this in Dundee during the summer, in the meantime here are a couple of images to whet your appetite!

Big love from YnY team

We invite anyone to submit work for consideration to submissions@yucknyum.com

Yuck ‘n Yum is a not-for-profit group and the zine is free, so work is accepted on a voluntary (i.e. unpaid) basis. By sending us your work, you consent to our publication of it in print and online. Free paper editions are available at our launches, and are sent out to several galleries and distributors (see our list of distributors, below). PDF versions are always available online for you to print out yourself.

Yuck ‘n Yum is distributed as a physical on-paper zine, but is also made available in an online edition. You can submit a single piece that will be included in both editions, or you could take advantage of the internet medium to produce alternative work for online publication. Our print edition is entirely black and white, so you could, for example, provide an alternative colour version for the online edition. Alternatively, you could send us totally different media: an audio project, a short video or animation for example. It’s totally up to you.

Format guidelines: The printed image will be black and white, and quite high contrast - bear this in mind. Each page in the zine is A5. Images should be 300dpi resolution. We prefer to receive images as jpegs (if a photograph) or pngs (if a line drawing). If you send us something low-res and we want to include it, we will probably get in touch to ask you for a high-res version before the zine goes to print. Written articles should be saved in a format compatible with Microsoft Word. If you are interested in submitting a sound piece or video work for the online version we would prefer audio work in mp3 or ogg format, and video work as a Quicktime mp4/mov file or ogg.  

The deadline for our Summer issue is the 24th of June 2012.

best of 2012 so far

Over on Dennis Cooper's superlative blog DC's this weekend, readers are invited to post lists of their personal highlights of 2012 up to now. What follows is my own illustrated best of the year along with associated links. A few things off the top of my head:

Music:

Carter Tutti Void - Transverse
http://www.discogs.com/Carter-Tutti-Void-Transverse/master/423515
















Legowelt - 90s Memphis Rap Mix
http://dummymag.com/mixes/2012/05/28/legowelt-s-memphis-rap-mix/

Books:

Peter Sotos and Jamie Gillis - Pure Filth

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13236856-pure-filth

Film:

The Woman

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714208/

It's highly recommended that you follow this 'ere link to discover what he and everyone else nominated as this past year's brightest and best: LINK

The Genealogy of Lolcats

On Wednesday night I gave a talk at the BYOPPT event at Dundee's Chamber East. What follows is a list of images and notes used in that presentation, plus links to a few associated Wikipedia pages. Taken together I hope they put some flesh on its bones. A disclosure: I don't think these images are funny and have never lolled at a lolcat:
















 - My name is Ben Robinson and this is THE GENEALOGY OF LOLCATS.

- Classic Lolcats image, we're all familiar with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat

 
- Lazy and eat fast food, like their target audience...?
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

- I designed a lolcats flyer for Yuck 'n Yum in winter 2010
http://0black0acrylic.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/yuck-n-yum-winter-deadline-2010.html

 - Arthur Thiele, late 19th century 
 http://www.judnick.com/Cats.htm 

- Harry Pointer, 1870s
http://www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk/BTNPointerCats.htm

- Louis Wain, 19th century, soon to be featured in Yuck 'n Yum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wain

- Harry Whittier Frees, 1905.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Whittier_Frees

 - Magazine advert, early 20th century.
http://laughingsquid.com/the-search-for-the-first-lolcat-continues/

- Hang in there baby, motivational poster 1969 used in Simpsons and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_in_there,_Baby

 - First on 4chan for Caturday
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/caturday

 - Primitive Lolcats
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/is-it-can-be-hugs-tiem-now-plees

 - Classic Lolcats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-lolcat.jpg

 - Political context of Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_to_Restore_Sanity_and/or_Fear

 - Averagecats
 http://averagecats.com/