Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend [YouTube]

Over the past few days, I have been running a call-in Twitter show in which I quickly (or slowly) sketch up pictures based on ideas sent in by the audience. I call it the Sweatshop, and there have been two rounds so far.

Round 1 was simple: I asked the people for a pair of words.

VKlaus suggested “LICE PIANO”.

Round 2 upped the ante just a touch. I asked for Far Side-style captions, the sort that would go below a one-panel comic. I streamed the drawing process live on Ustream.

Kevin Doran sent in “This is why you’re told never to flush used condoms down the toilet.”

I’ve been asked to do another round on Monday night, around 8pm PST, to be streamed live to the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Which may mean I’ll need to draw less nipples and robot twat, but we’ll see.

Hit the jump to see the rest of the horrors (some are not work safe), and latch onto me at Twitter to leech valuable nutrients from my skin.

Continue Reading…

I know Ectomo is usually not for gaming news. Regardless, all of my mucusy compatriots are varying levels of Gamer, with Ross boasting a Best Sportsmanship title for Puzzle Fighter HD two years running, John chairing a successful Chinese gold farm, and Qais barely moving his arms at all anymore when he takes corners in Wipeout. Me, I’m known throughout the No Mutants Allowed forums as “a Baba Yaga-like wisewoman who speaks only in tangled truths” (props to my dawg mutiejewz44).

So it was with great excitement that I reveal on Ectomo, as a worldwide exclusive, the leaked title sequence for Crackdown 2. I seriously cannot wait to play this.

30 minute exposure of a Roomba’s cleaning path.

And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until your floor is clean. [Restraint.org]

Jirat James Patradoon [Neu Black]

The Three Laws of Female Robotics:

1. A female robot must always have perfect makeup, even if her arm is falling off.
2. A female robot must have at least one spare head available to her at all times.
3. A female robot will only find a mate if she follows the First and Second Laws.

All credit to the incomparable Susannah Breslin, Pornographic Cartographer, for the tongue-in-cheek homage to Asimov’s famous Laws.

Surely it’s a lovely picture, but I’m more looking forward to future images from this set. Rob Sheridan explains that he wants the robots to appear a bit more broken down, some even missing limbs, in the next few photos, which I think would help make these look a little grittier and, perhaps, slightly less posed. For those with any mechanical and/or prop-making skills, they’re looking for help. If you’re interested Rob provides an email address at which you can contact him.

Lastly, let me just say this: Do not be lured in by this thing’s demure gaze and vulnerable sensuality. It is a lie, meant to lull your primitive, lizard brain into a sex fueled stupor, at which point it can rip out your spine. Soft curves or no, dear readers, a robot is still a robot and, therefore, not to be trusted.

Broken Robot Girl #1 by Rob Sheridan and Tamar Levine [SketchBlog] : The Frisky : Chatarra

The San Francisco International Airport is hosting a show entitled Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture, a collection of over 300 vintage space themed toys dating from the 1930s to the 1980s. Included in the exhibition is this pictured case of authentic toy ray guns, located right in Terminal 3 in what can only be described as an egregious violation of anti-terrorist security measures. The show is set to run through March 14th but I’m sure the TSA will seize these weapons before then.

Calling Will Robinson! New Exhibition at SFO is Out of This World! [SFO] : bioephemera

Meathook Mk3 was a vast improvement over the Mk1, featuring almost-articulated joints, highly dexterous dental pick hands, and Dr. Smock’s patented Teenyfeets™ ambulatory system. The Mk3 was displayed at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where it was met with polite applause.

Robot [Foxtongue]

Jeremy Mayer’s robot pantheon has been submitted by multiple well-meaning, tasteful souls, and it’s long past due that we post them. His cold-assemblage works are at once beautiful, cartoonish, and thoughtful.

I started working with typewriters in 1994 while living in a small town in Iowa. They’ve always been intensely interesting to me (when I was about ten years old I wanted to take apart my mother’s 1920’s Underwood), so it was natural that, having a typewriter and some free time, I would want to dissect one. I think of the typewriter as a product of nature- it was designed by minds immersed in nature around them, and mimicked the curves, geometry, and physical processes abounding in nature. Though it is cold metal created by human hands, the typewriter is just as much a natural material as stone or wood. I concentrate on bringing this fascination with the raw material and interest in science and science fiction together in the subtleties of the human form.

Jeremy Mayer [Artist’s site]

In this current atmosphere of fear where every day people “in the know” are gnashing their teeth, pulling their hair, and babbling in tongues about mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps one may lose sight of the real danger affecting the world today. Robots.

The impending robot revolution continues to be the number one threat to the continuation of the human race and while our politicians are busy pointing fingers at one another in easily digestible sound-bites, some of us refuse to be distracted. Some, like artist Molly Porkshanks, are all too aware of the danger posed by the inscrutable mechanoid. Now she has produced terrifying evidence that, no longer content with self awareness, they have begun to reproduce in a twisted approximation of the human life-cycle, as evidenced by this clockwork fetus.

Should this become commonplace we may truly be witnessing the end. It is imperative that we create measures to combat this threat whether it be stronger coat hangers or taller, harder stairs. Something must be done, or government bailouts will be the least of our concerns. Mark my words.

Clockwork Fetus In Chamber by porkshanks [deviantART] : Dark Roasted Blend

Tokyo Nonsense is an 11 person show hitting the Scion Installation L.A. Gallery on Oct. 4th.

The title, TOKYO NONSENSE, not only refers to the city itself but also references the word “nonsense” in the context of Japanese popular culture, connoting so-called “modern decadence”and the rebellious, anti-establishment spirit of the 1960s student protest movement. The work of these 11 young artists reflects both Tokyo’s frenetic energy and the banal realities of everyday city life. The exhibition will consist of more radical forms of expression such as performance,video, and installation art in addition to more traditional mediums such as drawing, painting, and woodblock printing.

Within the Japanese vernacular the word “nonsense” has assumed various meanings throughout modern history, often associated with radical expression that challenged the dominant discourse of the moment. In the early 1930s, “nonsense” was included in the phrase ero-guro-nansensu,which the Japanese mass media used to label decadent and salacious popular culture (literature,film, theatre) that was viewed as a threat to traditional family values. Then in the late 1960s,“nonsense” became the rally cry for the disaffected Japanese students who protested to express their frustration with the current political and social situation at home and abroad. The rebellious spirit evoked by the word “nonsense” in Japan continues today, reincarnated and rearticulated by this group of young artists working in Tokyo. Their work simultaneously reflects the precedent setby the “nonsense” of the 1930s—labeled as absurd and meaningless by the dominant discourse—while dismissing the dominant discourse itself as pure “nonsense,” reminiscent of the protest tactics employed in the 1960s.

Featuring the real-life electric rats of the six-member artist group, Chim|Pom and the surreal woodblock prints of Sachiko Kazama. Scion’s site does not, unfortunately, have any real info on the show. Luckily, there is a preview up on Flickr.

“Tokyo Nonsense” at Scion Installation LA [Juxtapoz]

Uzbek director Nazim Tulyakhodzhayev’s short, animated adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s short story of the same name. The tale of a robotic house mindlessly continuing its tasks even after the human residents have been wiped out by nuclear war.

There Will Come Soft Rains [YouTube] : DIGITAL DJ

It seems that the future is, indeed, now and that the inevitable War of the Machines has come to pass. Sometime last night a sinister, sixty foot arachnid appeared on a derelict building near Liverpool’s Lime Street station. The mechanical spider is the work of art collaborative La Machine, whose previous work includes the Sultan’s Elephant, which captivated London in 2006. The £1.8 million robot was commissioned for the 2008 Capital of Culture celebrations, and is being billed as the highlights of the event.

Expected to “wake up” sometime Friday, the eight-legged monstrosity will descend the Concourse House on Thursday and begin exploring the city the day after, ending with a “spectacular finish”, which I take to mean cleansing by fire, most likely from the lasers in its many eyes. Citizens are encouraged to arm themselves accordingly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down into my concrete bunker. I’ll see you in the wasteland.

A more detailed photo after the jump, courtesy of this Flickr set, uploaded by kierhardie.

Continue Reading…

Ross: Ok, why is Grace Jones so fucking creepy?
Qais: I think she and Seal are vampires.
Qais: Maybe aliens?
Ross: Grace Jones could be an alien,
Ross: or a robot constructed by aliens.
Qais: Dude Seal is totally an alien,
Qais: or a vampire.
Qais: I’m ok with either, really.
Ross: I hadn’t thought about Seal, to be honest.
Qais: Oooh!
Qais: Maybe they’re alien vampires!
Ross: …
Ross: Maybe.

Grace Jones - Corporate Cannibal [YouTube] : ANIMAL

Up until now the only way one could see Metropolis — Fritz Lang’s cinematic masterpiece — in its original, uncut form was to build a time machine and travel back to Berlin between January and May, 1927. When it was released in America, Paramount edited it considerably, leaving us with the beautiful, yet confusing, version we have today. All this has changed recently with the discovery of the previously lost footage in the film archives of Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires by the current curator Paula Félix-Didier.

Among the footage that has now been discovered, according to the unanimous opinion of the three experts that ZEITmagazin asked to appraise the pictures, there are several scenes which are essential in order to understand the film: The role played by the actor Fritz Rasp in the film for instance, can finally be understood. Other scenes, such as for instance the saving of the children from the worker’s underworld, are considerably more dramatic.

ZEITmagazin has a number of stills from the newly found footage available to peruse and one can see that they show a fair degree of wear. This does little to diminish my excitement. Metropolis has always been a movie that I have loved and the opportunity to see Lang’s original vision is simply fantastic.

“Metropolis”: Key scenes from the famous movie rediscovered [Zeitmagazin] : Coilhouse