Eliza put out a call for suggestions and the Ectomite Hive Mind responded with a bevy of bizarre links and nostalgic requests leaving us with a hodge-podge of old childhood favorites and surreal art-house films. Thanks to everyone who took the time to post and if you don’t see your contribution here, rest assured it will make an appearance in the very near future. Now, go Ectomomites! TO THE JUMP!
As much as we enjoy conjecture and extravagant speculation regarding the future and the treasures it holds it’s a shock when something from the pages of the professional speculators, aka sci-fi authors, worms its way into our disappointingly nonfictional reality. Though in all fairness, less so when it comes from Japan.
Yet the newest way in which the metropolitan Japanese surprise and confound we less progressive western dullards is a bit surprising even with the knowledge of its origins. Frenetic salarymen dissatisfied with the pink-cheeked rush the pharmaceutical melange of energy drinks has to offer can now pop in to Tenteki10 for a vein full of “vitamins and other nutritional supplements”.
Yes that’s right; if you’ve got $20 (2,000 Yen) and 10 minutes you can have a doctor stuff your veins with the mysterious “vitamins and nutritional supplements” for what they describe as a “pick-me-up”. While I’m intimately familiar with the potentially less than pleasant effects of a botched intravening (to say nothing of potential “supplement” overdoses) I can’t help but wonder when we’ll have similar set ups in the States.
Even now you can swing by your local plastic surgeon’s office for a speedy syringe full of botulism for all your muscle paralysis needs. How long until Starbucks trades baristas for nurses? And further, how long until our “supplements” are supplemented with the wares of illicit chemists and old-fashioned coffeehouse snobbery is supplanted by a caste system of stat-boost aficionados?
My hope is not long; my daily ritual of chasing down a handful of No-Doze with three or four Viente Quad-Americanos has long since stopped clearing away the borderline somnambulance of the morning.
Before you is the culmination of all my post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk fashion dreams. Oh sure, my compatriots and I clothe ourselves in all manner of garb designed with futurelust in mind, but not a stitch of those epic high-collared wardrobes is really functional. We’re simply playing dystopian dress-up.
But with this piece by Tim Smit — made of neoprene, lined with kevlar, and seemingly designed with my ilk in mind — we’re really getting into the business of being the no-nonsense, disaffected futuretots we’ve always known ourselves to be.
While it’s not specifically stated that this is just a conceptual design I can’t imagine it’s anything but. Yet simply knowing it exists helps to soothe the hurt of being unable to rush out and buy my first piece of Apocalypse Couture.
Hit the jump for a few more shots of this exquisite design.
Ray Bradbury, distinguished author, visionary, and crusader for personal travel via pneumatic tubes helps the disembodied voice of Stan Freberg pimp Sunsweet Pitted Prunes.
The 5th Element, in spite of being a fairly bad movie, is still one of my favorite films, if for no other reason than the entire thing is absolutely gorgeous. It is a future in which the soft, rounded corners of plastic-everything that we all expect to be permanently spotless and milky white are in actuality smudged with the dirt and grime of a population that built its way out of the polluted, earthen pit they created for themselves.
Everything in the movie is immediately obvious as “futuristic” without looking outlandish or ridiculous (save Ruby Rod, who gets a pass for having a special place in my heart); a problem to which many films set in the future fall prey.
The above grand piano, designed as a collaboration between Schimmel and Luigi Colani, would have fit perfectly in the film. As such, it is awarded my highest praise. Redesigning an instrument that many have a near religious reverence for is a tricky task, rife with perilous design flaws that could very easily ruin the whole shebang resulting in packs of pianists screaming for blood; but Colani and Schimmel have pulled off their design coup with a singular aplomb.
Had I the measly $110,000 that is being asked for this masterpiece it would be snatched up greedily with a haste I’ve likely never before displayed; and thus I would be able to count myself among the lucky 14 that stroke the keys of a piano sent back through time.
Picking up pets offworld was generally frowned upon by the Company, as there were no quarantine facilities beyond the Oort.
Foreign mammalia carried strange strains of crippling flu, shed itchy fibers on cockpit upholstery, and left crumbly little fewmets in secret places, fewmets that became apparent, and airborne, as soon as a ship hit ohgee.
In your daily meanderings through the hallowed halls of Ectomo you may at some point have taken note of my odd name. I can assure you it isn’t the result of air-headed, hippie parents and in spite of my questionable ancestry and modern American nature I still have quite a bit of reverence for parts of my dubious heritage.
As such, I can’t help but love this outfit recently featured by fashion aficionado The Sartorialist. This woman is the spitting image of the pack of post-apocalyptic Neo-Bedouins that stalk across the vast expanses of my imagination. I adore the combination of flowing, layered fabrics employed as shawl and head dress, and the tight, boot strapped pants easing mobility, all of which unites to form the image of an ancient wanderer fit for a modern age.
The transformation of mankind’s idealized future over the last century is a fascinating thing. Our tendency to speculate wildly is our greatest trait, resulting in a rich history of lofty, unrealistic goals and incredible literature that only serves to drive us to speculate further; to hope for a future like nothing we’ve ever seen.
From a sky full of hot-air balloons, from which dapper gents doff their hats to ladies on pedal powered flying machines, to pill-food and brushed chrome flying cars, to now, where our idealized future includes skull-mounted USB jacks and HUD’s. However, our visions of the future have a distinct difference from those of our forebears. Namely in that we envision the possibility of a dystopian future, a blasted, rusted heath on which we eke out our misery filled days; which we dream of alongside the optimistic fantasy of a future of soft, off-white plastics, bio-integrated technology, and utopian ideals.
It’s almost as if in the last 50 years or so we’ve finally started to realize that the future might not be coming to save us, but that it might just be one more boot to humanity’s collective chin.
Years in the future, at the Uncanny Valley Museum of Robotic History, stands OhNoYouDi’int Ver. 1.0; the first AI to display genuine human emotion. Who could have foreseen the unlikely event of the first truly sentient robot taking on the personality of a 15 year old girl from an inner city ghetto? In the sage words of OhNoYouDi’int, “Bitch, please!”
Not being of an age to appreciate Star Trek: The Motion Picture when it was released I can’t help but wonder the effectiveness of this commercial. Surely a man, dressed up as a Klingon and garbling in a fictional tongue was most likely a fairly good way to market to kids. That is until they actually saw the movie and, lobotomized by an eternity of watching the Enterprise inch it’s way through space, were no longer capable of consuming solids. Perhaps the milkshakes still sold well.
Ah, the disaffected youth of The City; slack jawed and dead eyed, integrated cranial circuitry pumping away at obscene speeds as the world flickers around him, less real than the images dripped into his brain by a jack that only cost two weeks allowance. I can’t fucking wait.
A Chinese website is claiming to have found photographic proof of aliens on Mars. The picture, found after thoroughly analyzing photos taken by NASA’S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, seems to show a figure walking across the Martian landscape.
According to The Daily Mail, the internet has been “abuzz” with speculation as to what this may or may not be. Cries of “Proof!”, “Shopped!”, “Optical illusion!”, and “Bigfoot!” have been heard, echoing across the tubes. A larger, 43MB panoramic version can be found here.
Speaking of questionable fashion choices, just in time for the impending nuclear and/or sun scorched apocalypse (or Burning Man, whatever) Ectomo brings you the Medusa. When this thing appeared on my screen I audibly gasped, it’s like someone reached into my brain and groped around until they found the specific squishy fold housing all my cranial accessory fantasies. With a hat and goggle set like this I would be unstoppable, or hilarious, or oft ridiculed and savagely beaten. Unfortunately I’ll never find out; with a price tag of $750 for the complete set my dreams of achieving total fashion alienation may be forever out of reach.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
