WEE SEE MUSIC #The Killers - Human @ EMA AWARDS

THIS is what I call a live visual stage performance. 

CULT FICTION #Frank Warren_PostSecrets.

In attempt to compartmentalize my mental scribbles, i've decided to come up with a new topic-specific mini-column "CULT FICTION" - talking about people (from eons ago to current) who made change biggest and smallest way in our life. 

In this series, I'm gonna start with Frank Warren - founder of PostSecrets.

Some years back, when i was strolling in the bookstore, i came across this thick book. I flipped through some pages, and I know that I had to get it.  

Such simple idea, such beautiful mind. What's more endearing it is than to collect secrets, yet help them to release their mind at the same time?

Looking through the pages, I've soon realized that these ordinary people have the most extraordinary creativity in the way they lay their thoughts on to a small postcard. Some of them have even amazed me with the quirky thoughts that ran through their mind, and echoed my very denied and forgotten thoughts.

This man, Frank Warren, made change. 

Here's a trailer for Frank Warren's PostSecret speaking events. Filmed at the Winnipeg Art Museum.

"We think we keep secrets but it is the secrets that keep us." 

- Frank Warren

N oh, what coincidence i found this (new) postcard on their web. >:)

Run this!

Fuckin' amusing.

A game that test your fingers co-ordination.

My highest record is only 4.9m. Scraping my knees through that is.

Try beating my lame score.

QWOP Athelete.

WE SEE MUSIC #Trentemoller - Miss You

Nice tunes. 

Feel it.

Courtesy of Fiona. :)

.tick tock tick.

Time.

I feel i'm lacking of.

Sometimes I feel i have the luxury of it, but it's only after i lose it.

Everything i do now, must have a value. People i meet, too. It's either we have value-added conversations or even if to have nonsensical ones, they must be packed with good laughs. Though that can be rare.

Laugh is a good therapy. More expensive than going to a shrink.

I'm too tired for unnecessities. Too lazy for mindless debates.

Time is an investment. Amusement is a time-out.

It has got to be this,

or that.

WE SEE MUSIC # Alex Gopher: The Child.

It's an old piece, probably from 3yrs back. But I thought it's a nice simple concept using just typography to tell a music story.

.it's all gone propaganda.

Speaking of propaganda.

Riding on these election craze. I think this is quite cute. 

A little less cute than all that's happening right now though.

I like the yellow guy. I think he speaks for we-know-who. :)

.ha ha.

It's so silly that it tickles me. It doesn't make any sense. 

Which i think it's their point.

Obama and Sarah Palin as Mercenaries

I don't know politics. But i love the way people keep making fun out of it.

.good morning, dorkbot.

A little sharing and stealing from my South-American friend's blog on his latest cinematic visual instrument project - using one of my fav. song from Electric President. That's why you have to go to ISEA to meet new cool people from half the globe away that do cool stuffs. 

Good one, Tom. :)

Courtesy of Tomas Laurenzo from Uruguay!

Ribbons @ Dorkbot MVD iii.
Filmáu por Brian Mackern

Will be sharing more of some other ISEA delights and projects by some other cool friends when i'm done struggling with mine. Next one is in Ireland - Aug 2009. Don't count on me. I'm really struggling hard.

.too many love stories.

Here's one not.

Quotes that are here to stay (in my mind) from Schindler's List :


Amon Goeth: Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are part of it. Six hundred years ago when elsewhere they were footing the blame for the Black Death, Casimir the Great - so called - told the Jews they could come to Krakow. They came. They trundled their belongings into the city. They settled. They took hold. They prospered in business, science, education, the arts. With nothing they came and with nothing they flourished. For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. By this evening those six centuries will be a rumor. They never happened. Today is history.

-----

Helen Hirsch: The more you see of the Herr Kommandant the more you see there are no set rules you can live by, you cannot say to yourself, "If I follow these rules, I will be safe."

-----

Amon Goeth: This is very cruel, Oskar. You're giving them hope. You shouldn't do that. -That's- cruel!

-----

Oskar Schindler: Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't.
-----

Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't!

-----

Itzhak Stern: It's Hebrew, it's from the Talmud. It says, "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."

-----

Been awhile since my face got wet from a movie. It just reminded me to feel again. And that there's more to life than just mine.

.another.

As to my earlier entry on my "Free Willy" animale series of dreams..  Just last night I had another one yet again.

This time i was tryin to free a fox which then became a black crow (u know how your subjects would morph in dreams) when I was tryin to release it to the sky. It refused to fly away.

What am i trying to free?

I thought I already am.

Hmm.

WE SEE MUSIC #INTEGRAL/PETSHOPBOYS. Listen to QR codes.

I know this is not fresh from the oven. This music video was released a year ago but since I'm at a topic of "speaking music digitally" much lately, i thought i'd archived it here as part of my online thought-library as well as my research on a probable paper i would be doing. 

We all know how the speed of information convenience our lives and it is screening more daylight to our hope for tomorrowland at the same rate it is baring our remaining privacy. A threat in all-pervading digital surveillance like how George Orwell envisioned indeed. Instant access to net in exchange for an instant access to us.

In Pet Shop Boy's revolutionary Integral campaign, the song "Integral" is about the invasion of our civil liberties by the government, video produced and tailor-made by UK-based The Rumpus Room. The video utilizes a commonly used QR codes (barcodes for mobile phone) as the leading visuals to more hidden messages which viewers can pause and scan them to decode their curiosity. There were about a 100 of them embedded in this beautifully art-directed music video, by my much loved and respected Tomas Roope of Tomato and partner of The Rumpus Room. Who is AWESOME at doing audio-visual usually with mind-spinning graphics embedded with subliminal messages within.

In his eight years heading up Tomato Interactive, he worked on projects with Ron Arad, Sony, TV Ashai, Underworld, V&A, Massive Attack, Levi's, Guinness and MTV, to name a few.

More to a music video, Rumpus Room associated with civil-rights activists to create specific online content to amplify their voice through the internet. Like Chemical Bros' "Midnight Madness" which I've posted earlier, mass-collaboration between artists and fans are much practiced in this new era of mixed-ownership. They too, provided raw materials for free download and encouraged Pet Shop Boy fans to participate, and create their own version of Integral music video.

They are 2 versions to this. One is the black and white QR code versions while the 2nd one is set out to be more televisual. It was created by printing out the black and white version and then shooting it stop frame in relevant and resonant locations. Sweet.

Without further much ado. 

The B/W QR code version:

RGB televisual version.

If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here

Long live us
The persuaded we
Integral
Collectively
To the whole project
It's brand new
Conceived solely
To protect you

One world
One reason
Unchanging
One season

If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here
You've had your chance
Now we've got the mandate
If you've changed your mind
I'm afraid it's too late
We're concerned
You're a threat
You're not integral
To the project

Sterile
Immaculate
Rational
Perfect

Everyone has
Their own number
In the system that
We operate under
We're moving to
A situation
Where your lives exist
As information
One world
One life
One chance
One reason
All under
One sky
Unchanging
One season

If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here
You've had your chance
Now we've got the mandate
If you've changed your mind
I'm afraid it's too late
We're concerned
You're a threat
You're not integral
To the project

Sterile
Immaculate
Rational
Perfect

And if you are keen on knowing the brains behind this, heres the 

Making Of Integral.

.dead funny.

When you're upset, be sure this will perk you up. This guy is good.

Meet Jeff Dunham and Achmed, the dead terrorist. :)

.let's go Kaizen!.

"Kaizen"

A Japanese philosophy which focuses on continuous improvement using small steps.

i.e 

Fix it as you go.

.shock shock horror.

Added some halloween shots below. 

You won't find me there. Coz i'm faceless here. :)

.stars.

Stumbled upon this old, random thought scribble while i was tryin to search for a song by STARS.

Reminds me of something i've forgotten to do lately... 

Here's the song I was trying to find. It's a beautiful song. I'm waiting to see them in town on 7th Jan coming '09.

.midnight madness.

Another cool project which musicians go digital. 

The video makes you feel a little gaudy at the end of it, but I fancy yet another idea of visualizing music using simple, common web tool Google Earth, produced and mass-collaborated by whoever-and-wherever-you-are. 

Great when it is for one of my favourite electronic-beats heartthrob Chemical Bros.

"Filmmakers, photographers and artists joined us in creating a unique global video project for The Chemical Brothers with Google Earth.

Entrants made their own short clip (from 2 to 20 seconds) or photograph on the theme of MIDNIGHT MADNESS. Then uploaded work via the Chemical Brothers' website to Google Earth and tagged it to it's exact global location.

A selection of the best work was chosen and featured in this new concept music video for the Chemical Brothers, executed through the Google Earth application."

Participate here.

.animale dreams.

I dreamt of baby whales (or was it seals?) last night. 

They've got washed up the shore and we had to push it back into the ocean, before it gets attacked by hungry birds that came darting down to peck ferociously on them to death. Got woken up before we managed to free the wounded baby whale/ seals into the sea..

Weird that i was dreaming about trying to free this baby elephant too. Wonder what's with this "Free Willy" series of dreams.

I always think that there is a message in the dreams we have. It doesn't foretell (coz i hate to know about the future), but it does hint the current state of your mind. Just like how colors show your current energy state when you take an Aura polaroid. 

Go to www.dreammoods.com and get your dreams interpreted. As random as they are, just pick something prominent - like a dream symbol. Interpret them as a stand alone then piece them up and see if you can jigsaw any stories up. No one but yourself might know what your subconscious mind is trying to tell you. 

Here's mine:

Seal

To see a seal in your dream, indicates your playfulness and your ability to use and incorporate differing ideas and thoughts into a situation. Seals are a symbol of good luck, success, and spiritual understanding. It also signifies prosperity, faithful friends, and security in love. The dream symbol may also be a pun and indicate you need to put closure on some situation.

Elephant

To see an elephant in your dream, suggests that you either need to be more patient and understanding of others. The elephant is also a symbol of power, strength, and intellect. Alternatively, as a creature with an introverted nature, the elephant may thus be depicting your own personality.

To dream that you are riding an elephant, indicates that you are in control of your unconscious and aspects that you once were afraid of.

Dream - is a mystical territory. It can be a playground, it can be a maze. 

.horrorween. *PICS ADDED

It was halloween on fri night.

Had a crazy time.

Bunny girls, French maids and Fallen Angels gives me the shudders. Surfeited by dressing up in the cutest, sexiest, hottest costumes. I have decided to go the other way. To appear in the most horrific and horrendous outfit i can. Nah. I don't mean blood and gore. Just plain being disgustingly repulsive.

Inspired by my recent Japan trip and its erotic culture (i'm sure you've heard of their infamous used-undies vending machine), I've decided to go as a dirty old man who goes around stealing and sniffing panties. Yeah.

Along with 2 very sporting gal pals - Fiona and Stacey, we gals are also supposed to be the old pimps to our crew of 9 hot hot hot Liang Po Pos (Grannies) cross-dressed by the boys.

While the oldlady-boys gets beamed by attention from the chuckling amused chicks, you can say that we ladies have discovered the best way to turn off any men in the world. Any. Overnight, dissipated any possible interest from any guys who used to harbour any sexy thoughts on us. Fantastic.

We had fun. We looked into the mirror, gags, and laughed at ourselves again. The challenge was to go as ugly as we can. And if anyone feels like wacking us (from being excessively appalled) in the night, the person wins. I had a close fight with Fiona.

The guys were the happiest though. They've discovered that 80 yrs old grannies with sagging water-balloon boobs attract more attention from chicks than being seen in their smart Armani's.

I dig halloweens. Its the only time of the year that i can let go and release my innate roleplay desire. Tsk.

Here are some NEWLY ADDED pics from the night.

*Pictures courtesy of our favorite PD party photographer - Warren. :D