308: Gundam, Ganesha, Ananta, etcetera - @BlankMedia @Eurocultured

Groan – the hazards of art preview shows; all that free beer – my head.  But it’s not all treachery and danger; there are positives and rewards too.  There are the hyper-nerdy debates about whether stereolithography or 3D laser printing would be capable of creating a coiled spring loaded with potential energy or if there would be technical limitations due to the way energy is stored as mass (because as you should know e=mc²).  There are the rambling discussions with artists about why certain things work, and other things could be improved upon.  There are the breakdancers flying in, twizzling around on a piece of lino, and then flying out again.  There’s the beer – did I mention that?  Have I missed anything?  Oh yeah, there’s the art too.

I’ve already mentioned the stereolithography and 3D laser printing; but what is it?  It’s this, obviously:

It’s a super-smart method of printing successive wafer-thin slices of plastic to build up a complete solid physical replica of a digital 3D model.  That’s the medium-length way of saying it’s something awesome.  You can read the full-length way of saying it here (U.S. patent 4675330).  Eurocultured X Manchester marks the debut of work created using this technique being exhibited in BLANKSPACE.  The exhibition, as well as including a wide range of graffiti and street art styles, also includes the technical marvel of Ananta by the talent-splat that is Sumit Sarkar (I don’t know what a talent-splat is, but it’s probably a good thing).

At last year’s Eurocultured Sumit’s Kerstcar had pride of place in the food court; a stunning display of glimmering (evanescent, scintillating, gleaming, etcetera, etc, &c) distorted steel jagging out from a gutted car husk.  Looking like a freeze-frame of a transforming robot, it somehow forms a digital-era wildstyle tag.  And it’s big; in fact it’s the size of a car no less.

Now exhibiting Anata, Sumit’s touring exhibition of work inspired by Hindu gods, anime/manga, and Transformers/Gundam; hauntingly simple animations of Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha and friends set in smooth black monoliths, and a frantic sped-up video showing the process of creating digital animation.  Star of the show however are the three large stereolithographic prints of a reared up viper, a robotic beast with two backs, and a scorpion-tailed cow.

Rumours spread quickly around the gallery:  these are printed, no way!  How?  That’s awesome!  My god, the things they can do nowadays, eh?  And it gets me aching for the future history of Star Trek when 3D printing has become the replicator, and I can say “tea, Earl Grey, hot” and immediately the microwave in the corner of the room prints me a China cup full of fine tea, Earl Grey, hot.

Shiva, the Destroyer, by Sumit Sarkar

Sad, angry end

Today, after the great fun of last night’s exhibition preview, it turns out that during the fun dark things were afoot.  Blank Media Collective and Spearfish welcomed the public into BLANKSPACE for Eurocultured X Manchester, and one member of the public didn’t see fit to repay our hospitality.  No, there was a theft.  So I say this directly to you, the person who stole a laptop from the staff kitchen: you dirty little piece of shit.  The police have been called.  Return it now, undamaged, and apologise, then cooperate with the police.  Alternatively your fingertips could burn and melt as your thieving fingers tap away on the stolen keyboard; your eyes can pop and fizzle as you stare at the screen that is not yours.  Fucking prick.

Last thing

Expect posts 304, 306 and 307 on Saturday.

171: Spesh in my pocket, plastic bags in my shoes

Round the corner from the flat earlier this evening, the road was blocked by police cars and vans with tape blocking off the whole street and two fire engines in the centre of it.  We drove down towards it on the way home and had to turn around and go back.  I strained my neck trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on.  I saw someone stood in the street wrapped in a blanket, and thought I saw someone being carried or wheeled out on a gurney, but I only snatched the briefest view and it was further obscured by the flashing lights causing glare on the window.  We drove the long way around in order to see the scene from the other side on the way home.  We saw nothing except a jumble of police vans and a few gawkers.  I stopped short of joining them (mainly because of the freezing wind) and now the curiosity is eating me up.

I can’t seem to find anything online about what might have happened.  Searching for news relating to Old Moat Lane, Manchester brings up a load of random unconnected nonsense and a community update page on the Greater Manchester Police website.  Apparently there is a problem with underage drinking.  Might be a bit of money to be made getting down there and offering to go to the off-license and buy bottles of White Lightning and vodka, for a small fee.  There’s also a priority problem with begging and vagrancy on Old Moat Lane.  I’m fed up with being moved on from there.  A man has got to make a living.  You might make yours from working in an office whilst wearing a business suit, but I make mine leaning semiconscious against a wall outside the corner shop, wearing a brown coat with a can of spesh in the pocket and plastic bags in my shoes.  There’s also a problem with youth related anti-social behaviour on Butron Road (presumably a misspelt Burton Road), but that’s got nowt to do with me.

Whatever caused the collection of emergency vehicles on Old Moat Lane will probably pop up in the local free paper, so I’ll let you all know what happened when I find out.  Join me in hoping no one was harmed.  Thank you, kind people.  Might be more interesting if someone got hurt though.  Or maybe a fire has begun that will sweep across Manchester, like London 1666, leaving very few deaths (recorded ones at least; who cares how many poor people’s deaths went unreported) but a hell of a good story.  We can only hope.  Good night.

149: How to steal a car, and how to miss an open goal.

A young man: he thinks he is grown up but his perception of reality is hopelessly out of sorts.   He walks down the street, sauntering in his oversized beanie hat, big black puffer jacket with tiny burnt bomber holes in the sleeves and breast, and gray tracksuit pants tucked inexplicably into his socks.  The neighbourhood street is mildly bustling; Kevin is leaving his flat and heading into town to do some Christmas shopping, young mums bring their kids back from school, and a car sits unminded ambling to keep it ticking after a week of inactivity.  A car?  Keys in the ignition?  Engine running?  I could ignore it; I could take comfort in the fact a neighbour feels safe enough to pop inside and leave his car running an unattended; I could continue happily about my life without being a pathetic little petty criminal shitbag.  But I would but were it not for the fact that I am that afore mentioned sauntering shitbag.  An untended running car – it must be mine!

So what do I do?  Well obviously I jump in the seat, reverse halfway down the street smashing it into a parked car, before being torn out of the seat by the angry owner then running away like a wet kitten.  It’s not my fucking fault is it, the engine was already running; what the fuck do you expect me to do?  It’s like fucking entrapment or something innit, ya prick.  If you don’t want your fucking car nicked don’t leave it running outside your own house, in your own street, for a mere matter of fucking minutes.  I’m like fucking Al de Niro or John Capone or some shit.  I’ll fuck you up and that.  I don’t know; that might be how these broken brain criminal types think.

So I saw someone try and steal a neighbour’s car from outside my flat.  Despite the little scrota running down the street right at me I’m really struggling to remember the description.  I have to get on top of it because I am a witness and had to give my details to the police officer.  If I had thought I could have taken a photo of his face; he ran directly at me staring at me, and then pelted passed and into the depths of the estate.  Even my shitty old phone could have taken a half decent picture and I might have had some value as a witness.  Ignorant twats like that need to be taught a lesson – jumping into a random car that does not belong to you is not the way real people behave.  I blame the parents, etc. Hanging’s not good enough; it’s too kind, etc.

Such bafflingly inconsiderate behaviour is enough to push me past Hitler rightwing, past bin Laden rightwing, even beyond Richard Littlejohn rightwing, and into the realms of your dad rightwing.  Burn the lot of them, chemically castrate the poor, send the sub-workers back down into the hellish catacombs from whence they came, feed the poor ignorant wretches their own swill mixed with oats and saw dust, punish them for their inevitable crimes against decency before they are even past the age of criminal accountability.  Throw them in the pit.  That’ll learn ‘em.

Block Chop 77:

There should be a statute of limitation as to how long and how many times advertising companies are permitted to show the same advert on television.  Once that limit is up, say two weeks, they must shift to a new one.  It may be permissible for them to use the same theme for three of four different adverts, and then they must switch to an entirely new approach.

For instance I am fed up with seeing that Haribo advert where the little twat in the suit hands sour sweets to everyone as they prepare for a group wedding photograph.  As the photographer shouts ‘cheese’ the said little twat shouts ‘Haribo’.  Everyone except the bride pops their sweet into their mouths, and completely overreacts to the mild sourness of the crap sweets.  In ridiculously inappropriate and stylised slow motion shots their faces wobble, gurn and contort.  Then the bride, who apparently has eyes in the side of her head, does her best ‘I’m soo annoyed’ acting.

This advert has exceeded its limit, and is henceforth banned from being televised.  All digital copies must be deleted, hard copies burned, and anyone harbouring illegal copies on their Sky+ boxes risks fines or imprisonment.  But the awful Haribo sequence is not even close to being the worst of the many shocking adverts poisoning our screens.

Possibly the most gut-wrenchingly, physically sickening of the corporate vignettes is for something I can’t even remember.  Actually, no I just remembered; it’s in the song.  ISA, ISA Baby.  A pretend radio show run by the over-enthusiastic fake employees of a bank attempt to be something; I’m not sure if they are trying to be funny, or quirky, or if they are just actively trying to be fucking dicks.  One woman bobs her head and looks over at the man as if to say ‘aren’t I such a kooky gal’, whilst pushing the faders uncomprehendingly.  Her stupid face should be blurred out.  It’s entirely possible she might be a nice person in real life, but if this advert is anything to go by we may have actually found a use for the burka.

Isa Isa Baby is overdue to be off the airwaves.  And if memory serves it may be the latest in a line of variations on a theme.  If that is the case, they must comply with my proclamation: No more pretend radio shows advertising banks.

Last but not least, and I feel it is rather trite to mention, the dreaded two words that should only be mentioned in hushed tones amongst people of strong will: Go Compare.  All it took was for me to type those two accursed words, and that disgraceful  tune is lodged in my head.  It makes me want to hack out that earworm with a butcher’s hook through my temple or eyeballs (whichever is quicker).  It is what the mute button was made for, and don’t the producers know it.  That is why they, the evil unspecified they, have added the words to the screen in subtitles.  All it takes is a glance at those words and the tune appears in my mind spontaneously.

The theme of the annoying fat opera singer whoring himself into derision, hate and public nuisance for the sake of money, has been played out variously; leaping from a car, desert island, ancient Egypt, possibly others.  Any further variations on the theme are now (in my mind at least) official classifiable as criminal acts.  I am not currently in a position of power over the world, so the most I can do is urge you to take advantage of any opportunity that arises.  Should you happen to meet anyone and discover they are involved in further production of this advert, you have my blessing to attempt a citizen’s arrest, or perhaps take a leaf out of Judge Dredd’s book and become judge, jury and most importantly, executioner.