prosthetic knowledge

City of God - 10 Years Later (Extended Trailer) 

A documentary following the actors of the widely praised Brazilian film, how it changed the lives of the cast, both the professionals and first time actors (for good or bad).

It is released at the end of this year, but the video above is ten minutes long, giving a good idea of what to expect.

Commercial Breaks

Sad to hear about the closure of one of the longest running video game houses in the UK, Sony Liverpool. They maybe best known for bringing the Wipeout futuristic game franchise to the Playstation (and with it, a taste of what 21st century aesthetics would become), but the company took many forms before that …

Before Sony, it was Psygnosis, who specialised in games during the 16 Bit home computer era, best known for Shadow Of The Beast and Lemmings. Lemmings was created by (at the time) DMA Design, released by Psygnosis. DMA Design were responsible for the Grand Theft Auto franchise (and became Rockstar North, who do the hard coding).

Before Psygnosis, they were Imagine, who made games in the UK for 8 Bit home computers. In the video above, the company (alongside their rival, Ocean) were featured in an half-hour long documentary following the build up to their christmas releases.

Imagine went bankrupt during the making of the documentary, and there are plenty of fly-on-the-wall scenes captured during this period - it isn’t the first time things have gone wrong for those behind the company.

More about Psygnosis can be found here
[video previously posted here]

Beastie Boys - Beastieography 

Full-length hour and a half documentary on the Beastie Boys from MTV, first aired July 11th, 1998.

Demoscene - The Art of the Algorithms (2012) 

Great full-length documentary about the European Demoscene, a portrait of the creative digital subculture from 80s home computers to the current state:

In the 1980’s, something changed the world forever. Computer technology, mostly due to the appearance of affordable Commodore 64’s, entered households worldwide, providing the opportunity for everyone to create digital art. But existing art forms weren’t the only ones to be re-implemented on these computers; brand new forms of art also appeared, ones thought to be impossible up to that point. Computers provided an opportunity for the creator to produce visuals and sound effects and combine them to create the ultimate audiovisual experience, by using only the language of mathematics and writing program code, without physical interaction. As a result of such techniques, demos were born, and with them, the demoscene subculture. A demo can best be understood as a spectacular animated music video which is usually a few minutes long. And yet it’s something entirely different from a traditional video. Computer technics is the fastest developing part of our world, which produces more and more new opportunities for art. Moleman shows you now a digital subculture, where artists don’t use always the latest technology, but their aim is also to bring out the best from 30 year-old computer technics. 

Recommended for anyone interested in creativity and the computer, and worth the spare hour and a half time if you have nothing to do this Easter weekend. It is recommended to turn on YouTube’s captions on to understand the European programmers who cannot speak English.

You can find out more about the documentary from the makers ‘Moleman’ here, and download your own copy from here.

100 Yen: The Official Story Trailer

Commercial Breaks - A documentary about Imagine and Ocean Software 

For anyone interested in retro computer games, this BBC documentary is fascinating, found via the great video curation channel Network Awesome.

The documentary takes a look at two of the biggest computer game companies of 1984 in the UK - Ocean Software (the UK Electronic Arts of it’s time) and Imagine Software. In the film, both companies are preparing for a big Christmas release. During the course of the filming of this, Imagine was experiencing financial woes and disbanded:

In early 1984 the Imagine team were working on a spectacular project known as Bandersnatch. The game was to come in an A4 sized box containing around 30 ‘goodies’ including a required additional piece of hardware for your Spectrum computer. The retail price of Bandersnatch was expected to be around £40 and it was to be a completely new concept in computer games. Apparently 10 professional artists were working on the graphics alone. Bandersnatch was never released. On the 9th of July 1984, Imagine went bust after only 18 months of operation. Interestingly, its demise was documented by a BBC television program.

Synth Brittania

A music documentary made by BBC4 (shown a couple of years ago) takes a look at the origins of popular electronic music. From the BBC site:

Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.

In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including the Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Volatire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard and dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.

The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan’s appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army’s Are Friends Electric heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of the NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits.

By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music.

Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant.

Influencers - How Trends & Creativity Become Contagious

A short stylish documentary on the idea of the ‘Influencer’, an idea that originated in marketing in the 50s and still relevant today:

INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today’s pop culture.

It is interesting as a subject [and very dividing, depending on what you value].

Original Website: http://www.influencersfilm.com/
If you like the soundtrack, the music can be found at Soundcloud and Bandcamp

Off Book: Visual Culture Online | PBS Arts

A good primer on online visual culture, from memes to gifs and anything else. Worth noting that Tumblr is considered part of the new ‘online avant-garde’, along with 4chan, dump.fm, and reddit:

For decades now, people have joined together online to communicate and collaborate around interesting imagery. In recent years, the pace and intensity of this activity has reached a fever pitch. With countless communities engaging in a constant exchange, building on each others’ work, and producing a prodigious flow of material, we may be experiencing the early stages of a new type of artistic and cultural collaboration. In this episode of Off Book, we’ll speak with a number of Internet experts and artists who’ll give us an introductory look into this intriguing new world.

Featuring:

Chris Menning, Viral Trends Researcher, Buzzfeed
MemeFactory, Internet Researchers
Olivia Gulin, Visual Reporter, Know Your Meme
Ryder Ripps, Artist and Co-Creator, Dump.fm
John Kelly, PH.D., Founder and Chief Scientist, Morningside Analytics

Jackson Pollock 51 by Hans Namuth

The famous 10 minute documentary of the abstract expressionist painter.

Open Culture discusses the documentary and how it affected him, from media-driven art star to alcoholic demise.