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Post #4092

Friday links: instrumentation, smelly robots and love stories

A glut of interesting stuff on the studio list this week.

Matt Jones sent round an intro to Biophilia, Björk’s new multimedia project. As you’d expect from the small Icelandic bundle of re-invention, her new work is a departure from her previous oeuvre; Biophilia isn’t just an album, it’ll be accompanied by ten iPad apps. Her tour isn’t simply a tour. Starting with the Manchester International Festival, she’ll be continuing with a number of residencies across the world involving live performances and workshops.

Yesterday I watched the making of her new iPad-controllable celeste, the Gameleste. I love it, especially the little burst of Bach’s Invention No. 13 in A minor on organ in the middle:

The Gameleste – a custom instrument for Björk from Andy McCreeth on Vimeo.

Next door, RIG have been pumping out Robyn this morning [“I’ve got some news for you / Fembots have feelings too“], which seemed fitting as Matt Jones sent round Kevin Grennan‘s work The Smell of Control: Fear, Focus, Trust from this year’s graduate show of Design Interactions at RCA. It explores the blurring lines between robot and human interaction.

“The contrast between the physical anti-anthropomorphic nature of the machines and the olfactory anthropomorphism highlights the absurd nature of the trickery at play in all anthropomorphism”


Robot with sweat gland, from The Smell of Control

Mr Jones also sent round this genre mashup video. If only Amazon really sold a choose-your-own-adventure plot device button to sex up the weekend.

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Timo and Alex had their interest piqued by Nizo, which promises to bring Super 8 film goodness to the iPhone. I like the scrolling effect on their homepage. A nice way of tease-introducing the features which the app will contain.

Terminator 2 is twenty years old on Sunday. This stop-motion tribute is totally mesmerising:

Splitscreen: A Love Story was filmed entirely on a Nokia N8 and sent round the studio by Denise. Nicely shot, and not without a healthy dollop of romance-cheese.

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Happy weekending!

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