Home-made 3D Microscope

Here is a design for a three dimensional stereoscopic microscope I have just invented. Many people, including scientists, think that bacteria and such only exists in two dimensions when in fact there are at least three. By attaching a microscope at a ninety degree angle and having a cube slide rather than a flat one, viewers can see microscopic objects in three dimensions! Amateur scientists can now see the smiling faces of tape worm as they move in the x, y, z directions we are all accustomed to. To not have a 3D microscope is similar to trying to study sea creatures by looking at them from above. This breakthrough will increase scientific output by a factor of four.

Thatcher's Funeral

After the death of Baroness Lady Margaret Hilda Thatcher on the 8th of April a committee immediately set about planning her funeral, as is the tradition after somebody's death. Thatcher was a controversial figure in British politics, dividing opinion during life and after her passing, though both sides would agree that the late ex-prime minister will be remembered for her actions and fashion sense. Nicknaming herself 'Iron Woman' due to her magnetic personality, Thatcher was an important figure throughout the eighties. She smashed the unions, brought in millions from taxation, saved English territory from Argentinian invasion, allowed people to right to buy their own houses and was an inspiration to a generation of women. She was also an old lady, who had a family, and it isn't fair to speak badly of the dead. Her funeral therefore will try to sum up her life succinctly, referencing the various trials and tribulations she endured in order to make Britain great once again.

The government had ring-fenced 200 million pounds in case of the late lady's passing, suggesting that it would cost more in the long run if they didn't give Maggie a proper burial. I was lucky enough to be invited along to a special preview event that would detail exactly how the two hundred million pounds would be spent in order to make sure that she was treated with the same respect she demanded whilst alive. Liberal Democrat leader Mick Clegg stepped onto the podium at the front of the hall. After the ice-breakers and toasts he began to describe what we could expect next Wednesday.

The funeral will start at 10 a.m in the morning. Thatcher will be contained in a special blue coffin covered in flowers that will be carried through the streets of London in a horse and carriage. Her family will follow behind, each riding a horse, then other various vehicles with important mourners. The prime minister and his friends will ride in a hearse for instance, The Queen will be in a limousine and Boris Johnson will ride a black bicycle. Behind these will be various soldiers and police officers dressed in full combat dress, overhead Prince Harry will hover in a helicopter.

The theme of the funeral will be Margaret Thatcher, as that who is being buried. The first of these special themed segments will begin just a few moments into the parade, with a green grocer holding a baby aloft to represent Thatcher's primordial origins. Milk will be squirted onto the funeral carriage by children picked from local schools who will then take the baby and hand it to Kenneth Branagh, playing Denis Thatcher, her millionaire husband who rescued her from being working class. The baby would then be transformed through a series of short vignettes into the woman who would go on to win the leadership of the country. This position would be played by the famous actress Meryl Streep, who'd act out her life whilst her body continued on it's path.

The first trial of Thatcher is the Falklands War. London Philharmonic Orchestra will provide the soundtrack for this section, in which a boat sculpture sailing away from the procession on the Thames estuary will be fired at and sank. A balloon representing the soldiers will gradually be inflated until it resembles Simon Weston. The veteran himself will then emerge from the crowd and join the procession, playing the saxophone every now and then. Afterwards comes the second trial of Thatcher, the miners' strike. Thick coal dust will be dispersed from the Baroness' carriage, submerging the mourners in a danger smog.

After having emerged through the danger smog, the next step was the way she dealt with the IRA. After a few fireworks being detonated around the horse and carriage an Irishman especially starved for the event will be released and is likely to begin to look for food. Funeral organisers have paid attention to these chaotic characters scattered throughout the parade, hoping that they add an element of excitement for mourners as well as acting as a kind of public arts thing.

At this point the coffin will be removed from the horse and carriage. The horse itself will be lead slightly away from the rest of the festivities and put onto a bus heading for Oldham. Meanwhile in a startling twist the coffin will be opened and Margaret Thatcher's dead body will be hoisted out by leading politicians and walked up the front steps of the cathedral. At the top of the steps will await David Cameron who will accept the body into his arms and give her a final goodbye before she is taken inside for the final stages of the funeral.

Inside the cathedral will await Jeremy Clarkson, Ben Milliband, Tony Blair, Prince Will, Kate Middleton, Jim Davidson, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nancy Reagan, David Beckham, Theopold LeStranz, Walton Goggins, Clint Eastwood, Paul Merton and other famous celebrities. All of them are encouraged to cry as Thatcher is taken through the central aisle. Prayers, songs and quotes will be played for guests as Thatcher is brought closer towards the front of the cathedral where a small crucible will await her. The head of the church will say something before Thatcher is delicately lowered into the pot at her feet. Inside contains ethically sourced molten iron for her body to be dipped into, creating a Thatcher-shaped statue made of rapidly cooling metal surrounding a core of biological matter. It is thought that her tomb will remain safe for the next one thousand years.

The Ministry Of Beige

Recently I attended the Leeds University degree show, the culmination of three years of study from art students from around the globe that had gathered in one building, as it makes it easier to teach. I usually made a point of visiting the various degree shows up and down the country in order to spot the next hot talent I can ear-mark for future reference, able to say in future conversations that I saw their early work and perhaps make a snide comment about it. As I walked those sanctimonious galleries that smelled slightly of emulsion and cheap wine, I examined that year's students suggestions as to what the best piece of work they had ever made was to be. There were abstract paintings, stuffed animals, a couple of rocks, photographs of topless women, bits of string, some sort of rusted bicycle, coloured tape, triangles and a few videos of students staring at the camera whilst things happened to them. Work like this happened up and down the country, though one of the slight differences was that every single piece here had a little red sticker on it, marking it as sold. I grabbed a student by the arm and demanded to know what was going on.
"Someone bought everything. I made a hundred quid on my crypto-vintage screen prints based on the works of Miguel de Cervantes recontextualised as a parody of social media." they uttered. I pushed them to one side as I made my way to the refreshments table, thinking that something was amiss. It was rare for anybody to sell work at these things, let alone for every single student to make a sale. I needed to track down this art enthusiast, although first I needed to make sure I capitalised on the refreshments.

Several refreshments later I was none the wiser. In fact I hadn't moved from the table. But as is the case at these events, sooner or later everyone needs a drink. I noticed him by the stream of whispers he left in his wake. Dressed in a sharp suit and pointy shoes, the figure of Miles Burgeaumont blends in like a black moth against the night sky. Though there is something different about him compared to a moth. He has genuine joy in his eyes. I go forward to apprehend him, to ask him if he is the enthusiast that has bought all the work, though I am intercepted by a proud parent who asks the questions for me.
"You bought my daughter's work!" cried the father.
"Indeed I did! I was surprised at the...suggestions it made. I needed to have it." said Mr. Burgeaumont.
"I'm glad. The thing is, it wasn't for sale. You see, she used several pieces of my late mother's jewellery in her collage and I'd like them back."
"But I paid a fair price. Don't worry, they will be looked after, even displayed in a gallery. In London."
"Oh London! You should have said!" squawked the father. They made idle chit-chat whilst I began to make some notes and did a few drawings. London. The land of the blind. And the one eyed man could be king. But why? Surely the one eyed man would never be able to prove that he could see. I then noticed that the work was being taken off the walls and taken outside.

Everyone was at the front of the university, looking at Mr. Burgeaumont standing by the pile of artwork. He began to speak.
"Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for attending the Leeds Art School Degree Show. As you may or may not know, my name is Miles Burgeaumont. I am an art collector and have bought every single piece of work at this event. You may wonder why I have bought all of this work, and I am telling you now that I wish to display it in London at my very own gallery." said Mr. Burgeaumont. Some people began to cheer.
"Before doing so it needs a slight modification. You see, I represent the Ministry of Beige. The ministry represents everything mediocre, bland, sexless, boring. We have identified that certain works of art do not meet a standard of quality that will in anyway increase the culture of society. They are required to be unmade. To be beigeified." said Burgeaumont. Men emerge from the back of a van and begin to pour gallons of beige paint over the work. The thick gloss falls thickly across paintings and sculptures, erasing all detail. Some students laugh, some are shocked, some rush forward to try and rescue their work, though members from the ministry block any attempts to save the work from being covered in litre upon litre of beige.
"I have bought the work. It is mine to do with as I please." said Burgeaumont.
"But your idea itself is bland and boring. Anti-art is nothing new and has been done better a hundred of times before! Some of the work you're destroying is itself anti-art!" shouted a tutor, making their way forward. A bucket of beige paint is thrown over them.
"This isn't an artistic statement. I am just pouring beige paint over your work." said Burgeaumont. He continued to answer questions and protests as more and more beige paint was poured, it began to ooze out onto the street, onto the pavement, it was splashed up the trees and smeared along the walls. I am unsure as to what happened next as I went inside to make use of the refreshment table, but by the time I left the university there wasn't anybody around, though beige paint covered every surface like a wet snow. I walked over to the pile of art work that was the nucleus for this rearrangement in colour and knelt down, picking out a painting at random and wiping away some of the beige with my sleeve. It was a portrait of David Cameron with a Hitler moustache. I dropped it back into the pile with disgust and began to walk along the empty roads of Leeds, everything was beige. Everything.

Echo Tone

Turbo Bully And The Infinite Sadness

I am sitting in the back seat of a stolen car, on both sides of me sit teenagers smoking spliffs. The driver, who says his name is Mike, is also smoking a spliff, though I would consider it to be more of a 'blunt' or 'doob'. The air in the car is thick with delicious smelling smoke, my head is becoming heavy with the illegal atmosphere. Hard techno music is thumping the subwoofers behind my seat as the car zips along the M25, I do not know the precise location of our destination though I can hazard a guess that there will be no wi-fi hotspots. The conversation in the car is minimal. I can't help but be reminded of the beach landings on Normandy in 1942, the sense of ritual quiet as each soldier prepares for the coming onslaught. Not that I was there, but I have seen Saving Private Ryan which I was told by film-makers to have been an accurate representation of the event. The lads in the car smoking cannabis could have potentially fought on those lousy beaches themselves had they had the poor luck to be born eighty years earlier. Instead it was the twenty first century and the war being fought was to get out of your head at the weekend. Are these drug taking youths any less brave than the soldiers of world war two? I was about to find out.

The car rolls to a stop in the darkness. Mike and his friends get out, I follow a few steps behind, not used to tracking across the slippery night soil in my Armani shoes. We are heading towards a forest. Up ahead I can hear crazy music and the laughter of young people. I ask Mike how often he comes to these parties.
"All the time, yeah? Even when I'm not here, I'm still here. Just in my imagination, yeah?" He says, offering me the drug spliff. I take a few drags and pass it back, holding the smoke in until we reach the edge of the clearing. In front of us are perhaps a hundred or so teenagers dancing in the darkness whilst a DJ plays white label bootlegs from the back of the van. The only lighting emanates from mobile phones and cigarettes. I ask Mike what happens now.
"We go find the man." He says, leading the way through the throng of people. It isn't long before we find a drug dealer. I stand awkwardly a few feet away, I am at least ten years older than most people here. Mike returns with a smile on his face and small bags of powder in his hand.
"Let's get stupid." He hands me a gram of the new drug that is popular with teenagers nowadays. I lick the back of my hand, gently tap out some powder and proceed to snort it up my nose. I have just taken about a third of a gram of 6-2sb monosulphoboridium diemthlamide. Otherwise known as 'turbo bully', or 'turbs' for short.

Turbo Bully was first synthesized in 1996 by scientists in Botswana in order to try and increase libido for animals in captivity. The drug itself didn't have this affect, though it did make the animals act strangely. It wasn't until Turbo Bully was accidentally taken by humans that scientists knew exactly what it did. The drug first dilates the central nervous system, engorging areas of the brain that lie beneath the neocortex. It quickly increases libido and relaxes the muscles, whilst inhibiting emotion and cognitive functioning. As well as this are feelings of euphoria, dipsomania and mild panic. All of these combined have made Turbo Bully into the ideal drug for partying youths trying to get high on their own supply! The thing that seperates Turbo Bully from cocaine, ecstasy, methadrone and other amphetamines is that it's effects last for four days, making it an extremely cost effective way to get off out of your head for a bank holiday weekend. I can already feel the effects of the drug taking hold as I wade into the crowd.

Bodies, faces, light, music. My own body and mind is rolling along at a frantic pace, as if fat snakes have replaced my skeletal structure so that I writhe like some subterranean thing burning in the sunlight. My awareness is fleeting, sometimes moment of extreme lucidity take over only for my consciousness to return into the drug fuelled nightmare of the night. I find Mike again at some point and ask him how much I was meant to take. He laughs when I say I have took the whole gram, which begins to send me into a kind of panic. By that point I had been trying to dance for a while and failing miserably, barely aware at the disgusted looks of the teenage faces that surrounded me as I rolled in the dead leaves and mud, groaning. I black out. It is morning and I am walking alone down a country road, unable to remember how I got there. The drugs effects are still powerful, my brain feels as if it has a direct connection to the internet, but the internet of the late nineties. Things take on a slight 'geocities' aesthetic, all I can think about are gifs of screaming skulls and wireframe models. I try to rest in a field but find that sleep is impossible. I am more wired out of my mind than I have ever been and only eight hours have passed.

I find myself at a motorway service station, I must have walked it. In my hands I am holding a copy of the radio times. I open it up and see doctor who smiling at me from the glossy page. I tear his face out and stuff it in my pocket. It may be useful later. There is a loud ringing in my ears.

Somehow I have gotten onto a coach. I do not know it's destination and feel too scared to ask anybody. I push myself as close as I can into the chair I am sitting in and look in awe at the traffic speeding past, unsure as to what I was doing. It is too much for me and so I go and sit in the toilet located at the rear of the bus. I look in the plastic mirror and see myself, pale, gurning, pupils dilated, a cut above my eyebrow. The visage of a rave maniac. I decide the best thing for me to do is to try and get home.

I'm unsure of the next sequence of events exactly, but I have tried to piece it together from various notes I had made on both my arms, answer phone messages to my friends and family and my credit card statement. Somehow I had ended up in Glasgow and decided to get a train back home. I must have gotten on the wrong train or forgotten where I had lived as I ended up in Blackpool. From here I travelled down the coast until reaching Wales, where things get strange. Though I do not remember what happened to me in Wales, I have the feeling I may have engaged in some sort of animal combat, perhaps against pigs or cows, though I'm unsure exactly. By the time I got back to England I was dressed in some clothes I had found in a bin bag outside a charity shop doorway. Using a combination of taxis, public transport and a rented motorbike I finally reached my house. After checking the date I had found only two days had passed, I still had another 48 hours left in the narcotic adventure. I cannot properly convey the feeling of dismay I felt at that moment, though it seemed to me that the effects were less strong and at least I was home. I had also gone deaf in one ear. I spent the next two days between my bed and my bath, listening to radio four and drinking herbal tea. There were occasions where I wondered if I had gone insane and that maybe there was no such drug as Turbo Bully, though I dismissed these ideas as ridiculous. Of course it existed. How else could I explain the nose bleeds, the tinnitus, the fidgeting, the jaw clenching, the constant sweating, the hallucinations, the discolouration of my glans? As the fourth day started to end I reflected on the question I had posed earlier, if taking drugs in modern Britain was in any way similar to WW2. And I can safely say after my experiences that not only is taking drugs more challenging, it is also more worthwhile.

Advertising 2.0

You turn on the television. An advert is on. You put the television on mute.
You go on the internet. You see a banner advertising a free ipod if you can shoot three ducks. You ignore it.
You are walking around in a city. You see a perfume advert on the side of a bus. You can't remember what it's for.

Welcome to the modern world. Media has never been so prolific in everything we do. Your fridge can download bread, you can watch films on your trainers and stream music that hasn't been performed directly into your pillow. In theory the advertising revenue from these services should be in the billions, perhaps even the trillions. Yet day by day advertising firms are failing, the men and women who write slogans line the walls of job centres across the country thinking of ways to rebrand themselves. The jingle writers have switched to making dub-rave subtunes. Celebrities offered millions in endorsements quickly falter on their contracts, such as Tiger Woods having sexual intercourse or Brad Pitt having a facelift. The adverts are there but nobody is watching. Some say that advertising as we know it will cease to exist ten years from know. Others have slightly different ideas.

Enter Tukanov Imaging, the brain child of Wanda Bellahyde. Her PR company is just a few years old yet is quickly climbing up as being one of the big hitters in advertising.
"One of our bigger problems came from Mad Men. All of a sudden everyone wanted to be an advertising exec. You'd see all these bright-eyed kids come straight from college willing to do work for free. It fucked up the whole system." she says, drinking from a glass of wine. We are sat in her company headquarters, the London skyline beyond the window is blocked by a slightly larger building. Though at just the right angle you can see through the windows across the road at parts of the cityscape. I ask her what made Tukanov Imaging so successful.
"It's all in the advertising babe. Any five year old can install adblock on his dad's pc, half the people nowadays would rather look at youtube for a funny video than watch a lager advert. It's awful. Well, at least for the other dinosaurs. At Tukanov Imaging we're rebranding branding. We're looking into the future, y'know?" she says, leaning forward slightly. I ask her what that even means.
"Advertising 2.0. Though now I'm saying it out loud I'm wondering why the .0, it's not like there's going to be advertising 2.1 or 2.6 is there? Whatever babe, the point is...well it's people, right? You walk past a restaurant, you see a lot of people inside you think 'Oh, that's a good restaurant.', but it might not be, right? You don't know if the food's good or if the service is nice, you're only going because other people are there. People like conforming. So I'm thinking, what's the biggest window in the world?" she asks me. I think for a minute then say there's probably one in a cathedral somewhere. She shakes her head.
"No. Windows. Y'know, Bill Gates? Those are the biggest windows! And sitting at all those windows are people just like you and me, talking to each other on social media. So what we're offering to users is an interactive advertising opportunity. We pay people to say things for us." she says, leaning back and stretching her arms far apart. I nod in understandment.
"Why spend fifteen million on an advert with Clooney when I can pay one of your friends a dollar to say 'Oh I like this thingy-majig' or 'Hey I just saw the big summer blockbuster it was awesome!'." What she's saying is grounded in hard scientific fact. It has been proven that the number of tweets regarding a film before release is in exact correlation to it's box office success. I ask her if she thinks people would be willing to sell their personalities for such a small price. She laughs loudly.
"You remember that guy in America who had the casino brand tattooed onto his forehead? We organised that. We offered Felix Baumgartner the opportunity to fulfil his lifelong dream of breaking the world sky diving record as long as he would say 'Mmmm, red bull gives me wings.' just before jumping. We brought together Adidas and the United States Army so that every soldier is now required to wear Adidas footwear. Everything is advertising. People are going to be saying it anyway, why shouldn't they get paid for it? And chances are they're going to spend that payment on whatever we're advertising anyway. It's a win-win." she says. I look through the window, then another window and another window, at the London skyline. The sun is setting. I think it a worthy metaphor for something, though I'm not sure for what. I try to speak but for some reason my tongue feels bulbous and disproportioned suddenly. I merely make a sound. She continues anyway.
"We're working on text messaging in the next quarter. After that, who knows, maybe use alternative reality or something. Pay people to say things in real life. Current technology opens up new avenues for potential advertising opportunities as well as new challenges. You speaking my lingo?" I walk over to the window and open it, letting the stale London air enter the room.
"What are you doing?" she remarks incredulously. The wind blows through my hair and at my cheap suit. I turn to her and try to talk again, though all I seem to manage is a strange sort of groaning noise. I run over to her desk and throw her laptop out of the window before running out of the room, clutching at my mouth. I continue groaning as I stand in the lift and walk out through the reception. After walking just a few feet on the pavement I throw back my head and begin to shout.
"I just want to watch a funny advert with a catchphrase that everybody repeats like the one from the compare the market advert or perhaps even the go compare advert. But even those are changing and becoming more ironic, more self aware. Advertising companies know they are just making shit but they think that if they make fun of it it makes it okay! But it is not okay! It is all fucking bullshit and I am sick of it!" I say. By the time I have finished my voice has been reduced to a whisper. I continue walking, thinking about where film posters fit into the advertising landscape. Is a film an advertisement for itself? Are clothes real? Can I rest between the shelves of a supermarket, dreaming of my softs, fearing nothing?

Nothing Has Changed Since 1989

The world wide web has caused a time fracture to occur, causing the last ten years to repeat at varying tempos since 1989. I propose that nothing has changed for the last twenty three years. You may be reading this and thinking 'of course it has', though I ask you to think again. Has it really? I'm not arguing that new events haven't occurred or that time hasn't advanced, rather that nothing has changed in particular.

So let us first consider what change is. You may look at yourself and maybe even provide that as evidence. You may say "I have aged by twenty three years or even have been born in that time.", though I would then suggest that there was somebody your age at any particular time in the eighties. Not only that, but they had as bigger impact on world events as you currently have. Even individuals that have the potential for enormous change, such as the important politicians, remarkable scientists and artists or particular daring revolutionaries exist at all moments. They do not produce something radically different but build upon previous events. If Albert Einstein had been born a hundred years earlier would he have proposed the theory of relativity or perhaps the theory of electricity? If it had been the former he wouldn't have been understood, if it had been the latter he'd have been just as remarkable had he been born at any particular point in history. Of course I am not suggesting a literal reincarnation of Albert Einstein, though rather the concept of Albert Einstein. At any one time there are only a certain number of influential people on the Earth yet the population increases significantly every year. Either way a decent proportion of individuals have little impact on history, and even those that do are remembered more for their actions than how they were as people. If something is due to happen it will.

Which takes us to events. You may argue that the world trade centre attacks significantly changed culture in the west, or the financial crisis of the late zeroes, or various natural disasters over the last two decades, though humanity has been in a consistent state of crisis since the first humans left Africa. Events themselves may have massive impact on your personal life, society or entire ecosystems, though on a personal level a person will still go to sleep at night, work so that they can eat and enjoy the company of others. From the shamans of the Amazon to the American soldier fighting in Iraq, both are human beings that would have done the exact same thing if born to each others mothers. The cultures may differ, either geographically or temporally, but people are people. Wars happen, things are made, the sun goes down and so on, but there is nothing significantly new about any of these things at a fundamental level. Even with specific events that may have changed cultures at a massive level, such as world war two or the civil rights movement, directly involved less than one percent of the entire human population on the planet. And if an individual was involved in these changes, chances are that they would not be conscious of the impact of the event during the event.

So why has time repeated from the eighties exactly? I concede that certain world changing events have occurred in the past as life has significantly differed from Ancient Egypt to Modern Tokyo, though I believe the nineteen eighties to have been the pinnacle of human progress. Is Tokyo in 2013 so much more different from Tokyo in 1989? Perhaps on a cosmetic level, though all it is is cosmetic. If looking at a photograph of Tokyo from the last twenty three years the only real notifier of when it might be would be if the cars were new or if people had mobile phones. The models of the cars are unimportant, people have been using them for the last century to get around in rather than the train or the horse and cart. The mobile phone is the only notable change, though we had those in the eighties anyway. Which brings us to technological change, which I suggest is also inconsequential. In the last twenty years we have had theoretically world changing inventions being made yet none have been implemented fully enough to differ the current time to that of the eighties. Advances in communications, medicine, physics, computing and energy have had little, if any, impact on the way we live. We still put petrol in cars. We still meet our friends face to face. We may be able to live longer and healthier lives, but all this does is allow an individual to survive old age for longer rather than have the abilities and appearance of a younger person. The internet could be argued to have had changed the way we live, but all it is is a faster way to access information. I can find out almost any known fact I want by searching for it on the internet, or I could read a book that would have taught me other facts around the information and perhaps allowed me a deeper knowledge on the subject. I can talk to almost anyone, but I can in real life. And even if I was to make friends with someone on the other side of the world chances are that I would one day want to meet them without the internet to separate us, negating the usefulness of the internet in that sequence of events. Otherwise I can write letters, send faxes or phone people if I want to talk to them instantly. Other uses such as online gaming, social media, downloading files and so on have an analogue counterpart. The internet has replaced this analogue counterpart, as less people may play sports or be part of clubs or rent videos, but that we still undertake these actions is a sign that we haven't changed as a society. A person might be watching films on a television or on their mobile phone, but they are still watching films. Couples might meet at a nightclub or over the internet, but they still will have sex. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to film it then put on youtube for people to comment on does it still make a sound? 'How' people do things isn't as important as 'why' people do things and why we do things hasn't and won't change since the beginning and end of humanity.

The eighties in particular marks the beginning of this loop for a few reasons. Part of the major stagnation has to do with the advanced form of capitalism put into place in the eighties. The economy has always been a significant force in shaping society, though this particular type of economy has made it so that the rich get richer and the poor to feel as though they are through selling them various gadgets to make their lives lazier. Any resistance to this idea has little chance in succeeding as Capitalism has been effective in absorbing counter-culture in previous decades, first by first appearing hostile to an idea before cashing in once enough people are aware, such as the sixties free love movement, gangsta rap, the rave scene and so on. Using this makes it difficult for anything considered dangerous to society to remain so for any length of time whilst allowing those in marketing to appear as if they have a sense of humour or that they support these concepts, even though some of these go entirely against the ethos of the concept they are attempting to sell. A majority of those that are in these subcultures are often young at the time of their conception yet will often grow older and calmer as time increases. Children also became a viable market in the eighties as they began to have their own money as well as changes in parenting. The advent of cartoons such as He-Man and Transformers tied in with toys turned a good profit, and these children have grown up to have their own children who also watch remakes of these cartoons and also buy toys and so on. Advertising often aims to recreate nostalgia in some way in order to revert people back to how they were in the eighties, when things appeared better, though this goes hand in hand with the infantilization of the work place and amount of entertainment technology on the market. If it wasn't for larger televisions, new computers, games and DVDs people would spend their money on other things that would expand the mind differently, such as travelling, hobbies or socializing. The last notable pop culture icons that have remained over the years were from the eighties, like Michael Jackson or Madonna, rather than ones that have come and gone, such as Kurt Cobain, The Spice Girls, Eminem etc.

And what of the future? Will we ever end this ten year loop of celebrities, junk food, international warfare, dance music, political scandal, mobile phones and silly hair? I'm unsure. Technology has the potential to change the world but only if we use it correctly. Ideas are only important if people act on them. The outcome only changes significantly if you significantly alter the variables. Will things like ordering your shopping to your door or wearing a camera on a pair of glasses or having a robot drive your car around change our concepts of society, politics, relationships, gender, race, age, work, leisure, life or death at all? Or will it just be like the eighties forever.

The Second Large Glass

The supermodel was dressed in a turquoise dress and matching six inch heels whilst the various photographers milled around, shouting encouragement and redirecting lights in order to best illuminate the beautiful woman. She was stood next to a eight foot high pane of glass and gently rested her body against it, where her skin met the surface it all became the same featureless, flat colour.
"Tilt!" screamed the director. Pulleys were jigged about and the top of the glass began to descend, creating an angle growing less and less steep as the seconds ticked by.
"Hoist!" he yelled. The pane of glass began to slowly ascend. The scene was set. Silence had fallen over the crew as they watched the supermodel slowly begin to slide off the glass. Cameras tracked the viscosity of her skin as a strange squeaking sound filled the room. Just as her hips reached the bottom of the glass, she flopped down, landing slightly unsteadily on her feet.
"Great job! Can we go again at a thirty seven degree angle?" said the director. She nodded, going to one side to have her make-up reapplied as a window cleaner descended from above to clean the glass.

Candy Crush Sage

Bucharest. The word summons up for me images of the subtropics, boulevards, gardens, markets. There seemed to me to be an element of light danger, cold war paranoia mixed with film noir, that I couldn't help but feel slightly on my toes as I left the airport. Eighty minutes later I was at the headquarters of one of the fastest growing online gaming companies this side of the millenium. I wait at the reception for a while and look at several large oil paintings mounted on each wall. They are abstract, red on red, and I can't help but get up to examine one more closely. My field of view is entirely submersed into the painting, though a tap on the shoulder jolts me out of my fugue.
"Riccardo Zacconi will see you now." says the receptionist. I nod solemnly and make my way towards the stairs, wondering exactly how I got to be at the headquarters of king.com in the first place.

I entered the office of Zacconi and see a short, strong man sitting on a stool by a large desk up against a small window. He turns as I enter and gestures that I should sit, which I do quite happily. I watch him work for a while, he seems to be playing a game on a flat computer. The bleeps and bloops punctuate the dreamy soundtrack from time to time, as does the odd word in Romanian I can't recognize yet feel they are uttered in anger. He is of course playing Candy Crush Saga, the flagship game from king.com. With more than four billion users playing the game worldwide and more each day, Candy Crush Saga is taking both the digital and physical world by storm. Zacconi finishes the game and shakes his head before coming over to sit on the floor by me. We both introduce ourselves formally and I begin the interview.

"So, tell me a bit about yourself, about the company." I say. Zacconi glances back to the flat computer at his desk and his face twitches.
"My name is Riccardo Zacconi, I am the lead designer of digital games at king.com. We started here ten years ago, as midasgames, now we're one of the biggest suppliers of games on the market. Forget this call of duty or halo. Does your sister play that? Can a child play that? No. We design games for everyone." he says.
"And so you think that is why Candy Crush has been so successful?"
"Of course. It doesn't need any explanation, it's simple. It is the occam's razor of entertainment."
"Could you tell me about Candy Crush? How it came to be? Where it's going?" I say, leaning forward slightly. Zacconi rubs at a scar on his cheek before placing a delicate hand on my shoe.
"It came to me in a dream. At least, I think it was a dream. American candies, falling, exploding, fitting into place. Patterns of colour. When I woke I had already been doing the preliminary coding for the thing in my sleep, scrawled in pen on my wife's back." he says quietly.
"But what's the concept behind it?" I say. I knew what the game was about. Players moved pieces around in order to create rows that would make pieces disappear in order for more pieces to fall from the top. This in itself was nothing new, though it was the combination of aesthetics, sound, tactics and luck that had made the game successful. Not to mention the social media aspect of requesting extra lives or 'tickets' in order to progress in the game. 24% of all facebook activity over the last few months had been people sending lives back and forth over Candy Crush.
"The concept? Ah. Follow me please." says Zacconi, getting up. I offer him a hand to steady himself but he refuses, as is the way of lead designers.



We are now walking through a dimly lit office, the only light emanates from the CRT monitors stationed in each cubicle. There might be three or four hundred people on this floor, I know that the building is about forty stories high.
"What most people forget is that the game is called Candy Crush Saga. Emphasis on the saga aspect. Consider Beowulf, Sturlunga, Volsunga and so on. Perhaps the more contemporary would be Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you see? But what these things have in common besides thematic similarities such as epic journeys or good and evil, is that they take time to fully digest. It is the time aspect that allows people to become attached to the characters and the world to such an extent it creates a kind of third place, between fact and fiction, you see?" he says. I nod, knowing exactly what he means. Elvis Presley, the JFK assassination, television soaps, the concept of family, biker culture and so on. On the surface each of these seemed to be more of a hobby than anything else, yet often these would become the subject of fanaticism.
"So what you're saying is that computer games are the next form of communication? Like books or film. And you see Candy Crush Saga as being a great work in this artform?"
"Precisely. The last thirty years of gaming has been shit. Candy Crush Saga is changing the world. You don't need realistic models, artificial intelligence or physics. It's all about the plot, the story, the human element. And what is more human than struggle? The underlying plot of the game is that of a journey, though one of pacifism. The average person can identify more with Ghandi than they can Jack the Ripper." he says. We have stopped walking and have arrived at a balcony overlooking Bucharest. The sun has begun to set, though the air is still warm.
"Can they though? Maybe part of the reason that things like murder have such a prevalence in our culture is that we, as human animals, enjoy that kind of thing?" I say. Zacconi turns to me. Maybe I see a tear in his eye, though he seems to reabsorb it.
"Just because that's the way it is doesn't mean we can't make steps to change it, you see? Candy Crush Saga is the first step in the complete pacification of world culture through computer games. We have started a trend in this type of gaming that will advance for decades, long after this company has been bought out. It is Vegetarianism. It is Buddhism. It is Marxism. It will change the world." he says. My phone beeps. One of my friends has requested that I send them a train ticket so that they can reach lemonade lake, and I oblige without thinking. Maybe Zacconi is right. He is crafting a subconscious mode of thinking through social gaming that appeals to everyone, no matter the creed or the colour, gender or age. I wonder what the world could be like if Zacconi had more sinister intentions, promoting illegal or immoral activities. Though as I turn from the Romanian sunset and look upon the visage of Zacconi I see a man with a pure heart, his expression set into that of a man gazing into the potential of tomorrow, a world he could have a hand in forging through Candy Crush Saga.

The Insect Eaters

A chart showing rising food prices. Statistics on global warming. Words such as 'overpopulation', 'taste risk' and 'megavalue' flashed by on the powerpoint presentation. Somebody was talking in the background, though I couldn't quite hear him due to the incessant buzzing coming from a hollow glass cube containing wasps. The presentation finishes.

"Any questions?" says Michael Smith, founder of Snacksects. I put up my hand slowly. I am the only person in the audience besides an apiculturist and his daughter, though both have fallen asleep.

"So, what was that presentation about again?" I say, finally taking out my dictaphone.
"Essentially we believe that due to the current food predictions, done by scientists, we will inevitably have to eat insects in order to feed the world. Well, they already eat them around the world anyway. We at Snacksects wish to bring insect eating to the West through a mixture of marketing strategies, rebranding insects as a potential food item and presenting these food items in an aesthetically pleasing way." he said.
"Okay. But if that's the case, why don't people just keep insects at home? It must be easier than gardening." I said, with no real idea how difficult either gardening or insect farming actually is. Michael Smith laughs a hearty laugh, shakes his head then leans against the podium.
"Anybody can farm insects, true. But then they can grow their own vegetables, keep cattle and so on. Why don't they? Because it takes up too much time essentially. Why go to the trouble of buying a greenhouse, maintaining it, buying soil, seeds and so on when you can go to the shop and buy whatever you want? Not only that, we have identified the best way to make consumers desire to eat insects."
"By making them into burgers?" I said, remembering a few pictures from earlier.
"That is one revenue stream, correct. We also have a range of oven chips made from maggots, dry-roasted beetles, chocolate coated ants and so on. Some people don't like to eat cuts of meat as it reminds them too much that it came from an animal. So we have decided that by processing the base product to such an extent that it is unrecognisable, people will eat it." he says. I nod and begin to wonder about the possibility that insects would be widely consumed in the west. Perhaps the horse meat scandal was part of a media conspiracy in order for people to be unsure about beef. It would only take a few youtube videos in order to change public opinion entirely. They had their work cut out after the many reality shows having contestants eating live insects as part of a task, though this is as ridiculous as trying to eat a live pig or a live lamb.

Into the presentation room a plate of highly processed ant cubes are brought out, each covered in a layer of salt and vinegar flavourings, preservatives, wheat extract and sugar. I accept one and put it in my pocket for later, I wondered what would happen if it was dropped off a motorway bridge onto a car windscreen below.

Dinner Evening, 17th March

On the table across from me sits one of the most prodigious actors of our time. He is one of Britain's most prolific male actors with a career that spans decades, working with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Johnny Depp, Timothy Dalton and Christian Slater. He is Kevin Eldon, the actor. Kevin Eldon is surprisingly almost unrecognisable upon meeting him for the first time. He wears the expression of a powerful man, his trademark familiar face somehow reverting to an almost reptilian-like coolness sunk just millimetres beneath the pale meat. We are drinking Eldon's favourite claret: 'Boca Vino'. It is a thoughtful, deep bordeaux, with a kind of musky scent that lingers on the senses long after ingestion. I'd like to say that these traits were also common in Eldon, but he is more man than wine. We have arranged the dinner in order to discuss his new BBC 2 comedy sketch show 'It's Kevin.' though discussion has moved onto other topics.
"You see, I could have been Alan Partridge. It was my idea basically. The thing they changed was the catchphrase being 'A-Ha!', instead of having my idea.'I'm here!' he'd say. But he'd say it high pitched. That's the thing about inventing a comedy character that is taken in a different direction. Really, I'm the best Alan Partridge impersonator that there ever was. As Steve Coogan was doing an impression of my impression. It just changed the dynamic too much." says Eldon. We are eating white veal served with olives, tomatoes and roast parsnips. The food is delicious, I can understand why Eldon is a regular. As he continues to methodically eat his food, he has just finished a ten minute monologue about nineties British comedy. He is an excellent story teller and I had heard many other interesting, often funny, stories in the previous hour ranging from his experiences in stand-up comedy, his love of hiking, his brushes with death and his thoughts on conspiracy theories, especially regarding global warming.
"So...what do you think about twitter?"
"Well it's a good thing you brought it up as I was just going to say that I read something on twitter the other day that I think you may find funny, but first I must explain a few things." Kevin stops midsentence and looks over my shoulder. I turn and see that the famous DJ Stuart Maconie has entered the restaurant and is sitting a few tables behind us. He is alone.
"Fucking Stuart Maconie." says Eldon, losing his calm exterior for a second so that I see a flash of the beast, as if he was just a curtain containing some snarling bag of hate filled ape, all made of hot piss and fingernails.
"You have a problem with Stuart Maconie?"
"No, not at all. We've known each other since 1989. You know, some say that was the second summer of love, don't they?"
"I think they do."
"Did you do much of that then? You know, gone to one of those parties, taken ecstasy, ." said Eldon. He slices an olive in half and with great care lances it with a single tine.
"I have."
"Me too. So did Stuart Maconie. Anyway, what was it you were asking me about?"

Just as we are finishing up our main course a waiter arrives carrying a silver tray. On top are two glasses of lager.
"What is this?" says Eldon to the waiter, annoyed.
"Your friend sent them over." said the waiter, setting the drinks down onto the table. I go to turn around again but Eldon signals for me not to react.
"Thank you." says Eldon. The waiter leaves us to stare at the two pints of lager. They look ridiculous and crass by our empty plates and glasses of wine.
"Fucking Stuart Maconie. Every time." says Eldon, shaking his head. He then continues his story about the possible film he'd be starring in, a biopic of Alan Turing. Our plates are taken away and we wait for dessert. Eldon drinks both pints. When the cheese board is brought Eldon signals for the waiter to come closer.
"I'd like for you to send a glass of wine vinegar over to Stuart Maconie's table."
"Vinegar?"
"Yes. Tell him that it's what we're drinking."
"I can't serve a glass of vinegar Mr. Eldon." says the waiter. I watch all of this silently, chewing slowly on a lump of cheese. It has the atmosphere of a nightmare.
"Are you listening to me? I am friends with your boss. I have been coming to this restaurant for almost fifteen years. I am Kevin Eldon. So why don't you do what I fucking say?" says Eldon. The boy nods and walks off quickly, face red. Eldon cuts himself a slice of cheese and rubs at his jaw.
"You know, I sometimes think it's funny that people consider that they know who Kevin Eldon is because I appear on their televisions or laptops or phones. My trade as a comedian has lead people to think I am somehow the act I put on to entertain the public. But they forget that it's just a job for me. I am superimposed onto reality you know? I have projected a concept of myself outward and people consider it to be the truth. When the truth is I'm shape shifting. I am shape shifting before your very eyes and you cannot believe it." says Kevin Eldon. I nod, beginning to understand. He was an actor.

On The Criticism Of Jean Baudrillard

Or 'Mungo's Revenge', as it was affectionately known in some circles, definitely happened the other night in the city of Manchester, England. A feast for the eyes and laser surgery for the belly, OTCOJB (MR) specified the doubts and fears of a pre-apocalyptic society that had previously been unuttered for some unknown reason. Yet OTCOJB was a terrifying success, each piece of criticism raining mental and spiritual devastation, caught in the blast from nuclear weapons, bound by the spider and having a steel straw plunged into your body, over and over, removing the juices whilst kept alive for days (insect/human hybrids)

"When invading Europe the Romans created a map the exact same size as the land they were conquering, the parchment covering miles upon miles of forests, mountains and towns. As the decades wore on the plants and animals died, leaving early Europeans to crawl beneath the fading and yellowing parchment, drawing beneath a map of the sky. Surviving shreds of this map are encased in glass two thousand years later, looked at by the withered descendants of this land. Google are doing the same thing but with computers." - Jean Baudrillard 1998


On The Criticism Of Jean Baudrillard.















Examples provided from Dr. DC and Dr. SR.

Information Light

The executives waited in the foyer, mouths open, eyes vacant. They appeared to be subintellectuals and in fact they were, except when it came to business. A sort of capitalist autism had set into each of them, smashing down the labyrinth walls of the mind to make way for the monothought.

Werewolf Gradient

At which point does a man stop being a man and a werewolf becomes a werewolf?

Humanoids

The Unseen Great

The man that had no job filled his nights with work, building something of immense value. It was one of the greatest sculptures that had ever been created in the history of art, cast in iron and standing high above him as he laboured beneath, working the form real with his hands, his thoughts obsessed onto the subject. It seemed to have grown inside him, it's vines clawing behind his eyes and lying heavy in his belly, spearing his heart, lacerating his insides, killing him. And still he worked. The nights would turn into mornings and this would continue before he slept on a broken mattress by the window, his biorhythms and instincts replaced with working on the thing. He had become a slave to the idea. Even in his dreams he would continue sculpting, cursing himself on waking. He looked as if he had drowned, skin almost translucent white beneath the stained, filthy clothes that hung to his weakening body like dark flags. Hour after hour he worked, getting closer and closer to perfection. But as it neared completion the man choked on a famous brand of butter candy and died, alone except for the sculpture.

Decomposition had set in and the man was slowly melting. The cells that made up his body had began to rot, membranes disintegrated against a sea of cold enzymes and putrid blood. His landlord let himself in after a few weeks of unpaid rent. At the back of his mind he was aware that there was a corpse on the floor, though all of his attention had been drawn to the iron sculpture in the centre of the room, surrounded by various tools and materials. The sculpture set him into a trance that last for the next two hours and when asked about the experience later he said that it was 'the most beautiful moment in his life'. The sculpture was taken away by tree cops and melted down, though it's after image remains burned into their retinas like sun spots. The public doubts the sculpture had ever existed, though some of them do and they like the idea so why not let them think that as it's more interesting than if it didn't actually happen.

Weighs Like Stone, Feels Like Shit

seven kilos of electronic jelly walking round in seventy kilos of blood and tubes and bone and hair numbering seven billion and yet here we are. only four hundred films get made a year. perhaps another hundred times that with books and a million times that for music. the last total number representing culture yet of what percentile of humanity are involved in the making of it? and what further percentile of it is any good? ideas. What's worth recording in any manner? By thinking about something you aren't necessarily fully enjoying it's actuality.

Monks in solitude delicately piecing together codices, whispering to themselves in Latin. A child watches a re-enactment of this in the next millenium, laughing and squirting virtual shit across the universe like some primordial gull. Allergies. Fat wrists. Delicateness. Nose bleeds. Cataracts. Baldness. All by the age of ten.

Another twenty million dollars is thrown in the face of an actor as he sits naked in bed surrounded by prostitutes, all are tanned and have perfect sets of filed down teeth. A phone rings. It's a studio executive pitching a t.v series set in the past. The actor accepts, his laughter almost blows the cocaine away as it's rubbed in his face via arse. The finest white wine in California is opened and all settle down to watch a blu-ray. Ninety minutes pass. And nothing has changed.

Holopocalypse

Schedule

And suddenly I noticed the space between the lines. As if I had side-stepped slightly and my perspective looked as if forever before it had been wrong, hiding the substance beyond each thing. Colours moved and I watched, amazed, as the fabric of reality began to unravel and giving way to what was actually going on. Almost forth dimensionally, each thing seemed to transform between points, the inner workings moving at small alternative angles on each plane. The separation of universes as each potential atomic state leapt from the current version of reality along with a cosmos of particles detaching themselves from the atoms in the current universe as if they were a bacteria, multiplying exponentially in a quantum state. I see Armitage Shanks making his way down the side of the house, it looked as if his muscles were the brush-strokes of some crude painting.

I then notice something.

In his left hand he is holding a sheet of paper that is proof of mankind's entire struggle against several reptilian style gorgons occupying the bodies of the people who run the internet, the evidence clearly showing a report of a secret confrontation between two powerful psychics in the Trafford Centre at exactly fifty eight minutes past six on a Sunday afternoon. I cursed myself for my own stupidity. My first mission was communicated through me by phrases spoken by other agents undercover in public, often on bus routes, though this eventually would lead to the discovery of myself crouched inside a drain, my clothes discarded and various colouring books folded so that new shapes appeared, symbols for a form of mathematics that I didn't understand.

Fuck Face Fetish

The floor is creaking and the air conditioning stinks. The new exhibition of the Carling brothers titled “Fuck face fetish” certainly lives up to it's name. Not only to they fuck with your face, but your skull and eventually your brain. Inside the hull of a large boat is a collection of child porn, encrusted with jewels. This brings up a moral, not to mention legal dilemma. How was the child porn procured? Is it okay to view child porn in an artistic subtext? You better ask The Guardian. The utter stillness of it encapsulated in a time bubble is somewhat a parody compared to the surrounding art works, acting similar where the hands on a clock meet, as if either were missing it would throw all future context out of the window. “Broken Britain” is a venerable soup of possible quality!

The surrounding area of the piece has been thrown into a visceral chaos. The white paint has been haphazardly slapped across every wall inside and outside the ship, apparently by a device the artists had created themselves that resembled a hosepipe. As you walk past the small wavelets of half-dried emulsion, that smell takes one back to the original art schools of the olden days when exhibitions like this were held on a smaller scale. The rawness of many of the works hark back to more primitive forms of art, toeing the line of parody while earnestly belonging into a space so far flung from the brutal that it almost becomes ridiculous. After being around here for a few minutes you get the same feeling as when one walks into a Buddhist Monastery or a Stock Exchange. This place is sacred, the sacred art of messing with your mind and playing wacky pranks.

Some of the painting by the youngest brother, Glen, is astounding in scope. Huge murals of celebrities riding motorcycles are all are weaved through tall pillars made of copper formed through electrolysis. In the centre of the pillars, illuminated by a video recording of the moon, is a chrome swan with a beak that flips open to reveal a used ashtray. While walking through the great copper pillars, I felt a sense of awe. Ten years ago Glen couldn't even hold a pen, though his brothers had eventually nurtured his artistic abilities for him to make such conceptual bullshit such as this.

The top deck of the boat is home to a geodesic dome protecting the art of Brian. You have to get top special security clearance to enter this controversial enigma. This micro-exhibition is definitely worth seeing just to say you have in the future, once people realize the true meaning of the triptych. Titled “****”, the three images are composed from shards of holographic plastic, building up vast cityscapes that are reminiscent of the human form. Underneath each picture is a quote from Brian Carling himself inviting people to spit on the plastic surface. Perhaps surprisingly for the viewer, there is not one speck of flob anywhere to be seen. Due to the controversial title, the exhibition has been demanded to be shut down by the Council. One must applaud Brian for being both the sacrificial media lamb while at the same time using the artwork to relay what he considers to something worth saying. "Relax, bro."

The final brother's work is being shown in the Captain's Quarters, eloquently redecorated and turned into a clinic for pregnant immigrants to give birth to children, therefore allowing the British citizenship. People lined up to watch in fascination as the baby opened its eyes for the first time while a doctor and a lawyer sat at a wooden desk to give the child a birth certificate and a passport. In one corner of the tiled room there was a kind of giant thermometer to measure how many babies had been born that week. While I was there it had just peaked past three hundred, though the exhibition is meant to be held for another nine months.

The collaborative pieces back down in the Hull are where the brothers perhaps flourish. Though above deck you enter a heady world of racism and seriousness (not to mention a cold sea breeze), you go down a flight of stairs and emerge into an atrium with a dozen or so paintings on display. The brothers are well known for painting in shifts, yet the final mix of oil paint is one image decided on democratically. Shafts of light are beamed down onto the bloated portraits of policemen painted with dead pigs. Other topics for the paintings are public transport, quitting smoking, pets and one or two surprises I won't mention in this article. As I walked down the dock, I noticed a final piece perhaps hidden from the average gallery goer. Amongst the crying of new born babies, protesters and the repetitive beating of the ocean against the shore I could hear a curious sound. Crouching down next to a wooden barrel, there was a small security camera filming me. A comment on CCTV society perhaps? I'll let you be the judge of that once you see it, though I shan't tell you which barrel. You'll have to sniff that one out for yourself.