Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Suicide on live Webcam

An American teenager killed himself, setting up an online component and becoming a media star in death.  There are several haunted media features:

• Suicide and digital media.  We've seen this in journalism and fiction.
• Youth.  The fellow was 19, connecting with anxieties about minors: their desires, their expertise.
• A dark pattern of social behavior.  The audience of watchers, readers, and followers didn't act until too late.  Cue charges of digitally-inspired callousness, or moral decay.

"Faceless" killer on the loose, hunted by German police

"The woman without a face" is a serial killer being pursued by German police.  She has struck without leaving DNA or other evidence. 

Worse yet,

her DNA signature has continued to turn up at new crime sites since Heilbronn - most bizarrely, perhaps, a few months ago when the corpses of three Georgian car dealers were trawled from a river near Heppenheim, south of Frankfurt. Two men were jailed for the killing, an Iraqi and a Somali. In the Iraqi suspect's battered old Ford, forensic officers found traces of the same DNA found in the police car in Heilbronn. But how did it get there? Who is the woman whose genetic calling card has been found at more than 20 scenes of theft, assault and murder hundreds of miles and more than a dozen years apart?

The suspect is also known as The Phantom of Heilbronn.

(thanks to Steve B)

Suicide by chainsaw

A British man killed himself by sawing off his own head with a chainsaw.  As the Mail says, it was "carefully planed."  er, "planned."

David Phyall, 50, plugged the electric chainsaw into the mains and attached a timer to the socket.

He then wrapped sellotape around the machine's trigger to secure it in the 'on' position and tied the handle of the saw to a table leg to hold it steady.

Mr Phyall rested the saw on his neck and waited for the timer to go off.

The Black and Decker chainsaw sliced through his neck in an instant but kept going for a further 15 minutes.

Another vampire-staking kit for sale

A fine-looking vampire-destroying kit was auctioned off in Mississippi, for a hefty price.

Included in the box:

...stakes, mirrors, a gun with silver bullets, crosses, a Bible, holy water, candles and even garlic, all housed in a American walnut case with a carved cross on top...

(via Blue Tea)

Auditorium, art game for the browser

Auditorium is a lovely casual game, an art game exploring sound and images. Each level lacks instructions, requiring users to puzzle out the rules of the puzzle.

Fair warning: it could be addictive.

(via MetaFilter)

More Cold War Gothic: abandoned Soviet missile silo

Think about stumbling across this in a deserted forest.  Late at night, ideally:

What mystery and power the scene suggests, even without knowing the background (assuming it is a missile launch tube).

Then step inside, and down:

And below that:

Maybe it isn't a missile silo.  But, if not, how could anyone who lived from 1945-1990 not think so?
Cold War Gothic: just under your feet.

Just some time ago this was a very secured place and none even has ever dreamed to make civil photos here. Now all the machinery, missiles and equipment were removed and went away in random direction so now no any guards are around and people can make shots of what it was a launch site before.

Soviet experience house

Cold War Gothic: people have been posting about this Soviet life theme park/immersion experience, but it's especially worth noting for its Gothic aspects,

The idea, apparently, is to have visitors spend a couple of hours sampling various bad, semi-simulated experiences from Soviet history.  Bad food, being yelled at by guards, standing in line, exposed to propaganda, and more. 

But it's all underground, it seems, like a buried memory.  And it is a dance-mix of bad memories, to be sure, a rich complex of horror and anxiety.  And desire.  And the problem of dark tourism.  Not to mention simulation.

One wonders at the experience of running such a show, especially working there, if one worked in the Soviet Union.

Prospicience, or futurism

This podcast offers an interesting term for futurism, and a good thought about its stature: Prospicience ("The Art and Science of Looking Ahead").

Socolow begins by comparing the past generation or two of science and its achievements about the past: seafloor spreading, Big Bang evidence, so much work on DNA.  "But we're pretty much flat-footed in looking towards the future."

Retro organlegging

People killed for their body parts: an old urban legend/policy worry, but with an ancient twist in Burundi -

A six-year-old albino girl in Burundi has been found dead with her head and limbs removed, in the latest killing linked to ritual medicine.

Albinos in the region have been targeted because of a belief peddled by witchdoctors that their body parts can be used for magic potions.

The girl, who was attacked on Sunday, was the sixth person with albinism to be killed in Burundi since September.

The BBC also offers these two micro-Gothic short-short stories, later in that article.  First,

Last week, police in south-western Tanzania arrested a man who was attempting to sell his albino wife to Congolese traders.

Then:

Two mothers in western Tanzania were also attacked with machetes after gangs failed to find their albino children.

Narratives suitable for framing.  Tales from our Gothic world.

(thanks to LibraryBob)

Eyes without a face, the cosmetic version

Today's creepy real-life object comes from this beauty aid video.  This is deeply unsettling, and veers into outright horror with that shot of pegs (?) inside the blank, staring mask:

Let the mashups begin.  Start with an iron maiden.

UPDATED: this is apparently already a mashup, with the soundtrack added to a real cosmetic aid. It's the Rejuvenique RJV10KIT Facial Mask Facial Toning System, once hawked by Linda Evans. (thanks, Glen)

(via BoingBoing)