Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

A darkness in YouTube

Some YouTube videos aimed at children also include notes about suicide, according to the Washington Post. These edits include both exhortation and instruction.

One on YouTube shows a man pop into the frame. “Remember, kids,” he begins, holding what appears to be an imaginary blade to the inside of his arm. “Sideways for attention. Longways for results.”

It's not clear from the article how many of these videos exist or how many people have seen them.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is a Web video series that follows two women and their paranormal experiences.

Like other YouTube series it starts off with a low budget and basic, personal/webcam style. For instance, this scene from a bathroom, or this nicely creepy daytime incident:

Sunshine offers lots of nice, knowing Gothic touches, from locating many scenes in the bathroom to a potent hidden object.  Good, low-budget multimedia creepiness as well, like unsettling audio, mysterious correspondance, disturbing digital glitches, ghost-photo-style pasted-in images, and EVP:

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The whole story is divided into chapters, of which I've only worked through the first two ("The Original Haunting", "Haunted Hotel Road Trip") so far.  Chapters consist of dozens of short clips, each usually preceded by explanatory or epigraphic title cards.

Overall it reminds me of young adult fiction, partly due to the emphasis on the teenage daughter's perspective.

(thanks to Sally Gilman)

Splendid Japanese lunary imagery

The Japanese lunar orbiter has been sending back gorgeous images of the moon's surface.  Last week JAXA released HDTV video and photographs, which are impressive.

This week we see an updated version of the classic Earthrise composition, including a video:

(via Pink Tentacle)

"Brush your teeth!"

I still haven't seen 300, but I like this parody trailer:

"Enjoy!"
(via Tim Burke)

I rocked with a zombie

Today's fun, Gothic-themed mashup mixes in the Beatles with zombie movies.  This is very well done, from the typeface sequences to the crowd blendings. 

(via BoingBoing)

Why do you think we are nuts media?

Beware of the Blog describes the "Why Do You Think You Are Nuts?" madness.  There's the original clip, apparently from an early 1980s public access show.  It's heartrending and surreal.  Then there's a YouTube frenzy of riffs and covers, from the dark lounge version to the Saddam Hussein hanging remix.

The version I'm in love with is the Carol Channing puppet/spoken word one, a brilliant plunge into the uncanny valley.  Yes, definitely a sign of the apocalypse, a la Kleist.  (Did anyone else see that human-size Lamb Chop costume?)

 

Watching these versions along with some tv pranks brings back the weirdness of late-night tv, back in the day before cable.

(thanks to oook)

Two video pranks

Two stories about nifty broadcast tv hacks.  The first is from Chicago tv in the 1980s, where a guy dressed as Max Headroom interrupted a news show and a Doctor Who repeat.  Damn Interesting has a story, and YouTube offers a couple of clips: the Who hack itself, and Dan Rather's news story about it.

The second and more interesting one claims to have transpired in Wyoming, where this odd clip supposedly appeared on local tv:

I can't find any confirmation of it, though, so it could be a hoax of a prank.

The accompanying text feels like a short story, like a mix of Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983) and numbers radio:

...A hacker managed to  ... all » interrupt broadcasts from a local programming channel (believed to serve several smaller communities in the county of Niobrara) and aired his/her own video. The video contained numerous clips of disembodied, human heads showing various emotions and "poses". The camera position changed often (usually every ten-to-fifteen seconds) and the video was often interrupted by a "SPECIAL PRESENTATION" announcement. This clip is taken from one of these intervals. ...

If it's not true, even better - a hoax about a prank.  The ARG antecedent tradition lives on. The clip itself is odd, consistly mostly of chunky, retro titles.  I can't tell if the whole effect is creepy or soothing.

(via MetaFilter)

Venice is now Joost

The Venice Project has renamed itself, just out of beta.  It's now "Joost."
I'm in the beta pool, and will report as I learn stuff.

Mary Poppins as horror movie

Mashup for today: "Scary Mary," a horror movie remix of Mary Poppins (1964).  It's short, just over a minute, which lets the creators pick perfect clips and built up a healthy sense of dread. 

My wife has always thought Mary Poppins was an anarchist, anti-work movie.  Which it is.  People should listen to Ceredwyn.

(via Ten Zen Monkeys)

Video versus virtual spaces

Why avatars instead of video: a list of ten reasons to prefer virtual worlds. It's an openly interested list, coming from an avatar company, but that doesn't weaken its utility.  It might be worth asking people (ysers, teachers) to come up with their own list, in order to get them thinking about choices and affordances.

I'd quibble with some of the points.  Video is mashable, unless they mean streaming video. Maybe less mashable, but users can still do stuff with video.  Bandwidth can be a serious problem for avatars when they're embedded in spatial platforms (cf Second Life).  And yes, you can shoot talking objects on video.

Interesting how avatars and their 3d spaces appear separate from web 2.0 in this context.  Mashable, yes, and some little bits of microcontent.  But the list doesn't really rely on open content (imagine using a closed-platform avatar space on a walled garden mobile phone).

(via Second Life Future Salon)