Bogotissimo!

Electronic Literature in Europe conference in Bergen starts today, and most papers are available online.

Of note: Serge Bouchardon addressing one of my current obsessions (The Aesthetics of Materiality); Katarina Peović Vuković will talk about hypertext, cybertext, networked text, and their political function; Alice Ferrebe will talk of Japan and Electronic Literature; and Maria Engeberg looks for an Aesthetics of Noise, another obsession here, though her focus is on the literary.

via The Art of the Prank: Jason Kronenwald makes portraits of blondes. His medium: chewed gum on plywood. (link 1, link 2)

via Pink Tentacle: in a department store in Shinjuku, a mural of Astroboy made of Tokyo metro tickets. Btw, Pink Tentacle is not calling this a mosaic; this is “pixel-art”. Original post.

“Take yourself for example Phallicity - what social mobility do you have as a blood elf priest?” - Karl Marx (lvl 72 dwarf) asks me, in WTF? - “Your class position is pre-determined for you from day one, as soon as you gain entry to this world.” The rhetorics and educational effort ranged from the very boring to the hilarious, as my elf priestess (I didn’t try playing with the dwarf) battled the phallocrats.

Makibishi Comic - takes forever to load, then you play for 2 minutes and it takes forever to load again. Gameplay is also itself very slow: but simmer down, turn IM clients off, and enjoy the creative puzzles and the pretty, pretty graphics.

Faith Fighter, a fight game (in the classic style of sf2) whose characters are Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Ganesha, Budai, God, and a seventh, surprise character. Gameplay is weak, but the special attacks (”turn the other cheek!” “holy cross!” “karma wheel!”) had me laughing for a few hours here.

blends pop-art and ukiyo-e.

At Japan’s Media Art Festival, the “Interactive Art” prize changed its name to “Entertainment”.

via Tokyo Mango, via Table of Malcontents–Wired

Another critical element of interpersonal relationships in Japan is the below-the-belt PRANK. (No, not pantsing. That’s way too simple and benign.) Today, let me introduce you to two of the most popular variations, one of which is displayed in the Doritos bag on your right.

(…)

2. The Denki Amma. A commonly used wrestling move among Japanese schoolboys, the denki amma gives your opponent an ambiguous blend of pleasure and pain. One boy grabs the legs of the other, lifts his right foot, strategically places it on the other dude’s shaft, and then launches a series of rapid foot taps. Slightly painful, enormously submissive, and awkwardly erotic, the denki amma symbolizes the kind of male bonding that women and foreigners most likely will never fully understand.

for sale in japan

check it at pink tentacle

Long ago in Japan, human illness was commonly believed to be the work of tiny malevolent creatures inside the body. Harikikigaki, a book of medical knowledge written in 1568 by a now-unknown resident of Osaka, introduces 63 of these creepy-crawlies and describes how to fight them with acupuncture and herbal remedies. (…)

Koseu (Kosho), a snake-like critter with a scruffy white beard, wears a hat that protects it from medicine. It likes to drink sweet sake and it can speak.

Kiukan (Gyukan) lives in the chest and acts up at meal time. This critter is difficult to get rid of, but acupuncture is an effective treatment.

Kishaku is a dark red beastie that causes its host to develop an unhealthy appetite for oily food. It can be stopped by eating tiger stomach.

trailer of Wings of Defeat, documentary on Kamikaze pilots who survived the war. via tokyo mango.