a fascinating futuristic film by Alex Rivera that delves into the life of a young Mexican from Oaxaca who unwittingly brings down drone-death from the skies and then flees to Tijuana to have black-market nodes surgically implanted into his body so as to be able to provide “virtual” sweat-shop labor.

Memo Cruz (Luis Fernando Peña) lives in a small Mexican village and dreams of escaping his poverty by working for hi-tech factories that service the big cities of the U.S. He uses his homemade radio to eavesdrop in on conversations between other people like him who’ve made the transition. His radio also intercepts a communication by the patrolling security forces involving “Aqua-Terrorists” and this results in a remote-controlled drone being dispatched to blow up his house.

A fascinating web of interconnections follow this deadly act. It leads to literal connections between Memo and wires that plug his nervous system into a network that controls robots laboring on the other side of the border. This is because the prosperous big cities want the cheap labor without having to deal with the actual people who provide it. But the “virtual” work is dangerous stuff, and the people connecting into the system are often pushed to the point of collapse; ergo the factory employers being dubbed “Sleep Dealers.”

+ at moviemorlocks

Light on plot and heavy on expression, Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine” is a study in extremes. Essentially the anatomy of a break-up, it places exclusive focus on a young couple (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) as their marriage disintegrates. Cianfrance, whose directorial debut “Brother Tied” premiered at Sundance in 1998, spent over a decade working on this lyrical follow-up; his efforts come through in every artfully composed frame. Aided by Andrij Parekh’s bright, complex photography, images trump story in the best of ways.

The narrative follows a two-pronged approach, shifting back and forth from the birth of their relationship to its inevitable demise. As Williams and Gosling repeatedly clash and embrace, their ritual becomes a hypnotic process on which viewers can project their own experiences. It’s an all-inclusive portrait.

Let the Right One In (Swedish: Låt den rätte komma in), also known as Let Me In, is a 2004 vampire fiction novel by Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist. The story centers on the relationship between a 12-year-old boy, Oskar, and a centuries-old vampire child, Eli. It takes place in Blackeberg, a working class suburb of Stockholm, in the early 1980s. The book focuses on the darker side of humanity, dealing with issues such as bullying, drugs, theft, pedophilia, prostitution and murder as well as the obvious supernatural themes.

Occasionally a movie comes along that defies easy categorization and doesn’t cater to audience expectations of any kind. And when the director’s intentions and directorial choices are also never made obvious or explicit, it can result in a baffling but memorable viewing experience. Welcome to Serge Bozon’s LA FRANCE (2007), which has been widely praised at various film festivals, but is receiving its first wide release in the U.S. now on DVD through Kino International.

+ in moviemorlocks

Febrero en el noroeste argentino. Sol que parte la tierra y lluvias tropicales. En el monte algunas tierras de anegan.
Esas ciénagas son trampas mortales para los animales de huella profunda.
En cambio, son hervideros de alimañas felices. Esta historia no trata de ciénagas, sino de la ciudad de La Ciénaga y alrededores.
A 90 km. está el prueblo “Rey muerto” y cerca de ahí la finca “La Mandrágora”…

La ciénaga (English: The Swamp) (2001) is an Argentine, Spanish, and French film, written and directed by Lucrecia Martel.

Permanent Vacation is a 1980 drama film directed, written and produced by Jim Jarmusch. It was the director’s first release, and was shot on 16 mm film shortly after he dropped out of film school. This film is often credited as the birth of the director’s original style, and character schemes.

Chris Parker wanders around a dingy New York atmosphere and is confronted by a number of intriguing characters as he ponders the questions of life, and searches for a better place.

Digital communication tools are a critical component of everyday life for many people. The appropriate and inappropriate design of communication tools influence and shape how we connect, interact and collaborate in local and distributed groups. Many of the digital communication tools we use arose organically; with no explicit understanding of the complex and multi-faceted effects they have on human behaviour. For example mailing lists emerged more than 30+ years ago, yet the social experience of mailing lists has remained nearly unchanged, e.g. mailing lists do not exist that are designed to explicitly support business processes.

http://www.thwonk.com

At night projections from moving cars are shone on the buildings downtown. Each car projects a video of a wild animal. The animal’s movements are programmed to correspond to the speed of the car: as the car moves, the animal runs along it speeding up and slowing down with the car, as the car stops, the animal stops also. The framerate of the movie corresponds to the speed of the wheel rotation, picked up by a sensor. If the presence of a moving object (such as another car or pedestrian) is detected with proximity sensors, its animal “avatar” appears in the projection.
For the ZeroOne ISEA2006 I will be using one vehicle with a projection of a tiger (additional animals will appear in the projection as reflections of passing vehicles and pedestrians).
Projection disappears and flickers as it is supported by the architecture. The city itself is an active partner in creating this alter ego.
We are elevated from the everyday reality through this element of fantasy into a world with more dimensions, possibilities and perhaps beauty.

created by Karolina Sobecka

This book is an ethnographic investigation which follows Cybermind members in their daily lives on the List, and explores the ways they look at the world, argue, relate online life to offline life, use gender, and build community. Perhaps the most comprehensive history of an Internet group ever published, it includes detailed analyses using List members’ own words and commentary, and develops a unique theory of the relationship between culture, the problems of communication, and the ongoing processes of categorisation. Living on Cybermind illustrates how behaviour is affected by the organisation of communication, and how people deal with the paradoxes involved in resolving ambiguity and truth in a situation in which presence is always on the verge of slipping away.

Jonathan Marshall and Angela Thomas
Living on Cybermind  & Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age
Published by: Peter Lang
To be launched by Colin Lankshear (Series Ed)

Venue: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Time: Friday 14th March 6 for 6.30
Cost: Free
RSVP: gleebooks – 9660 2333