I’ve become quite taken with two short, independent games that I discovered through boingboing. Both games have pixelated graphics reminiscent of early games, and involve using the arrow keys to move a character through an environment, while at the same time approaching gaming with an almost philosophical perspective that makes them more feel more like little works of art than regular old games. In Small Worlds, you play a small red line that looks like a man [see screen shot above], and have to navigate through a labyrinthine environment and look for an exit leading to the next level. What makes it interesting is that the dark matter seen at the edges of the screen shot covers the whole environment in the beginning of each level, disappearing and revealing more and more as you move around in it. As more gets revealed, the camera zooms out, dramatically changing your perception of the environment. This is hard to describe, but with the subtle piano sound track it becomes incredibly captivating and makes you long for more once it is over.

The other game, everydaythesamedream, takes an even higher level of abstraction. Here you play a man that wakes up, puts on his clothes and goes to work, over and over again – the same way most people do. That might not sound like much of a game, but it is, a) because the trip to work is beautifully rendered in a minimalistic grayscale style (see screen shot above), b) because the repetitive guitar on the sound track really matches the mood of the game well, and finally c) because, as in life itself, there are other options. That’s all I am going to say about that, besides noting that this might be the first real existentialistic computer game. Somewhere Kierkegaard is smiling (or cringing, depending on your perspective). Both of these games are completely free and plays in your browser, so no downloading or anything.

I watched Clash of the Titans this weekend. It has no titans – none whatsoever. It has giant scorpions, Medusa, a Kraken, but not titans. What’s possibly even worse, though, is that Clash of the Titans 3D has no 3D whatsoever. Taking off the 3D glasses actually made the image a lot clearer, which was preferable. What does Clash of the Titans (3D or not) actually have, then? Well, it has a surprising number of good actors, two of which have only previously played together in a little film called Schindler’s List (7 Academy Awards in 1993). So, some good actors that need to reconsider their career choices, and/or fire their agents. The movie also has a Danish actor, Mads Mikkelsen, who is getting really good at looking tough with a beard (see above). Last, but not least, the movie has some really horrific CGI, even when just seen in regular old 2D. So if you like any of those things, go see it! As for me, my favorite part of the movie was a scene where the hero Perseus and some lady fools around in the ferry taking them across the river Styx, with gold coin payments from the previous passengers littered across the floor. Talk about losing your sense of time and place in the heat of passion! Way to go, Hollywood, you almost made me look forward to Clash of the Titans 2: Now with actual Titans.

National Geographic photographer faces giant leopard seal, who then proceeds to attempt to teach him to how to hunt, and later on simply feeding him, out of sheer pity for his poor predatory skills. Seen at Boing Boing.

Yesterday I had a chance to watch the Shining on a big screen and I noticed a couple of interesting things about it. First of all, it had been a few years since I first saw it, and I have watched a lot of horror between then and now, but it struck me how disturbing the movie was. It cannot compete with the gore of recent French horror (like Martyrs, for example, highly recommended!) or with the sheer physical terror of Japanese horror, but when it comes to creating an atmosphere of something profoundly wrong going on, few comes even close to this movie. The only movie I can really compare it to, is Don’t Look Now, and the two movies share quite a few features, like a prominent use of red and childlike characters with psychic abilities. But their main common denominator is the sense that both films manage to give the viewer an almost gut-level impression of the paranormal events, without showing too much. Kubrick occasionally shows a little too much (I could do without the scene in Room 237), so ultimately Don’t Look Now is a slightly better movie, but that doesn’t make the Shining bad. In fact, when you take into account the beautiful set decorations and arguably the best horror score ever, it should be counted among the finest horror movies. And I didn’t even mention Jack Nicholson!

I made the above image on befunky (hit “Get Started Now”, and then “Cartoonizer”) , one of no-doubt countless sites that give you the opportunity to create a cartoon based on a photo. I think it worked surprisingly well, looks like something from Waking Life. It’s nice to see how the program actually included details such as the cleft in my chin, and my somewhat bushy eyebrows in the cartoon. Experiments with other images have not yielded quite as compelling results, but I still think that befunky is a nice little toy. It has other effects as well, that I have not yet tried.

Another suggestion that weird might be coming back, comes from one of my favorite purveyors of weird, David Lynch, who is apparently lending visuals and vocals to a project called Dark Night of the Soul with Danger Mouse and a number of other collaborators, including Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, Nina Persson of the Cardigans and Iggy Pop. Considering the fact that the project has now run into legal problems, you might want to hurry up and listen to it here. And for those of you who doubt that Mr. Lynch can sing, here is the song Ghost of Love from the Inland Empire soundtrack, vocals and lyrics by David Lynch.

… was great! I presented on the second day of the conference, and it was probably the most gratifying thing I have done in academia so far. It was my first time presenting anything at an academic conference, but after the first couple of people, my nervousness disappeared. Everyone was extremely nice, and I got so many great suggestions and comments, that I could barely wait to get home and try some of them out. The rest of the conference was equally excellent – like a vacation that included science – and on the last day I felt like my head was going to explode from all the new stuff I had learned, and the many, many conversations I had. Still, I cannot wait until next year. Below, you can see the poster I presented, and I should also mention that some of the stuff has been published in Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, you can find it here.