The Cultural Force of Science Fiction.

“L’an 2000” (“The year 2000,” 1901), print on cardboard; a collection of uncut sheets for confectionery cards showing life imagined in the future (photo by the author for Hyperallergic). Click for full size.

LONDON — The 1982 film Blade Runner imagined 2019 Los Angeles as a dystopia of noirish neon and replicants, robots sent to do hard labor on off-world colonies. It’s a future in which engineered beings are so close to humans as to make the characters question the very nature of life. We’re now just a couple of years from this movie’s timeline, and although our robots are still far from mirroring humanity, our science fiction continues to envision giant leaps in technology that are often rooted in contemporary concerns of where our innovations are taking us.

Patrick Gyger, curator of Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction at the Barbican Centre, told Hyperallergic that, for him, science fiction “allows creators to look beyond the horizon of knowledge and play with concepts and situations.” The exhibition is a sprawling examination of the genre of science fiction going back to the 19th century, with over 800 works. These include film memorabilia, vintage books, original art, and even a kinetic sculpture in a lower-level space by Conrad Shawcross. “In Light of The Machine” has a huge, robotic arm twisting within a henge-like circle of perforated walls, so visitors can only glimpse its strange dance at first, before moving to the center and seeing that it holds one bright light at the end of its body.

[…]

The exhibition shows, but does not dwell on, who has been left out of a history mostly shaped by white men (there are rare exceptions on view, like the “Astro Black” video installation by Soda_Jerk that muses on Sun Ra’s theories of Afrofuturism). It would be worthwhile to spend more time on figures who broke through these barriers, such as author Octavia Butler. As discussed on a recent podcast from Imaginary Worlds, her black characters were sometimes portrayed as white on her book covers to make them more appealing to science fiction readers. The exhibition could also have a deeper context for why certain veins of science fiction are prominent in particular eras, and perhaps question why we don’t have a lot of science fiction narratives on current crises like climate change. For instance, the much smaller 2016 exhibition Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780–1910 from the Smithsonian Libraries compared milestones like Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus with physician Luigi Galvani’s “animal electricity” experiments on animating dead frog legs, and highlighted how Jules Verne channeled the doomed Franklin expedition in his 1864 book The Adventures of Captain Hatteras.

Nevertheless, having an exhibition like Into the Unknown at a mainstream space like the Barbican is significant, showing the art world appreciates science fiction beyond kitsch. And science fiction continues to be one of our important portals for thinking about the ramifications of our technological choices, and where they might take us.

You can read and see much, much more at Hyperallergic. Fascinating!

There’s A Challenging Bridge.

The Europabrücke in Switzerland, now the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge. © Europaweg.

Have you ever wanted to walk across Switzerland’s Grabengufer valley, but lacked the time for the three-hour hike it requires? Good news: there’s now a shortcut, which cuts down the travel time to fewer than ten minutes. All you have to do is walk through the air.

This new possibility comes from the recently opened Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge, which, CNN reports, is now the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world. The bridge opened for business on Saturday, July 29th, and spans 1640 feet—about the length of seven city blocks. At its highest point, it hangs about 28 stories above the ravine.

In far-off photographs, the bridge resembles a thin silver necklace, stretched between two mountainous shoulders. Close up, it looks more like a walkable roller coaster. While crossing, “it is possible to look into the precipice below one’s feet,” the Zermatt travel board writes in a press release.

Yikes. This would be a challenge for me, but I wouldn’t pass it up if I had the opportunity, either. My partner would adore this, and be an annoyingly happy monkey all the way across.

You can read more at Atlas Obscura.

The Worm Turns.

Sean Spicer.

It seems that yet one more thing the Tiny Tyrant has never learned is that when you shove people about, run them down, then kick them out the door, they don’t have much motivation when it comes to staying quiet. A new lawsuit is tarnishing the Tiny Tyrant, and Sean Spicer has spilled the truth all over NPR, in spite of earlier denials, when he was still employed by the regime.

A defamation lawsuit filed by longtime Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler against the network alleges that President Trump was directly involved in concocting a fake story intended to undercut the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian hackers waged cyberattacks against Democratic targets to help him get elected.

[…]

The lawsuit claims that Butowsky and Zimmerman hoped the story “would debunk reports the Russian were responsible for the DNC hacks” and “undermine reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump Administration.” It claims that in the weeks ahead of the article’s publication, Butowsky was in touch with then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer, White House strategist Steve Bannon, and Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Flores “regarding his efforts related to Seth Rich.” Wheeler says he and Butowsky met with Spicer “and provided him with a copy of [Wheeler’s] investigative notes.”

But the day the story was published, Spicer denied having foreknowledge of the Fox News report, saying during the White House press briefing that “I’m not aware of that… it would be highly inappropriate to do that.”

Spicer has now changed his story. He confirmed to NPR that he met with Butowsky after all.

Tsk. How you treat people matters, and there are always consequences to how you treat them. Yet another basic life lesson unlearned by the yawning void of ego sitting in the white house.

Think Progress has the full story.

History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents.

Published in 1658, more than thirty years after his death, this book brings together Edward Topsell’s The History of Four-footed Beasts (1607) and The History of Serpents (1608). Totalling more than 1000 pages, this epic treatise on zoology explores ancient and fantastic legends about existing animals, as well as those at the more mythic end of the spectrum, including the “Hydra” (with two claws, a curled serpent’s tail, and seven small mammalian heads), the “Lamia” (with a cat-like body and woman’s face and hair), and the “Mantichora” (with lion’s body and mane, a man’s face and hair, and a grotesquely smiling mouth). Topsell was not a naturalist himself (he in fact was a clergyman) and so relied heavily on the authority of others, in particular Konrad Gesner, the Swiss scholar who was also behind many of the brilliant illustrations which adorn the volume, and Thomas Moffett. On his utilising others for his work Topsell writes “I would not have the Reader,… imagine I have … related all that is ever said of these Beasts, but only so much as is said by many”. This approach leads him to repeat some wonderfully fantastic claims: elephants are said to worship the sun and the moon with their own rituals, apes are terrified of snails, and “…the horn of the unicorn … doth wonderfully help against poyson”. Although it is abound with such fanciful ideas, Topsell’s work, as John Lienhard explains “was actually an early glimmer of modern science. For all its imperfection, it represents a vast collection of would-be observational data, and it even includes a rudimentary rule for sifting truth from supposition.”

This is a grand look at early ideas of the natural world, and all the people busy trying to figure it all out. The artwork is marvelous, and retains much of that early Medieval illuminated flavour. Creatures real, and not real inhabit the pages, along with many grand, if terrifying remedies such beasties can provide for many an ill.

Gulon.

Some remedies utilising goat bits, particularly their dung.

A beautiful badger.

Cures which can be effected by use of badger bits.

Squirrels are depicted as dangerous and bloodthirsty. Appropriately, as Iris would say.

The book includes serpents and insects.

The whole book is available here, and select images here.

Via The Public Domain.

Real Men With Testosterone!

Wayne Allyn Root is thrilled, right down to his little…toes. He’s swimming in a sea of testosterone, and loving it. There’s an abundance of eyeroll coming up, guard yourself.

Root, who just last month repeatedly voiced his disgust that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had cursed during a speech, couldn’t stop praising Scaramucci’s vulgarity or his amazing manliness.

“It looks like we’re getting the trannies out of the military and we’re getting the real men in the White House,” Root crowed as he bragged that he, like Scaramucci, grew up in New York and therefore knows how to fight and has no problem knocking people’s teeth out.

Root is always talking about fighting, about being able to beat anyone up. In my experience, people who talk constantly about their ability to fight aren’t any good at it. Also, in my experience, reasonable people don’t take glee in the idea of physically fighting. No, transgender people in the military aren’t going anywhere. Just because Donny tweets something, doesn’t make it the TwitterLaw™ of the Land.

“Real men with testosterone, that’s what needs to run America,” he said. “He’s my kind of guy, he’s a real man with testosterone … We finally got people in office with personality instead of a bunch of country club losers and the whole world is freaking out that Trump is going to block transgenders from being in the military and that you’ve got guys like Trump and Scaramucci with our locker room conversation. You know what? This is the real world! Wake up. This is how you become successful. I’ve made millions of dollars in the business world and everyone I’ve dealt with talks like this.”

A vulgar asshole who is incapable of keeping his own counsel. Yeah, that’s what needs to run America. Oh, people with personality, that’s what all this is! Yes, I think we’re all aware that government in this lost country is now an incredible cringefest of a reality show. Far be it from me to decry your personal taste in entertainment, Mr. Root, but this pile of shit does not belong in government, on any level. Just how do you think the Tiny Tyrant is going to block transgender people from the military? He doesn’t have the power to wrinkle his nose and twitch it so.

You know what? That’s not the real world, you dipshit. That’s your fantasy land. The fantasy land of incompetent sociopaths. So, every single person you have ever dealt with talks like that. I guess you would deal mostly with organized crime a great deal then. Good to know.

“In private, this is how guys talk,” Root continued, “and unfortunately, we have a society that doesn’t want men to be men anymore. You want men to be women! I’m sorry, men aren’t supposed to be women, men aren’t supposed to be gay, men aren’t supposed to be transgender, men are men! And you gotta let us be. We like football, we like wrestling, we like MMA, we like boxing, we like beautiful women in bikinis and we say it out loud and if you don’t like it, we don’t really give a damn. That’s what guys are like and Anthony Scaramucci and Donald Trump and Wayne Root are men and you know what? Tough.”

Sigh. Yes, cupcake, we all know what regressive assholes are like, everyone gets to deal with them. That does not mean people approve, or like you. Most of us just don’t want to be trapped in the same room with any of you, and wish to the universe you would learn to shut the fuck up. Men do not have to be neutered willow wands to enjoy homosociality, and there’s nothing wrong with men being able to be free and open about the things they like and dislike. Like sportsball? Great. Don’t like sportsball? Great. You’re one of the worst things to happen to the concept of masculinity, Mr. Root, and thankfully, most men are well aware of that. All you do is follow an outdated concept of masculinity which traps you in a tiny bubble of thought and action, forcing you to live next to no actual life, because you have to constantly feed this notion of what a manly man you are. It’s a fake masculinity, one which demands of men that they never be who they actually are, and that is  terribly pathetic.

Via Right Wing Watch.

On Being Arrested in Japan.

English cards translated from Japanese by Rachel Mimms.

Getting arrested is a scary experience in every country, but perhaps even more so in Japan, where the conviction rate is over 99%. Last month, the Japanese government passed a new anti-terror conspiracy law that has drawn controversy among Japanese citizens who feel it is a threat to civil liberties and privacy. Artist Megumi Igarashi (pen name Rokudenashiko), famously arrested in 2014 on charges of obscenity for distributing 3D data of her genitals, is creating a set of playing cards that educate people about what it’s like to be arrested in Japan.

Critics of the anti-conspiracy law claim it is too broadly worded and contains acts that have little to no connection to terrorism, such as: copying music, picking mushrooms in conservation forests, and competing in a motor boat race without a license.

No stranger to the absurdity of Japanese law, Ms. Igarashi is responding by making a tongue-in-cheek karuta card game set depicting scenarios of arrest and imprisonment in Japan partly based on her own experiences. Each one has a drawing humorously portraying the situation described on the other side of the card. Through these “jail cards,” players can learn about Japanese prison conditions, police interrogation, and testifying in court.

She has already posted 17 of these cards to her Twitter account and says she plans to create an entire set of 50 — one for each Japanese syllable — so that anyone can print them out and play along.

You can read and see more at Spoon & Tamago. Cop shops, same all over the world.