HUPOMNEMATA

It’s already old news so maybe you know about it, but it’s good news so if you missed it, go and read it there.

After reading 3 short novels in a row by Robert Silverberg, i was amazed by the contemporaneity of the themes he developed in 1971 and 1972. Granted, the style and technology is typical of the seventies’s science fiction litterature, but otherwise, those 3 novels have something definitely pregnant, if you are interested in themes as the definition of the personality, of otherness, or in the construction of self through language’s performativity.
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It reads like a Bruce Sterling novel. It’s actually happening. More there (ZDNet)

Lara Croft needlepoint by Becky Schaefer. More about it on Game Girl Advance. Shouldn’t be too long before Laurence writes what she thinks of the new Lara Croft movie. I’m not sure i’ll have enough courage to go through such an experience again…

Barcelona

Quelques images de la dernière soirée au Zerfall, à Bruxelles. Contrat terminé, Clément Béton vide les lieux (au programme de cette dernière soirée, c’était “Le plaisir du regret” le très beau film de Guy Marc Hinant et Dominique Lohlé sur le musicien Leo Kupper)

Ci-dessous, Anton Aeki, de Martiensgohome

Et enfin, Clément Béton, de Géographique

Sous ce titre racoleur, on parle de Godard, Christian, pas Jean-Luc (j’en imagine quelques uns déçus). Vous savez c’est le dessinateur et plus souvent scénariste de BD qui faisait Martin Milan et le Vagabond des Limbes et qui entre temps est devenu un vieux monsieur qui continue à faire de la BD. Il y a quelques pages étonnantes dans le dernier BoDoï, n°65 (un mensuel par ailleurs souvent assez nul mais qui sur le coup épate un peu) : une Chienne de Garde (son nom m’échappe, désolé) a droit à une bonne demi page pour écrire ce qu’elle pense de la dernière série de Godard (Une folie très ordinaire) et c’est pas piqué des vers. Quant à lui, le magazine lui donne l’occasion de se défendre, et il tresse la corde pour se pendre. Ses réponses sont si aigres qu’elles font mal au ventre. Il a 71 ans et on lui en donnerait bien 20 de plus, ça ne tourne vraiment plus rond.

This blog seems to be obsessed with seafood and plastic cows. Do you know what it’s about? I don’t but so much beauty is worth a visit.

Notre ami Harrisson s’est enfin lancé dans la production intensive sur son blog Die With a Smile où il raconte son long séjour à Berlin. Avec photos. Il s’y confirme qu’il est non seulement graphiste mais aussi poète quand il parle d’asperges à la flamande et de chutes à vélo. Pendant ce temps-là mes amis Julie et Luc partent à Toronto, déplacés par l’industrie du jeu vidéo. Bruxelles se vide. Vu hier, ‘Any way the wind blows’ de Tom Barman ne donne pas pour autant envie d’aller à Anvers.

It’s been there for some times, but you should still go and read it if you’re even just a little bit interested in videogames (and if you’re not, it’s a good opportunity to see that it’s an arena where intelligent and articulated thinking is possible): this text on the Game Girl Advance website focus on gender in videogames. Here’s a short extract to give you an idea (I’m in the middle of the great Xenogenesis series by Octavia Butler, and, yes, there is a relation). The whole text is there.

“I would like to see more experimentation with genderless or gender-ambivalent characters in this area. In MUDs and MOOs, one can often create a third sex and invent a pronoun and refer to oneself always with that pronoun (and insist others do that same). In these science-fiction and fantasy-themed online worlds, it’s perfectly plausible that ungendered, ambiguously gendered, or bi-gendered races could exist. That would add a new dimension to gender play, one which I’d really like to explore. Some women have said that they feel uncomfortable playing as female in certain virtual worlds – I haven’t personally been insulted or offended as a female avatar, but I have certainly had some unwanted attention directed my way. And yet I feel not quite right playing as a male character, either. A third gender – or a third choice, whether gendered or not – might be an alternative, a way to explore sexual anonymity. I wonder if players would feel too uncomfortable? But the domain of games is unbounded by physical realities, including biology; why not take advantage of this?”