Sheepish

I recently discovered Cyriak Harris, a freelance multimedia artist and animator from the UK. His work has a delirious yet strangely compelling 'Monty Python meets Escher' vibe, as exemplified by this video:





Cyriak is very interesting to me, because his surreal work is ideally suited to the internet. It reflects the viewpoint of someone very familiar with online memes and themes. But it also draws on older artistic traditions, remodeling them in the context of contemporary media forms.





The artist comments that:

"Like some kind of animated stew, the ingredients of this video simmered and bubbled for about 2 years before I tipped it steaming onto the internet. The screams echo to this day."

Check out lots more of Cyriak's music, comics, paintings, gifs and videos at his website here. I especially like this video, in which the cast of 'Eastenders' become zombies and eat brains. So great.

One Hand Clapping

Long time no blog. Too much thesis writing going on at the moment. Plus, I've been trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to take a break from the Web. It's just all a bit overwhelming at the moment.

Whenever my stress levels get above a certain point, a couple of things happen. First, my right eye starts twitching like I'm a movie villain whose plan to demolish the community center has just been foiled by those damn kids and their Basset Hound.

Second, I start reading novels. Lots of novels. Sometimes historical romance, sometimes crime, sometimes science-fiction or fantasy. I like them all.

This time I've been catching up on the latest Young Adult fiction. Here are a few of my favourites so far, in no particular order:


1) The Skinned trilogy by Robin Wasserman.



2) The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld.



Loved these books so much. I'm not going to describe any plot details, but this fan-made vid is pretty good.


3) Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder.



4) The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.



5) The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson.




6) Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (nothing to do with that Heigl movie).




7) Graceling by Kristin Cashore.




Inevitably, I've come across a few bad books... but I won't mention them...

I'm definitely a fan of futuristic/post-apocalyptic settings (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Quite few of these deal with 'post-human' themes as well (1, 2, 4, 5). Number 7 is pure fantasy, but it has such a unique heroine I couldn't resist. Now I think about it, they all have strong and complex female protagonists. I highly recommend them all to anyone looking for a good read/out of body experience.





Okay, I'm going back to my book cave now.