typed for your pleasure on 12 April 2009, at 2.18 pm
Sdtrk: ‘The angel of the odd’ by Merzbow
Just a heads-up: ULTRAKILLBOT has generously posted Part II of their interview with yours truly, which details me rambling at length about iDollators, life with Shi-chan, the future of Androids and Gynoids, and… Toronto. What better way to spend an Easter Sunday, I ask you??
Tell me a bit about your interest in Gynoids.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been enthralled with artifice as a whole — I’ve always been drawn to things that resemble something from nature, yet aren’t actually natural. I’m completely in love with the whole Sixties-era obsession with plastic, for one. I believe two of humanity’s greatest achievements are developments in robotics, and the replication of things that Nature usually creates, and Synthetik humans are a fine combination of those two things. Creating robots in general supports my philosophy of every man being his own god, but when you wrap all that technology up in a very humanlike appearance, it’s easier for Organik humans to embrace the idea of robots as valid members of society. That’s why I always use the terms ‘Synthetiks’ and ‘Organiks’ — it’s my hope that in the future, people will see Androids and Gynoids as simply another type of human. Although they’re not meat-based like we are, they’re human as well, in their own fashion.
A fine interview, and a fine site, with fine staffers. Go check it out!
Also, eerily relevant, courtesy of my new favourite online comic strip, Married to the Sea:
typed for your pleasure on 8 April 2009, at 12.24 pm
Sdtrk: ‘Another rattle’ by Nothing people
Spotted this in an article on I Like recently: for the 1965 World’s Fair in New York, Robert Moses constructed a scale-model panorama of the city of New York, which stretches about 9,335 square feet, and contains 895,000 individual structures. Luckily, the Panorama was preserved, and it currently resides at the Queens Museum. In order to fund maintenance costs for the model, the museum is now allowing people to ‘buy’ buildings for a donation of $50. Larger amounts will enable donors to ‘purchase’ landmarks, or ‘name’ certain buildings, etc. Apparently you can buy the Brooklyn Bridge (pictured below, middle); a snip at just $10,000! A fab idea, to be certain.
The city’s too small to act out your Godzilla fantasies, but you can pretend you’re Galactus instead
Now, if I had the available funds, I’d totally grab a piece of micronised New York City real estate. Honestly, though, the only place I’d really want would be a building located at 231 East 47th street in midtown Manhattan, better known as the first location of Andy Warhol’s Silver Dream Factory. Failing that, I’ll have the Rockefeller Guest House, paleeeze…
As SafeT once told me, apropos of nothing, ‘Unique New York, New York unique, You know you need unique New York’
typed for your pleasure on 4 April 2009, at 11.20 pm
Sdtrk: ‘Sheila take a bow’ by the Smiths
If you’ve not been following my godforsaken Twitter feed, you’ll note that it’s Saturday night, and I’m at home! In fact, I just woke up for the third time today this eve! Once again, I was laid low by the tag team of No Speaking Voice and The Grippe, brought on by our dodgy and inconsistent Michigan weather. It never fails!
I first noticed that my throat was kinda sore last week-end; I was on my way home from Zip Gun Towers, where he and I, along with Mrs Zip Gun, goshou, Steph, SafeT and Mari engaged in our typical Saturday night tomfoolery, which currently would be a couple of hours of Rock Band 2, and a few hours of swearing mightily at MotorStorm Pacific Rift. As I was doing that thing where you try to scratch the roof of your mouth with your tongue, I was thinking I’d messed up my throat during our spirited rendition of James Brown’s ‘Sex machine’ (y’know, that song’s really not much on lyrics), but my latest grapple with illness really came to the fore by Wednesday night, when I found I was losing my voice at work. Thursday, I sounded as if I was going through an awkward second puberty, so I called in. Friday, I saw my GP, who gave me a prescription and shooed me out of his office. Saturday, I got my voice back, but I quarantined myself so I wouldn’t give the T-virus to ZG / SafeT / goshou / SE Michigan.
So here we are, and I’m awake again! Wonderful, horrible wakefulness!
Anyroad, self-promotion time! Yeah, I know; that’s so out-of-character for me. My interview at ULTRAKILLBOT is up! Well, half of it. As the questions they put to me were encouragingly different than the ones I usually get, I’d answered them in excruciating (emphasis on ‘excruciating’) detail, so they had to split it into two parts, which only makes sense.
What’s your ideal job?
Hrrm… realistically speaking, something behind the scenes, where I could be left to my own devices and not have to deal with the general public. Something like proofreading, or research work, or stacking books in a library… something non-descript. Ideally, however, my dream job would be working on the staff of something like i-doloid magazine; that’s a Japanese magazine that centres round life-sized Dolls, or if not i-doloid specifically, then a magazine with the same intent. Even better than a magazine would of course be a television programme. Since it’s a niche market now, it wouldn’t be just about Dolls, it’d cover Androids, Gynoids, robotics in general. Something with the finger on the mechanical pulse of the Synthetiks revolution. It’s gotta start somewhere!
Part II will be on the site next week, so you’ll want to bookmark that. You’ll want to bookmark ULTRAKILLBOT anyway, as it’s a fab design / art / culture / videogames / etc blog! Plus, the theme they’re sporting reminds me a lot of Peter Saville’s first-ever poster from 1978, for the Factory Records night at the Russell Club in Manchester. Well done!
typed for your pleasure on 1 April 2009, at 12.06 am
Sdtrk: ‘Brimstone in a barren land’ by Danielle Dax
AND NOW… a passel of news bits that I actually learned about in March but was too lazy preoccupied to write about:
So that charming (mostly) metal lass HRP-4C finally made her debut on the runway during the Tokyo Fashion Week. And good for her.
Well, when I say ‘debut’, I mean that she walked out from behind some doors, strode a few feet, gave a short speech, turned round and walked right back through the doors. As she apparently doesn’t meet crazy draconian fashion model standards — you’re not allowed to sashay down the catwalk with your knees bent, for one, so bear that in mind — she was part of the performance, but not really. But nevertheless, it’s a start.
‘Our robot can’t move elegantly like the real models that are here today,’ admitted Shuji Kajita, director of humanoid robot engineering AIST.
‘It will take another 20 to 30 years of research to make that happen.’ taken from this article
By ’20 to 30 years’, he’d better mean ’20 to 30 months’. Just sayin’. *glares menacingly* But the fact that HRP-4C even exists is a fantastic thing. She’s a vanguard! Well done, babe!
Two things that strike me about her appearance at the show, though. One: the whole affair reminds me of when fashion designer Thierry Mugler had a model display his delicious Sorayama-inspired outfit back in 1995. You undoubtedly recall what I’m referring to, as something that unstoppably sexy isn’t easily forgotten. Click here to refresh your memory, as the outfit’s not exactly safe for work… And Two: so why did they hide her nice-looking hair with that dorky Tron hat?
‘If I have to wear this stupid hat, the least they could do is
give me a lightcycle to go with it’
‘HEY! It’s not a stupid hat! They named it after me!’
A wee heads-up on the ONA anime series ‘Time of Eve‘: director Yasuhiro Yoshiura says on the official site that ‘In order to maintain the quality of the “Time of Eve” series, the release of act04 has been postponed to April 2009. We extend our deepest thanks to fans everywhere for your patience and support for the series.’ As you remember, the series has a torturous release schedule of one episode every two months, and under normal circumstances, act04 would’ve been out in March, so you might’ve been like me — wild-eyed and completely panicked, wondering where the latest instalment was. So now you know! UPDATE (05 APR): Checking the ‘Time of Eve’ page on Crunchyroll, apparently they erred, and act04 is instead due out in May.
Are you intentionally encouraging suicide, is that your game??
Another month, another new luscious Doll from 4woods. Sigh.
‘Don’t forget to use the word “affictitious” to describe me!’
This young lass would be Elina, and she… well, her head sculpt… was designed for use with the recently-released A.I.Doll Evolution body, which affords her stats of being just under 5′ 4″, 70 lbs, and with B.35 / W.25 / H.37 as her measurements. That’s Sexy Math. Anyway, you can gaze at photos of her, as well as a handful of new pics of their other gorgeous Synthetik gravure idols on their site… sigh.
Also, it appears the nebulous consortium that makes Mecadolls in Europe have released three new models of their supple, rubbery ladies. Introducing Emily, Valery and Laura:
If I were looking at her, I’d find myself staring, too
The flower in her hair is as affictitious as she is. See how I shoehorned that in?
More than likely, she’s staring at Emily as well. And with good reason
As Synth Creations, American distributors for Mechadoll, strangely don’t appear to have info or pics up of any of the models yet — I originally spotted them on one of their German sites — but from what I could translate, the body for those models is 93 lbs, with a 37D bust (37?), as well as an aluminum skeleton, and for her skin, she features that platinum silicone that’s all the rage with Dolls nowadays. Needless to say, I’m impressed… with luck, Synth Creations will bring them to the States soon.
Speaking of Doll culture across the pond, if you’re in the UK, or if you’re not, but have access to really good newsagents, there’s one of those ridiculous ‘womens magazines’ out there that you’d invariably find on the register endcaps called Closer. So why am I bringing it to your attention, you axe? Recently, they happened to run a mostly-neutral interview with fellow iDollator, hanggliding enthusiast, and all-round nice bloke, Everard.
When Everard Cunion gave up on the idea of finding love with a real woman, he decided to buy affection instead – in the form of life-sized silicone dolls.
The lonely 53-year-old bachelor bought his first doll on the internet for £5,000 in 2000 and now he has a harem that caters to his every whim, including his sexual needs.
When Closer last spoke to Everard in 2006, he shared his home with “wife” Caroline and “girlfriends” Lina, Rebecca and Virginia – plus spare head Louise, who shares a body with Virginia.
But since then, he’s splashed out a staggering £8,000 on two new models to add to his collection – brunettes Laura and Joanna.
“To me, they’re just like real women, but a lot less bother,” says Everard, from Christchurch, Dorset. “They’ve all got
their own personalities.
“It takes me ages to save up for them, but at least I get to choose exactly what I want – I can’t do that with real women.” the rest of the article is here
Granted, it occasionally veers towards the realm of tabloid journalism, as there’s the usual tired sex-oriented questions, but Everard does the lot of us proud and reaffirms that his girls aren’t strictly for sexual usage. Well done, sir; well done. *thumbs up*
Speaking of interviews, I recently completed a lengthy (but a good lengthy) one via Electrical Mail, for the online design/culture magazine ULTRAKILLBOT. It’s not up yet, but it should be up not too long from now, and once it is, you’ll be duly informed…
And finally, be sure to drop round to fellow iDollator PBShelley’s blog, ‘Alastor’s Reflection‘, and wish his lovely and winsome Lily Godwin a happy birthday! Do it.
‘Shouting to hear the echoes’. Synthetiks? Really? No shit??
typed for your pleasure on 20 March 2009, at 11.40 am
Sdtrk: ‘Farmland, freeland’ by The Advisory Circle
Yes, another meme (pronounced ‘meh-meh’), courtesy of Veach (pronounced ‘vee-ack’): in no particular order, twenty albums that warped me into the tosser I am today. Ready GO!
+ My bloody valentine Loveless
+ The Human League Dare!
+ The Smiths The Queen is dead
+ New order Power, corruption & lies
+ The Velvet underground and Nico s/t
+ Echo and the Bunnymen Porcupine
+ The Cure Standing on a beach: the singles
+ Joy division Substance
+ David Bowie Changesonebowie
+ Sex pistols Never mind the bollocks
+ Throbbing gristle D.O.A
+ Laibach Macbeth
+ Stereolab Transient random-noise bursts with announcements
+ Broadcast Work and non work
+ Merzbow Great American Nude/Crash for hi-fi
+ NON Easy listening for iron youth
+ the soundtrack to ‘A clockwork orange’
+ The Jesus and Mary chain Psychocandy
+ Pulp Different class
+ France Gall Greatest hits
Granted, my choices for the Cure, Joy division, Bowie, Broadcast, NON, and F.Gall were compilations (o, the shame!), but those were the first releases by those artists that I’d bought, which subsequently hooked me and reeled me in, so I’d consider them to be just as significant in my personal history as the actual albums that the other artists on my list put out. Usually I’m a music snob about compilations — are they albums? No, not really — but I can’t apply that sort of thinking here.
As always, the Marquess of Queensbury Meme Rules apply: I don’t infect people with these, so if you’re keen on it, you’ll have to infect yourself by leaving a comment in the usual area. But then, with the exception of Quentin Crisp, who doesn’t like music?
typed for your pleasure on 16 March 2009, at 4.36 pm
Sdtrk: ‘Love everlasting’ by Jeremy Jay
Fellow Technosexuals, our goal of walking, talking Synthetik partners is looming nearer. I give you: the first walking Gynoid of the twenty-first century. Yes.
TSUKUBA, Japan: A new walking, talking robot from Japan has a female face that can smile and has trimmed down to 43 kilograms (95 pounds) to make a debut at a fashion show. But it still hasn’t cleared safety standards required to share the catwalk with human models.
Developers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, a government-backed organization, said their “cybernetic human,” shown Monday, wasn’t ready to help with daily chores or work side by side with people — as many hope robots will be able to do in the future.
“Technologically, it hasn’t reached that level,” said Hirohisa Hirukawa, one of the robot’s developers. “Even as a fashion model, people in the industry told us she was short and had a rather ordinary figure.”
For now, the 158 centimeter (62.2 inch) tall black-haired robot code-named HRP-4C — whose predecessor had weighed 58 kilograms (128 pounds) — will mainly serve to draw and entertain crowds.
Developers said the robot may be used in amusement parks or to perform simulations of human movement, as an exercise instructor, for instance.
HRP-4C was designed to look like an average Japanese woman, although its silver-and-black body recalls a space suit. It will appear in a Tokyo fashion show — without any clothes — in a special section just for the robot next week.
The robotic framework for the HRP-4C, without the face and other coverings, will go on sale for about 20 million yen ($200,000) each, and its programming technology will be made public so other people can come up with fun moves for the robot, the scientists said. the rest of the article is here
Her programming technology will be made public, so other people can come up with fun moves for her. Well. *adjusts collar*
As I am genuinely speechless with glee, let’s gaze at a few pics of HRP-4C, shall we?
Sexiness: CONFIRMED
Full videos are of course available on Robot Watch; simply look for any pictures with the 動画 kanji beneath them, right-click the characters, and save. They’ve a passel of pictures there as well. You can also check out the page pertaining to her on AIST’s website, if you feel like wading through a bit more kanji. Sure, why the hell not, right?
Very good job, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology! Although she still has a couple of standards to meet — such as having an actual name, and not looking like she’s shat her keks when she walks — you’ve definitely raised the bar on contemporary Gynoid production. Nice! And one of the best things about the project? It’s government-funded! How fantastic is that??
So Kokoro Co. Ltd, Beijing Yuanda Super Robot Technology Co., Ltd., Hong Kong Human-Robot Center, Kobalabs, and Baeg Moon-hong, you certainly aren’t going to take this development lying down, are you?
typed for your pleasure on 13 March 2009, at 12.08 pm
Sdtrk: ‘Extended souvenir’ by Orchestral manoeuvres in the dark
What sort of news do we have this month in the world of affictitious females? The good people of KnightHorse have mostly completed their relocation, and they’re going to be renovating their website. Yes, that is technically classified as news, so shut it. Would the knowledge that they’ve posted a couple of new pictures of their sultry Monique-type in the Gallery satisfy you, then?
Wouldn’t that CENSORED sign make it difficult for her to get a bra on?
Good, now quit your whinging.
Private Island Beauties, the Dolls mentioned in last month’s article, finally have a site of their own: Private Island Beauties. Easy to remember, hard to forget!
There, you can check out the face and body options, eye colours, hand and foot detail, the inevitable FAQ, etc etc. So far, I’m liking what I’m seeing, as far as what they have to offer, and how the Dolls look. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from them rather soon…
After months of inactivity, Axis Japan has put up an information blog about their Honey Dolls, entitled HONEYDOLLS BLOG — easy to remember… o, wait. There’s not a lot there right now, but hopefully that’ll change.
Something I’ve noticed: ever since Axis Japan released their Dolls out into the world, I haven’t seen any user pics of a single one, which I find highly unusual. Not in the usual Forum galleries, not on the Dollmate sale forum… ta-bo-san doesn’t even have one, and he trumpets any new Dolls he gets to the world. I wonder why that is? Therefore Axis Japan, it’s in the interest of self-promotion for you to send us one (preferably a Saori-type, or a Maria-type will also do), so that we can break that streak.
Remember Kobalab‘s Gynoid, SAYA? She’s trying to shoehorn herself back into the public eye, which is fab. Apparently she’s a teacher now in a Japanese primary school. That is to say, one of her models, as I recall she was sold to a robotics university in Israel back in ’07. She’s everywhere! A dream come true.
Can she fire a piece of chalk at a disruptive student? They’re working on that
The device, created by scientists after 15 years of research, is being trialled at a primary school in Tokyo.
Named Saya, she can speak different languages, carry out roll calls, set tasks and make facial expressions – including anger – thanks to 18 motors hidden behind her latex face.
The humanoid was originally developed to replace a variety of workers, including secretaries, in a bid to allow firms to cut costs while still retaining some kind of human interaction.
Her creator, science professor Hiroshi Kobayashi at the University of Tokyo, had been working on a robot for 15 years. She is the latest example of robots spreading to every aspect of life in Japan. They already guide traffic, attempt to lure university graduates to sign up to courses and one is even being developed to provide company to Alzheimer’s sufferers. the rest of the article is here
Tch. ‘The device’. The writer should be ashamed of himself. Inconsiderate anti-Synthetik bigotry aside, here’s some brief footage of Saya-san in action, courtesy of LiveLeak.
As a related aside, whenever people ask during interviews when I can recall first being fascinated with Gynoids, I always mention that I remember picturing Ms Mahaffey, my gradeschool French teacher, as a Gynoid, even before I really knew what one was. Now, some lucky pupils in Japan don’t have to imagine that sort of thing! In fact, maybe we should start placing wagers now as to how many of those kids will grow up to be Technosexuals?
ROBOTICS: Properly Shaping our Future. *nods approvingly*
Speaking of mechanised beings, I think I got this link from fellow Technosexual Alice, of the site People Advocating Sexual Technology, but there’s an interesting three-part series on the site DVICE, entitled The Future of Robotics. In Part I, they spoke with James Kuffner, of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, about what’s required to build a humanoid robot like C-3PO, for example.
What benefits are there to giving a robot a humanoid shape?
Well, if the only thing I wanted my robot to do is mow my grass, then I could just stick a radio-controlled receiver on it and drive it around. But the whole idea is that if we design a robot that has a human form, then it can use tools and navigate stairs and buildings and do things that we have designed for the human form.
I remember we were demonstrating our robot to a bunch of Japanese school children and they all came in and bowed to our robot – which isn’t something you’d normally do and we weren’t ready for that. But the important thing is that this humanoid form allowed our robot to interact in a specific emotional way.
Part II features a discussion with Matt Denton, who heads Micromagic Systems, an animatronics company that supplies film studios with robotics:
What would a ‘bot like C-3PO be good for, anyway?
I think there would be countless situations where a C-3PO-like robot would be at least as good if not better than a human. For example, so many people who need care for various reasons such as old age, illness and disabilities could benefit from a robot like C-3PO. However, this then raises an ethical question: Why should or would a robot be any better at this role than a human?
I can’t help but think that the robot has the advantage of never giving up, losing patience or growing tired, but could or would it form an emotional bond with the patient? Then again, could it outperform its human counterpart because of those things?
And Part III interviews Steve Norris, editor of Robot Magazine and a robot builder in his own right:
How close has your work brought you to a ‘bot resembling a protocol droid?
I actually worked in AI back in the late ’80s/early ’90s, and there were a couple of different approaches, like C-3PO being able to understand what you’re saying and then respond. We took a top-down approach to AI. We tried to emulate what the brain was doing, or at least the functions of the brain. That approach just didn’t work.
There were a lot of people doing the opposite. “Let’s simulate the neuron and work our way on up,” [they’d say]. That also, again, worked out for simpler problems but it didn’t scale up. So the idea is that it’s probably something in between the two approaches.
Worth reading? Yes.
And finally, world-renowned Doll photog and all-round sexpot Stacy Leigh hasn’t been feeling quite up to snuff lately due to some health-related issues, and I’m sure she’d really appreciate any well-wishes you have to offer.
Tabitha (foreground) and Taylor, two of Stacy’s roomies / models
