gallery1988

Via The Morning News that finally piqued my curiosity, I am regretting now not having before having checked out the Hood Internet’s on-going series of year-in-song reviews.
These audio-visual remixes and transitions are really quite fantastic and resoundingly nostalgic brief romps and am working through the back-catalogue (1986 is also particularly good) and looking forward to more instalments.

netherstan

Here are some relatively harmless neural network-created fantasy flag mash-ups of the personal ensign of the royal family of Korea combined with the flag of the East African Community or Tonga through the filter of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, though most outcomes are a bit more dicey and some seem absolutely provocative and bent on igniting world war.
If those aren’t enough to incite at least an international incident, one can use the same data-set and vexillogical protocols that the bot draws from (presumably ignorant what national banners can symbolise for some) to create one’s own remixes. Give it a try and share your best unlikely geopolitical union.

7x7

fintech: the Nordic country put together an artificial intelligence crash-course for its citizens and now is making the curriculum available to all—via Kottke

chirogram: a deaf student at the University of Life Sciences at Dundee, seeing a deficit in communication, invents one hundred new signs to quickly articulate complex scientific concepts—via Dave Log

the year in pictures: TIME curates one hundred iconic images that tell the stories of the past twelve months

the decade in content: Vanity Fair reviews the trends, memes and moments that defined aspects of the past ten years

dj earworm: the decade encapsulated (previously—albeit on a smaller scale) in a mashup of one hundred songs

klaviatur: a demonstration of the six-plus-six, four row Jankó keyboard—which allowed players to cover ranges impossible by a single performer on a traditional piano

headspace: the framework of current privacy protection advocacy and laws is unprepared to safeguard us from the coming mind-reading technologies 

radiophonic workshop

Via the ever engaging Things Magazine, we are introduced to the filmic repertoire of the artist formerly known as Missus Mad Max through these clever remixes and reducia of the haunting and iconic theme of the long-running franchise Doctor Who (previously) imagined in the style of modern instrumental composers including Vangelis and John Carpenter. Much more to explore at the links above.

form follows function

In the centenary year of the founding of the Bauhaus school and design movement by architect Walter Gropius, an international group of graphic designers, in acknowledgement and homage to their roots and inheritance have taken on the fun task (Bauhaus typography was also gone into some darker places) of remixing contemporary corporate identities and logos and imagining how they might appear had they been commissions and assignments of the original circle of talent.
Until marginalised by the rise of Nazi and ostracised as degenerate art, the movement and philosophy was on the cutting edge of a changing world with artists and designers like Herbert Bayer, Anni Albers, Joseph Albers and Paul Klee embracing a seismic cultural and economic shift at a time when many felt unmoored and regarded with suspicion forces that were poised to upend the old order of things.  Contemplate more modern brand and organisational identities at the link up top.

figleaf and fishcake

Kottke helps us make acquaintance with an expert remixer that that introduces snippets of film dialogue onto works of fine art. Popquotery allows us to better appreciate both.
This particular quotation is from the 1988 comedy heist A Fish Called Wanda, superimposed on a 1907 portrait called A Rose by Thomas Pollock Anshutz. Incidentally, Anshutz was a nudist and exhibitionist and helped (sat for) Eadweard Muybridge pioneer his animation and motion picture techniques, but ensured his success at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts by dismissing his competition for conduct unbecoming of a teacher in allowing a male model to appear before a sketch class of females sans loincloth.

mad dash or beyond thunderdome

Via the incomparable Dangerous Minds, comes a brilliant and believable blending of the 1963 mad-cap comedic treasure hunt directed by Stanley Kramer, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the latest Mad Max instalment, Fury Road. There is a good plot synopsis at the link and the classic is worth revisiting in its own right.  The mashup is really wonderfully choreographed and one of my new favourites from this genre—previously the best, in my opinion, in the cinematic category was Broke Back to the Future. What are some of your nominees for best contender for imaginative trailers?

arcade sounds

Via Laughing Squid comes a nifty series of the lyrics to David Bowie’s timeless ballad “Space Oddity” illustrated through panels, imagined album covers of vintage arcade and console video games. Though not quite lent the psychological heft of one’s own favourite songs or of Mozart to settle one’s mood, video game music (think Коробейники, the Tetris song) is composed specifically to remove distractions and helps to keep one focused.

a la mash

Some time ago, I was hounding around on some celebrity gossip site and saw a movie poster for the most outstanding cinematic vision that I had seen recently: deadly, big-game hunting aliens visit rural England during Jane Austen's time, and the film was titled Pride and Predator.  I have no idea whether it was ever actually produced or what the critical reception of it was or whether it was just a brilliant steam-punk concept, and would rather remain ignorant.
Something a bridge further than parody or a tribute band, it is a fusion that is more creative than its constituent influences, fun, rollicking mash-ups--authorized or otherwise, have produced, not just repackaged, some outstanding vignettes:  The Beestles (Beastie Boys versus the Beetles), Brokeback to the Future, the Grey Album.  Classic board games, I think, would be excellent and rich fodder for mash-ups, and could be made to honour whatever character universe one wished, like Doctor Who Cluedo--it was K-9 in the Tardis with the Sonic Screwdriver, or backgammon-Jenga.