Though this Class is Over, the Web Rolls On and On

Just a quick link to a boingboing.net piece on robotic erotica--an ongoing concern of this blog.

Zeno

One part ethnic mannequin with the soul of an obscene machine, Zeno is the next great step in the march to a cyborg world. Click here for the story.

Automatons for Children as Cannabis Purveyors

Not exactly robots or cyborgs, but curious all the same..

The Body Politic

A quick link to an artist's website that fuses the Obscene Machine's ongoing obsession with the ersatz, textuality, body as canvas, etc...

More on People, Mostly Men, and their Ersatz Companions

Readers of these memes know that a fair amount of space is taken up by interrogations of humans and their cyborg/animatronic friends. The BBC weighs in with its findings in this regard:



source

Rustboy

Pixar meets Tim Burton in this peculiar and moving automatonic project!

Little Robot Dude Web Assistant

This is merely an interface for accessing the design archive of the Funnel Design Group, but it embodies a cool retro form of an obscene machine that is gorgeous, clever, and functional.

Beautiful Kinetic 'Monsters'

The Obscene Machine project goes back online with a BMW 'commercial' that is more about aesthetics than commerce, more about movement than phenotype:

Grotesquely Fascinating Stereotyping

One of our talented e493 undergraduates has weighed in with a link!

To: bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu
Subject: South of the Border
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 05:03:07 -0500

Greetings Professor Nericcio,

Apparently there was a party at Santa Clara University that "sparked outrage" among members of the Multicultural Center as well as school officials. I wanted to share since it fit right in with our studies under the heading of "Grotesquely Fascinating Stereotyping."

Caitlin Petrakovitz | ENGL 493

UPDATE



of course, it has happened again! Thanks to Stephen W. Bender for the headsup! A CNN video will be here until CNN yanks it. Viva la fiesta, I guess!?

I have seen the future of the world wide web and it's making me smile...

With a massive tip of the sombrero to the folks at drawn.ca for the headsup on this curious, dynamic, and diverting youtube video.

Frantz Fanon, Skin Bleaching, Capital, and the Epidermal as Existential...

Late, but salient, Dan Barlow checks in with a post that will "scare you white."

Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 11:56:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: English 725: last minute blog work
From: "Dan Barlow"
To: bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu

Dear Professor Nericcio,

Perhaps it is too late for blog entries, but it occurred to me that I've only submitted one thus far. Here is one of scanty proportion that is nonetheless extremely interesting and relevant to issues of racial constructions in the media--something into which you know I am heartily indulging for my seminar paper. Simply put, here's a website touting a salable skin whitening product akin to Fanon's so-called "denegrification" serum...Hollywood's secret remedy for melanocytic malediction:


PS: It even turns nipples pink!

Thanks again and again for everything!!!

Dan Barlow

Gustavo Arellano and Ask a Mexican

Our cadre of graduate student correspondents never cease in their mission to scour the web for ethnic mannequin and obscene machine tidbits of note; here Julie Nares files a timely Reuters story:

To: bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu
From: Julie Nares
Subject: interesting article
Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 23:36:45 -0700


Hey Dr. Nericcio! I know it is too late for posting anything on the blogs or anything like that, but I thought you might find this article interesting. I know you have heard of the column "Ask A Mexican" but especially in light of today's discussion on laughter and the perpetuation of stereotypes, I thought Arellano had some interesting thoughts on the subject. He notes that his column constantly gets questions addressing Mexicans by derogatory, yet common slurs, such as "beaners" or "greasers." He deals with these obviously racist people with humor. It is almost as if he recognizes that within laughter lies the problem of perpetuating stereotypes but he also finds the solution to curtailing them. He also recognizes that most people get defensive and angry when they believe they are being made fun of and deals with that with humor too. All in all, I think this author and article is interesting enough to forward to you and to others (?). Hope you enjoy it!

Julie Nares

Here is the link:
PS - Note that the article was under the "Oddly Enough" headline of my Google homepage. I am not sure what to make of someone categorizing this article and man as "odd" because what he is attempting to do seems anything but odd to me.

Spike Lee's Bamboozled, by Kimberly Hart

Kimberly Hart writes in with a brief dispatch on Spike Lee's Bamboozled:

Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 14:17:38 -0700
From: "Kimberly R. Hart" khart@
To: bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu
Subject: Engl 725 Blog potential

Hi Professor Nericcio,

So many things seem to pertain to this class and I don't know why I didn't think of this until now. I saw this film in a black studies course in undergrad and thought it was very interesting and provacative--it's the Spike Lee film, "Bamboozled," that came out in 2000. It's based around an ivy-league educated black writer for a major TV network. He becomes frustrated in being unable to pitch a "Cosby-esque" show and so as a sort of backlash, he creates a blackface minstrel show. The irony is that it becomes a huge hit. What is interesting within this movie is that instead of white actors in blackface, there are black actors in blackface. I thought that this went along quite well with the theme of mannequins and the notion of how we see the black body in media. Although disturbing, I thought the movie was well done, definately making a bold statement. People should see it! Kimberly Hart

Will Eisner and Sei Shonogon and Peter Greenaway

"I have found that there are but two things in life which are dependable: the delights of flesh and the delights of literature."
-Sei Shonagon

In the Shonagon inspired film, The Pillowbook, Peter Greenaway asks if these two things are actually much closer to being a single delight. It seems that the late comic legend, Will Eisner, might agree with Greenaway on this topic. Though Eisner is best known as a comic book publishing pioneer and creator of what is arguably thought of as the very first superhero, The Spirit, he has also published quite a few books about the act of graphic storytelling. These books are hailed by today’s most successful and popular comic book writers as must-reads for anyone interested in playing with image and narrative. In essence, it’s comic theory. On pages 14 and 15 of Comics and Sequential Art, Eisner relates the inherent similarities between human bodies and the characters employed in writing with special attention paid to Chinese characters.



author: NATHAN LEAMAN

Nathan Leaman Calls in with a Posting

Last week, on a very special 30 Rock:

Mandingo was a very sensational, very 1970’s treatment of an oft-repressed moment in American history. Slavery, sexual exploitation, racial oppression—it seems the seventies viewed these issues with equal parts scandal and voyeurism. How, then, do we view these issues today? How do we deal? Apparently with comedy. The running subplot of the critically acclaimed NBC sitcom, 30 Rock, depicts a slightly insane black comic uber-celebrity (think one part Martin Lawrence, one part Eddie Murphy, three parts himself), played by Tracy Morgan, who discovers that not only is he a direct descendent of Thomas Jefferson, but that he is actually 60% white– damn Gina! Throughout the next few episodes, Morgan’s character struggles to launch a new movie project featuring himself playing multiple roles as Thomas Jefferson, his slave, their son, Robert E. Lee and just about every other character needed for the movie. Talk about your black skin, white masks!! It’s actually quite a funny show and most recent episodes can be viewed online for anyone without a television like me. Besides, where else can you find Alec Baldwin dressed as our third president flipping off the audience of the Montel Williams Show quoting Star Wars movies?

NATHAN LEAMAN

Bianca Chapman on Photography

Ace E725 Correspondent Bianca Chapman files a moving meditative fusion of word and image:

the rain exploding
in the air is love
the grass excreting her
green waz is love
and stones remembering
past steps is love,
but you, you are too young
for love
and i too old.

–from Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

Perhaps love is the energy transferred between the real and the abstract; the physics of time and the memory of touch. In that case, the illumination of the pregnant figure is the embodiment of capturing a moment of time overpowered by touch, an examination of the beginning of life and the physical universe holding it all. In The Sweet Breath of Life, a collaboration of photographic images by Kamoinge Inc. and poetry by Ntozake Shange, the energy finds a place to rest in the magnetic footsteps of a pregnant woman dancing on the roof of an urban building. There is an installation of the natural, as rain dances on and off her skin magically in a still photograph. Time passes with the dance of steady raindrops. The world around her moves with her. There is asymmetrical energy given by her urban background as parts of the building seem to stab at her exuberant nude body, covered only by her frail hands.


“forgive me if I smile
young heiress of a naked dream
you are so young
and i too old to learn to love.” –from Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

In the collection, Inner Light, we find the symmetrical energy of a pregnant figure enclosed in a recreation of the ovule of a flower, the flower budding within the flower. The lines constructed create a peaceful tension as parts of her body venture outside of the structure. Half of her body rests in the warm shadow of itself as her hands provide the only other coverage. The world around her cradles her, as she cradles her own. Time halts, a victim of her steady force, her steady heartbeat, and the energy within her. There is the energy of love between these two figures, a common thread of time blossoming within and the magnificent physical window from which it will enter.

Pandas and a new Twist on the "Obscene Machine"

Graduate Teaching Assistant, mensch, House of Blues musician Mark Young sends a posting that marries our blogs recent interest in animal reproduction with our concurrent interest in media of an erotic/prosthetic nature:

From: "Mark Young"
To: memo@sdsu.edu
Subject: Panda Porn
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:13:23 +0000


Hi Bill!

Here's the link to the mating hijinx! As we've fretted over the problems of human representations of ethnicity and gender all semester, here's a glib and madcap reminder from our Chinese scientific colleagues that not all species seem to share these issues. Take porn for instance. And pandas. It seems these cuddly, masked males, notorious for their indifference to the coital tango, get a measurable lift from the videotaped romps and amplified aural pleasures of their more virile brethren! The result has been a panda baby boom large enough to bring the species from the brink of extinction. Sounds good, right? But do the lady-panda's know the secret to this newfound friskiness? I'm doubtful that an ethics committee has, of yet, discussed the implications for importing human vices into the kingdom of animal behavior (I'm having eerie visions of Yosemite bears: they've already learned how to breaking into cars for toothpaste and peanut butter...what might a sex-crazed bear epidemic look like?!).

Watch the video for some strange interspecies hijinx!

-Mark

Marta Borzuchowski Checks in with a Robot Sighting!

From: "Marta Borzuchowski"
Subject: Hey Bill!
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:57:08 -0700

I was watching the news this morning and I found something that follows our class. PaPeRo is a robot that literally has its own mind. It knows its own master, observes and thinks information, and so on. It's truly crazy what the 21st Century has in store for the future. But here is a website about PaPeRo if you're curious.

Marta

Ana Aguila on Fanon and Life on Mars

E725 graduate student Ana Aguila sent in a blog entry on a cd about a month ago and i have just gotten around to posting it; here it is with my apologies:

Hello, professor. With the readings of Fanon dealing with racism and Martinican’s desire to be white, I came across this clip from a British drama called Life on Mars. It’s a crime series set in the 1970s with an honest cop from the future (that is 2007). This season the show’s been dealing a lot with race themes. The writers mix 70s and 2000s’ ideologies to get controversial stories. The cop from 2007 is always shown as the voice of reason: the good guy that sees everyone as a human and not as a color. The enclosed clip is about a hate crime. It shows the good cop arresting a skinhead after terrorizing a Pakistani neighborhood in Manchester, England. I liked the fact that the writers of the show are dealing with important themes such as race. The two ideologies from 70s and 2000s are represented as opposites: one filled with racism and the other filled with interracial relationships. The writers are trying to juxtapose the two in order to reflect the current situation with racism. I found the clip surprising and shocking.

Dogs Deserve Mannequins Too!!!

As a followup to a recent posting focusing on the erotic and amorous possibilities of pliable mannequins, do please follow this link to a story of ersatz canine love innovations. Among other things, it shows that when it comes to our Fido-friends, homo sapiens have not cornered the market. Original posting at Gizmodo.