the promise of a new future....

I've been reading my old copy of Localizer 1.0 this weekend - a book compiling art, music, labels, personalities from the early-mid 90s technohouse culture in Europe - mostly Germany, but also including Holland, Norway and other places. I still love much of the music from back then. and also the art works at the parties - below are some examples from Localizer book - I still love these styles. I think maybe I need to go to some more outdoor parties to see them again. to me, it was partly a promise of a new future with technology, music and art, which started in the late 80s (for me). whatever happened to that feeling though? I'm now living with technology, working with it, yet nothing seems that new & fresh anymore. I think it's information overload - new things come out so quickly and with the internet I hear about them too quickly that they don't feel new anymore. I miss the feeling of having to wait for a book to arrive at the store or my mailbox before I found out about something happening elsewhere. /old & jaded rant

I especially love the fluid pieces - the undulating circles & spheres - I remember Ben making some of these for some of the parties (maybe the Beat too?) I think he used a dos program for some, which I tracked down years later, but I can't remember the name now :( I remember trying to use povray and some other rendering software to make some like this - but of course they never turned out as good! and my computer at the time used to take ages to render. it wasn't a gui - you had to type in math points, instructions & co-ordinates, then wait ages for it to render, only to find out I'd done something wrong and it hadn't worked out!

I was reading a lot of science fiction at the time too - cyberpunk, AI, transhumanist themes so the images at the parties matched these. there was a conversation on dancecult-l over the past couple of weeks about the origins of space themes (specifically apollo space mission) in psytrance which led to discussions on alien imagery in some of the party visuals - particularly the alien face. some likened it to the alienation of the party goers to the rest of the general public in society.

listening to Orbital cd and Artificial Intelligence #1 (from warp) whilst reading through this book & posting pictures

skudi optics :