Lollipop Isle

By Oiva Toikka, Finland, 1969.  In the glass galleries at the V&A.

Robots In Love

Collage from the archives.

Test Transmission all things Keith Seatman and more: TV Thrillers and Chillers with the Parents

Test Transmission all things Keith Seatman and more: TV Thrillers and Chillers with the Parents: Here are a couple of 1970s evening Thrillers and Chillers. I have very fond memories of watching these with my parents. I always seemed to ...

barn upptäcker elektronisk musik med farbror Ralph

for adult viewing only 

Blast - Off

Into Space with Waddington’s BLAST-OFF!  Described as “The Game of Modern Space Exploration and Technology for 1 to 4 Players. It also states in the introduction “It is not necessary to understand the rules for all three stages at the start” A friend of mine gave me Blast - Off for Christmas and I have been trying to fathom out how to play it since then. Blast Off comes with some rather superb dials to measure Fuel, Orbit and planets visited. The playing pieces are various coloured Space Capsules and Satellite docking stations. You first have to get your Satellite docking stations into orbit then have to get the Capsule docked into your Satellite. Next step is to land on the moon and then head off around the solar system ending up at Pluto. First to make it there is the winner. Along the way you could run out of fuel and have to return to earth or even the moon to re-fuel.
Blast - Off was released at a time of the Apollo 11 moon landing and the late 60s were a peak time for Space related toys and games (Major Matt Mason, Project Sword, Triangs SpaceX, Zeriods and even Action Man who had a Mercury Capsule) I was lucky enough to have Zeroids (here is my last one) and The Action Man Astronaut and Capsule, both long gone. Clarks shoes even got in on the space thing by creating their Wayfinder Moonshot Shoes (The Sole was a silver liner surface, that did not stay silver for long) also supplied for your space age fun with the shoes was a cardboard space/moon background that came with transfers and space capsule which with the aid of a magnet you could move around on your space background. At the time I thought it was all fantastic……I still do.

A very young me looking slightly confused at my Action Man Mercury Space Capsule.
(Think the shoes had seen better days) BTW I still have that slightly confused look, normally when I am trying to write some music.

Made in Belgium

Lures

Test Transmission all things Keith Seatman and more: Woman in Black. A Fine Edition

Test Transmission all things Keith Seatman and more: Woman in Black. A Fine Edition: My friend Mr Palmer has just recently loaned me a copy of Susan Hill’s Woman in Black. I have read the book and seen the film….plus seen...

Milton Cohen’s Space Theatre.

Stumbling across these images on a rare visit to Tumblr today led me down a nice internet rabbit hole.

For (admittedly limited) context, please consult the following:

ONCE Group (Wiki).

“Milton Cohen’s Space Theater was another catalyst for ONCE. Cohen, on the art faculty and best known as a painter, was becoming increasingly interested in creating art using light. In 1957, he rented studio space in Ann Arbor and began constructing his Space Theater: a twenty-sided hemisphere fifty feet in diameter that he would equip to manipulate light in an interactive setting.

Cohen’s goals were remarkably similar to those of the ONCE composers: to shrink distance between artist and spectator, spectator and spectacle; to suggest a museum of creative presence, of living performance, of spontaneous action; and to score music, light, poetry, dance, with a single notational system, thus pressing a unitary vision. 

To create an interdisciplinary performance, Milton Cohen collaborated with two future ONCE composers, Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma. Using their own electronic equipment—amplifiers, oscillators, filters, and four-track tape recorders—Ashley and Mumma formed the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music, composing electroacoustic music for over one hundred Space Theater performances.” 

 - The ONCE Festivals of the 1960s by Emily Weingarten, ‘Michigan Muse’, Spring 2010

The Music of ONCE: Perpetual Innovation by Emily Weingarten (2008)
(Google books preview – check pages 3-4 in particular)

I’m unable to ascertain which publication the images above actually appeared in.

The Boys Are Back in Town

12 page art booklet by mushbuh, 2018.

An unexpected source of old-skool hauntological imagery.

mushbuh has done bits for Adult Swim and Cartoon Network (including an animator cameo in Clarence) but is probably best known online for his 3D renderings, usually of modern materials and objects.  His aesthetic could be described as "playroom floor" / "the draw where all the kids' bits and bobs end up" - Poundshop placcy toys, stray building bricks, ball bearings, stickers, characters and - especially - unidentifiable parts.  There's also a dollop of "kids' video game" (he's working on one) and a stack of "90s computer graphic demos" (think mirrored balls on chessboards). It's a world where Happy Meal toys and Kinder surprises get to live full and interesting lives.

I bloody love it.  Apparently he does all of this in Blender, the much under-rated shareware prog.

(Just to be clear, the three images above aren't in "The Boys..." booklet, which is filled with more of the sort of thing you see on the cover there).

Here's a video he did for Iglooghost: Solar Blade (non-strobing version)

and here's his Patreon: Monthly stickers