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GETOUTOFYOURSKIN by Caterina Ciuffoletti

This fashion collection is a result of designer Caterina Ciuffoletti’s experimentation with the Nietzschean concept of the “Dionysian spirit,” which embodies man as he really is (man’s nature), vs. the “Apollonian spirit,” which is the idea of the social being (man’s ideal).

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Sara Suppan’s “Human Anatomical Manikin”

“…my work gravitates in imagery from antiquated medical practices, historic anatomical illustration, and the pathological grotesque. Many of my pieces feature a fusion of botanical and anatomical forms, or structures from the human anatomy acting as an environment in which to house another subject. Roses, or even planetary systems, will be imbedded in muscle tissue; entire figures trapped inside boney caves, or ribbons of cow carcass.”
— Sara Suppan

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Sarah Allen Eagen

Sarah Eagen is a New York-based sculpture, installation, and mixed media artist as well as photographer and painter. She is “inspired by bio-art, body architecture, and biological surrealism”; she focuses on evoking a visceral response in the viewer and explores the tensions between comfort and discomfort, the beautiful and the grotesque, and the dissolved borders between these seeming contradictions, where “something is at once seductive and repulsive.”

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Antiviral

Antiviral is the directorial debut of Brandon Cronenberg, the son of the master of “body horror,” David Cronenberg. It bears a marked similarity to his father’s work, but still manages to hold its own, has a distinct style, and is not merely a copy of Cronenberg films like Videodrome and eXistenZ. It’s eerie and fascinating, a subtle combination of horror, science fiction, and surreal atmosphere. The visual style has an elegant spareness and crispness that is pure and precise. I found it well worth watching, and very interesting.

The protagonist is Syd March, played by the beautiful yet intensely sinister Caleb Landry Jones. He works for a company which sells live viral infections harvested from the bodies of celebrities to customers who yearn to share their illnesses, and commune with them via the shared infection. This film brings up some intriguing concepts about the survival of the human body past the death of the individual. For one, it makes the point that to viruses, the human body in itself is irrelevant, it is the host cells, the basic biological level, which matter. One of the characters makes a reference to the first human immortal cell line, telling March that the cells of a woman who died of cancer in the 1950s are still alive and being grown today, so that at least on a biological level, her death has not been complete. He comments that “the afterlife is getting extremely perverse.”

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“Neverending Nightmares” Kickstarter Campaign

Neverending Nightmares is an upcoming PC game, in development by Infinitap, which promises to be eerie, atmospheric, and horrifically surreal. Inspired by the creator’s struggle with OCD and depression, the art style was influenced by Edward Gorey, and game influences include Silent Hill and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Some of the imagery in the game comes from “intrusive thoughts” that have recurred to the developer, Matt Gilgenbach. In an interview with Penny Arcade, he describes how his personal experience with mental illness influenced the project.

The game focuses on exploration and has an interactive narrative structure, in which your actions cause the story to branch off and determine what the ultimate reality you awaken to will be. The gameplay and controls are simple and minimalistic. I love psychological horror games which involve little “action” (such as Tale of Tales’ The Path), and feel that they allow you to be more fully immersed in the experience, so I’m looking forward to this intriguing title.

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Ergo Proxy

I’ve just started re-watching the sci-fi anime show Ergo Proxy, and again I’m struck by its visual splendor. Ergo Proxy is a deeply philosophical, beautifully animated dystopian cyberpunk series which deals with the existence of humans and AutoReivs (androids) in the domed city of Romdeau, built to protect its citizens after global ecological disaster thousands of years in the past. The main character is Re-l Mayer, an intelligence bureau agent who is assigned to investigate the “Cogito virus,” which causes infected AutoReivs to become self-aware. The “Proxies” are mysterious, godlike beings whose nature is enigmatic yet deeply human. Taking place both within the seemingly utopian, futuristic city and outside in the vast, dark expanses of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, the capacities and origin of the Proxies are slowly unraveled. In this gorgeous animation, cerebral engagement, existential musings, emotional intensity, and aesthetic rigor combine in a rare way to produce a dreamlike, vague, often abstruse, but ultimately compelling story.

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