Birds Before The Storm

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Earlier on Birds Before The Storm, I posted about Big Dog, a military-friendly quadruped robot that is kind of frightening. But fortunately, our attention has been brought to Lrry-1, the video of which appears above, by the boulevardier: (from our comments)

we have our own robodog too! and it is bigger and scarier than theirs and made entirely of scrap metal… i wasn’t savy to mutoid waste until kanye west (of all people) introduced me to this video and they are fucking rad! They were organizing illegal parties in the 80’s, fleeing from police raids in the 90’s and now are building giant monsters, i sort of have a crush going!

So yeah, this is where it’s at. Scrap-metal DIY monsters that spit fire, ridden by mohawked mad scientists, and in real life. Yes.

Lrry-1 is the product of Lyle of the Mutoid Waste Company. A bit more information about them is available on their wikipedia entry and through a documentary on youtube. Other videos of Lrry (including LRRY2 or possibly 4!) are available on youtube as well: 1, 2.

When I lived in Amsterdam, I got a glimpse of some the european activist design aesthetic, which was beautiful. A little hip for my tastes, to be sure (not everything can look like it came from the 19th century, I suppose), but my friends there sure knew that aesthetics can be important. I’m gonna be honest… I think one reason that it’s hipper to be radical in Europe than in the USA is because, well, the radicals know how to design. (yes, I know, there are many good designers in the US scene. I’m just talking about the level of average flier/poster, which is admittedly going up.) So yeah. Anyhow, I found a website, the Radical Activism Visual Archive, that appears to be dedicated to collecting and presenting the awesome posters, covers, fliers, etc. that come out of radical activism all over the world (yes, the USA too).

I want to be around when this happens. Not that I have anything against Warsaw in particular, mind you. It’s just, so beautiful. (I found this image on darkroastedblend, but I can’t figure out where they found it.)

Ah, Day X. On March 20th, 2003, the city of Portland came together in a pretty amazing protest that shut down a good portion of downtown for many an hour. The idea was “no business as usual”, a general consensus of the anti-war movement at the time: if we made the system cease to work by protests and demonstrations, the government might be forced to listen to us. San Fran did the best, of course, managing rolling blockades throughout downtown for almost a week, but our 6 hours were pretty amazing.

Anyhow, my friend “Lyra234″ appears to have made a video game with the title Day X: The Riot (Day X was the name that we used in our video about the protest). In this version, you are a ninja anarchist who throws molotov cocktails at cops and collects such classic video game power-ups like “shield”, “health”, and “circle bomb”. It’s fun. It has absolutely nothing to do with the protests I was just talking about. You should play it.

So there’s this group that you’ve probably already heard of, the Westboro Baptist Church, who run godhatesfags.com (ooh, and even more interesting, godhatestheworld.com, an interactive map that lets you find out why god hates everywhere). Basically, these people go around and picket other folk’s funerals for being gay, or even more bizarre, the funerals of dead soldiers, since the soldiers were “defending” a country that “harbors” homosexuals. Anyhow, they’re a bunch of bastards, really summing up the whole “close-minded religious lunatic” thing pretty effectively. So anyhow, a few people have shown up at their protests and made pretty clever protest signs:
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It looks like the bag made from recycled bags is done already. On Sunday, we posted how to make plastic yarn from bags. Now, our instructor has finished the bag from bags. I also found out that she has an Etsy store, Chloe’s Corner.

Actually, that photo isn’t from the opening night, it’s from Wednesday night, as we worked diligently to piece the show together. But after a quick scour of Flickr for “Anachrotechnofetishism” I came across a good number of photosets with pictures from the evening: Alison Velvetgarden, Suite 100, Helix 90, Adameros, Porkshanks, and of course these earlier ones from Myself.

The show is up until October 3rd at Suite 100 Gallery, and you can even view and buy the work online as well.