CHILLED MEAT

brief hiatus

the weird world of mason lindroth

New Jersey artist Mason Lindroth uses clay, RPG Maker and the stuff of nightmares to create experimental and wonderfully bizarre video games — or “recreational programs,” as he prefers to call them. These Boschian hellscapes are made up of sandcastles and monster flesh, masterfully sculpted by Lindroth himself, and are often still malleable once the player gets his hands on them.

Previously described by the press as “a malaria fever dream,” Lindroth’s animation portfolio is impressively diverse, and will amuse you in a synesthetic kind of way. There’s a melting simulator, a virtual Etch-a-Sketch and a beach exploration game, all of which are the strange fruits of various game jams. Giant hands feature often, revealing the artist’s fascination with the creative process, and whole worlds invite you to destroy them in a delightfully playful manner.

Hylics — Lindroth’s biggest project to date — is ready to download on itch.io. At a minimum price of $3.00, it would be rude not to treat yourself to a copy.

the vanderpump dog foundation

Lisa Vanderpump is a British restaurateur, author, actress and — as it only seems natural for people as wealthy as her — philanthropist. More recently, she became a household name as one of the oldest and longest surviving members of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast. Lisa is known and adored for her fabulous fashion sense, a naughty sense of humour and of course, her undying love for dogs. Balding Pomeranianan Giggy remained a permanent companion through all 6 seasons, as one of the most glamorous furry sidekicks of all time.

Lisa and husband Ken’s latest business venture is an animal rights charity called the Vanderpump Dog Foundation, which strives to “provide for a more humane world for our campanion animals.” The foundation’s initial target is to put an end to Yulin, the historically controversial Chinese dog meat festival, as well as to build a new dog rescue and care sanctuary in West Hollywood.

More information can be found on the official website.

#blackisviral

#BlackIsViral is the chosen title for the 2016 edition of Afrofuturism Conference, a student-led convention on Afrofuturism as a cultural and aesthetic movement for the radical emancipation of people of colour. Held at The New School in NYC, this year’s theme is the “virality” of blackness, or more specifically how new media and online culture can be used as tools to “hack” the cultural divide and explore the matrix of Afrofuturism as a narrative for liberation.

The official schedule has yet to be listed, but planned seminar topics include everything from environmental justice to “speaking in black tongues,” and art collective Balti Gurls are confirmed to be on the guest list. #BlackIsViral takes place in New York from 7:00 PM on April 29th until 10:00 PM on May 1st. While attendance is free, a suggested donation of $5-$25 is strongly encouraged.

Get your tickets for Afrofuturism Conference 2016: #BlackIsViral quick, and don’t forget to follow their official Instagram while you’re at it. 

customer service wolf

Dating back to August 2012, the first Customer Service Wolf comic strip illustrates a brief yet bloody interaction between a canine bookstore employee and his insufferable rabbit client. Since then, the webcomic has published close to fifty vignettes and hit the 1k follower mark on tumblr, having gained cult status for it’s humorous depictions of retail work in the animal kingdom.

Despite the fact that most Customer Service Wolf tales come to a similarly gruesome ending, the setting and characters are all unquestionably charming, from flamboyant peacocks to an excruciatingly vague reindeer. The anonymous author of CSW plays on the behavioural quirks of animals and customers alike, in a delightful monochrome art style that’s slightly rough around the edges.

Customer Service Wolf clearly draws on the artist’s personal experience, and is guaranteed to make anyone in the business of customer satisfaction chuckle.

Follow the adventures of Customer Service Wolf on tumblr.

states of undress

How does being transgender affect your career as a hair stylist in Pakistan? Ever wondered what it’s like to have your period in a city where tampons are almost impossible to acquire? Miu Miu model turned gonzo fashion journalist Hailey Gates discovers the untold issues of the global fashion industry in STATES OF UNDRESS, a new web docu-series produced by Vice Media.

Each 44-minute episode explores one lesser-known fashion capital at a time, from the Congo to China via conservative Russia. Gates meets with beauty pageants, fashion designers, acid attack victims and DIY gluteoplasts, hoping to shed light on what the world wears and why. Streetwear and couture are both deeply political, and this documentary tells the stories of violence and protest that are shaping and being shaped by the fashion industry today. 

STATES OF UNDRESS is broadcast on VICELAND every Wednesday at 10:00 PM, although it does require cable login from the US to be viewed legally.

totem teller

Totem Teller is an upcoming video game for PC, Mac and Linux platforms. Developed by Shanghai studio Grinning Pickle, it’s described by the two-man team as an open world story adventure, and has been in full-time development since November 2015. From the very beginning, Totem Teller has stood out in a sea of indie projects thanks to it’s weird aura and distinctive artistic direction.

While we have very little information about the gameplay or narrative, the collection of screenshots posted to the official Totem Teller tumblr are exquisite enough to intrigue audiences of all kinds. No release date has been defined yet, but players can expect to “discover a world, restore characters [and] close pot holes,” with the concept of truth being at the heart of the game’s storyline. 

For regular updates, follow the creators of Totem Teller on Twitter. It’s early days and the gamedev duo are choosing to keep a little mystery, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a crowdfunding project were to pop up in the near future.

alice isn’t dead

From the creators of Welcome to Night Vale, serial fiction podcast Alice Isn’t Dead follows the bizarre encounters and mishaps of an unnamed truck driver who is searching for her presumedly deceased wife. Written by Joseph Fink, it is designed as a follow-up to the cult phenomenon, but hopes to set itself apart from Night Vale thanks to a more structured format and even creepier vibe.

Narrated by Jasika Nicole, Alice Isn’t Dead is not a community radio show but a collection of mysterious cassette recordings. Every other Tuesday listeners are whisked away on a dark, surreal road trip, where people are strange and things go bump in the night. Despite being only 20 minutes long, the atmosphere born from Fink and Nicole’s collaboration is nothing short of astounding.

The fourth episode of the series, “The Factory by the Sea,” was released earlier on today. You can keep up with Alice Isn’t Dead via their official website, or by subscribing to the Welcome to Night Vale YouTube channel.

the comforting zines of slimgiltsoul

Jeremy Boydell a.k.a. SLIM GILT SOUL is a self-published comics artist from Camden Town, London. Dubbing himself as a “recovery blogger,” his beautiful pastel cartoons touch on topics ranging from dysphoria to emotional abuse, and are often released for free before being collected in print. While the subject matter may be tough, the pain and suffering in question is softened by a cast of fluffy, mostly canine characters straight out of a 90s girl’s sweetest dreams.

My attention was first drawn to Boydell’s work through Self Care with Dog, a comforting zine and resource guide for when things get bad. Since then, I have perused his monster catalogue, got my vitamins at the Feel Better Machine and followed the adventures of Trans Girl Snoopy on Twitter. Long story short, SLIM GILT SOUL is my jam, and I’d be delighted if you checked his art out today.

You can pledge your support to Jeremy Boydell via Patreon, which will also grant you early access to exclusive digital content.

megg & mogg in amsterdam

Simon Hanselmann’s web comic duo Megg & Mogg are off to Amsterdam, but a forgotten bottle of anti-depressants and a reckless housesitter by the name of Werewolf Jones get their trip off to a messy start. Since making their print debut in 2014 with New York Times bestseller Megahex, the blasé witch and her black cat have had a regular slot on the VICE website, allowing Hanselmann (a.k.a. Girl Mountain) to showcase their dark humour and psychedelic flair.

Megg & Mogg In Amsterdam And Other Stories collects these contributions to VICE, as well as the award-nominated short story St. Owl’s Bay and several other adventures that are guaranteed to flesh out Hanselmann’s quirky characters. Themes tackled include sexuality, drugs use, poverty and depression, and the official publication date is 4/20, to the delight of the Megg & Mogg fanbase.

You can pre-order Meg & Mogg In Amsterdam now for $19.99 on the Fantagraphics website, with first copies being shipped on Monday.

sick woman theory

How do you take part in a protest if you live with chronic illness? How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can't get out of bed? These are the questions raised and responded to by Johanna Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory, which posits disabled bodies as tools of resistance to capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and other forms of oppression. “You don't need to be fixed, my queens,” says Hedva, “it's the world that needs the fixing.”

Johanna Hedva advocates for the invisible activist, and her words will strike a chord with anyone who's encountered accessibility issues in the political world. Following the online publication of Sick Woman Theory earlier this year, the first edition of Sick Fest — an event dedicated to elevating the work of authors and artists living with chronic illness — was held in Oakland on March 26th.

Johanna Hedva is talking at Pomona College Women’s Union tomorrow night. If you can’t make it, you should read her manifesto now in Mask Magazine.

dreamy bot

From Microsofts teen girl AI disaster to the infamous Horse_ebooks, bots have been gaining more and more cultural significance recently. There was even an annual summit held at the V&A last week, with seminars such as “Lessons in affect from physical bots” and “I’d rather be an iPhone than a woman.” The literary potential of bot technology is only just beginning to reveal itself, as we ourselves are learning to appreciate the artistic value of computer-generated poems and pictures, randomly thrown together like digital cadavre exquis.

As far as flash fiction goes, Dreamy Bot is wonderfully evocative. The simple algorithm devised by Twitter user @seasludge paints dreamscapes hourly, with phrasing reminiscent of a choose-your-own-adventure book. Recent favourites of mine include “A femme doe calms you” and “There is a blushing sugar glider who lives in a fire escape surrounded by fruits. They make you feel genial.”

Follow @dreamhaver on Twitter.

capsule silence xxiv

If you’re into chiptune, you’ll no doubt have heard of New York four-piece Anamanaguchi. In a recent Twitter meltdown, the band “leaked” a game they’d reportedly been working on for years, complaining about mysterious developers NHX wasting money and delivering poor results. Most don’t believe this story to be true: heavily stylised in a way that almost works, Capsule Silence XXIV could simply be an innovative and challenging take on the interactive art form. 

It turns out that a number of cassette tapes have been deviously hidden in the glitched landscape, each of which contains a track that — after a lot of messing about — can be exported to .mp3, provided you don’t crash the entire game. Rumours briefly circulated about internet collective Arkane Kids being involved in the development, a myth which has since been dispelled by the band itself.

Whether a business venture gone wrong or an elaborate publicity stunt, Capsule Silence XXIV is worth playing if only for the weirdness of it all.

real food by martin parr

Martin Parr is a documentary photographer known for his highly saturated close-ups and loving observations of British eccentricity through the decades. A graduate from Manchester Polytechnic, his career began at a Butlins resort, and he quickly garnered much praise and attention for his snapshots of both the working and middle classes embracing leisure under Thatcherism.

Parr’s latest photo-book was released this month. Simply titled Real Food, it is a bumper collection of 250 tasty and often tasteless snacks, from cheap and cheerful luncheon meat to Mr Blobby-shaped meringues. This fun kaleidoscope of global gluttony shines a light on the social aspect of food, enabling readers to guess the location of each photograph thanks to a small index at the back.

Introduced by London chef Fergus Henderson, Real Food makes the perfect gift for that friend or family member who loves to get kitsch in the kitchen. 

Real Food by Martin Parr is published by Phaidon Press.

scarfolk council 

If you’ve never been to Scarfolk, then you’re in for a treat. Imagined by graphic designer and screenwriter Richard Littler, the “town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979” is home to organ postal services, confectionary-branded cigarettes and occult childrens television. The resulting blog is a dark and eery parody of post-war Britain that has a lot to say about Britain today.

As hilarious as it is unnerving, the Scarfolk Council blog is a clever play on our warped nostalgia for the 1970s. Presented as a mundane collection of artefacts from the towns archive, it is a masterful exercise in the spooky and the political, that will particularly appeal to readers who grew up in the UK. Fans of Reece Shearsmith, Welcome to Night Vale and hauntology will be equally delighted.

Richard Littler published an illustrated novel adapted from the blog in 2014, and is now working on a pilot for a TV mockumentary based in his fictional town.

Get lost in 70s suburbian horror on the Scarfolk Council blog.

togetherness series finale

The mumblecore genre has finally come to TV, and you don’t want to miss out. Written by the Duplass brothers for primetime HBO, Togetherness studies the growing romantic and platonic relationships of four central characters living in Eagle Rock, LA. The show is a visually stunning comedy-drama featuring romantic elements and a whole lot of dark humour, and has won the hearts of many thanks to its brilliant dialogue paired with an endearing, talented cast. 

Season 2 takes off where the first one left us, between New Orleans and Los Angeles, with the groups dynamic on the brink of changing forever. Though each episode is only a half-hour long, viewers are left both devastated and emotionally fulfilled, with many memorable, laugh-out-loud moments to reflect upon. Jay and Mark Duplass accomplish that rare feat of creating distinctive characters we can all relate to, and the chemistry between them is as exciting as ever.

The final episode of Togetherness airs tonight on HBO.

carly rae jepsen’s boy problems

If you’re pop-savvy you’ll no doubt have listened to E•MO•TION, Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2015 album, which added a whole new dimension to the presumed one-hit-wonder through a clever combination of catchy choruses, 80s synth and bubblegum vocals. Yesterday, the official music video for crypto-gay break-up anthem Boy Problems was uploaded to the Rookie website.

Directed by iconic fashion photographer and fellow Canadian Petra Collins, the video depicts a beach-themed slumber party that vacillates between good-time girliness and sultry teen goth vibes. Jepsen pouts and cries in the darkness of her bedroom, sporting a fierce mullet and an iPad that sparkles with stickers.

“We met that first day in New York and were giddy with creating something new together,” writes Carly Rae of her collaboration with Collins. “I am so pleased for how the dark and glittery scenes we imagined turned out.”

The music video had its official premiere over at Rookie.