Takagism Inc.

Toshimitsu Takagi

http://www.fasco-csc.com/

Crimson Room
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php

Veridian Room
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/viridian/index_e.php

Blue Chamber
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/bluechamber/index_e.php

Name: Toshimitsu Takagi
Location: Sapporo Japan
E-mail: takagi@datacraft.co.jp
Homepage: http://www.datacraft.co.jp/Home/Takagism/
Birthday: 1965 May 8
Education: Waseda Univ., Majored in Art History.

Job Title that best describes what I do: Multimedia creator
If I wasn't doing this, I'd be: A mystery author.
My favorite film is: "AMADEUS"
The music I've been listening to lately: Iggy Pop.

Personal hero: Rodney!
Browser Preference: I.E.4 now.
Currently working on: Making Director movie for myself.

DOUG: Your web site is packed with lots of Shockwave and Flash examples. Are these things you have done for clients or just for yourself?

TT: Just for myself! But recently clients want my Director movies. So I've been writing many proposals.

DOUG: Many of the Shockwave movies on your site are animations with no interactivity. Do you consider yourself more of an artist and animator than programmer?

TT: I'd rather be called an artist than a programmer.

DOUG: I especially enjoyed your QP Doll game. Where did you get such a sick sense of humor?!

TT: Thank you. I also like it the best. When I made that movie,I was a little crazy, so I didn't think it was that funny at the time.

DOUG: In your animation "The Sleepless Night", a refrigerator metamorphizes into a sultry nude woman who seems to taunt your protagonist. In "Metempsychosis", young boys clone themselves through regurgitation. I find myself looking for deeper meaning -- as I would examine a classic painting or sculpture. Where do you find your inspiration?

TT: LSD...No, It's a joke! We can buy many kinds of computer applications, but I draw my pictures with old-fashioned tools.
For me, those simple applications are my hammer or knife or something. With them, I can make my mind free.

DOUG: Many of your animations (On a Northern Lake, for example) could have been done in Flash2, if it had existed at the time you created them. I see that you are also using Flash now. How do you plan to integrate Director/Shockwave and Flash2 in your work?

TT: It's difficult to make interaction with Flash. It doesn't have "random".

DOUG: What is your vision of what Shockwave and Flash can mean to web communications?

TT: Difficult to answer. Making movies is just fun for me.

DOUG: What do you want to do next?

TT: I want to write a novel about multimedia.

DOUG: What projects are you looking forward to?

TT: Now I have a Windows-NT machine. I use Macs no more. It's very hard but also exciting to convert all my works into Windows.

Ugly Dog

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10958

Le Train Bleu

Bloomingdales is located at 59th Street, between Lexington and 3rd Avenues. The store is packed with the latest in designer clothing along with a unique restaurant situated at the rear of the 6th floor.

The restaurant - entitled, "Le Train Bleu" - is ensconced in a European Express Train car. Even though you are not actually traveling in the railroad car, you will have an excellent meal among a gregarious group of diners who create a soft cosmopolitan atmosphere as they carry on animated conversations in a multitude of languages. The menu items are fresh and tasty with attractive presentations. Try the Cream Brulee for dessert - a thick creamy custard with a crisp caramelized topping. Call: 1-(800)-947-9006.

Movies 7.10.2005

On Golden Pond / Wings of Desire / Pi / ID / Spaced Second Season

Curtis

Closer Biopic.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0421082


Ian Curtis Tribute Night Tuesday, July 12 10pm - 2am Rare 416 W. 14 st. bet. 9th ave & Washington St. NYC
Admission is free, 2 for 1 drinks, 21+ Joy Division & Warsaw all night + related bands

Saville & Manchester

To promote their rejuvenated city, Manchester City Council turned to the branding experts. A body called Marketing Manchester was handed the task of turning Manchester into a ‘brand’. It’s response was to mount a lack-lustre campaign built around the feeble sounding phrase, “We’re up and going.” The paucity of the campaign angered a group of vociferous Mancunians. Calling themselves The McEnroe Group (after the tennis player’s famous utterance “You cannot be serious”), they dismissed Marketing Manchester’s efforts as “dull, mediocre and worthy of a cycling proficiency badge,” and challenged the city council to do better.

The McEnroe dissenters comprised a number of local movers and shakers, including Factory records-founder and TV-personality Tony Wilson and Manchester-born designer Peter Saville. The group stung the city council into a volte-face. One of the outcomes of which was the appointment of Peter Saville to the role of Manchester’s Creative Director.

Saville’s famous insouciance and legendary aversion to deadlines, makes him an unexpected choice for this task. Despite being the crown prince of British design, a sulphurous whiff of risk and danger always accompanies him. Yet he never seems short of clients.

Saville & Deadlines

Because of his concerns to get a job done right, Peter Saville and business have long had an uneasy relationship. "There's no notion in any industry that they will wait for graphic design. They will not wait. They'll spend longer negotiating your work-for-hire contract than giving you to do the job!" he says with rising incredulity. "It's just the finishing, but it's in the finishing that you make it or break it."

Does he think that his deadlines are unrealistic? "They are if you want something resolved or of any quality," he says. "My problem comes when it's my work. I become territorial, and self-indulgent and maybe arrogant. If it takes till next Friday, it's gonna take till next Friday. You know, I had this mistaken understanding of professional when I was younger that it meant being really good." He laughs in cynical astonishment. "But it's actually about doing what has to be done within the circumstances within which you are allowed to do it."

G8

A thistle with a "modern twist" has been unveiled as the logo for the G8 summit which will bring world leaders to Gleneagles this summer.

The Scottish Executive said that it captured traditional and contemporary images of the country.

The logo for the UK's presidency of the G8 was produced by London-based design firm HGV at a cost of almost £40,000.

www.bbc.co.uk

From Kindergarten to Total Carnage

Presentation on gaming by Matthew Shadbolt (1998)

“From Kindergarten to Total Carnage” was a presentation by artist Matthew Shadbolt . The name refers directly to the level of skill a player chooses when playing particular computer games. The simple and most basic level is ‘kindergarten’ and the most difficult is and usually results in ‘total carnage’.

With a large beam projection from the computer, Shadbolt guided the audience through some of the earliest computer games discussing the challenges of “Pong” where minimalist vertical lines engage in a bout of tennis in the black void. And from this very rudimentary stage in game development he moved to the more recent and sophisticated “Deep Blue” project, a computerised simulated chess partner that continues to challenge the greatest chess champions today. While laying out this history of gaming, he referred to classic representations of artificial intelligence in films such as the benign “R2D2” in “Star Wars” and the feminine mechanical body in “Metropolis”. He illustrated the dystopic image of technology by looking at “HAL/9000”, the rebellious computer in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001- A Space Odyssey” which rages out of control turning against its creator, man. For Shadbolt, these cinematic archetypes reveal our hopeful expectations as well as our anxieties with regards to the development of computer technology.

http://geuzen.blogs.com/info/2004/06/from_kindergart.html

Hacienda Shuts Down

Transcript of article from 9 February, 1991 New Musical Express

MANCHESTER'S HACIENDA nightclub has voluntarily shut down because of the threat of gang violence.

A packed press conference was held on the club's dancefloor last week to hear Factory Records' TONY WILSON, along with co owners NEW ORDER, read from a prepared statement.

"The Hacienda is closing its doors as of today," said the Granada TV presenter, looking tired and haggard. "It is with the greatest reluctance that for the moment we are turning the lights out on what is, for us, a most important place.

We are forced into taking this drastic action in order to protect our employees, our members and all our clients. We are quite simply sick and tired of dealing with instances of personal violence.

"We hope we must believe we can re open the Hacienda in a better climate. But until we are able to run the club In a safe manner and in a way that the owners believe will guarantee the role of the Hacienda at the heart of the city's youth community, it is with great sadness that we will shut our club.'

The Hacienda, opened in 1982, will be closed temporarily two to four weeks, say the club while discussions are held with the police.

"We are determined to re open," said Paul Cons, the club's manager. But he added that "if we cannot gain control over our own door" the club would close indefinitely, with the loss of 15 full time and 50 part time employees.

The closure follows the latest in a long series of violent incidents involving guns outside the club, which has become the focal point not just of the city's music scene but of feuding Manchester gangs.

While few clubbers were aware of the problems door staff faced, the club has been plagued with incidents of intimidation and violence for over two years.

They came to a head late in January when a national security firm was brought in by the club to tighten security. According to Cons: "There was a serious incident on the door in which one of the door staff was threatened with a gun. In the light of this we no longer feel able to secure the safety of our club and its customers."

The club has just fought an expensive battle to retain its licence, against a Greater Manchester Police bid to withdraw its licence because of what police called "blatant drug taking".

lronically, in January the club was granted a six month reprieve, with police reporting "a positive change in direction" by the management. A packed 'Thanksgiving' night saw the British live debut of Electronic, with hordes of Manchester's artists in the audience.

But the Hacienda had recently lacked the atmosphere and crowds that made its name worldwide as the centre of the 'Madchester' explosion.

One of Manchester's most influential DJs, DAVE HASLAM, left the club in October after working nearly 500 nights there, for the nearby Boardwalk venue.

"It's the most depressing day in Manchester club history," he said. "But I think the Hacienda are correct in what they've done. I loved the Hacienda because it was a piece you could go and not feel threatened by pissheads. Ironically, violence has closed it."

A recent Granada TV documentary claimed Manchester was the most violent city in the country. A senior detective said that the Hacienda's action "is a reflection of the general increase in the use of firearms in Manchester."

He confirmed that guns have been smuggled into clubs by rival gangsters competing for a bigger share of the drugs market, or simply as macho accessories.

In January, Tony Wilson said: "When we started up the club, we had no idea that these were the sort of people we would have to deal with. It's the best club in the city that's why they want to terrorise it."

Manchester's music fans and nightclubbers will now hope that the Greater Manchester Police can take measures to create a climate where the public can go for a night out without fear of being injured.

Manchester stars involved with the club have refused to comment on the Hacienda's position, reportedly at the request of Tony Wilson. Among them HAPPY MONDAYS and NEW ORDER have both taken a "No comment" stance during the time the club is closed.

London

Broadcast and cable news networks broke with the story of terrorist attacks in London early yesterday morning and stayed with that story, as well as the connection to G-8 summit, reactions in Washington DC and New York, throughout the morning and for some, much of the day. Into the evening, ABC's Primetime Live and ABC News Nightline both focused on the story. Yesterday's coverage also marked probably the first time the use of cellphone video clips were incorporated into a major breaking news story. According to the AP, the London based Associated Press Television News staffers were instructed to find witnesses with cellphone video clips. London's ITN network was actively soliciting the clips on air with a lower-third crawl. And finally, ABC changed its primetime movie from Reign of Fire (set in post-apocalyptic London) to an innocuous kid/tween movie, Big Fat Liar.

Jorge Luis Borges

"In life, he suffered from a sense of unreality, as do many Englishmen."

Jorge Luis Borges : "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"

Jorge Luis Borges

"I cannot think it unlikely that there is such a total book on some shelf in the universe. I pray to the unknown gods that some man - even a single man, tens of centuries ago - has perused and read this book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place may be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification."

Jorge Luis Borges : "The Library of Babel"