existentialism
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'Emojiland' review: Come for the 💩, stay for the 💗
Warning: This review contains mild spoilers. Spending two hours of my life watching emoji deal with existential crises isn't something I ever expected to do. That almost feels fitting considering that the show's creators, Keith and Laura Harrison, never expected they'd have the chance to stage their emoji musical off-Broadway. Emojiland runs through Sunday as part of the New York Musical Festival, and it endeavors to deal with weightier subjects than you might expect from a show in which a woman dressed as a 💩 brings the house down with a brassy, gospel-inspired number in a bathroom stall. But what is it like to actually sit through? Not bad, actually, as long as you're walking in with an open mind.
The mysterious existential dread of Krillbite's 'Mosaic'
Adrian Husby and Martin Kvale have been working together since 2011, when they were finishing up their bachelor's degrees in Norway. That's when they began conceptualizing Among the Sleep, a surreal first-person horror game that puts players in the shoes of a toddler, waddling around a suburban house at night as stranger and stranger things creep through the floorboards. With their studio Krillbite, they released Among the Sleep in 2014. It was a hit, selling well across PCs and consoles and garnering a handful of awards. Today, Husby and Kvale are hard at work on their new project, Mosaic. It's a mysterious, atmospheric game that retains Krillbite's trademark creepy vibe. They only want to tease Mosaic for now; they don't want to give too much away before its expected release on PC and PlayStation 4 in late 2017. As they attempt to describe Mosaic while maintaining its mystery, Husby and Kvale play off each other as old friends do.
Interactive Robotic Painting Machine begs the question: Art for art's sake, or for its master's? (video)
If Warhol were still around, we're pretty sure the man would've snatched up this contraption as a Factory-approved objet d'art. Born from visual artist Benjamin Grosser's existential musings regarding the soul of AI-enhanced technology, the Interactive Robotic Painting Machine lets the sounds of its environment be its canvas maneuvering guide. For what it's worth, the artist claims that criticism fed into the apparatus' microphone often results in less than stellar compositions from the fine art automaton. We'll refrain from speculating as to the qualitative merits of the stationary bot's abstract flair, and leave you to the high art critique in the comments below. Be sure to jump past the break for a full video of this beaux arts concept.
