Mass Effect… (Flash mobs)

The aim of flash mobs is to assemble a lot of people in a public place in order to make a precise action in a short time before a quick dispersion.


The "inventor" of flash mobs is Bill Wasik. He is a senior editor of Harper's Magazine which is both an old and famous magazine about general interest (literature, finance, arts...).
The first flash mob was planned in May 2003 at Manhattan. This first attempt was a failure since the store targeted by the plan was warned about a meeting in its place. Then Bill Wasik improved the concept for the second flash mob organized in June 3, 2003. This time, the participants were advised to go into four prearranged bars. Then the final information and place were given just before the beginning of the event.
The term flash mob is also used to refer a Chinese practice of buyers who forecast, online, a meeting in a precise store in order to drive a collective bargain.
In France, the first flash mob was organized in August 28, 2003 in the museum of Le Louvre. There a hundred persons spoke with their cell phone, then stopped and fell at the ground then applauded something in the air before dispersion.


These actions are now easier to prepare thanks to the new wireless technologies (internet, texting...). These technologies are also used in political project: in 2001 in Philippines the population made the government of President Estrada fall. However the most of flash mobs are non-political actions.
In Japan, cosplayers (persons who wear a fantastic hero costume) went to the street to perform a synchronized dance:


In some countries (Canada, France, Swiss) a pillow fight took place in 2006. It’s now a worldwide wave!!!

Great film...especially tattoos

Eastern Promises is a 2007 Canadian drama/thriller feature film directed by David Cronenberg, the director of "History of Violence". The screenplay was by Dirty Pretty Things writer Steven Knight. The film tells of a British midwife's interactions with the Russian mafia in London and stars Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. The film has been noted for its unexpected plot twist and for its violence and realistic depiction of the Russian criminal underworld, including its use of tattoos. Criminal mastermind Nikolai (Mortensen) finds his ties to a notorious crime family shaken when he crosses paths with Anna (Watts), a midwife who has accidentally uncovered evidence against them.




Awards

The film premiered September 8, 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on general release in North America on September 21, 2007. The film was released in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2007. As of January 31, 2008, the film has grossed $51,202,291 worldwide and has received a positive critical reception, appearing on several U.S. critics' "top ten films" lists for 2007. Eastern Promises has won several awards, including the Audience Prize for best film at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Best Actor award for Mortensen at the 2007 British Independent Film Awards. The film received twelve Genie Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nominations, and Mortensen was nominated for Best Actor at the 80th Academy Awards, losing to Daniel Day Lewis.


The thing that most fascinated me in this film is tattoos and stories that there was around. I wanted to talk about it in more detail :

History of tattoos

For most people, tattoos are a way of decorating the body with images that say something about who they are. In the russian prison camps, tattoos mean much more. Firstly they say where the owner comes in the criminal pecking order. For example a cross in the middle of the chest is the tattoo of the "prince of thieves", the hightest rank of criminal. Secondly they say what the wearer is inside for - for example a genie and a lamp means a druf - related crime.

Other tattoos are worn for more sinister reasons. They can show that a prisoner hasn't paid his gambling debts, or is a stool pigeon. This kind of tattoo normally has a pornographic image that humiliates the wearer, and is applied forcibly, with a beating thrown in too. Tattoos used for humiliation like this are worn where they can be seen, on the forehead. That's why tattoos command such respect in russian prisons. People lie and cheat and they let you down, but a tattoo is forever, and the mark of a tattoo removed from the forehead tells its own story.


Then there is the "grin" tattoo, normally an animal like a fox or a wolf, grinning defiantly at the prison guards and authority in general. It shows a refusal to be beaten by the system. Russian prisons have wall a covered with the slogans of the authorities : grin tattoos are the prisoner's answers to this. They carry their own slogans, like "I'll never be a soviet serf" and "flatten stool pigeons!"

Although russian prisoner tattoos can be elaborate, they're not great works of art. They tend to be bluish grey and the lines are blurred. The materials used for tattoos done in prison are basic - anything that's available. Ink can be made by heating up the sole of a shoe till it is semi-liquid and they mixing it with urine. The tattoo artist's needle is anything sharp to hand - a knife, a pin, a sharp piece of metal.


Wearing the wrong tattoo can upset people. In soviet times it is said that there were secret orders that anti-governement "grin" tattoos had to be destroyed surgically. This procedure was usually fatal. And within the prisoner's community, a prisoner wearing a tattoo that gives him highter rank than is his to claim is a serious insult. In one of the camps a prisoner was told by gang leaders that he had three hours to remove a tattoo : "use sandpaper, aknife, a red-hot poker, anything you like, but take it off". But then he was lucky - most cases like this are punishable by death.



Tattoos have more than just a symbolic meaning for russian prisoners. A body with no tattoos is a body with no identity, its essential nature is not displayed. Michelangelo said that he was not the sculptor of his last creations - he merely used his hammer and chisel to help the forms inside the marble break out. In the same way the tattoo artist's knife brings the prisoner's story, his attitudes, his place in the thieves' family, his true self, to the surface.

Press Forward on Trackmania

Relatively to the article on Trackmania Nations, we are going to talk about one of the ways to amuse themselves on the game and create videos visually impressive on Trackmania Nations or Trackmania United.

The video actually is a series of stunts made by the car in a race, the particularity is that during the course, the player press just on one button or an axe of his joystick : "up", and we called this kind of racing "Full speed Press Forward". The purpose of this race is just to generate a video which is then viewed by the people, there is no spirit of duel or to finish the race in the first place.

On the following video, we observe an incredible fluidity but we also have to imagin the numbers of hours to create a video like that :


The creation of maps like that is long and difficult. Indeed, the creation of a single cascade is easy, but the sequence of sequences of stunts during several minutes is really complicated.
The player have to not only avoid overly repetitive stunts to that the public not weary, but also manage spaceof the different blocks of thegame in the environment for the creation of the map.

It can create the sequence of figures and look where that leads him and put the finish when he think he's blocked or that the duration of the course is sufficient. Another method may be to already have all the ideas of stunts before to create and then to build by creating transitions between simple stunt and stunts more complex. Thus we observe the emergence of continious sequences of pure speed with loopings, wallrides and vertiginous rotative jumps defying any normal gravity.

Various videos of this style are released on Youtube, Dailymotion and other sites hosting streaming videos. They aren't so many like that due to the time it needs to devote it and the creativity to have to create various and impressive stunts.

Have Fun ;)