Jekyll2023-04-28T18:28:33+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/atom.xmlUWTBSending things to Earth... Bits... Html... Rainbows...Matt BiernerPhonogram2023-04-28T00:00:00+00:002023-04-28T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/phonogram<p>Today I’m excited to announce Phonogram, a new augmented reality app for iOS that lets you create and share short audio messages paired with unique AR effects. The app is available for free in the App Store:</p>
<p><strong>Links</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/phonogramAR/id1612192523">Get Phonogram for iOS and iPad</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mattbierner/phongram-support">Documentation</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Phonogram lets you quickly record an audio message, select and customize an augmented reality effect for it, and then send it off to a friend or family member. The unique AR effects change in response to the audio.</p>
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yy39MSoVxEE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The idea for Phonogram grew out of my AR music visualizer app <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">Beatsy</a>. While I love creating AR effects for music, even I don’t use a music visualizer all that often. With Phonogram, I wanted to try getting out these AR effects to a wider audience.</p>
<p>I built Phonogram around a few core ideas:</p>
<p><strong>Voice</strong>. Phonogram is for sharing audio, specifically voice. Voice has an innate intimacy that text lacks. I’ve also experienced the power of voice firsthand, be it in Podcast, apps like Clubhouse, or even in dating apps that let you record voice notes to stand out to potential partners. You can also quickly fire off a voice recording without taking yourself out of the moment to poke around at a keyboard. (Voice also is a great fit for devices where typing isn’t as natural, hint hint…)</p>
<p><strong>Immersive Sharing</strong>. When you share a Phonogram, you share the AR effect, not images or videos of the effects. To play back a recording, you place the AR effect in the world. You can think of the AR effect as being almost like a fancy little virtual speaker. Again brining recordings into your personal space makes them feel more intimate and unique.</p>
<p><strong>Not a social network</strong>. Phonogram doesn’t include a feed, stories, or like counts. Instead the focus is personal communication. I largely wanted to leave it up to you how you use Phonogram. Send personal birthday notes or holiday greetings. Fire off sweet little nothings to a lover throughout the day. Share a snippet of a new song you’ve been working on. Or just have fun.</p>
<p>Phonogram also aims to integrate into your existing apps instead of being a platform. The best way to send and listen to Phonograms is using iMessage. To play back a Phonogram, you don’t even need to install the app thanks to App Clips. Or you can always share a url to the recording. Again, all you need to play them back is an iOS device.</p>
<p>While these design decisions may not be the most fashionable, with Phonogram I wanted to build an app that I would actually want to use and would also be a great foundation for future AR experiments.</p>
<p>You can <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/phonogramAR/id1612192523">get Phonogram in the App Store</a>. It runs on iPhones and iPads. If you enjoy Phonogram, the best way to support it is buy leaving a positive review to help others discover it too.</p>Matt BiernerToday I’m excited to announce Phonogram, a new augmented reality app for iOS that lets you create and share short audio messages paired with unique AR effects. The app is available for free in the App Store:The Thought Terminator2023-04-14T00:00:00+00:002023-04-14T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/thought-terminator<p>The age of AI is upon us and I for one am ready. After toiling away for eons, now humanity can sit back and let our fresh-faced silicon brethren lighten our load. In fact, I’ve already offloaded some of my boring tasks to AI, such as emailing emails and coding code. But why stop there? Why not let the AIs help with the other banalities of life too? I dream of a day when the AIs will drive my drives for me, chore my chores, cook my cooks, and perhaps even fuck my fucks, all as I drift about in some sort of ethereal, exquisitely perfumed pleasuredome of higher existence.</p>
<p>I must admit however that all this dreaming of cyber-Xanadus has really been taxing my organic circuitry. Ahh, if only there were a solution for that… Oh but of course there is: AI! If AI can already help me write, surely it could also help automate mundane cognitive tasks like dreaming. But why stop there? Why not automate all thinking?</p>
<p>And so I recently banged together a prototype AI assistant that completes my thoughts for me. It’s basically autocomplete but for thoughts. Simply start speaking a thought aloud and the AI finishes the rest. Easy. Once you’ve tried it you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it.</p>
<figure class="video">
<video controls="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2023-04-14-thought-terminator/thought-terminator.jpg">
<source src="/content/2023-04-14-thought-terminator/thought-terminator.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<figcaption><p>Live demo of the AI assistant completing my thoughts in my own voice. Despite what the tone of this post may suggest, this is a working prototype (although it takes a few seconds to formulate a voice response at the moment). Often during filming, I was just as surprised as anyone to learn what I was thinking…</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the assistant, you don’t even have to think more than a few words. Just toss out a, “I was thinking …”, or perhaps a, “I wonder …” and let the AI finish the rest, freeing up your pathetic little meat brain to do whatever it is that pathetic little meat brains do.</p>
<p>While the prototype is far from perfect (as is to be expected by all things built by the hand of man), it’s already confidently speaking in my voice, and I’m just as confident that it’s already thinking my thoughts far better than I ever could. It even thought that last thought for me! Wow. Just imagine where this tech will be in few years. Well actually you won’t have to imagine because the AI will handle that for you too.</p>Matt BiernerThe age of AI is upon us and I for one am ready. After toiling away for eons, now humanity can sit back and let our fresh-faced silicon brethren lighten our load. In fact, I’ve already offloaded some of my boring tasks to AI, such as emailing emails and coding code. But why stop there? Why not let the AIs help with the other banalities of life too? I dream of a day when the AIs will drive my drives for me, chore my chores, cook my cooks, and perhaps even fuck my fucks, all as I drift about in some sort of ethereal, exquisitely perfumed pleasuredome of higher existence.Beatsy 1.162022-12-16T00:00:00+00:002022-12-16T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/beatsy-1-16<p>Beatsy 1.16 is out with two new augmented reality music visualizer effects.</p>
<p><strong>Links</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">Get Beatsy on the App Store</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mattbierner/beatsy-support">Documentation</a></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/
97gw_7iHhOw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>With this update, we’re exploring a new style of visualizer that distorts geometric shapes. The two new additions are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The <em>Capsule</em> visualizer stretches out and distorts a sphere using sound waves.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <em>Ferro Sphere</em> visualizer creates bumps on a sphere that react to sound or your music. This one was inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrofluid">magnetic fluid</a>, similar to the original <em>Ferro</em> effect.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>You can customize the colors of both new effects.</p>
<p>The latest update is <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">available for free in the App Store</a>. Looking forward to seeing what you all create using these two new effects!</p>Matt BiernerBeatsy 1.16 is out with two new augmented reality music visualizer effects.Virtual Disembodiment2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:002022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/virtual-disembodiment<p>Virtual Disembodiment is an experimental AR iOS app that explores using haptics and AR to create a novel sensory experience. With the app, you place fleshy spheres in the world around you. Each sphere is connected to a point on a <a href="https://www.bhaptics.com">haptic vest</a>. When you reach out and stoke one of the fleshy spheres with your hand, it gets stimulated which sends a vibration to the corresponding point on the vest. The longer and more tenderly your stroke the flesh, the stronger the tactile sensations (and the louder the deliciously squishy sounds the spheres makes become too!)</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="560" height="560" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vFYB7MV535A" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Virtual Disembodiment is actually my second foray into haptics and AR. Back in 2019, I created <a href="/detachable-penis">Detachable Penis</a>, an experimental app which you sow that most venerable of members about the world. In that case, the virtual, low-poly penises were connected up to a vibrator. I’ve been itching to dive back into haptics and AR ever since then, but a lack of time and a lack of hardware got in the way. Haptics are also not an easy space to work in, or a terribly practical one right now either. Really though, those are all just excuses for why it took me three years to make the jump from poking at virtual dicks to stoking virtual balls, but hey I guess that’s progress!</p>
<p>More seriously though, what I find the interesting about Virtual Disembodiment is that it offers the smallest of glimpses at a new mode of being in the world, one in which the body you inhabit isn’t a single unit but a distributed set of pieces all picking up and transmitting sensations. Even with the rudimentary haptics and even having to hold your phone up the whole time, it is a novel experience to reach out to stroke a virtual sphere and actually feel the touch it in your body.</p>
<p>By arranging and scaling the sensory spheres about you in your environment using the app, you can create and explore different sensory experiences. At one point I laid out the the sensory spheres for my back in a row—a bit like the keys on a piano—and had a grand ol’ time playing them, feeling the sensations increase and decrease as I went along.</p>
<figure class="video">
<video loop="" controls="" musted="" autoplay="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2022-11-15-virtual-disembodiment/sound-poster.jpg">
<source src="/content/2022-11-15-virtual-disembodiment/sound.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<figcaption><p>1980s horror movies such as Basket Case and Society were inspirations for the spheres</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A lot of effort and money is being spent right now trying to bring human bodies into virtual spaces. Reach out a hand to high-five your virtual mates! Smile and your avatar smiles with you! That’s all well and good, but what excites me most is AR and VR’s potential for exploring entirely new ways of being and experiencing. Haptics are a uniquely powerful and intimate avenue for this. Even though the technology for creating these haptic experiences is far from perfect, projects like this one show that it is already possible to start playing in the space and have a fun time doing so!</p>
<p>Unfortunately for now though Virtual Disembodiment is just a prototype. It’s not worth publishing in the App Store in its current state, especially given the hardware requirements. I hope more people will be able to share these types of experiences some day soon though. Let me know what you think about Virtual Disembodiment and if you have any interesting ideas about using how haptics with AR.</p>
<hr />
<p>Audio asset credits:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://freesound.org/people/Erdie/sounds/22039/">Breathing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://freesound.org/people/SoundDesignForYou/packs/36178/">Squelch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://freesound.org/people/julius_galla/sounds/322296/">Eating</a></li>
</ul>Matt BiernerVirtual Disembodiment is an experimental AR iOS app that explores using haptics and AR to create a novel sensory experience. With the app, you place fleshy spheres in the world around you. Each sphere is connected to a point on a haptic vest. When you reach out and stoke one of the fleshy spheres with your hand, it gets stimulated which sends a vibration to the corresponding point on the vest. The longer and more tenderly your stroke the flesh, the stronger the tactile sensations (and the louder the deliciously squishy sounds the spheres makes become too!)The New Colossus at Five2022-10-02T00:00:00+00:002022-10-02T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/the-new-colossus-at-five<p>2017: I’ve just shot my Dad. Don’t feel bad though, he was a racist prick. Even got dear ol’ Mom sent off to a death camp. And if all that weren’t bad enough, he shot my dog! Told you he was a son of a bitch.</p>
<p>So yeah, I just shot my Dad and I feel pretty good about it.</p>
<p>But of course what did the bastard do before dying but rat me out to the New Order. Which probably explains why a giant, God-damned floating Nazi base has just snatched up me and my entire childhood home like one of those god damned claw machines. All of which would be manageable really, if there also weren’t a bazillion God-damned Nazi robots trying to blast my ass as my house slowly disintegrates high above the Texas countryside.</p>
<p>So naturally I do what any self-respecting red-blooded American would in this situation: I shoot the Nazis robots, then blast those treacherous Nazi claws until they release, sending me, fragments of my childhood home, and all those dead robo-nazis hurtling towards the ground far below. Just another day in America.</p>
<p>“Yes, just another day in America”, I thought to myself as I watched all this play out on my screen almost five years ago. Seems like an eternity now. Thank God the world has been free of fascism ever since!</p>
<p>And yet it does say something that five years on I am still thinking about this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_II:_The_New_Colossus">big dumb game</a>. Oh how fondly I remember my nights with BJ and the gang as we crushed evil underfoot striding across alt-1960s Nazi ruled America. “Give me your Panzerhund, your ÜberSoldaten”, I would shout in a deep, ultra-manly voice as I sat at my PC, “Send these to me, so that I may lift my arm to enlighten… with a shotgun to the face.” Some people find the sublime in the works of Wagner or Goethe. I found it storming Area 52 and flying to Venus to meet a demented Hitler who fancied himself more of a Great Director than a Great Dictator. And, my dearest reader, I must confess that when the main female villain shot my compatriot in the head and then rammed her very large pistol right into my mouth with a sadistic gusto that would make even dearest Ilsa blush, my spirit left my body.</p>
<p>But the heart likes what the heart likes, and my heart was won over by the swaggering self-confidence with which Machine Games elevated Wolfenstein—that classic meat-headed darling of the self professed PC master race—into a pulpy masterpiece. And sure all the Nazi blasting was good wholesome fun, but it was the storytelling that I truly fell in love with. Soon I found myself racing through firefights just to see what absurd new set-piece or plot twist BJ would find himself in next. The New Colossus is a loving homage to pulpy exploration aesthetics of the 60s and 70s and 80s. This could have easily been played for cheep, self-aware laughs, but instead the result fells remarkably authentic, all the more so for a big budget game published by a billion dollar entertainment behemoth. Even more impressively, the team then created memorable characters that at times feel surprisingly human despite their absurd situation. The New Colossus is far, far better than it has any right to be.</p>
<p>The New Colossus is also a quintessentially American experience. More than just the title and setting. I mean its entire sensibility. Only in America could you use the greatest human calamity of the twenty century as the foundation for irreverent AAA romp. Only in America could you market your entertainment product with an ad that features a Nazi flag and then flashes the words “NOT MY AMERICA.” Only in America could this all make perfect sense. It’s the sort of hyper-Americanness that could only have been captured by a Swedish game developer.</p>
<p>For the full New Colossus experience though, you really had to play The New Colossus back in late 2017. You needed the splitscreen of American authoritarianism and ethno-nationalism on the march all while milkshake Nazi waxes poetic about his beloved strawberry milkshakes. You need to be hatcheting Klansmen in Roswell, all while the ugly spectacle of the United Right still is seared into your brain. “The Jews will not replace us”, they shouted. “Woah! What the hell?!?,” BJ retorts, “[The Nazis] got rocket trains now?” This is my America. Can’t fool me.</p>
<p>But there’s another reason I’ve been thinking about it so much recently: something about it left me deeply unfulfilled. That feeling has only grown since. Yes, despite singlehandedly defeating the Nazis and kickstarting the second American revolution. Ha! Remember back in 2017 when the phrase “Second American Revolution” didn’t call to mind a bunch of sweaty dudes in Hawaiian shirts going all clown-car on an igloo for the “zesty lemon dinger” or whatever the hell they are calling it these days?</p>
<p>Just accept that everything I’m saying makes perfect sense.</p>
<p>I guess it sounds kind of absurd to expect more from a first person shooter where you visit a Nazi base on Venus. Scratch that. It is absurd. The New Colossus was a fun ride, does it need to be anything more? Can it be? Should it be?</p>
<p>I was all aboard too until the end. It should have been a moment of triumph. After all, America was finally free! All that capitulating and high saluting was in the past now, and all it took was shooting my way through miles and miles of corridors and blasting thousands of Nazis to literal bits.</p>
<p>And let me tell you: all that Nazi blasting really gets the adrenaline pumping too, so you had better believe that when the credits started up and a punk rendition of “We’re not gonna take it” kicked in to a stylish montage of revolutionary violence, I was just about in heaven (albeit a heaven built on a big old steaming pile of dead fascists.)</p>
<p>But as my adrenaline slowly faded and the montage continued, it all started to feel just a little too… easy. The song’s message of rebellion and fighting authority increasingly rang hollow. I began to question: was this little adventure really something to get all puffed up over? Even by the standards of fictional game worlds—worlds expressly engineered to make you feel like an all powerful hero—something about this was deeply unfulfilling. I don’t even think I made it to the end of the song. By then I almost felt embarrassed by the whole situation I found myself in.</p>
<p>Plenty of games fail to stick their landing. This was different. I was all in with New Colossus until suddenly I wasn’t. At that point, I suddenly realized that I wanted something from the game that it was never going to provide. I should have known better really, but after spending ten plus hours shooting fascists and racists in the face, and after watching cutscenes where BJ and a diverse crew defeat these twin evils with aplomb, some part of me couldn’t help but feel that the experience had been disquietingly relevant and, I dare say, even had some degree of “political” heft. Then it all came crashing back to earth. I realized behind the game’s bombast and self-congratulatory yells of, “bash the fasc”, it was just as empty as one of those, “In this house we believe…” signs. This was all the more disappointing because I could see what could have been. As the songs says though, “If that’s your best, your best won’t do.”</p>
<p>Ten hours of brainless Nazi blasting would have been far easier to dismiss. That’s not the game they made though. While in many ways I’m thankful for it, it also makes its failings all the more difficult to overlook. Some of these failings were obvious even as I was playing. I remember searching newspaper clippings and listening to found audio tapes, expecting to stumble across some sly commentary on then current events. This largely never materialized. Then there were flashbacks to BJ’s childhood in which we see him befriending Billie (a little Black girl) against his father’s wishes. The self-seriousness of these flashbacks felt out-of-step with the rest of the plot. This would have been bad enough if the flashbacks weren’t also so cliche. BJ and Billie bump into each other. BJ is hesitant at first because his father is a horrible racist who told him to stay away from black children. Soon enough though, BJ learns that friendship is more than skin deep and the two become fast friends. How heartwarming. Spoiler alert: BJ then grows up in to your dear uncle who “doesn’t see color”.</p>
<p>Soon enough though, I was even questioning what had at first seemed like bold choices. For example, The New Colossus at first suggests that the great American Silent Majority largely accepted Nazi rule because it protected their existing place in society. Certainly not the most subtle argument, but it did feel exciting to see a big mainstream game like this play around with the idea that the Joneses would embrace fascism if it meant maintaining their suburban lifestyle dream.</p>
<p>Yet this idea is largely negated when we learn later that the poor Joneses were actually being cruelly oppressed by a cabal of Nazi collaborators and Klansmen. Yes, In the New Colossus’s telling, the literal KKK has been put in charge of literal Nazi America. You’d be hard pressed to come up with two less sympathetic groups, or two groups that are easier for the average American to dismiss as an ugly other. Hell, you don’t see the Joneses wearing Swastikas or burning crosses do you? The Joneses only care about protecting the “character” of their neighborhood and a little “law and order”. What could be wrong with that?</p>
<p>But the end of The New Colossus goes even further in torpedoing this commentary when the game reveals that the Silent Majority was actually seething with revolutionary zeal the whole time. All it took was a little kick start from BJ for the great American people to rise up as one. Men, women; black, white; they all come together to kick the fascists out. And despite being the underdogs, and despite facing almost insurmountable odds, they win! Good prevails!! Evil is vanquished!!! Damn, gives me a red, white, and blue hard-on just thinking about it.</p>
<p>It’s quite telling that for a game set in a Nazi occupied United States, you only face a handful of recognizably American enemies in the game. Where are all the Americans fighting to maintain the new status quo that we initially hear about? The New Colossus makes plenty of halfhearted gestures but can never bring itself to implicate anyone other than robe wearing Klansmen and Nazis.</p>
<p>This is all the more jarring when you considered that as BJ and crew were stomping their way across fictional 1961 America, back in real 1961 Freedom Riders were being brutalized by violent white mobs. Jim Crow was still on the books! But you’re going to tell me it was all just a few bad apples? That it could never happen here?</p>
<p>And maybe it couldn’t have. Maybe it can’t. Maybe not like that anyways. Maybe the fascists won’t come marching in on jackboots bedecked in Swastikas. Maybe there won’t be hooded Klansmen governing over us.</p>
<p>But then again, the exceptionalness of America has proven time and again to be exceptional beyond parody. Remember that just a year before Wolfenstein 3D came out (1992), David Duke got <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Louisiana_gubernatorial_election">almost 40% of the gubernatorial vote in Louisiana</a>. Yes 40% voted for an avowed Klansman and Nazi! And what did that game have to say about this? Jack. Sure they toyed with including a certain “David Puke” Easter egg, but even that weak-ass, third grade-level insult’s grasp at getting all “political” got scraped. What, were they afraid they’d lose the Klan market?</p>
<p>Ugh, feels like I’m just descending further and further into some kind of self-parody now by bitching about how a thirty year old game featuring Mecha-Hilter isn’t “woke” enough. I mean just imagine the tongue lashing big daddy Tucker would lay on: “Why do you hate America, son?!?” he’d boom, nipples standing as erect as little Washington Monuments, “Are you calling <em>our</em> country racist? Are calling <em>our</em> dear friends the Joneses Nazis?” “Oh please Tucker,”, I’d pled between liberal tears, “I’ll do anything for you! Just don’t hit me with your majestic words of <em>Truth, Justice, and the 1776 American Way</em> again, especially not <em>there</em>…!!!” And that’s when the camera would cut to show the ruddy red glow of the left cheek of my pinko ass for Mr. and Mrs. America at home to hate on.</p>
<p>Hey now, don’t yuck their yum.</p>
<p>Yet what foxy ol’ elites like Mr. Carlson publicly pretend very hard not to understand is that criticism is not the same as condemnation. Why, the whole reason I’ve worked myself into such a tizzy is not because I hate The New Colossus, but because I loved it! That’s what also made its disappointment sting all the more. I saw what the game could have been. They were so close to actually saying something, both about the past yet but also about the present moment. So close to truly condemning fascism and hate, not just in its most extreme forms but everywhere it is found. So close to sneaking an interesting examination of America into a big dumb game series about blasting Nazis into gibs. I wanted The New Colossus to be better, just as I want America to be better.</p>
<p>Five years ago I could almost will myself to overlook The New Colossus’s failings. I can’t anymore. The gulf between how the game presents itself and what it actually says is just too great. There’s something uniquely pernicious about media like this that presents itself as transgressive but ultimately reinforces the status-quo. This is what bothered me about 2019’s Watchmen TV series too. Consuming media like this can make you feel like you are one of the good guys. It can even make you believe that you are doing something important just by watching or playing. Hell, media like this even pisses off the right people! In the end though, this sort of media never asks anything of you. It never asks you to confront yourself, it never calls for substantive change, and most of all it never asks for meaningful action on your part.</p>
<p>The New Colossus presents fascism and racism as historical curiosities perpetrated by inhuman monsters. Doing so puts these twin evils at a safe remove. Never do we have to consider how an entire nation could willfully descend into genocidal hate, or how the nation that saved the world from this evil would itself decades to even begin seriously addressing its own unique prejudices. Not only does this leave us misunderstanding our own history, it also makes us unprepared for the present moment. When our feeds are suddenly inundated with images of a torch bearing mob marching through the streets shouting about “white replacement”, we treat it as some shocking aberration instead of understanding it as just a highly visible symptom of an ugly legacy of ethno-nationalism that still haunted us back in 2017 and only seems to have metastasized over the past five years.</p>
<p>Yet here I too am starting to fall into the same trap The New Colossus did: focusing on extremists. Never underestimate costume wearing extremists, but we also can’t pin everything on them. While it’s easy to hate the Klan it is more difficult and more uncomfortable to get all worked up over legislation and systems designed to enforce the existing racial cast systems. These policies were only possible because large swaths of the community demanded them and helped impose them. These were not hood wearing monsters but Americans. The New Colossus does it’s best not to acknowledge this ugly truth. Instead it wants you to feel like the good guy for joining the crowd in condemning easy targets.</p>
<p>All things considered, The New Colossus feels stuck in the past. No where is this more obvious than its inability to move beyond World War Two. Yes even though the game is set in the 1960s, we’re still just fighting Nazis. Eighty years on and we’re still fighting God-damned Nazis. If anything, the New Colossus is like all the greatest hits from the Last Good War, now ramped up to 11 to make America’s inevitable victory all the more impressive. Why does The New Colossus seem incapable of acknowledging that America really did win the war? Why does so little media seem capable of this? After all, it was America who went on to rule the world, not Nazi Germany. In the 60s, people everywhere were <em>Surfin’ USA</em>, not going <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0289eq3PY8"><em>Weltraumsurfen</em></a>. The New Colossus makes little attempt to grapple with America’s very real power and influence, instead turning 1960s America into a scrappy underdog struggling against a globe spanning, technically advanced superpower. Ugh, someone at Machine Games must have a very dark and ironic sense in humor.</p>
<p>For The New Colossus to overlook all this and then tell me, “in your veins runs the blood of revolutionaries”, well it was simply too much. Sitting there at my PC, as that cover of Twisted Sister played, I could not have felt less like the hero the game wanted me to fancy myself. Instead I felt like a chump.</p>
<p>I tried to tell myself that I had never really believed, that it had all just been fun and games. It wasn’t true. I’d been lulled into feeling that blasting virtual Nazis in the comfort of my home was progressive. I was almost even convinced that more Americans needed to experience The New Colossus because it had something big and important to say. I thought maybe together we could defeat fascism once and for all. Maybe together we could finally shoot our racist Dad! I mean what could be more American than that?</p>
<p>Such fantasies. They felt that way back in 2017 and they feel even more so today.</p>
<p>Over these past five years I guess I’ve come to understand that The New Colossus was never going to give me what I wanted it to . It wasn’t interested in doing so. The developers succeeded in what they were after: making a solid game with a pulpy anesthetic. But there’s still that sense of what could have been. How just with a slightly more deft hand, they could have made some more substantives about our present moment. Sure there will always be the vocal idiots who get off tweeting about “politics in games”, but what a joke. The New Colossus is already a deeply political game, both by what it explicitly says and even more so what it implicitly doesn’t say. The problem is that The New Colossus’s politics ultimately end up being so wishy-washy that the game ends up conveying a message that’s antithetical to how it presents itself. There’s only so many times you can get a rise shooting virtual Nazis. Eventually you need stronger stuff. This doesn’t have to be all dry and forced feeling either. I believe you can explore big important subjects and get people thinking, while still featuring Nazi super soldiers and Area 52.</p>
<p>There’s always the hope that Wolf 3 will be different. Maybe Wolf 3 will be a full on satire, with BJ storming across rice paddies and through dusty villages, bringing freedom to locals the American way (aka a pair of laser guided, rapid fire missile launchers). Hey if they do it right, some folks may even take it seriously! I can even offer a name suggestion: “Wolfenstein III: <a href="https://wolfenstein.fandom.com/wiki/Das_Ende_alles_Bösen">The End of All Evil</a>”</p>
<p>Or maybe Wolf 3 will flash forward in time to a world in which BJ has defeated the Nazis, only to gradually descend into authoritarianism himself. Now decades later, you—playing as Billie <a href="https://wolfenstein.fandom.com/wiki/J">J</a>, (a young Black woman)—must fight your way through the American new new order to reach the top of a golden tower on Mars where an out-of-touch and increasingly paranoid President BJ menaces the people of a climate change devastated earth over their failure to buy enough copies of BJ’s autobiography in which he recounts how he single-handedly saved the world.</p>
<p>No chance this will ever happen, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to stay mad at a game where you can placekick Hitler’s kopf though. I tried but the New Colossus is just too damn stupid and too damn fun. I love it even with all it’s flaws. The key is that you’ve got to enjoy the ride and remember the highs, but you’ve got to know its limitations too and recognize everything that it leaves unsaid. You’ve got to find your own meaning in all the nonsense, even when it lets you down over and over again. And more than anything, you’ve got to not only expect better but then also get up and do something to make it happen. Or in other words: it’s all just another day in America.</p>Matt Bierner2017: I’ve just shot my Dad. Don’t feel bad though, he was a racist prick. Even got dear ol’ Mom sent off to a death camp. And if all that weren’t bad enough, he shot my dog! Told you he was a son of a bitch.Augmented Reality Shadowgraphery2022-03-22T00:00:00+00:002022-03-22T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/ar-shadowgraphery<p>I remember making shadow figures on the walls and ceiling with my hands when I was younger. Even though I never progressed much beyond dopey looking dogs or misshapen lumps with rabbit ears, it was captivating to watch these creatures emerge and evolve as I subtly shifted around my hands in front of the light.</p>
<p>I guess you’re supposed to outgrow such childish things. Hand shadows seems so quaint compared to the vast universe of entertainment now available at my fingertips. Yet even today, when a light is positioned just right and I see a nice shadow go flickinging across the wall, I’ll be damned if I don’t throw up a lumpy wolf and a blobby bunny or two. And you know what? It’s still cool!</p>
<p>But what if you could create those shadow animals anywhere? What if you didn’t need a light or just the right surface? And what if those shadow creatures could go on living long after you’d put your hands down?</p>
<p>This is what inspired my latest augmented reality prototype. It’s an iOS app that uses augmented reality to let you record shadows on any surface using only your hands (or other parts of your body). You really have to see it in action though to understand why it is compelling.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b7IJLvo0Dq8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>On the technical front, the main thing to understand is that this effect isn’t some simple filter. Instead the shadows are projected onto the real world using depth information captured by the device’s LiDAR sensor. This means that the shadows remain fixed in space even as you move about the world, sort of like they’ve been baked into the scene itself. <!-- If you'd like to take a hard turn towards the dark side here, the effect is also reminiscent of the 'Human Shadow Etched in Stone' --></p>
<p>The result is magical. Capture a selfie and step away, and your shadow remains fixed in space. Stick out your hand and you can record small <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowgraphy_(performing_art)">shadowgraphic</a> performances on any surface around town. The app can even capture multiple looping shadow animations and re-project them into the same scene, letting you compose silly little shadow plays.</p>
<figure class="video">
<video controls="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2022-03-22-ar-shadowgraphery/scene-poster.jpg">
<source src="/content/2022-03-22-ar-shadowgraphery/scene.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<figcaption><p>My shadowgraphery skills are a bit lacking…</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you can’t tell, I’m excited. It’s great when a project comes together so nicely. But as always, a nagging thought: There’s a lot of flashy stuff happening in the AR/VR space right now and sometimes I wonder if there’s even space for little projects like this. Why should anyone get all worked up about what is essentially using a very high-tech flashlight to casting shadowy dog shapes with your hands? It’s like a baby’s toy.</p>
<p>Or maybe that’s not such a bad thing.</p>
<p>In many ways, this little prototype embodies what I love about augmented reality and values at the heart of <a href="https://rarerealities.com/">Rare Realities</a>. AR should be magical. It should let you play with and delight in the world around you. It should be open ended and invite creative exploration on your terms. And if the skilled shadowgraphers of old could bring to life creatures, people, and entires fantasies using just their hands, a candle, and perhaps a few bits of scrap, imagine what they could create using something like this? Imagine what <em>you</em> could create?</p>
<figure class="video">
<video loop="" controls="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2022-03-22-ar-shadowgraphery/title-poster.jpg">
<source src="/content/2022-03-22-ar-shadowgraphery/title.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
</figure>
<p>But now that I’ve gotten you all excited, I have to disappoint: the app is just a prototype. Not in the sense that it’s not real. No the app works and even works rather well at that, it’s just that it needs a lot of polish before it could ship. The biggest roadblock is the App Store’s requirement that iOS apps run across the entire range of iOS hardware. If it were up to me, I would restrict this app to devices with a LiDAR sensor because the app was built for them.</p>
<p>Let me know how you’d use these AR shadows though. If there’s enough interest, I’ll see what I can do <!-- Admission: while I often say this, barring true virality, the only factor that determines if I ship something is if I feel like it. Not that I don't appreciate positive feedback, I don't think it's healthy to use it to guide what you make --></p>
<p>And on a final note, I’d very much like to use this technology to make a music video for <a href="https://rarerealities.com/beatsy/">Beatsy</a>. If you can bring the musical talent and production capabilities, <a href="/about">get in touch</a>.</p>Matt BiernerI remember making shadow figures on the walls and ceiling with my hands when I was younger. Even though I never progressed much beyond dopey looking dogs or misshapen lumps with rabbit ears, it was captivating to watch these creatures emerge and evolve as I subtly shifted around my hands in front of the light.I Pick You2022-02-12T00:00:00+00:002022-02-12T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/i-pick-you<p>When a musician called <a href="https://linktr.ee/diarrheadog">Big Chungus</a> contacted me about making an augmented reality experience for Beatsy, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. But then he started talking about giant noses bleeding candy hearts and I knew we had to make this thing happen.</p>
<p>So just in time for Valentine’s Day, here’s the new “I Pick You” musical experience for Beatsy! You can try it in the <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">full app</a> under “clips” or by <a href="https://c.beatsy.app/1/chungus">visiting this link</a> on an iOS device (it’s an App Clip so you don’t even need to install anything).</p>
<p><strong>Links</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://c.beatsy.app/1/chungus">View the I Pick You experience by Big Chungus</a> (requires a device running iOS 14.5+)</li>
<li><a href="https://linktr.ee/diarrheadog">Big Chungus</a></li>
<li><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">Get Beatsy</a></li>
</ul>
<figure class="video">
<video loop="" controls="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2022-02-12-i-pick-you/demo-720-poster.jpg">
<source src="/content/2022-02-12-i-pick-you/demo-720.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<figcaption><p>Demo</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The effect features a pulsating golden nose, a swirl of candy hearts, a violent <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoseBleed">nosebleed</a>, sentiently lyrics, and a slowly expanding pool of blood. In other words: the perfect Valentines Day!</p>
<p>The pool of blood is the most interesting technical part of the experience. It’s only available on devices with a LiDAR sensor (iPhone 12/13 Pro, or iPad Pro) since the pool tries to conform to whatever geometry the nose is placed above.</p>
<p>This was certainly a fun effect to create and I’m looking forward to working on more of these little AR music video type experience in the future. If you’re a musician and are interested in showcasing your work with Beatsy, <a href="https://rarerealities.com/about">get in touch</a>.</p>Matt BiernerWhen a musician called Big Chungus contacted me about making an augmented reality experience for Beatsy, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. But then he started talking about giant noses bleeding candy hearts and I knew we had to make this thing happen.Non-Flesh Tokens2022-01-20T00:00:00+00:002022-01-20T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/non-flesh-tokens<p><a href="https://nonfleshtokens.com">Non-Flesh Tokens</a> is a collection of 308 image NFTs. Each image is a 512x512 pixel block from two full-body, ultra-high resolution portraits—one of a man and one of a woman. There is one NFT for every segment of these two portraits. The entire collection can be seamlessly reassembled into the original portraits.</p>
<p><strong>Links</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://opensea.io/collection/non-flesh-tokens">View the collection on Open Sea</a></li>
<li><a href="https://nonfleshtokens.com">Browse the collection visually</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The individual NFTs have been listed in a seven day auction with the same starting bid. In my view, this auction and the longer term evolution of the collection are the real artwork. The act of buying, selling, and exchange, all that jazz.</p>
<p>The NFTs are named using a coordinate system, with the origin at <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">(0, 0)</code> corresponding to the square that includes the navel. <a href="https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/15445115341978895749400258717831267901175031190841581355540861854118479659009">Male (-1, -7)</a> for example is a square from the male portrait that is one block to the left and seven blocks up from the origin. If you also happened to own <a href="https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/15445115341978895749400258717831267901175031190841581355540861960771107553281">Male (0, -7)</a>, you could place the two images side-by-side to create a 1024x512 block of the portrait.</p>
<p>View the collection and place a bid <a href="https://opensea.io/collection/non-flesh-tokens">over on Open Sea</a>.</p>
<h1 id="creation">Creation</h1>
<p>I worked closely with <a href="https://www.patrickbennett.com/index">Patrick Bennett</a> and <a href="https://www.gregprobstphotography.com">Greg Probst</a> to pull off this project. Greg has a deep knowledge and experience capturing multiple exposure imagery of land-, sea-, and cityscapes with <a href="https://vastphotos.com">VAST</a>, while Patrick brought an eye for people photography, technical abilities, and production experience.</p>
<p>Here’s Patrick talking about some of the technical aspects of Non-Flesh Tokens:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The magic of this project rests in the creation of multiple camera exposures resulting in ultra high-resolution files of a single scene. Greg and I researched for weeks and created a system using eight separate cameras to photograph a moving subject and still create an ultra high resolution image as a result. We used multi-camera triggering software—<a href="https://tethertools.com/product/smart-shooter-4/">Smart Shooter</a>—to fire eight cameras in sync. Limitations of the software required opening all eight shutters and triggering the flash to coincide. We used rear curtain sync with one camera having a shorter shutter speed set to trigger the flash while the other seven were open.</p>
<p>After shooting some 200-300 shots (x 8 cameras) of each model to get the perfect shot, the next step was stitching the images together with <a href="https://www.ptgui.com">PTGui Pro</a>. Although the eight identical <a href="https://www.usa.canon.com">Canon</a> 5D Mark IV cameras and 135mm f/2.0L lenses were placed as close together as possible, parallax issues remained that required fully utilizing PTGui advanced masking between images to overcome.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="image">
<a href="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/capture-1.jpg">
<img src="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/capture-1.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
</figure>
<p><strong>Equipment used:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>8x Canon 5D Mark IV Cameras</li>
<li>8x Canon 135mm f/2.0L Lenses</li>
<li>Custom made camera rack</li>
<li>Profoto studio strobes</li>
<li>SharpShooter 4 software</li>
<li>ptGui Pro software</li>
<li>Lightroom for organization</li>
<li>Photoshop for final retouching</li>
</ul>
<figure class="image">
<a href="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/capture-2.jpg">
<img src="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/capture-2.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
</figure>
<p>The models are <a href="https://linktr.ee/JessaRayMuse">Jessa Ray</a> and <a href="https://delightfulmachinations.photo">Eddie Arriola</a>. Both did an exceptional job exploring different poses while also keeping within the odd parameters of the shoot. <a href="https://www.katyagudaeva.com">Katya Gudaeva</a> provided subtle make up artistry to enhance their already great physiques.</p>
<figure class="video">
<video controls="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/creation-poster.jpg">
<source src="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/creation.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<figcaption><p>Timelapse showing the many portraits captured to get the two final images</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After reassembling the portraits into two ultra-high resolution images, I then broke up the images using a simple Python script and <a href="https://python-pillow.org">Pillow</a>. I selected a grid size with squares that are large enough that you can still recognize various body parts in them, while not being so large as to feel like simple crops of a normal portrait. I did my best to keep key areas like the face intact, while also trying to reduce the number of squares that are mostly empty save for a sliver of flesh.</p>
<p>The final stage was listing the resulting 308 blocks as NFTs <a href="https://opensea.io/collection/non-flesh-tokens">on Open Sea</a>. While I like how straightforward Open Sea’s presentation of the collection is, I also put together <a href="https://nonfleshtokens.com">a simple website</a> to browse the NFTs in a more intuitive manner.</p>
<figure class="image">
<a href="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/capture-3.jpg">
<img src="/content/2022-01-20-non-flesh-tokens/capture-3.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
</figure>
<h1 id="creator-commentary">Creator Commentary</h1>
<p>Non-Flesh Tokens is a project that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. The idea of auctioning off abstract blocks of flesh (albeit in image form) just struck me as an interesting and rather humorous way to look at objectification and image culture. Which parts of the bodies would be most valued for example? Would an eye fetch a higher price than say a nipple? Would a dastardly cabal of foot fetishizing oligarchs drive the price of toes through the roof? However I wasn’t sure how to bring this idea to life.</p>
<p>Initially I considered printing physical copies of each block and then auctioning these prints off. However this would both be expensive and would depend on drumming up enough interest to make the initial auction a success. Furthermore, an auction would be a one time event. I really wanted to track the long-term prices of these blocks. And here, NFTs turned to be just the solution I was looking for.</p>
<p>Choosing to engage with NFTs at all will doubtless prove controversial in certain circles. And I get it! To put my thoughts on the subject in the politest terms possible: I do not feel most of what is happening in the NFT space deserves the level of attention it has received. What is art’s place in a hyper image saturated world where almost anything can be cheaply reproduced? I don’t know, but encoding crusty old ideas of scarcity, authenticity, and ownership is not the answer. If you care about art, support artists. You don’t need blockchains to do that.</p>
<p>But I’m starting to rant.</p>
<p>Anyways, NFTs as medium actually do have a few interesting properties (all the more so when your goal is to not so subtly comment on the very ideas the medium encodes). Most relevant for Non-Flesh Tokens, NFTs publicly capture the entire transaction history of a given item. This makes it possible to look up the current prices for each individual piece, as well as tracking how those prices have evolved over time.</p>
<p>While I am quite proud of the two portraits and the resulting 308 individual images we created, for me the heart of this project is the collection as a whole. If Non-Flesh Tokens is successful, the collection will come to reflect those who consume it. Engaging with Non-Flesh Tokens by buying or selling or exchange is what builds the artwork. <!-- And just when you finally wrapped your head around selling jpegs, here I come trying to sell you the buying and selling of jpegs. (and then there's the performance of me selling you the buying of selling of jpegs :) --></p>
<p>I am eternally grateful to Patrick and Greg for helping to realize this project technically and creatively; to Jessa and Eddie for their exceptional work and willingness to take on this admittedly strange project; and to all the other people who made this project possible. I’ve also tried to make sure any profits and royalties from this project are fairly distributed to all of those involved.</p>
<p>But now Non-Flesh Tokens is live. What will the interest be like? Will people understand the underlying ideas? Will any of the pieces even sell? Maybe. All I know is that my role here is done. What happens next is out of my hands.</p>
<p>By the bye, if you’d like a hand, check out <a href="https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/15445115341978895749400258717831267901175031190841581355540862008050107547649">Male (2, -7)</a> or <a href="https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/15445115341978895749400258717831267901175031190841581355540861795844363386881">Female (1, -12)</a>. Bidding start at 0.02Eth.</p>Matt BiernerNon-Flesh Tokens is a collection of 308 image NFTs. Each image is a 512x512 pixel block from two full-body, ultra-high resolution portraits—one of a man and one of a woman. There is one NFT for every segment of these two portraits. The entire collection can be seamlessly reassembled into the original portraits.Heavy Metal: A Review2022-01-09T00:00:00+00:002022-01-09T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/heavy-metal-a-review<p>The poster is what draws you in. Just <a href="https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/h7j6uKamzHH9p7muvIYnln621IE.jpg">look at it</a>! The mostly naked warrior woman sits astride a crazy chicken-bird flying over a burning sci-fi cityscape. She holds a golden sword aloft while her blond hair frizzes out like she’s just been struck by lighting. Now <em>that</em> is a poster! The chicken-bird screams with an expression that perfectly captures the unbridled excitement now welling up inside you. YES! Your only remaining aspiration in life is to be that chicken-bird, and—barring that—to see whatever exceptional film this most exceptional of posters advertises.</p>
<p>Then there’s the title: “Heavy Metal”. Now is that not the most perfect movie title you’ve ever heard? Not since “Laser Blast” have two words more perfectly captured the very essence of awesomeness. And it’s printed in chrome! CHROME!!! Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Because clearly a film with a poster like this could only be titled “Heavy Metal” printed in chrome text.</p>
<p>You need this film inside you eyeballs this very instant.</p>
<p>You pay Amazon $4 for a rental. Amazon! Get it!?! Just like poster lady! An absolute bargain too seeing as your $4 will surely be a ticket to a richly animated feature length heavy metal music video filled to the brim with ultra violences and unspeakable titillations. The only question is, will your body be able to handle it?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter because you’ve already pressed play. If this is how you go, so be it.</p>
<p>A list of bands flash across the screen: Cheap Trick! Black Sabbath!! DEVO!!! Yes, flipping DEVO!!! You try to prepare yourself for what in all likelihood will be single greatest piece of art you have ever or will ever have the privilege of bearing witness to.</p>
<p>It starts in space because of course that’s how it has to begin. Space. So vast. So empty. Makes you think, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>But there’s no time for all that Kubrick BS because right away neon text flies into your face, neon text bearing those two mighty and infinity perfect words: “HEAVY METAL”. WOW! It’s like Genesis all over again. Except better. A million times better. Suck it God.</p>
<p>And now…! Oh shit!! A space shuttle!!! Which… looks a tad awkward truth be told. This is animated film, right? The briefest flicker of doubt. But then bomb bay doors start opening on the shuttle and you stand out of your seat and yell, “I didn’t know it had those!” And what is it? No…? It can’t be? Can it…?</p>
<p>CHRIST ALMIGHTY! IT’S A CORVETTE!! IT’S A FUCKING CORVETTE GETTING FUCKING BOMBED THE FUCK OUT OF A FUCKING SPACE SHUTTLE!!!</p>
<p>And just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any better, The Stig is at the wheel! The Stig is driving a corvette in SPACE!!!</p>
<p>Your poor little heart nearly fails as he takes it down through atmosphere for a landing. If this is how the movie starts, just imagine what lies on the planet below…</p>
<p>The Corvette sort of plops down to the ground. Hmm? Could have landed on the side of an erupting volcano, at the <em>very</em> least. He’s going to get out his laser gun soon too, right?</p>
<p>Another moment of doubt. Because again, the animation? Well truthfully it is a little awkward. Floaty. Something about it reminds you of a 80s children’s animated TV show. Different than the poster. But that’s ok. That’s ok. That part must come later. They’re just getting warmed up here.</p>
<p>The Corvette pulls up to a house. A regular house. Hmm. You would have made it a castle. A castle made out of lasers! Yes! A laser castle filled with devil brutes surround by a lava moat full of robotic nazi sharks! Or maybe…! Maybe this is the house where poster woman lives!?! Could The Stig be her lover! Oooooh, imagine that…</p>
<p>But no. Because now there’s a little girl. What’s this about? And why is she so… horrifying? Like some contorted gremlin with the most lifeless eyes. Is she supposed to look like that?</p>
<p>There’s some dialog about an orb but you’re so distracted by the horrific animations that you don’t catch it.</p>
<p>Then out of nowhere, The Stig melts! Now that’s more like it! Just 5 minutes in and you’ve seen a Corvette go through re-entry and solid body melt. None of that pussyfooting around like Raiders! You can’t wait for what’s next.</p>
<p>Except now orb is glowing green and talking. God these animations are just grotesque, aren’t they? Big Zelda CDI energy. Something about evil. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Where’s warrior lady and her chicken? God if only you could be reborn as that big chicken…</p>
<p>You vow to convert to a religion that believes in reincarnation the very instant the credits roll.</p>
<p>You snap back into your present life, a life in which you’ve chosen to watch Heavy Metal. This must be the second best possible life, right?</p>
<p>We’re in a city now. There’s just something unappealing about it all. It’s just not nice to look at. Real Felix the Cat. And is this New York? Why are we in New York? And why isn’t rock music blasting? And why isn’t there action? Why are we watching some slub taxi driver? Strange way to start such an epic fantasy adventure but hey they must know what they’re doing! You can’t just have 100% awesome all the time. Gotta have a little low to make the highs all the more epic.</p>
<p>But this is… well it’s just not very good. A paper-thin noir plot. We just met this femme fatale and now she’s getting naked? What the hell? Is this supposed to be erotic? That’s not how that works you fools! It doesn’t make any sense either. Why is she sleeping with this loser? Why is her only character trait having cantaloupe shaped breasts? Do they think we’re <em>that</em> stupid?</p>
<p>Or maybe that’s the point? Maybe it’s so stupid that it’s funny? You can dig it! For surely they are actually poking fun at stereotypical masculine fantasies? It must be! Right? Right!?!</p>
<p>You sit through what feels like an eternity of the taxi story. Even the few moments of action aren’t very good.</p>
<p>Finally, it’s over. A new story is starting up.</p>
<p>You think to yourself, “Ah, so it’s an anthology! Good, good! They must have just put the worst part first. Probably knew it sucked but had some contractual obligation to include it. It’ll all be uphill from here.” You tell yourself all that, but you’re not nearly as confident as you were just a few brief moments ago.</p>
<p>Ok so now there’s a nerd. A nerd? Why a nerd? Is that supposed to be you? But wait! An explosion and now he’s flying through space! SPACE! Now that’s awesome. Let’s stay up here.</p>
<p>Alas no. He’s on the ground again.</p>
<p>Then the nerd grows a muscly body. Looks sort of like Mr. Clean. It’s very silly.</p>
<p>Mr. Clean uses his new muscly body to save a naked woman. She loves his muscly body and wants to repay him for saving her, but she tells him that she doesn’t have anything to give, “except the parts of her body that most please him.” Ha! Now that’s a laugh! What absurd dialog! It <em>was</em> a joke, right? Right?</p>
<p>The rest of this story is some kind of Conan deal. There’re some breasts and some blood, but it somehow still has that 80s kids cartoon feel. The fight and sex sequences both look like hairless sloths made of play-dough jello wrestling. And where is the heavy metal music? What’s this stinking orchestral score all about?</p>
<p>At the start of part three, a little voice in the back of your head says, “We’ve been had, mate!”</p>
<p>NO! Shut up you vile little voice! It can’t be! So what if not every part of the anthology isn’t great? So what if the first two parts were actually maybe even what you might term bad. Whatever. The awesome is just around the corner. Remember the poster! Remember amazon lady and her chicken-bird! Remember DEVO! D. E. V. O!!!</p>
<p>IT MUST BE GOOD! It simply must be! Mustn’t it?</p>
<p>So you keep watching. So you keep hoping. And sure there are some bright spots, a few all too brief moments where the animation and action and music all come together. In one story, robotic Micky Mouse seduces a woman. Come to think of it, is it really seduction if the woman is written so that she can only say yes to men (and male robots)? But at least there is a good sequence with some tubes. That lasts ten seconds maybe. Plus robot Micky’s spaceship looks pretty amazing. Not much of a plot. Or characters. Or point. Why are you watching this thing again?</p>
<p>The other segments are slogs that you forget as soon as the next one begins. Stiff and awkward action. The female character exist only to flash a bit of flesh. And whenever the rock music does kick in, it feels completely detached from what’s going on on screen.</p>
<p>By the time the last segment finally starts, you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that there’s not going to be any giant chicken awesomeness today. And indeed, the last segment also doesn’t look anything like the poster.</p>
<p>But hey now! What’s this? A warrior woman? Could it be? Could it finally be her of poster fame? Well it doesn’t look like her but who else <em>could</em> it be? Is Heavy Metal finally going to get good in the last 20 minutes?</p>
<p>But no. Of course not. Gotcha again! The film only threw her in to tease you. To remind you of what could have been.</p>
<p>Which is all the more frustrating because you can see the potential. You can see the bones of the that film you imagined. It’s there if you just squint hard enough. Maybe so hard that your eyes are shut.</p>
<p>It’s over. At last. You sit there for a while, trying to make sense of what you just saw.</p>
<p>So in the end the little girl from the start becomes the warrior woman? The warrior woman who never spoke a word and whose naked body the movie clearly wanted you to have been ogling for the past twenty minutes? Wow. That’s certainly… something.</p>
<p>The more you think, the less sense it makes. Like why did they bother with that terrible framing story in the first place? And even more bafflingly, how could a film titled “Heavy Metal” use music so poorly and have such dull action sequences? Way worse than Transformers. Yes, that 1986 feature length toy commercial made for kids was an infinity better heavy metal film than Heavy Metal! And why, just why, were all the men in the film so universally horrible while all the women were empty husks? In short, how could a movie so full of promise be so… terrible?</p>
<p>That universe of infinite awesomeness that you imagined before hitting play? Gone. The real Heavy Metal killed it dead. Worse than dead, for when it pulled back the curtain on that fantasy of yours, it actually revealed something tawdry and ugly and small. God damn. The filmmakers could at least have had the dignity to make that fucking orb blue.</p>
<p>It’s not like you’re some snob either. In fact, you love trashy movies! You love trash culture! You love it but you also tell yourself you’re not trash. You’re not like them. Not really. Right?</p>
<p>Heavy Metal though? Bad trash. The kind of trash that leaves you feeling dirty and stupider for having watched it. This was some 80s studio executive’s cynical ploy to get teenage boys into theaters: throw in a few breasts, a bucket or two of blood, and a few snippets of whatever BS music the kids listen to these days. And you know what? You fell for it, hook line and sinker. You’d laugh if it weren’t so depressing.</p>
<p>At least one thing is clear now though: the warrior woman on the poster? She’s pissed. Pissed at being used as prop to sell such dull little fantasies. Pissed at a society that gives men millions to bring such infantile fantasies to life. Can you blame her?</p>
<p>And you there! You thought were different? You thought all this was ok because you were only having a bit of fun? Yet when it comes right down to it, here you are, using her just like all the others.</p>
<p>Cock-a-doodle-doo.</p>Matt BiernerThe poster is what draws you in. Just look at it! The mostly naked warrior woman sits astride a crazy chicken-bird flying over a burning sci-fi cityscape. She holds a golden sword aloft while her blond hair frizzes out like she’s just been struck by lighting. Now that is a poster! The chicken-bird screams with an expression that perfectly captures the unbridled excitement now welling up inside you. YES! Your only remaining aspiration in life is to be that chicken-bird, and—barring that—to see whatever exceptional film this most exceptional of posters advertises.Fire-Toolz AR musical experience for Beatsy2021-10-22T00:00:00+00:002021-10-22T00:00:00+00:00https://blog.mattbierner.com/beatsy-fire-toolz<p>Today I’m excited to announce the new Fire-Toolz augmented reality musical experience for <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">Beatsy</a>! This experience was created in collaboration with <a href="http://fire-toolz.bandcamp.com">Fire-Toolz</a> and features AR effects designed for a song off of <a href="https://fire-toolz.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-home">her latest album</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Links</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://c.beatsy.app/1/ft-vagus">View the Fire-Toolz |ØFF| 2 Łos† Vagus experience</a> (requires a device running iOS 14.5+)</li>
<li><a href="http://fire-toolz.bandcamp.com">Fire-toolz</a></li>
<li><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">Get Beatsy</a></li>
</ul>
<figure class="video">
<video loop="" controls="" preload="metadata" poster="/content/2021-10-22-beatsy-fire-toolz/demo-720-poster.jpg">
<source src="/content/2021-10-22-beatsy-fire-toolz/demo-720.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<figcaption><p>Demo</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To view this augmented reality experience, simply <a href="https://c.beatsy.app/1/ft-vagus">visit this link</a> on any modern iOS device and tap the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">View</code> button at the top of the screen or the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">View App Clip</code> button in the panel that pops up. No need to install Beatsy first!</p>
<p>The experience showcases the lyrics of the song and includes particle effects, vibrant flowing colors, and Beatsy’s unique world distorting effects. The video above was captured on an iPhone 12 Pro, which can distort three dimensional surfaces in your world thanks to the device’s LiDAR sensor. If you’re on an iPhone without a LiDAR sensor, you’ll instead be asked to place the effect on a flat surface that will be distorted.</p>
<p>One minor detail that I’m nevertheless quite proud of: the text for the lyrics can intersect with the real world:</p>
<figure class="image">
<a href="/content/2021-10-22-beatsy-fire-toolz/intersect.png">
<img src="/content/2021-10-22-beatsy-fire-toolz/intersect.png" alt="Notice how the virtual lyrics look like they emerge from the real wall. It's the little things that I love" />
</a>
<figcaption><p>Notice how the virtual lyrics look like they emerge from the real wall. It’s the little things that I love</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Augmented reality music video style experiences like this are neat because they are interactive and shaped by your environment. You can view the Fire-Toolz effect from any angle and walk around it like it is really there in physical space. I also had a fun time going around Seattle finding interesting surfaces to distort using it.</p>
<p>Fans can also easily use these AR musical experiences in their own creative work. You can capture photos and videos of Fire-Toolz experience in action using the <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beatsy/id1543162330">full Beatsy App</a>. It’s all much more interactive and personal feeling that a traditional music video.</p>
<p>One final note: if you enjoy the Fire-Toolz experience, share it with your friends over iMessage by tapping the share icon in the app (you can also just share the link <a href="https://c.beatsy.app/1/ft-vagus">https://c.beatsy.app/1/ft-vagus</a>). When your friend receives the message, they will be able to launch the experience directly from iMessage without having to install Beatsy first. Neat!</p>
<p>So give the new Fire-Toolz AR experience <a href="https://c.beatsy.app/1/ft-vagus">a try</a>. If you enjoy it, the best way to support us so that we can continue making stuff like this is to share Beatsy with your friends. If you’re feeling extra generous, App Store reviews always help too!</p>
<p>PS This experience is just the first of what will hopefully be many more Beatsy musical collaborations. If you are an musician and wish to showcase your work using Beatsy, please <a href="matt@rarerealities.com">get in touch</a>.</p>Matt BiernerToday I’m excited to announce the new Fire-Toolz augmented reality musical experience for Beatsy! This experience was created in collaboration with Fire-Toolz and features AR effects designed for a song off of her latest album.