We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Tales of a future past Future is waiting for us. With hollow skeletons
or downsized ugly creatures with bulgy eyes – it’s not important.
Important thing is that there will be a footprint left.
Footprint of civilization. Cement, metal and dust not claimed by anyone.
They are eternity.
I found this interesting site called Abandoned.ru (via the irrepressible Good Shit) and as ‘Tears for Fears’ once said (said he, showing his age), there is a beauty of decay.
For an old cyberpunk like me, stained concrete, jagged bare metal and pools of water under ruined roofs are a rhapsody of shadows for the darker parts of the soul. Go check out Uryevich’s excellent series of photo essays.
And yes, I am so ready to play Stalker…
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Amazing photos, the monochrome shots in particular are very nice. The lack of colour only enhances the desolate mood.
Heres another, similar site… Very good as well.
http://www.abandoned-places.com/
So that’s what Roland Orzabal was talking about. I don’t see any “blue-yellow-pink umbrellas” though…
Stunning. Thanks for the site Perry.
You may be interested in this one too:
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/humanities_and_soc_sciences/te1/
Ive been taking b/w photos of some of the old factories and back alleys of Christchurch for a while now and I’m working on a cyberpunkish/sci fi book set in a kind of British industrial era city.
Iv’e had a fascination with this look ever since I saw David Lynch’s Elephant Man.
Beauty is defined by the emotions it inspires. Decay and rust and collapse inspire only fear of death and self-pity. The works of man are the most beautiful things on this earth, because they inspire hope and joy.
“Decay and rust and collapse inspire only fear of death and self-pity. ”
Hmmm, thats not my experience.
Nor mine, Shawn.
Fascinating. These Command Economies seem to be good at this sort of thing.
Not far from where I live there is a complete abandoned accommodation complex (about eight or nine quite large buildings) which was constructed by Harold Wilson’s government for the happy workers of the oilrig construction industry, who not suprisingly decided to live elswhere, in a place where oilrigs actually were constructed, rather than where the State hoped they would be.
Because it’s in such a remote rural area, it is almost undamaged despite thirty-odd years of emptiness. There are hardly any broken windows, the big industrial kitchen equipment is all still there in the canteen, the laundry still has its huge washing machines, and so on. There are, however, quite a few decayed and decaying (Yuck!) farm animals which were trapped inside the rooms when they kicked the doors shut and couldn’t open them again.
It is one spooky place, and a great testament to statist folly, all paid for by you and me, of course.
And no, I am not going to tell you all where it is…
Ah, Stalker! I’ve been waiting for that one for a while. If you like that kind of imagery you might also enjoy the Andrei Tarkovsky movie Stalker which influenced the game (although the movie has rather more style than content).
An ageing cyberpunk is not really the way it was suppose to work. We were suppose to be part of the “live fast die young” brigade…oh well.
Yeah Stalker looks rather nifty…if it lives up to what it claims it might just give Doom3 and Half-Life 2 a run for their money.
Fabulous. Yes, very cyberpunk. “The sky above Chiba City … .”
“Decay and rust and collapse inspire only fear of death and self-pity. ” No way. We carry on. Rome’s gone. The Raj is gone. The USSR is gone. The Packard Motor Car Company is gone. Wisconsin Steel is gone. The buildings and mills and bridges and railway roundhouses, ruined or not, are still here, and have their own beauty. We’re still here. We carry on.
Ruins are inspiring not morbid.
“These Command Economies seem to be good at this sort of thing.” Yeah, true, but similarly lovely caves of rust and cement can be found in Chicago, too, believe me. Creative destruction is great, but the destroyed stuff really is destroyed, and the wreckage can be very picturesque or creepy or scary … or beautiful in its own way.
My taste runs to a totally different sort of Stalker.
Rob Fisher,
may be you’ll find more content in the original (Link)novel by brothers Strugatsky, who gave their permission for the screenplay but didn’t like the resulting movie
It’s called Roadside picnic and could be downloaded from the site above.