No Soap, Radio

By: Peggy Nelson

Should we throw out the babes with the bathwater? After unplugging them of course. But perhaps the uncanny devil is in the details. Maybe all Barbarella needed was a little grounding; she needed to lure […]

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In Search of Strategically-Placed Sensors

By: Matthew Battles

As readers of HiLobrow know, Joshua Glenn shows the same mastery over the history of science fiction that a mad scientist exerts over his army of murderous fembots. While Roxxxy the Robot’s makers might claim […]

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Forget the Fembot

By: Joshua Glenn

According to an AP story today, “the world’s first sex robot” is now for sale from True Companion, a Lincoln Park, N.J.-based company. For $7,000 to $9,000, you can take home the Roxxxy, a high-end […]

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The Kibbo Kift & the Usable Past

By: Matthew De Abaitua

A prehistoric track stretches across 250 miles from the Dorset coast to the Norfolk Wash. For over five thousand years, people have walked or ridden this trail. The first section we know as the Ridgeway, […]

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I, Avatar

By: Peggy Nelson

The last time Pandora opened the box there was kind of a problem. All sorts of uncontrollable wild things got all over the place, everybody started yelling and panicking, and Pandora got into lots of […]

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Leibnizian Spacetime vs. Pincushion Owl

By: Joshua Glenn

Over at Significant Objects today, Margaret Wertheim of the admirable Institute for Figuring tells a story about an owl-shaped pincushion and its role in the discovery that Leibniz was right to reject Newton’s notion of […]

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Breakin’ the Law

By: Peggy Nelson

Don’t you love it when the first thing everyone asks you about your work is, “isn’t that illegal?” [The Cones Project, a performance art/virtual maps mashup, Peggy Nelson, 2009] Craig Baldwin is a scavenger, collagist, […]

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Michael Moorcock

By: Tom Nealon

With the profusion of anti-heroes on television in recent years, from Tony Soprano’s jolly murderer to House’s belittling a-hole pose and from Jack Bauer’s strident seriousness to Dexter’s huggable serial killer, it’s easy to forget […]

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Eloi and Morlocks

By: Peggy Nelson

Hey! I bet you’re wondering how an artist makes a living, especially when I don’t make anythings. I have a day job of course. I design patterns in software to enhance emotional reactions, which in […]

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Philip K. Dick

By: Joshua Glenn

“My books (& stories) are intellectual (conceptual) mazes & I am in an intellectual maze in trying to figure out our situation (who we are & how we look into the world, & world as […]

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Love and Tentacles

By: Peggy Nelson

A few months ago, a friend of mine started Twittering his doodles. An irrepressible draftsman, Walter Sickert has the kind of old-skool muse that demands daily tribute. A sketchbook is always ready pocketside and, at […]

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The Dogs in the Trees

By: Matthew Battles

The first sightings of dogs in trees were reported not long after the Fall equinox. Early rumor came in the form of videos shot at arms’ length on cell phones and hastily uploaded — grainy, […]

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