Typography in motion: Le Houellebecq by freemk.

(Swiss Legacy via Monoscope)

I have a thing for purposeful monochromatic constructions, devices that simultaneously tickle my parietal and occipital lobes, Venn diagrams of precious little intersection of the trickster, beauty and math. Childhood ingredients included parts Escher, Pinball Construction Set and the Basel School. This week I was ecstatic to be exposed to not one, but two examples of this meter—one physical, the other virtual, both Japanese, rendered in white, challenges to be experimented with.

First is Illoiha’s insanely cool climbing wall. As I said to one .tiff, this gym in Ebisu tugs on my spidey heartstrings. Your vertical progress is marked by gripping picture frames, flower vases and in one case, a deer head. As anyone who’s drank the bouldering Kool-Aid, seeing a manifestation of the real world in white, pared down to the basic physical forms that demand to be climbed is a beautiful thing.

Second is the reality distortion of Echochrome, a minimalist game built around the brilliant concept of turning what you see into what happens. To paraphrase, Echochrome is an Escher puzzle made live. Control is handled simply by rotating the stage, while the mannequin walks around blindly, falling through holes and bouncing off jump pads until you’ve assembled the stage in a manner that reaches closure.

I anxiously await March 18, and debating how to retrieve my PSP. :P My fingers are crossed hoping Echochrome is another Portal, Rez or—at least a little—Katamari. It’s promising.

E3 2007 Trailer

GDC 2008 Video, via Destructoid:

Because someone had to. At the very least, I can’t recall someone doing this. But I could be wrong.

Mark FTW!

(get yours here)

Four FFFFOUND-worthy artists I admire who post their work on Flickr:

• A*A*R*O*N
• _bns
• crapartist
• Jeremy Pettis

BONUS UNICORNS LINK courtesy of Typographica.

Two of my favorite peeps, Kendal and Steve are putting the engage in engaged. Huzzah. Congratulations, and Liz are in order.

I think some people wanted this in wearable form. You can haz!

Ah, the new hotness. Optimization, DTS audio, QT 7.4 + Leopard compatibility, MKV, subtitle and other bug fixes.

Why is this good? Perian is the secret sauce that makes QuickTime on OS X play a number of common non-QuickTime video and audio codecs and container formats. B.P. (Before Perian) was a dark period—playing video on your Mac meant using dodgy, unstable players or hacking different Intel/PPC QuickTime components from various authors/vendors. Perian also always buys the first round, gets you her phone number, listens to you bitch, cures cancer, is always up for a road trip and has the best house in South Lake.

(via TUAW)