Zombies in Condoland is mentioned in The Globe and Mail, as a highlight of the upcoming Nuit Blanche Toronto! How’s that for pressure?

More press in The National Post.

And CBC.

The website for my upcoming performance in Toronto is officially launched here! You can participate!

To see the G-rated simulation above, you need Java installed on your system.

Built with Processing by Kevan Davis, Zombie Infection Simulation is not a game but a simulation: the act of simulating something means representing key characteristics or behaviours of a selected real or abstract system.

Zombies are grey, survivors are pink. Zombies move slowly. If something moves in front of them they move towards it. If a zombie finds a survivor directly in front of it, it bites them and the survivor immediately becomes undead. Survivors are pink and move faster than zombies. If a zombie is directly in front of them, they panic. Panicked survivors are bright pink and run twice as fast as other survivors. Note: these survivors clearly have no weapons.

Controls
(You’ll need to click on the Java window before it’ll accept keypresses.)
* Press g to toggle between grey and green zombies.
* Press s to alter the simulation speed.
* Press space to uninfect all but one zombie.
* Press z or reload the page to reset to a new city.
* Press + and - to adjust population (this also resets the city).
* Press p to toggle complete panic.

Review of a video game (unplayed):

Petri Purho is a computer science student in Helsinki who writes a game every month. Bloody Zombies is one of them, where your goal is to rescue Barbara from the zombies. Conceptually, a very low resolution horror themed game is at both humourous (”is that an axe or are you happy to see me?”) and utterly ridiculous (”is that blood on your head or is that your hat?”). Exercise caution or you might find yourself executing the lovely Barbara instead of a hideous zombie. It is this precise combination of hilarity and absurdity that piques my interest.

From the Kloonigames website where Purho archives his efforts, Bloody Zombies is “the goriest game ever made in glorious 128 x 96 resolution! Fight zombies with your lawn mower! Solve levels with your opponents blood!”

Sadly Bloody is only available for PC and/or XBox. Download it if you have one of those systems. Other games include Planet of the Jellies and Crayon Physics - even their titles are delightful.

In related news, Guthrie Lonergan, a young artist from L.A., invites you to cover any Youtube video in blood - thus creating a horror film from any old clip. The screen shot above is one of my videos, Screen Kiss, raining blood.

[An aside: Screen Kiss is on Youtube without my consent, but that is another story.]

CBC is offering a prize to the tune of $100,000 for the winning song in an upcoming battle for the new Hockey Night in Canada theme. I’ve read a lot of blog posting about spec work lately. Working on spec, in the design field, means doing the work without being paid, in the hopes of getting business in the future. Except for the winner in such a contest, no one gets paid a cent for their efforts. Creative people are already underpaid and undervalued for their work. Contests like this are one of the worst offenders, adding insult to injury.

How are we to believe these vampires in vogue, sans fangs and the token blood drop at the edge of the mouth? Fashionable vampire beauties seem so 1990. Zombies are the monsters of the day.

Which brings me to Another New Horror Review (sight unseen):

Twilight
In Twilight, which I have not seen since it is yet-to-be-released in December 2008, the story of Romeo and Juliet meets the magic of Peter Pan. Love Never Dies (à la Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Never Never Land beckons, and the teen dream vampire posers don’t have any good lines, not even in the trailer.

See for yourself, below. I suggest skipping this one.

In related news, Twilight Creations will release a new game in August, called Humans, in which you the player are the zombie, chasing humans! Not sure how this will look any different than standard First Person Shooter games, except you the player will be chomping, not shooting, and conceptualizing yourself as an undead corpse in some stage of decay. That spells “fun”!

Through June 4, I’m at La Chambre Blanche in the beautiful and rainy Québec City working on a website to provide info about and invite participation in my upcoming horror-themed smart mob performances. For example, Zombies in Condoland, a night long performance at La Nuit Blanche in Toronto. The masthead is the work-in-progress fruit of tonight’s labour.

I was at La Chambre Blanche in January 2002 for a similar residency. I fell in love with the city then and it remains my favourite Canadian city for simply walking around. Today I watched a thin sliver of orange sunset between the grey clouds and the horizon below my feet from the vantage point of the haute ville. Wandering the crooked little streets I found the windows as I remembered them - with open blinds showing every room filled with warm light, books, and gardens of potted plants. Maybe I’m romanticizing but either Canada really is amazing or there’s no place like home.

The Tribeca Film Festival’s screening 2 nights ago of Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg was delightful - particularly enhanced by his own live narration in Winnipeg twang, and paired with Isabella Rosellini’s hilariously funny Green Porno micro-shorts describing the bizarre sexual practices of common bugs. She plays the costumed male of each species as well as various hermaphrodites, and is subjected to all manner of physical trauma. The low tech effects are enchanting. Beckley and I agreed that these should be shown to kids, and also would work well in a gallery installation. Rick Gilbert, Green Porno’s producer who I recognized from somewhere (Winnipeg, it turns out), told me they have been trying various configurations as they tour the work. Stay tuned for her second series featuring sea creatures!

Maddin’s signature blurry style of a bygone era in endless snow grace this documentary/travelogue of our shared prairie home town. Its highlights include a hockey match between historical hockey greats amidst the wrecking ball demolition of their beloved arena; a reenactment of Maddin’s childhood living room complete with dead father exhumed like a mound of dirt beneath the carpet; a steamy coming-of age in arena locker rooms and the subterranean levels of a public pool; and Golden Boy pageantry in the otherwise dull and fading Paddlewheel family restaurant.

My favourite line references the newly erected MTS building looking “like a zombie in a cheap new suit” where Canada’s iconic Eaton’s department store once proudly stood. I’ve been away from home for a long long time - thanks for the memories, however self-deprecating.

Horror Stories, my new show at ThreeWalls in Chicago, opened on Friday. The Sparkling, an interactive video installation, is the highlight - shown above and below. The haunted chandelier gets eerier as visitors approach, a reference to chandeliers in films like The Amityville Horror, and also non-horror films like The War of the Roses. Thanks to the wonderful artists and administrators at ThreeWalls for all their support, especially Shannon, Lucy, Elizabeth, Andy, and Liz. Also to Josh Rose and Cesar Cornejo who helped me in New York with programming and putting together the chandelier.

Also on view are:

TV = Evil which juxtaposes little girls and TVs from Poltergeist and The Ring. Playing on a TV in a room all alone, it’s creepy.

Vamp it Up, a companion piece to Horror Make-up, filmed on the Chicago elevated train. More info about this work in my Performance section. Special thanks to Beckley Roberts and Liz Hood who secretly filmed these performances, and to Elizabeth for driving me half way around town in search of fangs, size XS.

Everyone Will Suffer, an animation featuring taglines recited from popular horror films and a low-fi animated country sunset.

While in Chicago I met artist Jeriah Hildwine, a painter whose acrylic series Living Dead Girls features goth girls slaying the naked and grisly undead, in nightmarish colour. Best are the portraits of his protagonist zombie slayers, especially Zombie Hunter Elizabeth, pictured in the detail above. She seems to enjoy her role, and I like her attitude, clad in school girl plaid.