Category Archives: Ghost in a Shell

Robert Stark interviews Korezaan about Transit & Urbanism

aesthetics, Alt Center, Alternative Right, Anime, Architecture, arcology, Art, Asia, Asian Culture, Blade Runner, China, Cities, Culture, Cyberpunk, demographics, Film, Futurism, Ghost in a Shell, Giovanni Dannato, Hong Kong, Immigration, James Howard Kunstler, John C. Portman Jr, Korezaan, Lafayette CA, Laura Foote Clark, Los Angeles, Mass Transit, New Urbanism, Orinda CA, Police, Sam Kevorkian, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Skyscrapers, social capital, Social Isolation, Strong Towns, Suburbia, Urbanism, Walnut Creek CA, Zoning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Sam Kevorkian talk to Bay Area based blogger and illustrator Korezaan. He blogs at Rezzealaux and has a Facebook Page.

Topics:

Korezaan’s political views, the Euclidean vector towards Giovanni Dannato, and the Alt-Center 
Korezaan’s article BART, Americans, and Attitudes, vs The East which has maps of land use around the BART Stations
Robert Stark’s recent meeting with Korezaan in the Bay Area and some personal observations from the trip
Transit Oriented Development and the lack of housing density around BART Stations
The importance of having retail in or near transit
The importance of pedestrian friendly development
NIMBYism, density, parking, and height limits
How suburbia makes it difficult to form communities and contributes to social isolation
Ethnoburbs
New Urbanism
Housing Crisis: Razib Khan on how $100,000 in Palo Alto is equivalent to $16,000 in St. Louis 
The misconception that suburbs are necessary for family formation
The Upscale East Bay towns of Lafayette and Orinda and Korezaan’s point that these are places where ex-urbanites bring non-suburban culture to the suburbs
Bay Area Greenbelts and Conservation in Hong Kong
Self-contained urban structures, urban oasis’s, the Embarcadero Center, and Elements, Hong Kong above the Kowloon MTR station
The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, Blade Runner, Ghost in a Shell, and Western vs. Eastern Cyberpunk
Korezaan’s artwork featured on his blog Rezzealaux

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark interviews Italian Musician and Artist Dino Olivieri

1980's, 1990's, 80's music, 90's music, aesthetics, Akira, Anime, Art, Art Nouveau, Asia, Asian Culture, Blade Runner, Comic Books, Culture, Cyberpunk, Daft Punk, Dino Olivieri, Europe, Film, Florian Renner, Futurism, Ghost in a Shell, Italo Disco, Italy, Japan, Japanese Culture, Leisure Suit Larry, Literature, Music, Neon, New Retro Wave, Photography, Pilleater, Retro Futurism, Science Fiction, Stanley Kubrick, Synthwave, Transhumanism, Vaporwave, Video Games, Wilderness

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater spoke to Musician, Artist, and Web Designer Dino Olivieri from Turin, Italy.

Dino Olivieri has been known for producing some of the most technologically advanced websites. Her creativity is always on display when she’s at work, proving to her clients that she is the very best. These days, she tends to outsource this work and sends it over to an SEO Company Chester. But her music is at the very heart of what she does.

His website is Onyrix and you can check out his work on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Vimeo, and Youtube.

Uploading content to these social media platforms is a great way for Olivieri to get his music heard from people all over the world and with just a click of a button. His next step should be to consider uploading his songs to music streaming sites like Spotify, and he may want to have a look at getfans.io/buy-spotify-plays to see how he can get more people to listen to his music. The more people that are aware of his music, the more likely he will be at getting discovered, resulting in his career taking off.

Topics:

Intro: Beyond Human
Early artistic inspirations, figure drawing, and aesthetic interest ranging from Italian Renaissance Art to Anime, Vaporwave, and Cyberpunk
Interest in anime, especially the giant robots created by Go-Nagai and Matsumoto’s work such as Captain Harlock
Italian Design
Dino’s Photography of the Italian Alps on Flickr
Early musical influences; early 80’s New Wave and Italo Disco
Influences from and use of classical music in his work
Japanese Composers Joe Hisaishi, Kenji Kawai, Kento Masuda, and Sakamoto
The new Singularity Album which is for a theatrical show created by Director Raffaele Lamorte
Movie Soundtracks; Vangelis’s Soundtrack for Blade Runner
The Singularity album cover; posters for the films Neon Demon and Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange
Dino’s upcoming album which has influences from Synthwave, Retrowave, and 90’s Dance Music
Dino’s illustrated novel “Di Undici Foglie” and his upcoming novel “Legend of the Starlight”
Dino’s video game Over The Net from 1991; comparisons to Leisure Suit Larry
Outro: Sex Surrogates and Jealousy


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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark and Richard Wolstencroft discuss The Film Dark City

1990's, aesthetics, Akira, Alex Proyas, alienation, Architecture, Art, Art Deco, Australia, Cinema, Cities, Count Isidor Fosco, Culture, Dark City, David Lynch, Dystopia, Edward Hopper, Film, Film Noire, Ghost in a Shell, Hollywood, horror, horror films, Jennifer Connelly, Metropolis, Mid-Century Modern, Mythology, Nihilism, Philosophy, Pilleater, Plato, Psychology, Retro Futurism, Richard Wolstencroft, Science Fiction, Steampunk, Surrealism, The Matrix, Utopia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark, co-host Pilleater, and Count Isidor Fosco, talk to filmmaker Richard Wolstencroft about the film Dark City(1998) directed by Alex Proyas.

Topics:

Australian director Alex Proyas, his background in Punk, and his style
Proyas’s films The Crow, Gods of Egypt, and Knowing
Proyas rebelling against the conformity of Hollywood Cinema
Comparisons to the Matrix which came out a year later and the theme of a meta reality
The setting of the City in a Space Ship disconnected from earth, the theme of parallel universes, and comparisons to the Truman Show
The role of “the Others” in the film; the metaphor for powerful people who manipulate reality from behind the scenes
How the others switch peoples memories and give them false memories; comparisons to Ghost in a Shell
The Gothic and Neo Noire Genres
The aesthetics of the film; Decopunk, Metropolis, Edward Hopper, and other influences
The irony of dystopian films is that they often succeed in creating utopian aesthetics
The films success in building upon the sense of mystery
The theme of man becoming a “God Like” figure restructuring society as a utopia
Plato’s allegory of the Cave and the Ship of Theseus
The symbolism of Shell Beach
The directors cut vs. the theatrical cut

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark interviews Jack Ravenwood

1980's, 1990's, aesthetics, Anime, Architecture, Art, Asia, Asian Aryanism, Beatniks, capitalism, China, Cinema, Cities, Class, College, conformity, Conservatives, Consumerism, Culture, Cyberpunk, Deconstruction, Donald Trump, Economics, education, Film, Free Trade, Ghost in a Shell, Globalization, History, Hong Kong, Immigration, Jack Kerouac, Jack Ravenwood, Japan, Japanese Culture, Jean Baudrillard, Las Vegas, Literature, Martin Heidegger, Mid-Century Modern, Neoliberalism, Neon, New York, Paradise Theater, Philosophy, Pilleater, Robert Brenner, Ross Perot, Shenzhen, Skyscrapers, SWPL, Thomas Rinaldi, Time Square, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Urbanism, Wisconsin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater talk to Jack Ravenwood. He is the author of Paradise Theater, a collection of short stories centered around the theme of the post-industrial American small city. He is also the main writer at Mean Street Cinema, a website dedicated to films from New York City in the 70’s and 80’s, as well as the co-founder of little ape press. He blogs at Foreigner Thoughts

Topics:

The setting of the book Paradise Theater in Jack’s home town West Allis, Wisconsin in the 1980’s and early 90’s
The Paradise Theatre movie house which the book was named for and featured on the cover
The Fairview Motors Sign which is featured on the back of the book; Mid-Century Road Signage
The cultural, political, and economic themes in the book
Allis-Chalmers closing in West Allis and the de-industrialization of the Midwest
Ross Perot’s campaign in 1992 against NAFTA, and Trump campaigning on trade issues
Jack’s Unz Review article Trump, JFK, and the Deep State
National Review Writer: Working-Class Communities ‘Deserve To Die
How the best case scenario for the US would be to carve out a niche in high end manufacturing that caters to China’s growing middle class
Jack’s new home Shenzhen, China which is a manufacturing power house, and new mega city built from scratch
Jack’s Mean Street Cinema site, his interest in Vintage New York City, and Robert Stark’s interviews with Thomas Rinaldi about New York Neon and Robert Brenner about his Time Square Tours
Jack’s observations about Hong Kong Neon and how Hong Kong Is Slowly Dimming Its Neon Glow
Jack’s future plan to document Neon in Hong Kong in either a book or blog
The culture of Hong Kong as a bridge between the east and west and it’s “relative autonomy”
Vertical living and how it is the norm for urban China for all classes
High density living isn’t inherently bad but it is necessary to have a high quality of culture to sustain it
Jack Kerouac’s The Town and the City
Conformity in Asian culture; authentic Asian culture vs. SWPL larping
Chinese Philosophy; the Tao Te Ching
The evolution of Western Philosophy; Deconstruction and selective deconstruction
Jean Baudrillard and the simulation


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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark interviews New Retro Wave Artist Absolute Valentine

1980's, 1990's, 80's music, 90's music, Absolute Valentine, aesthetics, Akira, Andy Fox, Anime, Art, Cinema, Culture, Cyberpunk, Daft Punk, David Lynch, Depeche Mode, Film, France, Ghost in a Shell, horror, horror films, Italo Disco, John Carpenter, Kavinsky, Music, Neon, New Retro Wave, Pilleater, Synthwave, The Summoner, Vaporwave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater talk to French New Retro Wave Artist Absolute Valentine(Bandcamp Site). He is also a manager for Lazerdiscs Records. Check out his SoundCloud, YouTube, and Facebook Page.

Topics:

Intro Song: Bad News from the Police Heartbreaker album
Music background, learning piano as a kid, playing guitar in a metal band, and early electronic work
Influences ranging from Bach, Kavinsky, and Vangelis; similarities between Synthwave and Classical Music
The New Retro Wave genre
Producing music for Lazerdiscs Records and Drive Radio
The Darkwave genre
The Police Heartbreaker album
The Sunset Love album
The American Nightmare album inspired by Horror Films
The album cover designs, Cyperbunk influence, and the color pallet
Anime, Akira, and Ghost in a Shell
The Film Drive
John Carpenter’s Film Soundtracks
Daft Punk and 90’s French House Music
French 80’s music; Space Disco
The upcoming New Retro Wave horror film The Summoner which Absolute Valentine will do a track for
The Roland TR-7, other Synths, and the process of layering Synths
The importance of the intro and outro in Synth Music
The moniker Absolute Valentine
Upcoming Albums, Tracks, and live performances
Outro: She’s a Dancer from the Sunset Love Album


Click Here to download!
This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!




Robert Stark, Pilleater, & Richard Wolstencroft discuss Ghost in a Shell

1980's, aesthetics, Akira, Alternative Right, animation, Anime, Architecture, Asia, Asian Aryanism, Asian Culture, Blade Runner, China, Cinema, Cities, Culture, Cyberpunk, Dystopia, Film, Futurism, Ghost in a Shell, Globalization, Hong Kong, Liberalism, Martin Heidegger, Mishima A Life in Four Chapters, Music, Nationalism, Paul Schrader, Philosophy, Pilleater, Political Correctness, Psychology, Retro Futurism, Richard Wolstencroft, Scarlet Johansson, Science, Science Fiction, Sexuality, Synthwave, technology, Transhumanism, Travel, Vaporwave, William Gibson, Yukio Mishima

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark, co-host Pilleater, and director Richard Wolstencroft discuss the new film Ghost in a Shell based on the 1995 anime.

Topics:

How it compares to the original film
The plot and characters
The film’s aesthetics, 1980’s retro-futurism, holograms, and cyberpunk
The synth soundtrack
The Robot Geisha scene
The fictional  futuristic Asian city filmed in Hong Kong
Richard Wolstencroft’s experience in Hong Kong and observations on Asian culture
Comparisons to the films Akira and Blade Runner, and William Gibson’s Neuromancer
The Anime Right
The “white washing” controversy about a White actress playing an Asian role
Scarlet Johansson
Takeshi Kitano
Themes of Trans-humanism and Cybernetics
Ray Kurzweil’s Wildest Prediction: Nanobots Will Plug Our Brains Into the Web
The Philosophy of Mind, ‎Gilbert Ryle’s Ghost in the machine, and Arthur Koestler’s Ghost in the machine
Hubert Dreyfus’s views on artificial intelligence influenced by Martin Heidegger
Political messages in the film
“Ghost in a Shell” as a metaphor for the rootless atomized society where people lack any real identity
Richard’s upcoming film The Second Coming Volume II


Click Here to download!
This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Paintings!