As Seen On Internet

Mark Blank
Supergenius

This is a still from the original 3D animated Brian Kane logo, created in 1989 using Alias 2.

Brand USA is part of the Homeland Identification Project (HIP). This large scale earth moving project will provide permanent, satellite readable identification of the territory of the United States. It is a form of “Terrattooing”, or territorial tattooing.

Created Nov. 2005 for LAPOV 2005

The Strategic Decorative Initiative lunar etching project will be the largest artistic undertaking in human history. This massive dual purpose monumental sculpture initiates permanent lasting peace for all of mankind. This is accomplished by removing the global nuclear weapons stock to the surface of the moon, and detonating them in the universal happy shape of the “smiley” emoticon. An irreverant wink goodbye to the past and a friendly roadsign for intergallactic travelers.

Created Nov. 2005 for LAPOV 2005

Here’s an image of Gardner Post, Josh Pearson, and myself goofing around at the Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY, from 1990. We stayed there for 1 week as artists in residence, and made some great work. They had all sorts of analog video synthesis hardware there, and a device called a “Wiggletron” which was apparently built for Nam Jun Paik.

Casino Titanic is the next logical mega-casino for Las Vegas. A full scale reconstruction of the original Titanic, sailing the sands of the Nevada Desert.

The ultimate truck pull monster truck demolition derby extravaganza! Off-shoot of the Peterbilt Theatre concept. Part of an ongoing conversation with Gardner Post.

Now here’s a curiosity …

This is an initial rendering of a Tazmanian Devil VJ Station which we concepted for Warner Brothers in 1994. This was intended to be an in-store device. I dont think this ever went anywhere, but we may have just been 10 – 15 years ahead of our time. This would still be a fun device …

This was the original Gamesville logo, which I created in 1996.

This is the revised Gamesville logo which was implemented in 1998.

Here’s a logo which I art directed for Gamelogic Inc. in 2004. This was part of their larger branding package. I always thought this turned out well – it’s a fun image.

This graphic was part of a packaging design which I put together for Vidual Industries (VI), which was a 3D graphics company I set up in L.A. with my friend and partner Rob Kramer. We were pretty high tech back then – an SGI 4D-35 running Alias 2, a Mac IIfx, and a Mac Portable. We executed on a whole lot of projects, including 3D animation and CGI for holography. I’ll post more project images as I find them. But I always liked this image – it is very high resolution, and works with a lenticular screen to create an interesting dimensional effect.

Here’s an image of me performing for the Cybersonica 2003 festival at the Institute for Contemporary Art, London. I was invited to do the show by my friends at Addictive TV. Thanks again, guys

This is an image of the old studio in San Francisco, on Potrero Hill, in 1997.

This is part of a series of Public Art billboards which I created in 2002/2003. Below is the best image I could get from one of the installed pieces.

Graphic created for 2005 Valentines Day event at which I VJ’d.

OVNI Logo, 2004, created for 2004 Mixmasters TV show. This Logo appeared on the “Low Rolling Resistance” video which David Fodel and I created for Addictive TV’s UK series. Brian Comerford provided the copy for the text crawl. This was an interesting piece, very experimental. I would still love to go back and re-edit it, as I never did feel that it was properly finished.

There’s a nice pic of dev, e23, and myself as Ovni here, along with some other pics from our 2002 “Future of Kitchen Design” tour.

Here are two images of Michael Oatman from our first taping of The Leisure Channel in 1987. Mike is amazing. And boy, I think we were just way too ahead of our time. Everything we thought was funny then has come true ….

This is a still from a 1990 special edition of The Leisure Channel. If only you knew who the actor is that is playing santa! Unfortunately, thats our secret, since that actor has gone on to have a very successful career as a comic on a popular sitcom. So we don’t want to make any problems there

This is a piece which was created for the L.A. Reader in March of 1992. This was inspired by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Below is the copy which ran with the piece and was written by my brother.

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INTRODUCTION. Maybe it was just too good to last. The U.S. of A., that is. Some now refer to The Fall as the Domino Effect: First went the U.S.S.R., then…

Basically, the backlash from the 1980s “Decade of Shame” fueled the ’90s “Decade of Blame” which sparked the ’00s “Decade of Flame,” where 210+ years of history crumpled and burned like old parchment in a blast furnace.

In the wake of the ’95 Election Reform Act, “None of the Above” won the ’96 presidential race by a landslide. Congress then further provoked the public by eliminating the Oval Office altogether and creating, in its stead, seventeen committees, none of which actually formed due to partisan squabbling. Within months, the economically emasculated U.S. erupted into multiple civil wars.

ALASKA declared its sovereignty amidst much celebration. But regionalistic fervor soon faded and hostilities broke out between Whites and Non-Whites. The Caucasians had the firepower but the Native Americans had the soul (plus billions of petro-dollars from the Persian Gulf and the indigenous peoples of oil-rich Siberia) and, crying “Seward, kiss my ice!”, overwhelmed the pale-faces. The new nation of ALEUTIA immediately became a full-voting member of O.P.E.C., and prospered, as drilling began in earnest.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST. The most isolationist new nation is GAIA: A PLANNED COMMUNITY, surrounded, as it is, by thousands of miles of electrified fence. Gaia named as its capital NEW MALIBU, a sprawl of massive ex-Montana ranches owned primarily by Hollywood expatriates, most of whom are rapidly diminishing their fortunes smuggling in therapists via the Black Market. Opposition to Gaia from timber industry radicals was quickly snuffed by imported, un-employed Central American militias, now employed as border guards, chefs and gardeners.

CALIFORNIA. The far north of the ex-state happily joined their new neighbor, GAIA (see Pacific Northwest..) The greater San Francisco Bay area declared its independence, naming itself NO-CAL, but harmony was short-lived as, in the first parliament assembly, numerous factions erupted in automatic weapons fire over the spelling of “women” (or “womyn”) in the still-born nation’s never-finished Declaration of Independence. No-Cal remains mired in bloody anarchy.

Southern ex-California dubbed itself LO-CAL, and with overwhelming support proclaimed Ronald and Nancy Reagan its King and Queen, albeit largely ceremonial titles. Real Lo-Cal power is wielded by Marianne Williamson, as Crown Spiritual Advisor, and Michael Ovitz, ex-Hollywood titan turned Minister of Communications. In the now-famous “Schwarzenegger Maneuver,” Lo-Cal took rapid control of the fertile Central Valley, then spearheaded southeast, easily taking the sympathetic, metro-ex-Phoenix-area. There, however, Lo-Cal forces ran head-on into MORMON’s (see Utah) “Armies of God,” with whom they are also bitterly engaged for the spiritual and economic control of the ex-Nevada region.

UTAH. Proclaiming itself the SACRED LAND OF MORMON, with its capital at NEW JERUSALEM (formerly Salt Lake City,) ex-Utah immediately became the globe’s foremost power as it assumed control over most of the ex-US nuclear stockpile, located on its lands. To seal their power, Mormon invaded Colorado, taking over ex-SAC mountain. Led by High Priest Orrin Hatch, Mormon next set its sights on Nevada and Hollywood, or “Sodom and Gomorrah,” in Hatch’s words, but there ran into the allied forces of Disney and Lo-Cal (see Florida and Califoria), who had their own designs on the desert resort ex-state. Mormon also remains engaged in the east with the forces of Heartland (see Midwest) over the fertile ex-Nebraska plains.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN EX-STATES. Battered by the invasion from Mormon (see Utah) what remained of the Rocky Mountain ex-states — populated primarily, at last report, by small bands of heavily-armed survivalists and ski enthusiasts — declared itself the new nation of COORS, and issued an ultimatum: violate its borders and die. Since then no reports have been received.

TEXAS. With the eager compliance of its neighbors, and under the assured guidance of President James Baker (whose first official act was to raze the hotel where George Bush maintained residency and send the “idiot packing to Greenwich, Connecticut or wherever the hell he’s from,”) Texas assumed dominion over all the ex-states on its borders, becoming the largest of the new ex-American nations. But Texas’s push south bogged down in bloodshed as millions of Mexicans rose up in protest. Baker, however, has assured the world that negotiations are proceeding smoothly and that Texas pledges to grant resident alien status to “most everybody this side of the Panama Canal.”

FLORIDA. The northern ex-”Panhandle” happily joined with its neighbor, DIXIE (see The South.) Guided by a barrage of memos from Lo-Cal’s (see California) Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Central ex-Florida proclaimed itself the new nation of DISNEY, and named Burt Reynolds President and HOMETOWN (formerly Orlando) its capital. Reinforced by its alliance with Lo-Cal, Disney became a stable, happy land of neatly-groomed grounds, clean hotel rooms and affordable meals. But to Disney’s south appeared a contentious neighbor, indeed: the new nation A.A.R.P. or ASSOCIATION OF ANGRY RETIRED PEOPLE. The (by law) uniformly over-55 populus of A.A.R.P. declared war on what remained of the US and invaded Washington, looting the Treasury because “unlike today’s ingrates” they “worked their whole lives for it.”

THE SOUTH. Two separate Confederacies rose again, one Black, one White, spurring the bloody, ongoing War Between the Hates. In a related development, ex-Louisianan (see Texas) David Duke launched his ill-fated “March to the See,” [sic] leading a ragtag army of skinheads, escaped convicts, Aryan supremacists and extreme Fundamentalist Christians on an abortive thousand mile raid to “librate” [sic] the South. Unfortunately, Duke navigated by maps he prepared himself, and he and his minions became hopelessly lost.

NEW JERSEY. Though they tried to join each of the neighbors forming around them, Jerseyites were rejected by all, even the openly desperate USA. With no choice, the Garden State proclaimed its sovereignty — and its economy boomed, as residents departed en masse and the few who remained declared their homeland the “Waste Receptacle of the Western World.” (See also New York City.)

NEW YORK CITY. Abandoned by its ex-state, unwanted by anyone, the Big Apple fell from the tree and was squashed under-well-heeled-feet by the teems of refugees fleeing in their BMWs and Mercedes Benz’s, escorted by the ex-NYPD, now the world’s largest, highest-paid private security firm. Deprived of law enforcement (and its tax base,) greater New York (including large swaths of New Jersey) became a no-person’s land which was dubbed, in honor of his movie “Escape From New York,” a [John] CARPENTER FREE ZONE, a status it shares with Detroit. Only the heavily-armed Japanese brave these grim frontiers, as they methodically dismantle once-great US cities for scrap.

THE UNITED STATES. Every bureaucrat and politician in Washington tried desperately to prevent the ex-Superpower’s collapse — even naming Willard Scott President by unanimous proclamation in an attempt to find a candidate acceptable to everyone — but all in vain. Fearing the lynch mobs roaming every corner of the ex-nation, very few politicos returned home, choosing instead to blithely continue with business as usual as if nothing had happened — until, that is, they were overrun by the invasion by A.A.R.P. (see Florida). Currently, Old Glory bears but two stars: Delaware and Maryland. (Congress still refuses to grant Puerto Rico state status, though the island no longer gives a shit.)