ANREALAGE AUTUMN/WINTER 2026-27 COLLECTION Designer: Kunihiko Morinaga / Show Direction: Shige Kaneko / Stylist: TEPPEI / Makeup: UDA (mekashi project) / Hair: Kiyoko Odo / Nail: Hiro / Global Press: PR Consulting / Production: Eyesight / Casting Director: The frame / Invisible LED Wall + LED Product: LED TOKYO / LED Look System Development: MPLUSPLUS / Print: Kyocera Document Solutions Inc. / Coordinator: Hiromi Otsuka / Collaboration: GHOST IN THE SHELL / ๆปๆฎปๆฉๅ้ย
A little self-promotion, because I’ve always loved fashion and the future: I wrote a short-story that includes a section about a character wearing a jacket laced with technology:
Art imitating art imitating art, or just a neat idea shared by multiple dreamers? I don’t recieve a royalty, but should you wish to own a copy: https://a.co/d/00pPbK4p
Perfume, iconic for blending electronic-dance music with precise choreography, high-tech live performances, and futuristic fashion, has a documentary set for release May 15.
It centres on the groupโs last live arena performance before their public announcement to take a โcryosleepโ hiatus from it all, at a defining crossroads in their career:
Perfume announced in an official statement last September 2025 that in 2026, they would take a temporary break to concentrate on their personal lives:
The center of all Perfume activities lies in our live shows.
We have given out everything to share that time and place together and resonate with you. Every show, we went up on stage thinking this might be the last time the miracle happened and ignited our hearts.
Time spent with you means the world to us.
โMarking our shining legacy in historyโ. This has always been one of Perfumeโs dreams.
To capture this moment that we can proudly call a โshining legacyโ, we have decided to put Perfume to cryosleep starting 2026.
No matter what shape or form, as the three of us, we will forever be Perfume. To spend many more years together, to become better and more sophisticated Perfume, to face new challenges, we have decided to pause our milestone.
We have continued to improve and polish ourselves every day for the past 25 years so we are always ready to go as Perfume and this break will be the time that we, for the first time, will face our lives as individuals to find the new us. We have never experienced a time like this, nor have we never even thought about something like this so we will probably start with rehab. LOL But the three of us all agreed that we are ready to face that challenge.
Many beautiful landscapes we created together will continue to push us forward and if we ever feel down, weโre sure that they will keep shining upon us. We appreciate every one of you who has supported us thus far, from the bottom of our hearts.
Since we came this far without taking a break as Perfume, we hope you support our decision to give ourselves little break time. Please continue to lend us your support as we chase our new dreams.
We are doing all this just to come back as โnew Perfume.โ We all want to be more powerful than ever so we would be delighted if you could kindly look forward to that day when we meet again.
Rest is a healthy and good thing to want, and having a documentary to bookend a long and successful career is a neat thing for the fans.
Ending this post with “Spring of Life” (2012) seems appropriate.
LIT-B carries the same eccentric DNA as DITB does, but with more focus on a specific kind of content. The lateral pivot of where I spend my time is healthy for me, and is refreshing my goals. Wherever you are in the World, remember to have fun, and take care of yourself. Let’s make 2026 a special kind of year ๐ชโ๏ธ
Also, for archival purposes of course: ditb.bandcamp.com
I wrote a flash piece for a flash, pop culture journal dedicated to film, TV, music videos, celebritism, and moving image media on the things we like to watch — please check them out and follow!
In The Mood publish triannually, so watch for their themed submission windows, should you have something fun and interesting to pitch/share (Gabrielle & Sennah, thanx)
Artist Akinori Goto came up with a truly wonderful take on the zoetrope โ He uses 3D printing to turn 2D frames into a donut-shaped object. It looks like an abstract sculpture, but it reveals its animation when hit with a narrow beam of light:
Australian animator and digital artist, ElliotSchultz, embroidered discs with animated sequences that can be played on standard turntables. โEmbroidered Zoetropeโ was Schultzโs final art school project when he graduated from ANU School of Art back in 2013. His project encourages viewers to watch and engage with animation physically:
“Inspired by the work of Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker, I aimed to guide my production process indirectly through the limitations afforded by alternative media. Their invention, the pin screen, was used as the sole medium in the production of six short films, and shaped the outcome of their work. In response, I have designed and embroidered animated sequences onto discs, similar to the Phenakistokope, Zoopraxiscope and Stamfer Disc layouts. This repurposing of media introduced strict parameters, namely spatial, tonal and temporal, and has greatly informed all stages of my process.” ~ Elliot Schultz
Meet Klaus Kemp, master of the Victorian art of diatom arrangement. Klaus Kemp, you are my new favourite person in the world. I find this incredibly life affirming for some reason; incomprehensible geometric organisms to the naked eye I otherwise would not have known about, that are as complex in their simplicity and just as mysterious as the wonders of our expansive non-declarative universe! And aren’t diatoms just the prettiest:
Soundtrack by: Ryuichi Sakamoto “Grasshoppers” / Bernard Herrmann “Brave New World” / Cults Percussion Ensemble “Circles”.
Diatoms are single cell algae that create jewel-like glass shells around themselves. Microscopists of the Victorian era would arrange them into complex patterns, invisible to the naked eye but spectacular when viewed under magnification. The best of these arrangements are stunning technical feats that reveal the hidden grandeur of some of the smallest organisms on Earth. Klaus Kemp has devoted his entire life to understanding and perfecting diatom arrangement and he is now acknowledged as the last great practitioner of this beautiful combination of art and science. THE DIATOMIST showcases his incredible work:
These aren’t laser beam dreams, but shapes made from illuminated string! How awesome is that! (I have an urge to play ‘Tempest X’ now)
On their quest for creating classic computer effects without the computer, Dark Matters continues the analogue feel from the “Matter” video.
The new Kenton Slash Demon video, Deamon is the take on analogue wireframes in the same naive universe. An abstract space opera about loadscreens based on Strings and nails.
Ginger Root is the indie music project of singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Cameron Lew, who describes the sound of Ginger Root as “aggressive elevator soul.” I feel it. I took a deep dive into this cat’s YouTube page and holy wow, his creative output has been phenomenal from the jump. Dylan Hovis on bass and Matt Carney on drums join Cameron Lew when performing live, making appearances in videos as well.
SHINBANGUMIreleased on 13 September 2024, and coinciding with the release of each single was a narrative-driven music video, conceived as a serialised story.
Presented in a classic CRT television 4:3 aspect ratio and washed in VHS fuzz, SHINBANGUMI follows the exploits of a young music supervisor in 1987 Shลwa era Japan, being fired, going independent to start his own TV companyโGinger Root Productionsโand gaining popularity, while his former employerโJubanTVโtries to thwart his rising success.
It is very entertaining, funny, and cool.
I am un/fashionably late to the Ginger Root party, but here is SHINBANGUMI lovingly compiled into a single short film, freely presented for our listening and viewing pleasure:
Neat, huh? Great casting! It has since been picked up by Adult Swim, and aired on Toonami. My next opinion may sound like shade and/or high-praise, but it’s really an observation: Ginger Root’s SHINBANGUMI is better than Gorillaz’s “The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God.” I said it. Scope. Effort. Execution. Entertainment. Many hands make light work special. I love seeing people as characters give a performance.
A few prelude segments missing from the movie above:
Had fun discovering these, one video at a time. Can see his interest in aesthetic was present in the early stages of Ginger Root. Personal favs: “Weather” & “Mahjong Room”
The world of Gorillaz has been brought to life in an 8-minute animated film, an homage to the aesthetic of animated features from the 1960s, the golden era of 2D animation.
“If particular visuals couldnโt be achieved in that era, then we didnโt do them. We processed our digital pencil work to mimic photocopy degradation. We scanned real paintings at high resolution and finished the details digitally. It was about capturing the tactile quality that only real materials give you.”
[…]
“In a time of AI overload, this is our love letter to craftsmanship. Weโre chasing the feel of pencil on paper. Paint on board. And all the imperfections that come with it.”
-Max Taylor
And to think, we could have had a full-length Gorillaz animated film in 2023 had Netflix not cancelled it.
Throwback to 2018 where The Line studio handled animations for Gorillaz music video “Humility” featuring Jack Black:
This short tidbit of information might trip some fans:
Currently on a free Vercel server, MTVRewind is a passion project operating on the edge of capacity; a guerilla archival project built by the developer Flex (@flexasaurusrex), this fan-made โtime machineโ has resurrected the channelโs original spirit.
MTVRewind is a staggering database of 33,931 music videos spanning six decades (1970sโ2020s), presented without the glossy sheen of modern streaming services — enjoy:
The manifesto on the splash screen is a direct indictment of the modern web:
No ads. No algorithm. No login. Just pure random discovery.
I love this frenetic, kaleidoscopic video (A.I. be damned!!), in no small part because of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin’s awesome music!! Giving Y2K vibes & future hope:
Director: Felix Geen / AI Artist: Max Kreis /
Camera & Lighting: Josha Eiffel / MUA: Georgia Hope
โโDreamcatchingโ is about all the places you want to know and all the places youโll never go,โ the band said in a statement. โThe video uses AI neural networks to create the landscapes and worlds we long for in the lyrics, a computerโs interpretation of our dreams.โ
This man knows how to squeeze a trigger and shed a damn fine tear. Bruce Willis will be stepping away from acting for good after a recent diagnosis of aphasiaย โ a disorder that affects the brainโs language center and a personโs ability to understand or express speech.
This tribute-music-video is to you, Bruce Willis:
“I’m Bruce Willis” performed by Jeep Cherokee.
He’d probably hate that so much lol.
The video contained clips from every single movie Bruce Willis has ever appeared in…pre 2010… None as iconic as TheFifth Element, or Die Hard, or Twelve Monkeys, or Pulp Fiction, or The Last Boy Scout, or Unbreakable, of course, and I just watched Last Man Standing for the first time with bae and it was good, thank you Walter Hill. (I’m thinking Armageddon or Sin City next)
Be proud Mr. Willis, be Yippee Ki Yayย motherfuckingprou-๐ข-proud โโ๐ญโ
๐ญ 