a crooked house

Just makes me think of various topographic and simulated reality horror scenarios.  Situations where world doesn't work at all like you think it does.

• Mage - Paradox realms and Digital Web.
• Call of Cthulhu - Carcosa manifesting via AR & VR games.
• Unknown Armies - A new otherspace.

Basilisk Images

Exerpt from the comp.basilisk FAQ:

5. How does a basilisk operate?

The short answer is: we mustn't say. Detailed information is classified beyond Top Secret.

The longer answer is based on a popular-science article by Berryman (New Scientist, 2001), which outlines his thinking. He imagined the human mind as a formal, deterministic computational system -- a system that, as predicted by a variant of Gödel's Theorem in mathematics, can be crashed by thoughts which the mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking. The Logical Imaging Technique presents such a thought in purely visual form as a basilisk image which our optic nerves can't help but accept. The result is disastrous, like a software stealth-virus smuggled into the brain.


6. Why "basilisk"?

It's the name of a mythical creature: a reptile whose mere gaze can turn people to stone. According to ancient myth, a basilisk can be safely viewed in a mirror. This is not generally true of the modern version -- although some highly asymmetric basilisks like B-756 are lethal only in unreflected or reflected form, depending on the dominant hemisphere of the victim's brain.

- David Langford

Island of the Dead

By Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. Likely based on the similarly fascinating Greek isle of Pondikónisi:

Paradox Realm of Finance

After successfully over-leveraging his assets by several orders of magnitude, a Syndicate Technocrat stumbles into his first Paradox Realm.


Alternate explanations:

• Arcadian Realm
• Otherspace
• Hastur Incursion
• Nightmare Realm

Via Dirty Russia.

Limbo

A young mortal protagonist trying to navigate one of those strange, bleak realms found in Wraith, Mage: the Ascension, or either of the Changeling games. Alternately, an otherworldly locale from Unknown Armies.

Better video and some concept art at the official site here.

The Shadows of St. Petersburg

The hungry ghosts crowd in great overlapping mobs, swarming unseen through the places they haunted in life. They search wearily and in vain for something, anything to give their prolongation meaning, to feed the emptiness inside.


Of Alexey Titarenko:

Major photo series include "City of Shadows" (1992-1994), "Black and White Magic of St. Petersburg" (1995-1997), and "Time Standing Still" (1998-1999). In those series Titarenko paints a bitter picture of a Russia (seen through the lens of St. Petersburg), where people live in a world of unrealized hopes and where time seems to have stopped.

More here.

In Crystal Abiding

Blue crystal everywhere. The apartment's interior was completely covered with the stuff.

What ritual needed this as a focus?
What arcane process gone awry left this in it's wake?
What bizarre thing, new to sentience, dwelt here in dark mineral-saturated waters for a time? Or left this residue behind, a spent chrysalis?

Article and video here.


Via Boingboing.

Much of Paul Laffoley's artwork is derived from conspiracy theory, the occult and fringe science. Perfect fodder for transcendent cults and obsessive adepts.

Link


Discovered via Boing Boing.

The Imaginary Victims of Osaka

Passers by in Osaka falling into the role when shot or slashed with invisible weapons.

Dolorous blow at work or some Adept charging up?

Reposted from Danny Choo's article on Boing Boing.