Syndicate Wars

Syndicate Wars is the third video game title in the Syndicate Series created by Bullfrog Productions in 1996. It was released for PC and PlayStation, with a Sega Saturn version also planned, but eventually cancelled. This was the final game in the series and the one that marked the transition to three dimensional landscape.
Syndicate Wars presents a rough sequel to the events in Syndicate. At the game's opening, the player-controlled syndicate (called the Eurocorp Syndicate) is at the peak of its power (achieved in the previous game), an alliance of corporations controlling the world through a combination of military and economic power, and technological mind control. Corporate decisions are facilitated through a number of AI entities connected through a global communications network.
As the game opens, this totalitarian status quo is threatened by the emergence of a virus named "Harbinger" in the global communications system, damaging mind-control implants and leaving citizens vulnerable to co-option. Some of the newly liberated persons, dubbed "unguided citizens," choose to engage in an armed insurrection. The Unguided appear in early missions as random antagonistic elements, but over time form a well-organized militia. Viral damage to the global network causes disruption to Syndicate coordinations, with individual stations isolating themselves to avoid receiving rogue communication. The London station, as the headquarters of the Eurocorp Syndicate, attempts to regain authority via direct intervention by the game's signature quartets of heavily armed agents.
The bulk of the game concerns the development of armed conflict between Eurocorp and the Church of the New Epoch, a church (led by a group called "The Nine") seeking to undermine the world rule by corporations in favor of subjecting its paritioners to its own variety of mind control. "Harbinger" was their first step in demolishing the existing world order. As insurrections take hold, the player is also obliged to conduct missions to control rogue elements within the syndicate itself, as various sub-corporations change allegiances or make bids for independence.
The ironic parallels between the objectives of Church of the New Epoch and the original Eurocorp syndicate itself are abundantly clear throughout the game, and indeed the game can be played from the point of view of the Church itself to similar ends (indeed, it is revealed very early in the game, when played on the Church's side, that the "disciple" in control of Church agents is a former Eurocorp agent who has been converted).


The campaign for the Unguided rebels was unfinished, but the levels are still accessible.

Nemo Gould

Nemo Gould

Lubdub:

Artist’s Biography:
With years of accumulating post-consumer waste and a lifetime of absorbing pop culture imagery, Nemo Gould has been creating his signature style of kinetic metal and found object sculpture for over 20 years. Old vacuum cleaners, dead bugs, used dentures and sewing machine motors all find their unerringly rightful place in his surreal creatures and abstract sculptures, which have attracted museums, galleries and eccentric art collectors throughout the Bay Area and abroad.

Arachnoid:

Born in Minneapolis, MN and raised in Nevada City, CA, Nemo Gould earned his BFA in sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1998 and his MFA at the University of California at Berkeley in 2000. His work has been shown in the San Jose Museum of Art, Berkeley Art Museum and the Arizona Museum for Youth.

General Debris:

Artist’s Statement:
What makes a thing fascinating is to not completely know it. It is this gap in our understanding that the imagination uses as its canvass. Salvaged material is an ideal medium to make use of this principle. A “found object” is just a familiar thing seen as though for the first time. By maintaining this unbiased view of the objects I collect, I am able to create forms and figures that fascinate and surprise. These sculptures are both familiar and new. Incorporating consumer detritus with my own symbology, they are the synthesis of our manufactured landscape and our tentative place within it-- strong and frail at the same time.

Party:

The Representative:

HP Lovecraft's The Other Gods

HP Lovecraft's The Other Gods
A prophet who longed to look upon his deities. A daunting journey to a mountain peak. A confrontation with gods too powerful to name.

This is the story that inspired Peter Rhodes, who worked as a filmmaker and artist during the 1920s. Few people know of his work, and it's only through luck and perseverance that we have been able to track down the elements for this "lost" film. "The Other Gods" has undergone an extensive restoration and is currently being screened at select film festivals throughout the world.

Rhodes' films were created using silhouette animation, a technique perfectly suited to depict Lovecraft's mythic Dreamland stories. The filmmaker's involvement in New York City's occult and literary scenes provided him with a select audience for his work. Rhodes was especially influenced through his relationships with occultist Aleister Crowley and writer H.P. Lovecraft, but it was personal tragedy that moved him to produce "The Other Gods," his most powerful film.

The restoration of "The Other Gods" features an all new soundtrack by Keith Handy. For more about his music, visit www.keithhandy.com