32 TODAY! See BLADERUNNER in six minutes, here!

Ridley Scott's landmark - and career-defining - film, was not a hit when it was originally released in 1982. Too slow and ponderous for the action blockbuster crowd, it suffered from bad word-of-mouth arising from film-goers who had been led to expect a gung-ho action movie in the wake of Star Wars, and Scott's previous hit, Alien. It wasn't until late-night re-runs on TV, that it slowly began to gather momentum and attract a fanbase. 

Things came to a head in 1990, when a 'workprint' of the film ( the original cut without the expository Raymond Chandler-style voiceover ) was accidentally released for a one-off cinema screening. The resultant positive response prompted the studio to re-release the 'director's cut', first on the arthouse cinema circuit, and then later on home video.

With its visually-arresting cinematography and art direction, and with a score by electronic music genius Vangelis, the film now rightly appears in all-time 'best movie' lists.

Below is a beautiful edit of some of the film's key scenes, cut to a soundtrack of New Order's Blue Monday, assembled from cover versions by Orgy, Zook, Cliff Martinez and Chemical Brothers. 

If you haven't seen the movie, this will very much whet your appetite, and if you have seen it, what better way to have a quick refresher of Scott's singular vision of the future?

Audio: LEE DM101
Visuals: THE REBORN IDENTITY. 

Play loud, and with headphones.

Note: Contains spoilers.

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Archive: BBC Radio 4, Summer 2014

The Two Georges ( biographical comedy drama based on Philip K Dick's life )

BBC Radio 4 'Dangerous Visions' Homepage

FUTURE-ROCKER'S BRAZIL SPECIAL STARTS HERE!

'CAVEIRÃO' BY BRAZILIAN FILMMAKER GUILHERME MARCONDES

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Guilherme's Website

HAAS & HAHN: FAVELA PAINTERS IN BRAZIL

For links to donate, see the end of this article.

Eight years ago, Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn began a project that has since expanded into a global art initiative to bring colour to some of the world's bleakest urban vistas. Beginning with a mural called 'Boy with a Kite' in the favela of Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, the project expanded into painting the thirty or so houses that surrounded a public square in the same neighbourhood.

Recruiting and training locals to help bring the plans to reality, the idea is now regarded as a way to open up a dialogue between the disenfranchised citizens, and the architects, urban planners and elected officials who dictate how people live. 

Thus, the two Dutchmen have created a blueprint that gives local people the power to affect their environment and stamp some character into the increasingly faceless urban sprawls of the twenty-first century. And in the favelas of Rio, they have inadvertently turned what was once regarded as a no-go area, into a big tourist draw.

In the intervening years, many projects have been completed, but in 2014, Haas and Hahn will return to Rio with an even bigger project, having successfully raised $250,000 to finance the latest phase of their unique urban regeneration.

Details with how you can help are at the bottom of this page. In the meantime, take a look at these pictures, exclusive to FUTURE-ROCKER.

FOR LARGE DONATIONS AND OTHER QUERIES EMAIL:

info@favelapainting.com

FAVELA PAINTING OFFICIAL SITE

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GOOGLE MAP OF MURAL LOCATIONS

Many thanks to Willa for the exclusive photos!

PEARLS NEGRAS - PENSANDO EM VOCÊ

OLIVIA PEAKE: FUTURGARDE

Olivia is a UK artist, and here she talks to FUTURE-ROCKER about her unique brand of Neo-Futurism.

I first started to get back into painting, having investigated different mediums in drawing, photo-editing, collage and textiles. I had gained a great interest in technology, having worked my ideas through photoshop and had a love for high intensive colours, manipulating hues, saturations and contrasts. 

I wanted to investigate how I could make my paintings interact with the ideas of new technology, and the modern lifestyle we see today. This is where the urban architectural structures and utopian virtual spaces began, and I started to produce my large-scale abstract paintings with fluorescent vibrant paint.

Olivia Peake: Futurgarde ( Painting One ), 2013

I am influenced by Greenberg, Fried and Douglas Fogle’s The Trouble with Painting, and the manipulation of painting to reform the canvas into a new hybrid form. Melting the edges of the restrictive canvas into three-dimensional form, light and installation and intervening within the architecture of the gallery space, to depict a metaphor for the collapse and re-development of painting itself.

Olivia Peake: Futurgarde ( Painting Two ), 2013

Further influences of mine were from movements within futurism and modernist abstraction: Utopian spaces that present a state of re-development and movement, reminiscent of the work of Julie Mehretu, Ian Monroe and Constant Nieuwenhuis' New Babylon. As intricate and complex as my paintings are, my work also follows minimalistic structures, taking inspiration for the work of Mondrian in the use of geometric forms and technological pixilation, and creating stark building structures with contrasting subtle reflections.

Olivia Peake: Futurgarde Installation, 2013

I develop my paintings by constantly editing, erasing, re-doing, and working through levels of improvisation and intuitive responses, combined with precision and decisiveness of perspective and forms. In a way my work is in a constant battle with itself, being manipulated from a wall based canvas to a sculpture, then to an installation. Conflicting responses between the virtual vs. actual, abstract vs. representational, from the plastic aesthetics of Perspex to the glossy reflective surfaces of paint.

Olivia Peake: Urban Dynamics, 2012

My work is always shifting and developing and has began to take influences in ideas of alter-modernism and the interventionist work of Katharina Grosse, and I am excited to know where it will lead next.

Olivia is currently living and working in Derby, UK, and further developing her paintings at a smaller scale and continuing to involve the use of installation and sculpture.

To purchase Olivia's work, click here

With thanks to Charlie Levine and Artfetch

ALEXI K: KONSTRUCTIVISM - A NEW LEVEL

I am an artist based in Birmingham UK, inspired by Futurism, Cubism and Constructivism, as well as Bauhaus, and the Dutch Avant-Garde. I'm a founding member of The Cobalt Blue art collective, where we make a point of seeking out great artists to join us on projects. We are not dictated to in any way, either by institutions, or the strictures of funding programs.

About the current series of paintings: I've been working on some canvases recently, that ideally need to be 'read' in sharp lighting, because of the level of accumulated detail ( in the relief patterns on the surface ). These allow you to see the 'history' of the piece - a bit like viewing a tract of land from an aeroplane.

Ultimately, you're seeing structures within structures, paintings inside paintings.

These close-ups work as finished pieces in themselves, and have inspired the next phase of my art.

Alexi K: HYPERION - Acrylic on canvas, 2012

Alexi K: QUARTERLY PROJECTION - Acrylic on canvas, 2014

Alexi K: SUPERHIGHWAY - Acrylic on canvas, 2014

Below: The finished version? Maybe.

All artwork, copyright Alexi K, 2012 & 2014

Alexi K's homepage

Alexi K Twitter

Alexi K Facebook

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Above: Geneva, by Alexi K, 2012

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