Game design

Working on a game now on a new blog

storyline- posthuman

Storyboard

1. 
   The opening scene that shows the lives of the poor living beneath the city. In the foreground is a human fixing his cyborg arm. The camera zooms into the background to reveal a kid’s face that’s part cyborg. The camera then pans up to enter next scene.

2. The next scene pans through the Engineer’s work place. Showing the brain read by the machine that controls a screen and connected to a video camera. The camera pans to a cyborg running on breathing lungs, typing on a modern keyboard. The scene pans up to show the Earth’s surface.

3. This scene shows the Earths burning surface. Surface temp text appears in right corner. Camera zooms out of sun to show skyline and then zooms into Governments’ building. White flash appears as transition.

4. The government scene starts with a cyborg running in from right. When it reaches the table it extends a platform that the brain sits on. At that moment the brain reading machines appear and the system starts. The camera pans up to follow the cables of the brain machine to reveal the super computer. A CG face with cables and wires with white flickers behind.

Narration for posthuman

Narration

It happened when the planet burned and those of us who rejected the post human revolution were left for dead. Those of us who wanted to keep our human resemblance and not be run by machines.

Our only help comes from the Engineer, a brain connected to machines that read its thoughts and controls a cyborg.

It’s been 5 years since the Earth changed its orbit around the Sun making the surface impossible to live on… unless you embrace the Government.

The 8 minds that created the new way of life and brought humans to salvation.

Connected by machines the 8 brains communicate with each other to control a super computer that regulates life on Earth.

Research

Research

Mind Modulations Blog

http://mindmods.blogspot.com/2006/10/art-of-brain.html

The art of the brain

Motionographer

http://www.motionographer.com/

Cyborg Liberation Front

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0331,baard,45866,1.html

Enough
Staying Human in an Engineered Age

by Bill McKibben

http://www.henryholt.com/holt/enoughexcerpt.htm

http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

Stelarc’s Dream

http://www.roberthollingworth.com.au/index.html

From the cyborg to posthuman space: on the total eclipse of an idea.

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-3307294_ITM

Posthuman (critical theory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthuman_(critical_theory)

The Concept

The Concept

The concept is based on the imaginary idea that life on the Earth’s surface may cease to be possible in the future due to a change in the Earths orbit that causes the planet to revolve too close to the Sun. The animation aims to pan from the lives of the poor and segregated to a view of the future government. In this new age a new government rules, made up of the eight minds that created the new way of life for humans. The architects, scientists and engineers who found a way of living with just a brain that controls its cyborg, in place of flesh. Each of their brain waves is read by a machine. The machines are connected to a super computer that controls the city via information from the 8 minds.

The animation consists of 4 parts:-

Level 1, The slums

People who did not give in to the posthuman revolution because they reject the idea of the cyborg. They want to hold on to as much of their humanistic resemblances as possible. As a result of not giving in to the revolution they are pushed below the city to fend for themselves, forgotten by the government.

Level 2, The Engineer

The Engineer is a character who like the others does not follow the rule of the government. He is just a brain on a platter read by a machine that controls everything else including a cyborg running on pneumatic pistons driven by lungs. The engineer did not give up all his human organs.

Level 3, The Skyline

This scene shows the earth’s surface as a dust cloud with the sun close by. New materials were created to build buildings to resist the heat.

Level 4, The Government

This scene shows the government made up of the 8 minds that run a super computer. The brains move around in cyborgs they control and allow interaction of the minds. This is how most people of the future look like.

Treatment

The finished work will be a 1 minute animation comprising of 4 scenes. The concept of the animation is not based on a story of a particular character but of a scenic glimpse of the future. The animation will be rendered with a dark setting to set the mood for the animation. The animation pans from the lives of the poor who have denied the posthuman revolution and live beneath the earths surface to the scene of the government that is a super computer operated by the bodiless brains of the individuals who created the posthuman way of life in order to survive the Earths new orbit around the sun, which made life on the surface impossible to continue.

Different types of media will be used to create the animation. Sketchings, 3D animation and photo manipulations will be used. The organic figures like humans and parts in the scene will be created with hand drawn sketches scanned into Photoshop to be treated and coloured. 3D animation will be used for the animated machinery in each scene. The 2^nd and 4^th scene will be made primarily in 3D. The background textures and cyborg humans will be created through photo manipulation.

Animating the Posthuman

This project includes producing a short experimental animation that features both

innovative concepts and high production values in relation to the theme “The Posthuman”. The theme of human relationship to technology is a common concern in contemporary animation and film making. The underlying concept is how people relate to one another and the world they live in when faced with rapid change and the challenges of survival in the contemporary society. Many different philosophical positions exist in response to this idea. Some believe we are already posthuman –that people are so integrated with technology in the developed world and that without it we would find it hard to survive at all. Others believe that we as a species will be superseded by a transhuman race – that is better adapted to the new living conditions. Some think this is fantasy and science fiction, that essentially people are the same throughout the millennia and that any change is an illusion. Human nature

has not changed since the dawn of time – the same basic motivations drive every

person regardless of how the world may change. Others still take a reactionary

position and seek to point out the problems and issues caused by technological change.