Dose - Interview W/Gene Generation’s Pearry Reginald Teo

One of the really cool things happening in Cyberpunk right now is this new webzine called the Dose. Its published as a PDF and has a ton of cool interviews, features and pictures in it. I strongly recommend downloading both the initial issue (issue 0) and the premiere issue. Inside the Premiere issue, among other things, there is a very good interview with Pearry Reginald Teo, director of the upcoming cyberpunk movie, Gene Generation. Here’s a brief excerpt:

DOSE: The Gene Generation definitely appears to be a cult movie that’s going to appeal to the Gothic, Industrial and cyberpunk subcultures. Your background material, as I had the chance to see, has quite an involvement with H.R. Giger and Beksinski in terms of architectural and visual design, your musical work includes Combichrist and VNV Nation and as for the overall look of the characters, you couldn’t deny the effect of the Gothic and cyberpunk fashion. So how did this involvement with these subcultures start? Do you feel you belong to any subcultures and if so, did you touch more (and which ones) before ending up with one?

PRT: I prefer to coin the term counter culture. Only because subculture has a word that might infer we even belong as part of something. I like to think of the people and music that I love as an entirety to itself. Its about who we are and how we are different. We never work in society, but rather with society. We are a part of it rather than letting it control us. And I blame this thought process and influence on visionaries who have helped shaped our future with minds that dared to venture somewhere else. Its hard to actually say I belong into a counter culture only because I dont feel I belong to any one of them. Rather, I enjoy the idea of being around them so I can absorb a mood and certain ambience (as well as creativity) before these cultures actually influence me. You probably can tell I have a lot of different references to different things. In fact, I just love mixing things and seeing how beautiful it turns out. Something industrial, mixed with traditional cross cultural shock, makes me happy to see that no matter how different we are, in art, we can come together to make something beautiful. But the one constant, no doubt, is that I am extremely attracted to dark like-minded individuals such as the goth, industrial, EBM, cyberpunk scene. I find no inspiration is rappers, hip-hop scene or pop. In my opinion, I think they are mainly egotistical, and its all about the individual whereas the former definitely lends it style more because of taste and human emotive ideologies.

Still No Release Date for Gene Generation: Unfortunately, Pearry Reginald Teo still hasn’t finalized a distribution deal, so there’s no date on when this much anticipated film is coming out (did I mention I LOVE Bai Ling???):

DOSE: When can we expect screenings, release dates for DVD? Can you tell anything about the European distribution and screening opportunities?

PRT: As mentioned before, because we dont have a distributor yet, there is no right answer to it. Even though we have offers now, I really want people to see the final and polished product before anything else. But I can promise one thing, the European distribution avenue will probably be as big, if not bigger than in the US. Especially in Germany and UK. Hopefully, with enough Jedi mind powers, I can coax the distributor to have one opening premier in Germany, one of my favorite countries to be in.

Cyberpunk 101: Among many other cool features, including band interviews and awesome art shots, and hawt chick nude bondage scenes, the Dose has a Cyberpunk 101 section which lists some of the best animes, best extreme Japanese Cyberpunk movies, best cyberpunk albums, and best cyberpunk games. Hopefully we see more of this feature in the future.