August 16, 2006
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.
Comments
August 16, 2006
DannyV said:
My God. I read the 0 issue of The Dose right now and I was shocked and dismayed to learn Nam June Paik died. Gentlemen(and ladies), Nam June Paik IS cyberpunk. No artist expressed the fusion of man, machine and spirit as wonderfully as Paik, and the art community is a worse place since his passing.
God bless, Nam June Paik, may you explore the universe to its limits in the great beyond.
iammany said:
Do anyone else have problems with opening issue 1? I’ve tried downloading it three times now, but it gets damaged every time for some reason…
SFAM said:
Hi iammany, I was able to open it fine, although it did die in my foxit PDF reader, but I downloaded the beta and it worked fine. If you’re trying to open it in your browser, tbry downloading it to your hard drive first and then open it.
DannyV, if you wanted to do a write-up on Nam June Paik, this would be a terrific item to post.
DannyV said:
Good idea, SFAM. I have lots of familiarity with his work, I am an art student after all. Expect a write-up in the next few days.
August 17, 2006
Shali said:
iammany, I had some problems with the Issue 1 too, it took almost a day to download it, because it always stopped, and I couldn’t resume it, but when it finally came down, it worked correctly both in Adobe Acrobat Reader and on linux with the KDE’s built in pdf viewer.
August 18, 2006
d4m4g3 said:
Hey there! Firstly thanks to SFAM for reviewing our mag, I’m real glad that the worldwide cyberpunk community is exposed to it (or vice versa :))
As for technicalities: the virtual server worked without problems so far, although I’ve gotten a few remarks from here and there about either it being corrupt or the file being undownloadable. To get problems straightened out, we’ve already done the mag in the PDF 4.0 standard. I’d suggest using a download manager and I have no other idea except for to consult the company we’re at to get some tech support. We’ll try to figure out something to make you feel at ease.
SFAM said:
Hi d4m4q3 (Damage?), again, what a terrific magazine! Regardless of the minor download issues, its WELL worth whatever extra time and effort is required to download it! Thanks again.
iammany said:
I eventually got it to work, and must say it was worth it. Very nice magazine!
Net said:
WOW, SFAM you are sooooo UBER!
Net said:
ANd you are soooo the BEST!
SFAM said:
Hmm, so I’m the Uber Best, ey?
Actually I think Damage (d4m4q3) deserves that title. Truly the Dose is terrific. I’ve been digesting it for days. I have visited like 20 different Myspace music sites based on this. For me personally, the Dose is terrific in that I really have lost touch with the current music scene. The Dose can help jump-start me.
August 19, 2006
Net said:
YES! Of course!
d4m4q3=u834+u834! (double uber)
you R still u834 :))
I love this site, take that what u r doing is a great service.
the end BYE
September 1, 2006
suspiria23 said:
Speaking of Gene Generation, Twitch posted these on their site
a little while ago.
http://www.genegeneration.com/video/assassinlarge.mov
http://www.genegeneration.com/video/HackerTeaser.mov
September 4, 2006
Danger said:
PRT…..(regarding your comment on hip hop)…Until you make a concerted effort to study true hip hop keep your half baked judgements to yourself lest you embarrass yourself further by speaking in tones of speculation and pure ignorance.
September 5, 2006
SFAM said:
Danger, I don’t think PRT is really giving all that far-out an opinion there. Certainly not an indefensible one. Whether or not you agree with it (you clearly don’t), the idea that nobody could make the case that pop or rap is egocentric and devoid of inspiration (to them) hardly seems to be a sacred cow. If you really wanted to rebut this point, instead of belittling him, a better approach might be to make a case for your position.
September 6, 2006
Pearry Reginald Teo said:
Hey Danger,
Regarding you comments, this is what you were referring to:
“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.”
The key words being “In My Opinion” and “I think..”. I will not keep my comments to myself only because there will always be opinions of others like yourself who know more about a culture than I do. If I chose to keep quiet and keep my half baked judgements to myself, I should not have been a filmmaker. I will always have half baked judgements, and things which I clearly am learning. Nobody in this world has a full knowledge of one thing, we are all learning.
But I’ll tell you this. I will not fight your opinions, but I will fight for your right to have an opinion. If we all keep quiet so we can feel that we can be loved by society or for fear of pissing someone off, then we might as well crawl in a hole and die.
January 8, 2009
Dmitri Molotov said:
What the hell? The author looks exactly like me, right down to the goggles…