Posthuman Blues

These concept-art items caught my eye at Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond . . .

First, here's a high-tech musical instrument called a "Kosmophone" that produces a sort of MIDI fugue when struck by passing cosmic rays. Sterling says it best: "It's not what I'd call catchy toonage, but let me put it this way: if that baby starts laying down some heavy riffs, our planet's goose is cooked."

Secondly, here's an exhibit for which I would happily kill to experience firsthand:

"'Subtitled Public' consists of an empty exhibition space where visitors are tracked with a computerized infrared surveillance system. As people enter the installation, texts are projected onto their bodies: these 'subtitles' consist of thousands of verbs conjugated in third person and they follow each individual everywhere they go. The only way to get rid of a subtitle is to touch someone else: the words then are exchanged between them."

(Maybe if I bug the folks at the Kemper . . .)