From countless Toho giant monster spectacles to Space: 1999, SF-themed library music has been discreetly making its way into films, television, and radio for at least a century. With the advent and spread of low cost analog synthesizers among recording studios around the world, there was an explosion of electronic library music, some of it truly inspired and bizarre. There are many hundreds of albums of sf-themed library music from France, Italy, Germany, and the UK, and a few are superlative, right down to the LP cover art. Every time I listen to one, it's uncanny how quickly images come rushing to mind, and a movie seems to make itself right there in my head. The titles of the tracks help set the scene: ""Frozen Silence", "Electronic Brain", "Vibraphonoid", and "Window On The Antiworld". I think the liner notes on "Time Signals", Klaus Weiss' 1978 Selected Sound LP, might say it best. The text — meant to suggest different scenarios which the music could be used for — reads like apocalyptic concrete poetry:

Rhythm section + synthesizer, drum solo, various rhythm and sounds. For documentary application. Reporting, information, news, sports, industry, technic, electronic, research and science, crime, adventures, space, science-fiction, environmental problems, narcotic - action, speed, stress, traffic, pursuit, tension, high-performance, violence, fright, power, creation, genesis, constructions, return, unendless, strange world, distance, time-retarder, depth.

The beauty of sf library music is that much of it is sonically so far out there — way ahead of its time when it was made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s — that we are only now just catching up to it. You very well might hear one of these tracks in the future at a theater or drive-in near you.

The glowing, pulsating "Lunar Module" by Earl Salisbury comes from the US-based Major/Valentino library, and was re-issued on "Cinemaphonic: Electro Soul". "Xenos Cosmos", from library maestro Janko Nilovic on the French label Montparnasse 2000, with full chorus and prog rock changes, evokes the soundtrack of "Chariots of the Gods". Working almost exclusively on library music, Nilovic did scores of LPs on Montparnasse 2000, and his complete oeuvre is one of the absolute finest in the field. "Jazz Computer" comes from the Italian library Music Scene LP "Futuribile (The Life To Come)", a masterpiece of personal electronic strangeness by "Gianni Safred & His Electronic Instruments". Finally, we have "Survivor", a post-apocalyptic dirge on the German Selected Sound library, from the LP "Time Signals" by jazz drummer Klaus Weiss, an entire LP of minimal synth lines and acoustic drums, that is nothing short of brain-searing. Weiss is best known for his work as "Niagra", an all-percussion German cosmic disco jam band in the early 70's, but his small output of library music is truly amazing.

Thanks to APM Music

Even more thanks to Adam Pash, creator of the nifty service MixTape.me, which you can learn more about here.

The story focuses on the tragic murder of a 14-year-old high schooler, and her journey through purgatory. As she drifts through pop culture-enhanced dreams, her family struggles with the mysterious circumstances surrounding their daughter's murder. The murderer, played by a deeply disturbing Stanley Tucci, goes about his everyday life next door to the grieving family. These images really give you a feel for how special effects master Jackson played with the colors of the 70s, on Earth and in the afterlife.

Let us consider the following images. Above, we have the classic corridor that started it all in 2001. Check out the rest before taking our poll, all the way at the end of this post.

Here's the fine corridor, packed with babes, from classic 80s James Bond flick Moonraker.

Here the Sandmen go zooming around their domed, doomed city in the silvery future-car corridor from Logan's Run.

This is pretty much the classic scifi horror corridor, from Aliens. As Anderson points out, versions of this corridor have appeared in countless first-person shooter games.

Whoa, dude, it's the wavy weirdy corridor from Saturn 3.

And here's the retro-style corridor from recent indie flick Moon, which has a mirror all the way at the end to give you the illusion of prefab hell going on forever.

Here's another classic corridor, from the ship Nostromo in the original Alien film. Its industrial feel gave this outer space flick its grittiness - you knew you were a long way from Star Trek when you saw it.

Read more about these corridors and others in Anderson's article at Den of Geek.

The concept design from Petr Kubik has our urban future in mind, trading a kitchen filled with individual appliances for a single piece of furniture that encompasses them all. From this table, you can search your email for your grandma's recipe for rump roast, pull the meat from a refrigerator compartment beneath the surface, eat on the easy-to-clean surface, and heat up the leftovers later inside a retractable microwave. At the push of a button, storage compartments pop open and water boilers, toasters, and dishware containers spring from the surface. The base of the table is connected to electricity, water, waste, and the Internet, for one-stop researching, cooking, eating, and cleaning.

It's certainly convenient, and it'll add a touch of space shuttle chic to cramped city apartments, but its presence in your home seems to demand special willpower. After all, your computer workspace would be the same place where you store your cold cuts and peanut butter, and dinner conversation could easily fall by the wayside when pitted against tabletop RSS feeds and Twitter. For now, though, it's just a concept, so you'll have to settle for a refrigerator fifteen feet away from your desk, and eating in front of the TV.

[dornob]

The outfit you see above was designed by students of the Pontificia Bolivariana University in Medellin. Actually, I'm not sure if it's actually made of ethernet cables, or if it just looks like the back of a server rack at my local data center. Either way, this outfit makes me think of a future world where people store infringing wares on their bodies, and a buyer can download just by grabbing a cable and sticking it into her laptop right on the street corner.

I have no idea what this outfit is, below, but it looks like little plastic explosions. Is it cyborg fur made from more ethernet cables? And what is that weird plastic bulge thing above her crotch? External womb?

Here is another outfit, straight out of Flash Gordon. Oh how I miss the Hawkmen and the, um, Hawkwomen.

Photo via RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/Getty Images.

This gigantic, plastic structure was a kid's playground in the OC city of Irvine back in the late 1970s and early 80s, when nobody had heard of Orange County and people worried less about dangerous play areas. I grew up climbing around inside this thing, pretending it was a giant monster or a weird spaceship or some kind of mega molecule that was slowly digesting me.

It sat in the middle of Mason Park, a large area of wilderness near the University of California at Irvine. Unfortunately kids climbing on the outside of it got hurt, so the city removed this gorgeous cross between scifi art and playground equipment. In its place we got something lame like a jungle gym.

I always wondered if maybe the structure had actually been something that I dreamed until I came across Simonov's picture of it on Flickr. He took this in 1981 as a teenager, and that smudge inside the mega-molecule's digestive tract is his girlfriend. So you can see that it was a pretty large creation, on a hill overlooking a lake.

Anyone know who designed this, or what happened to it?

via Simonov

Created by Studio Tord Boontje, these strange chandeliers are part of a collection called "Future Flora." The designer, Boontje, said that he created them to suggest a strange new species - a hybrid of flower and light.

I'm waiting for the model that can fold itself into a throwing star and act as a guard flower for my Triffid seed collection.

via Notcot

Though McCoy has a number of paintings that depict cities falling into ruins, he also loves to show us structures that are being built - particularly in space or in extremely alien environments. I imagine that this is some kind of space dock and habitat.

McCoy's also loves to do concept design for characters, and this one caught my eye because right now Andrew "Wall-E" Stanton is working on a John Carter of Mars movie, based on the early-twentieth century adventure novels. You can see more of Jon McCoy's work on his website.

A cool robot to have with you on a snowy day when you have to fight a pirate who is trying to steal your cyber-treasures.

Of course, we know it's great to ride on giant monsters.

What is this? I have no idea. A headless bug? A nanobot under the microscope?

William B. Hand [artist website]

Breathtaking but also sad. The gramophone horn is a subtle touch, reminding you that industrialism was already dying back when gramophones were in style. Writes Nakamura:

I am inspired by surrealism and cyberpunk styles of art. I find myself drawn to 19th century machine designs and armor among other things from that time period as motif. All of these images have been created with a portrait style while still containing a puzzle type quality.

You can see more of Nakamura's beautiful clockwork puzzle art on his site, Mechanical Mirage.

I love the random toothy guy, and the picture of the Starship Enterprise zooming across the top of one of those books. Hey, if it's science fiction, it must have the Enterprise in it, right?

Check out more War of the Worlds covers for minutes of diverting amusement, and upload your own!

War of the Worlds Book Cover Collection [Chez Zeus via Core77]

Miller's assertion that he hates "cars and gadgets but love my Mac along with mechanical and architectural structures" makes a lot of sense in the context of his art: "One goes where the story or illustration takes you. A purist might well disagree and good luck to him. Someone described Surrealism as nothing more than the juxtaposition of unlikely forms. I think this explanation sits reasonably well with both SF and Fantasy writing. The mix [of SF and fantasy] ...comes from being me and the particular way I am plugged into the plethora of information we are all bombarded with twenty-four hours a day. Some of which, of course, comes pre-installed. We all find our own way of filtering this information, and at day's end staying sane. I'm still trying to make contact with my right foot."

To Miller, who has a dark sense of humor, the creative process "might be compared with an expanding universe. My needs to express new ideas cannot be contained in a tight pen style or a single medium." He also believes that "computers allow me to do things I could not do any other way without investing in an afterlife. I worry about most of the imagery I produce and how it could be better. I'm more proud of trying to be better and carrying on than with any particular image because sometimes I wonder what the fuck it is all about. And then they put me back in the dark cupboard without a candle until I stop screaming at my feet."

His SF influences, meanwhile, run the gamut from classics to cheesy classics: "Alfred Bester stands out as the writer who impacted on me most as a young person. The Demolished Man and Tiger Tiger. So vivid, even now after thirty odd years...I grew up with Flash Gordon and love that arcane sparking wobble the space ships had. Whenever I look at footage of the Great Wars now I'm reminded of things Gothic and medieval. Strange, perhaps, but true."

However, Miller's interests include much more than art. He's currently working on "A tarot pack, a series of large panel tight pen images about the inside of my head, several commissions, and my suspect book/project called amongst other things The Broken Diary, The Broken Novel, and Can I Read My Notes. This is now finished bar typing it into a computer, and it is a tad strange even by my standards. The spelling is shit but the dead fish don't mind and I've moved out of that part of my brain for good. Dreadful damp and noises in the walls—and what are editors for?"

The teaser for a nearly completed screenplay for a film associated with aspects of The Broken Diary has been completed by Miller, and he's currently shopping it around. It's as beautifully strange on the page as Miller's art, so we thought we'd share an exclusive excerpt from it below (you can read the entire opening on the Ecstatic Days blog).

The setting for the opening scene is a ruined Los Angeles, in the remains of the Academy building, amongst the archives of old films. A badly injured Edward Schrimmer is mysteriously reborn through a synthesis of flesh and metal, become, almost, a kind of surreal superhero. From the same source that rejuvenated him, a kind of renaissance of new life occurs, from the middle of The Heap...

The Heap continues to grow.

A perimeter wall of igneous steel and concrete, rises up around it and within its confines, a New World begins to fashion itself. The regenerative mélange at work within the Heap, flows out to touch and bond; carrying in its flux something sentient and mediaeval.

  A theme park is borne / one world only: Mediaeval.

  Assembly lines appear, old Ford Cars style, serviced by bedraggled survivors , drawn inside the protective skirt of the perimeter wall. Overseers, creatures from the mound, direct these wretches.

A Hospice is created to treat them, and the worst afflicted become creatures of the Heap; half this, a little bit of that, but free from the awful pain.

Schrimmer is not overtly harsh in his treatment of those, gathered in. They are viewed with benign indifference. They are a resource, serfs, a feudal asset.  

Strange Boschesque style machines festoon the site, sporting fish heads, cavernous maws, scissorblade appendages. Cranes move everywhere, lifting prefabricated sections of rampart into position.  

The Flux flows and joins.  

In the grey desolation, beyond the scaffolding and welded plates of the Wall, hostile elements quietly gather, mutants, demented creatures, transmogrified beings, comic cuts, animated characters, befouled poisonous things, all chuckling fit to kill.  

Schrimmer names them the: "Children of Mordred"

They have driven out the rats (for the moment) but the cockroaches prove a tougher proposition. An uneasy truce is called and the city and its environs are divided up between them. They get the North and the Roaches the South. Both elements flourish in the slough and multiply at such a rate, that all other living things are driven out or overwhelmed. The Heap offers sanctuary to many of these displaced beings.  

The Mordants both repelled and excited Schrimmer. They were the stuff of pestilence and plaque, essential elements in any mediaeval drama.

The Animations and Comic Cuts, were something else however; not even Bosch could have anticipated these horrors.  

They had been nothing more than paintings and drawings, on paper and plastic cells, and now they were alive and violent. They were soiled slithers, two dimensional forms that killed by wrapping their plastic and soiled paper bodies tight around the faces of their victims, until they suffocated. With each kill, they sucked and got a little fatter. 

Ian Miller [official website]

Here is an even earlier image, of the corridor being constructed.

If you want to see more from Mojo, check out his blog.

McCarthy, a former comic artist who's been providing storyboards and concept designs for movies like Highlander, Lost in Space and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since the late '80s, has started posting some of his work on his new website, The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy, including a glimpse at what might have been if Dan Ackroyd's inherent crapness hadn't ruined things.
Design">The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy

Scott Robertson loves to draw hovercraft, or "los aerodeslizadores" as they say in Spanish, which sounds a whole lot cooler. Even though they aren't touching the water, they look like they could cut right through it with the knife-edged fins, and check out the wake they're tossing out behind them. You wouldn't want to get sucked into one of those engines, but you'd probably love sitting behind the wheel of one of these things.

I had to visit the sewer and water treatment plant in Lubbock, Texas once for a paper I was writing in college, and it didn't look anything close to this. It was filthy, dark, and full of rusty pipes. This look at Procter's sewer looks clean enough to eat off its floor, and even that yellow duct on the right-hand side doesn't look out of place, despite it's Brazil-esque patchy installation work. Give us something like this to process our waste with, and folks wouldn't mind working there anymore.

You can check out more of Ben's excellent concept art and film visuals at his website.

It's like a holiday ship, all red and shiny! Maybe it's delivering presents to gas beings on Jupiter. Images by Adam Benton.

The Art of Adam Benton [Sentient Developments]