ONTD

After a long hiatus, the Gorillaz characters were featured in this month's UK edition of Wired.









'Gorillaz reinvent the future' - a long article of future technologies with comments by Murdoc.

MURDOC FROM GORILLAZ SUGGESTS TEN MORE IDEAS

The manufacture of cheap, personal domestic submarines
Murdoc says: Well, as the world gets wetter, and dry land gets scarcer, that '78 per cent' of water on the Earth's surface is going to look like a big playground. To navigate these new terrains, we're all going to need something zippy to get around in. When the prices on personal submarines plummet and they go into affordable mass production, something's gonna emerge as the new Henry Ford of the amphibious world. “A submarine for everyone as long as it’s … er…. Yellow”

Reanimating dead musicians and creating cyborg bands using DNA samples
Murdoc: With the world evolving, we musicians must evolve too. File-sharing, holographic touring, 3D screens, digital playback… it’s all happening. But most importantly we need to scrape up the DNA of both current and bygone musical geniuses and create a new genre of ‘virtual’ musicians that can live on forever. This is good in case you’re getting grief off the mouthy ones or one goes missing. Or they just die…’

Turn old weapons into theme parks.
Murdoc: with a potential £130 billion about to be spent on new Trident missiles, it seems a shame to simply chuck the old ones in the bin. It’s important to get our money back from somewhere (besides flicking them on to our friends in Africa). I suggest we strip out the explosive, more ‘genocidal’ parts and use them to build a really exciting theme park. It’d be incredible and educational for the kids. A real life World of Warcraft’s weapons-based adventure park.

Invention of a cheap fuel source. What to do when the oil runs out.
Murdoc: The oil reserves are running dry and global demand for oil is going to raise prices, creating a worldwide panic. It’s clear we’ll need a new cheap fuel source. Even Bono’s private jet can’t run on hot air alone. I suggest something that runs on renewable energies like… booze and sound. The energy created from rock concerts and the like – think of it. Sonic-powered boats! Powered purely by alcohol and loudness. Ethanol. Vodka. Sambuca. Whatever. I suggest dark rum and shouting – ideal for pirate-based bands…

Unite the apps, tools, widgets and innovations under one goal – something useful.
Murdoc: Instead of using these communicative tools to post an ancient Goth playlist or a video clip of a monkey falling off a skateboard, we should focus on a single, worldwide puzzle to solve. Simple things like how to get off the planet or how to cure poverty, bend time, kill death, etc. Then we’d be free to explore the limitless currents of time and space across the universe, rather than bashing each other over the head with the antiquated concepts of class, territory, commerce and religion.

Get down with the kids with National Service.
Murdoc: Children are the future. Employ them! Kids can assimilate an entire genre in an afternoon, while downloading more applications and tools than the last generation had in its lifetime. It’s time to capture them, stick them in a factory or on an island and make them work out how to run the future. Properly. They don’t need much to survive: glass of water, a Pot Noodle… It’d be a kind of new national service, a compulsory boot camp for ideas.

Make meditation compulsory in schools.
Murdoc: As Noodle says, it’s important to teach kids how to be measured in their minds. How to be bored, learn poise, breathing, a sense of calm and freedom from the desire for more; the understanding that knowing how to pause can be an advance. Part of evolution is knowing when to stop. After fiddling with my iPhone I feel so cranked up and speedy I could bite someone’s face, like someone’s been scribbling in my brain. Can’t be good for the kids today growing up staring at the info equivalent of a strobe light smashing around their bonces 24/7.

Create a fully functional ‘bullshit detector’.
Murdoc: Very important, this one. I’m sure we could develop this as some kind of iPhone app… imagine if you could just strap it on to the mouth of, say, a company spokesman, ad exec or statesman and simply decode what they’re saying into some sort of ‘truth’. A kind of Babel Fish for bullshit. I think Joe Strummer had one knocking about in his garage somewhere, didn’t he?

Government funding for research into near-death experiences
Murdoc: I’ve turned blue a number of times and it’s always the same thing: black tunnel, white light and someone trying to put their hands around my neck. Governments around the world should assign more money into NDE research. If there’s life after death – fantastic! Then we can get back to trying to wipe each other out- secure in the knowledge that death is just a dream, and everything’s cool forever. What a great way to start 2010!

Reform the greatest group on the planet.
Murdoc: Kick-start the future by reassembling the world’s greatest band. Gorillaz are the pinnacle of evolution, and create wonderful new technologies, revolutionary concepts and mind-numbing innovations – then chuck them overboard. By mixing up the best talent with the most pivotal minds – rappers with writers, soul heroes with animators, digital technicians with pontificating tosspots – Gorillaz are like a big entertainment council. ‘Fingers on the pulse, feet on the button’. Gorillaz should be running this funny little globe shop…

IDGAF, I <3 Murdoc and I don't care who knows it. New album is supposedly coming in 2010, yay.

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