Johnny Mnemonic should have been good. A pre-Matrix Keanu starring in a cyberpunk thriller written by William Gibson had so much potential, but the whole thing just sucked. In the midst of the bad dialogue, terrible acting and nonsensical plot, the single saving grace was the virtual reality sequences by the German artist Brummbaer.
Brummbaer is a pretty fascinating guy who started out in the druggy-political scene of underground comics in the sixties and was an early publisher of R. Crumb. In the Eighties, he became a dedicated digital artist who pioneered the fractally-generated, magic-eye-ish art that we associate with the early internet.
While my heart will always remain with Hackers (a film that came out the same year as Johnny Mnemonic) when it comes to cheesy hacking visualization, we must give credit where credit is due. Brummbaer’s aesthetic was essential.
