Hiroto Ikeuchi is a Japanese casemodder who builds spectacular dioramas into PC towers, turning them into dystopian, futuristic military battlescenes. The Raku-Taro Tumblr has some flat-out gorgeous photos of an Ikeuchi project that’s on display at the Ars Electronica center in Vienna Linz.
Ikeuchi, a designer by trade, likes to call it his “secret base.” Inspired by mecha anime like Gundam and Macross, every surface is packed with something to discover. Soldiers tend to intricate, forbidding machinery. Mechs await repair. The work seamlessly blends plastic toys, gizmo components, and scraps of other materials with the computer itself. Atop the tower, the shell of a DSLR is repurposed as a laser cannon.Ikeuchi’s modifications don’t stop at the case, however. Just as impressive as the secret base itself are the many peripherals that supplement it. The designer outfitted a keyboard with battered scaffolding and cleverly reworked a toy tank as a mouse (neither of which look like the most ergonomic solutions, but hey, you have to suffer for your art). Since standard Sandisk flash drives clearly aren’t fit for this wartime wonderland, Ikeuchi built eight different USB drives disguised as various forms of heavy artillery.
This Insane Case Mod Looks Like a World War III Fever Dream [Kyle VanHemert/Wired]
(Thanks, Alice!)