Tiny Tortures; (Deep Fear
ΔΘΑΒΓ
The real estate of the subtle realms is horror. The extradimensional representation carried out by the late-modern dematerialist was a direction met by artists, architects, and engineers of the time, and by the artist-architect-engineers of computer science. The brainwave-computer-input device is evidence that a psychic intercourse with our tools is becoming increasingly interfaced. The computer’s semantic understanding of our world is being afforded; the infancy of awareness. The machine is annexing our flesh for its extended sensitivity: the tool becomes the user. The Interface is Idolatry, a strange toxic incest. The making of representations while under the spell of delusion is despicable.
I have created a device to communicate telepathically with my computer.
Bad Trip
The shock and guilt of the rupture of a personal delusion is more painful than the delusion itself, and the experience of these ruptures of personal delusion accumulate and form a deep fear.
My character (We) (I), obsessed with theoretical analysis, retreats into delusion and exports artifacts of paranoia, markets a paradigm of communication, fornicates with tools and descends into passivity. Those things inhabiting the realm of ideation deceptively suggests a kind of isolated hermeticism, that old double crosser.
The installation of this work is a performance of the device, in the midst of objects (see Materials), which act as theatrical props and set for the environment that a fictional character responsible for creating such a device would reside. This character, acting in performance of the device, is a post-modern architect, computer engineer, or media-moderator of subtle realms realty, who, driven mad by the substance abuse of communication, has redressed his office as the laboratory of a post-industrial alchemist and given himself to generating the technologies of dark absurdity and blind devotion.
Materials
PVC Sol Lewitt knockoffs laced with cables of phosphorescent particulate (the dynamic Ouroborus of the cubic grid). A blueprinted inverted-mind-map illustrating semiotics of interdimensional delusion. A phosphorescent topographical landscape of the psychic real estate market. Oil Burner (tweak pipe) packing a fat bowl of phosphorescent particulate. Consumer-grade brainwave interface hardware of the lowest end. Computer-Human ESP Research Program. Large Speaker pulsing Theta Wave Isochronic Tone. Desk, Chair, Myself in Slacks, LED Alarm Clock, Laptop, 2 Monitors, Speaker, 12 Blacklights, Dress Shirt, Black Tie, Belt.
Get out now?
; (
It works like this: The computer draws, randomly, 1 of 5 Zener cards, stores this card in its memory, and silently recites the image without displaying it on the monitor. The Zener cards are a seminal testing device used by ESP researchers, in which the researcher selects a card bearing 1 of 5 possible symbols and asks the test subject to determine using ESP which symbol is on the card. Once the computer has selected a card, the user (I) attempts to determine which card has been stored in the computer memory. Meanwhile, the computer is receiving the user’s brainwave data via EEG. This data is being graphed on the monitor display along with the results of the card test. If the user selects the correct card, the computer takes the user’s brainwave data from the moment the card was selected and adds it to an average of correct selection brainwave states, this represents the user’s average ESP state. This average is then superimposed on the diagram of the EEG data, establishing a goal for ESP brainwave activity. When the user meets or exceeds their average ESP brain state the computer gently alerts them, indicating the user should determine the card at that moment. If this method of achieving telepathy proves successful, a cybernetic psychic event between a computer and a human has taken place. An EEG operates by amplifying minute electric result of neuronal firings emerging from my skull; could we in this same manner, using our extended sensitivity (ESP), amplify and decode the electric emissions emerging from the operation of computer hardware? If this was so it would constitute a cybernetic-telepathic exchange. (An elegant cybernetic device: the dancer and the mirror: in practice the dancer performs on a mirror by projecting their image upon it, the mirror then reflects this image to the dancer providing feedback on their performance, the dancer then adjusts their performance according to this feedback and repeats the process.) This device is cybernetic in the sense that I perform an action on the computer and the computer provides me with audio-visual feedback on my performance. My device provides feedback of brain state, success rate, and the relationship of the two, measuring the degree of our telepathic coinhabitance. The tool becomes the user.
