'ZINE #03
God Simulator
August 2017
In this month's 'zine we look at the interleaving of human and artificial identities underway as humanity presses headlong towards its inevitable rendezvous with godlike machines, including the augmentation processes artists are employing to reveal new hybrid adaptations of culture and consciousness. From the cathartic expulsion of the feeding tentacles of NeoLiberalism, to a digital startup offering ontological services to cyborgs; from the inbuilt tendency to self-destruct of the SimCity universe, to furtive border crossings in online fictions; The Unstitute is a research station deep in the wastes of the internets...
- THE PROJECTION ROOM -
Selden Paterson 'Integrative Ontological Practices'
Nina Isabelle 'The Eucharist Machine'
This August we have sourced excellent videos from US artists Selden Paterson and Nina Isabelle, presenting a double-bill of works which explore related intersections from the fourth industrial revolution; from the growth of AI and networked intelligence to cyborg identities and the hybrid strategies developed by artists to survive and exploit this shifting new territory. Both artists enjoy an online practice which demands further scrutiny, and we encourage readers to go take a look.
"Please enjoy an introductory informational program from Integrative Ontological Practices by Beta Plus Systems (IOP B+), the leading self-help + healing system for modern cyborgs. IOP B+ uses the principle of Tertiary Natural Consciousness to help our members integrate the terrestrial, human-made, and digital parts of their worlds and themselves." - Selden Paterson
"The Eucharist Machine is what happens when the under-informed articulate with high-tech features. Information lost in translation becomes a sort of up-cycled spirituality; a futuristic projection of possible renewal of the crumbling dialogue between spirituality, commodity, and financial value." - Nina Isabelle
#STRATEGIES -
Jacqui Weir-O'Brien
SimCity
This month we continue to expand our new artists' writing participation project #Strategies. Housed in the Liebratory - the linguistic nerve-centre of The Unstitute - the project aims to curate and assemble an archive of experimental, tentative, incidental and avant-garde texts shared via this 'zine to the growing digital community connected to The Unstitute. Our second text was taken from the Facebook Messenger conversation with Jacqui Weir-O'Brien which first inspired the idea for the #Strategies project.
"SimCity:Build It is a classic skinner box game - the more residents you have the more money the town makes - more money means more residents; but more residents mean more services. And to get the services, you need money to build. So far, so whatever. The problems occur when the person playing the game refuses to make in-app purchases. Without those purchases everything the player does is at the mercy of the game developers, who imposes time restrictions. That might not seem like a big deal, but those time restrictions are literally the difference between residents going about their business and having to abandon their burning house." Jacqui Weir-O'Brien
Visit the Liebratory at The Unstitute to read archived publications, loiter about in an online kind of way, or consider submitting your own #Strategies
- THE CUTTING ROOM -
The Unstitute presents...
New Town
A Rainy Day
In the quest for a a hybrid digital language, visual researchers at The Unstitute have found rainy days to be the most productive, and this short video from the New Town project suggests the kind of augmented reality techniques being developed at The Unstitute's remote Catalonian research station.
"In New Town, the enforced boredom of a rainy day can lead to territorial incursions. I don't know exactly which border it is that I need to cross, but the feeling that I must cross one is irritating beyond belief..." - Jim Broadband
- WORLDS -
News from New Town
Across the Flats
As the rumour of existence has taken hold, the only measurement of Being that remains to the denizens of New Town is fiction. Follow the digital excavations of deep-cover operative Jim Broadband as he perpetuates the augmented reality settlement of New Town with short story Across the Flats.
"I stare into an illuminated shop-window whilst I am waiting for the rain to stop. Although I no longer live in the capital I still enjoy the tranquil moment conferred by this infrequent and solemn encounter. The light from behind the tobacco counter, the magazine covers, the rain droplets and condensation mix with passing umbrellas into a glorious kaleidoscope accompanied by the commotion of a delivery truck; the sound of everything I ever wanted. I bend down to pick up something filthy in the gutter. It is my life." - Jim Broadband
- UN[DIS]CRIMINATE -
Eric Souther
Ritual to Cleanse NeoLiberalism
This month the UN[dis]criminate encampment looks along the fault lines of NeoLiberalist ideology with tantric video-overload from video artist Eric Souther, who asks genuine questions of human attention and how it is marshalled, at a time when attention has become the gold-dust of the digital Klondike - when the fortunes made today will dictate the power concentrations of tomorrow.
"Many ritualistic practices include sensory overload, for example, drumming, dancing, or pain. The clinical analysis of these practices tends to talk about sensory overload as a method for disrupting the cerebral processing of information and decreasing the meaningfulness of your surroundings. In Haitian Vodun, sensory overload is used to break down the self in order to be susceptible to possession. NeoLiberalism and domination culture use a similar approach to initiate a form of capitalistic possession, which alters your freedom to choose, to a freedom to choose what to consume, a system that focuses on winners and losers." - Eric Souther
UN[dis]criminate is a new archive exploring artistic attitudes to the seismic shifts occurring in geopolitics, technology and cultural narrative. Come into the temporary encampment to investigate for yourself, and consider submitting relevant content of your own...
- VIDIOT -
New Windows
The Unstitute is revealing a new video window at which to take a rest and gaze 'absentmindedly' onto the passing daily life of a street corner, captured for us by Chilean artist Diego Bernaschina.
"The Unstitute is an excavation without windows. The Vidiot Windows project connects windows from around the world through which visitors to The Unstitute can look out onto different everyday scenes through their browser window, collapsing frames of space and segments of time into a room constructed entirely from looking panes." Vidiot creators
The Vidiot project invites you to send your 1 minute videos to aid in the construction of an architecture built entirely from digital windows.
- PARTICIPATION -
Open Submissions
The Unstitute offers the opportunity for artists to take part in our experiment through a progressive community alliance in which we mutually advance the possibilities of the browser-based digital experience as a medium for the artist. We do not offer a traditional gallery experience for the artist or the viewer - we are incubating a hybrid, experimental model of artists’ community with the time, energy and integrity required for such a project.