Scintillating Auras, Internal Monologues and Frozen Hot Dogs
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things I found
1. The scintillating scotoma
Claire L. Evans wrote a great article about the “scintillating scotoma”, a visual disturbance related to migraines. I had this a couple of times and it looks exactly as described. A terrifying but also extremely fascinating experience.
“Writing about these bizarre and horrifying perceptual phenomena, the late Oliver Sacks observed that migraines ‘show us how the brain-mind constructs ‘space’ and ‘time,’ by demonstrating what happens when space and time are broken, or unmade.”
2. Voice In My Head
Kyle McDonald & Lauren Lee McCarthy developed an AI system that can replace your internal monologue: “With the proliferation of generated content, AI now seeps constantly into our consciousness. What happens when it begins to intervene directly into your thoughts? Where the people you interact with, the things you do, are guided by an AI enhanced voice that speaks to you the way you’d like to be spoken to.”
3. Life: a user’s manual
I was just reminded by a student of this powerful performance by Michelle Teran: “Moving through the city streets with a video scanner reveals a hidden layer of personal fragments and stories which are broadcast by the private owners of surveillance cameras. The accumulation of these autonomous yet synchronous acts contributes to an invisible ad-hoc network of media permeating the socially codified spaces of our urban environments: the café, the apartment building, the store, the parking lot, and the street. Life: a user’s manual is a shared experience in visualizing the invisible. Together with the participants, Michelle Teran walks through the streets with a wireless surveillance camera scanner and broadcasts the images on a TV monitor.”
4. Entropophone
In the work “Entropophone | La qualité de l’air” by artist Filipe Vilas-Boas, the anonymous video stream of a surveillance camera is transformed into a musical score.
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5. MyHouse.wad
My House (a.k.a. MyHouse.WAD) is a single-level PK3 for Doom II using the GZDoom source port that was released on March 3, 2023.It was designed by Steve Nelson (Veddge).
6. Dreams and the internet
“Don’t you think dreams and the internet are similar? They’re both areas where the repressed conscious mind vents.”
From Paprika (2006).
7. In the Name of the Place
In the 1990s, a group of radical artists called the GALA Committee smuggled political messages into Melrose Place. This story is WILD.
“Watch enough episodes of Melrose Place and you’ll notice other very odd props and set design all over the show. A pool float in the shape of a sperm about to fertilize an egg. A golf trophy that appears to have testicles. Furniture designed to look like an endangered spotted owl.”
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8. Sunday Nobody
I don’t know why I haven’t come across this artist before. Sunday Nobody calls himself a “meme artist”, but what he does is actually a surprising mixture of conceptual art, performance art, viral video and extremely high level craftsmanship. You can watch his videos on TikTok and Instagram.
things I did recently
December 9th 2023 - I had the pleasure of presenting Exit Reality at Più Libri Più Liberi in Rome with Matteo Corradini, in a literal backroom (see picture for reference).
February 10th 2024 - EXIT REALITY | LIMINAL ROME: Oltre la soglia, al centro dei desideri, Teatro delle Bellezze, Roma. This was the launch event of .expub, a Creative Europe research project exploring the idea of “expanded publishing”, conceived by Nero Editions (Rome), Institute for Networked Cultures (Amsterdam), Aksioma (Ljubljana), and Echo Chamber (Brussels). I engaged in a dialogue with my friend Priscilla De Pace on the topics of liminality, memory, internet aesthetics and the perception of reality.
February 22nd, 2024 - Architettura è spazio digitale, M9 Museum, Mestre. With Simone Sfriso, TAM Associati.
February 23rd, 2024 - Exit Reality a Spiazzi, Venezia, organized by Arnia Nomade, with Davide Tolfo.
BEST NEWS OF THE MONTH: MEMESTETICA IS OUT IN ENGLISH!
Translated by Tijana Mamula and published by NERO Editions. On the cover, the legendary CATT by Eva & Franco Mattes.
BUY THE BOOK HERE
upcoming…
On May 15th I’ll be in Ljubljana, presenting the English edition of Exit Reality, during an incredible live event with Total Refusal. The first Let’s Play book launch! Info here.
new entries on my bookshelf
Klaus Podoll, Derek Robinson (curated by), Migraine Art: The Migraine Experience from Within, 2009
Anna Watkins Fisher, The Play in the System: The Art of Parasitical Resistance, 2020
Matteo Lupetti, UDO – Guida ai videogiochi nell’Antropocene, 2023
Walter Scheirer, A History of Fake Things on the Internet, 2023
Matteo Pasquinelli, The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence, 2023
Tiziano Bonini, Emiliano Trere, Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power, 2024
Lorenzo Fantoni, Vivere mille vite: Come i videogiochi ci hanno cambiato il futuro, 2023
Bret Easton Ellis, Le schegge, 2023
Alice Scornajenghi, Atti Puri, 2023
Emanuela Cocco, Trofeo, 2023
the great wall of memes updates
The Great Wall of Memes is a research project in the form of a visual archive. I started it in 2012 and it’s the place where I collect images and memes that feel relevant. Click here to see the latest uploads.
That’s all for now! Feel free to send me an email or leave a comment.