Don’t ask me how, but I’d got myself stuck in Nottingham one day, nothing in particular to do, but not able to leave. Feeling a bit like Number Six, I decided to console myself with lunch from a deli in Sneinton Market, and unsure of the way, hopped on a bus. In this lazy, directionless mood, I fiddled with my ticket, only noticing after a while a picture of a guy in naval costume on the back. He seemed to be in the act of falling over from too much rum, or perhaps dancing a jig. Some tiny text told me that this character was visiting the city, and I dismissed it all as an insidious example of viral marketing for a local chippie. There was a nagging thought that it was strange for him to be saying he’d be appearing at a bus stop near you, but before I could make any more sense of it I was stumbling off to get my panini.

As I wandered back into town, burning my mouth on hot cheese, I thought I heard a sea shanty playing. I was a bit fazed by the coincidence, half worried that I had indeed fallen into a hallucinatory Village where lost sailors rubbed shoulders with ex-government agents. As I got closer, I realised that this was the Captain from the ticket come to life, reading tales to a shipmate in a salty old sea dog voice. Unless this was a stunt for a pretty avant-garde Fish Shop, something else had to be going on. I watched for a while, but no clues were given away, the sailors seemed in a world of their own where it was normal to be dressed for the sea in the middle of England and talking of the deep and not the shallow.

Trying to get to the bottom of this, I scrabbled around in my pocket for the bus ticket - there was a website, but more intriguingly a tiny drawing of a crow. There must be more strange images to find. Perhaps it was some kind of treasure hunt, a secret trail around the city. I got on another bus, a little thrown off by the driver’s challenge to my quest, but I managed “Two stops, please?” which seemed to work. Sitting down, I enjoyed the artist’s clever mimicry of a standard transport information advert, calling into question the nature of the journeys we are all on, it was so authentic it was… it was… it was just a normal ticket, wasn’t it.

Still, I wasn’t going to be put off, this might be an important part of the initiation process: the secret would only be revealed to someone who persisted. I tried again, a different line, another two stops. Painfully nervous, I turned the ticket over, but instead of gold I just got more of the archaic dot matrix style text that appears on the front of all Nottingham bus tickets. This must just be some gibberish spewed out by a malfunctioning machine. I glared at it, furious that I was being ridiculed like this. My watery eyes seemed to be desperately trying to make sense of the image, as if I could make it resolve by an act of will into something, like an old computer game screen, Space Invaders, or Galaxian perhaps. Hang on, it must be meant to look like that, there was the Captain’s hand jutting into the edge and that same website! I was back on track.

At the stop I scribbled down a map, details about other people waiting, then smiled out my mantra. More joy: an oddly familiar dove became a free-floating symbol of many things at once: capital, transcendence and peace. Surely a sign that I was reaching some kind of understanding, accepted by the forces behind this peculiar game. There were a few duds of course, but I resisted the urge to check with the drivers whether they had the funny ones with pictures on, and made notes on everything, now that I realised it was all part of a much larger picture.

The next showed me a fragment of another ticket from another time, a real or imaginary cloakroom had been guarded with half a paper stag, tangled up in string. All I saw just led me right back to myself, I started to feel I was feverishly travelling the folds in my skull, colour and number coded for your convenience: lilac 23; red 45; orange 36. With too bright eyes and shaking hands I took my next clue. Two things slammed simultaneously into my forebrain: 1) A double slogan: “We are all living / We are all dying” like the logo of some post-Benneton corporation mindfucking us with an Eros/Thanatos double bind; and 2) a tiny drawing of a crow. I’d reached the loop.

Dazed and illuminated, I realised that I didn’t need to find a copy of the last frame with the two birds together: the fissure was more perfect, suggesting thousands waiting in potential. I’d thought this adventure would show me the sights, but instead I had been putting together pieces of a puzzle where I was a part of the solution. Daily scrap had become a gift, but one that attached itself to me symbiotically, giving me as much as I was prepared to offer it back. Think of a whole city of commuters spending their journey meditating on these little poems. Thousands waiting in potential

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So I did it and it worked. Now it’s me in teenager’s collages, me on your iPod playlist, me doing ironic cover versions at charity gigs. So why do I still feel like someone’s laughing at me, like I’m made of dust, bound for hell. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

And the number of the beast is 3 x 3 x 3.

Three for the dreams, three for the fears, three for the new reality. The new reality, the where I live, the place where new holes are punched and others filled in, filled in with pixels, a Photoshopped reality in 3D screamorama.

I don’t regret it, she was vile, everyone agreed, but somehow still loved her: her perfect black bob, her perfect white face, her perfect red pout that we all wanted to eat. How can you hate someone so much and still do anything they ask? That tiny flaw in judgement that whispers: maybe if you do this you’ll get in there, inside the fantasy fuck. Well I’m inside now alright, and it’s more HP Lovecraft than wank mag.

And the number of the beast is £4.99

Flies buzzing around the screen in swarms of zeroes and ones. She’s making me do the backing track over and over again, like she knows best, and why don’t I get paid like she does? The fucking tracks are all written by me, she just comes in at the end and howls some shit over the top, not even proper lyrics, just sounds. “Knowingly Retro” they call it, well I could fucking sample a few old divas and get rid of her, make shit ten times better and no-one would know to listen to it, but they don’t care about that, she’s a ’star’ and I’m just a tech. Finally it’s done, another hit in the can, everyone telling her how fabulous it is, and I just get my standard paycheck.

And the beast is straight in at number 1.

Drunk, and on God knows what designer drug is fashionable this week, she throws her arms round me in pretend camaraderie. Tells me how they’re trying to give me the push, but she won’t let them, she’s on my side, see? Now could I go and get her another bottle? I drink the champagne I paid for and watch her stagger off, dancing, laughing, not knowing what’s going to hit her. The bubbles boil in my brain, and I formulate my plan.

First the easy part, crunching on the computer for a few hours, for a few days, for a few weeks and my voice breaks into hers. Still my own when I want it, but also a perfect lip-synch of her sexy, throaty, fuck-drawl. My body was more difficult, shaving down the flesh, painfully airbrushing out blemishes, stretching and twisting myself into the perfect shape.

And the numbers of the beast are 36-24-36

You’d think people would start to notice the difference, complement me on losing weight, chat me up, but somehow I managed to make her figure look like shit. I told myself I was just trying to stay unnoticed until it was time, but what’s inside can’t help seeping out. She knows she deserves for everyone to crawl before her, to be used for her pleasure, and they comply. My self-loathing stinks around me like a rotten cloud, making me worse than invisible: you see me but wish you hadn’t, and try to blot me out of your mind as quickly as possible.

Then at last I looked in the mirror and I was her. Everything I’d always wanted to be, seamless as a robot designed to destroy you. My mouth watered.

I sat in my carefully rehearsed pose for hours, waiting for the denouement, her undoing. As she stepped through the door it took her a while to notice me, and when she did it was a few moments before her eyes caught up with her babbling mouth. She still tried to finish her sentence, and I almost loved her for that.

“What the FUCK do you think you look like, love?” she finally managed to spit, with most of her usual confidence, but at last I was more assured than she’d ever been, because now I was her perfected.

I stood and slowly walked towards her, I could feel my smile become a sneer, but there was no need for caution now. As I looked her in the eyes and raised my hand, I felt a flutter of arousal as she realised her own hand was reaching towards mine. Soon both our palms were touching: we were exact mirror reflections, except that her eyes were as terrified as mine were exultant.

Then as she started to fade, like a layer losing opacity, she managed to plead in a whisper: “Don’t do this, I’ll give you everything I’ve got…”

“Oh, darling,” I breathe back, “I’ve already got all that.”

And the number of the beast is 0%

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0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0  0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1  0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0  0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1  0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0

0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1   0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1   0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1   0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1   0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1   0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1

0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1   0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1   0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0     0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1

0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1   0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0   0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0  0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1   0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0

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The Berners-Lee Research Facility Artist-In-Residence Programme
Ana Benlloch 04 - 05

The BLRF is an institution dedicated to cross-disciplinary practice investigating digital identities and interactions. There are three main departments exploring the transference of sensory experience into the digital, where staff and voluntary test subjects work together.

While in residence at the BLRF, Ana worked with volunteers in these areas to create pieces based on their experiences. She also temporarily redesigned the website, basing it on the corporate colour scheme but combining this with found objects, elements from the signage around the facility and images selected by her collaborators.

Kinaesthetic Department

Test Subject 404 believed that identity could be boiled down to an essential, Platonic ideal. We looked at the mystical symbolism hidden in the mixing of light in screens, the Ghost in the Machine:

“I was bored one day, so I scanned my hand into my computer. Not a big deal. I’m sure everyone does it, but something happened. I don’t know what I thought I’d do with it, but I got kind of obsessed with it, just kept opening the file up and looking at it. Zooming in. Watching something that was recognisably me turn into pixels. Then I’d zoom back out again, reassured to see myself return.

“Sometimes I’d just make the whole screen one pixel and stare at it for hours. I kept doing this over and over again, but was never quite satisfied. Could never find exactly the right pixel. There was something wrong with the hue, the saturation, the value…

“Then one day I realised I’d found it, the perfect pixel, just by accident, I’d paused while scrolling around to change my grip and it was right there in front of me. I can’t explain how I knew, it was just as if the colour sent a coded message to my cells that I wasn’t able to decipher, only respond as if triggered.

“I cropped it and saved it carefully, not daring to breathe in case I lost it somehow. I made back-ups on CD, hid them around the house, posted them to trusted friends. I printed it out, but it was never the same, it needed the phosphorescence of the screen to give it life.

“It was enough for a while, to know I had access to this wonder, I’d meditate on it endlessly, empty headed, while the screen bathed me in a holy light. But soon it wasn’t enough, I needed more, I felt dirty, imperfect next to it. The pixel had become my ideal, myself honed into a transcendental form. I had to become one with it. Hopefully I pushed my head up against the screen, harder and harder until my forehead bruised. To my disappointment the barrier remained. I was not going to achieve union thinking like this.

“I tried hundreds of methods to understand the problem: I played around with the talismanic image, splitting it up into its component parts, looking at the light side and the dark side. I even started looking at the code behind it, learning the string of binary that made up the file, repeating it as a mantra as I stared at the screen. Then I realised that the problem wasn’t the pixel, the problem was me. I had too many variables: I was messy, human. I needed to become digital myself, that’s why I’m here…”

(Text taken from transcript of an interview with subject)

Visual Department

Test Subject 010 became afraid that everyone else was a robot, and we investigated fictional tests for androids. By recording such empathy tests, we investigated the gains and losses once emotions become transferred into digital information.

“They look fine on the outside, but inside they’re all wrong. I can’t remember when I first realised it, seems like I’ve always known that everyone else was a construct. They’re all very convincing, very good at pretending to be real, but once you’ve caught a glimpse of it, you never forget it, start seeing it all over.

“It’s like a nothingness in the eyes, like you can see right through to the back, with no person in between.

“I hated their eyes on me, felt as if they were ripping into me, taking parts of me away, making me more like them. I hid inside, only communicating with them when I had to through the phone or internet. But soon I could feel their eyes on me even when they weren’t there, as if they were burning through the monitor somehow, travelling in binary. Eye open. Eye closed.”

(Text taken from transcript of an interview with subject)

Auditory Department

Test Subject 666 has been interested in lists of words for some time, so we investigated various sets of ‘most common words’ and came across a list from Brown University in the 1960s called the Brown Corpus. This list has been used in pattern matching in code breaking.

“Listen. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Listen.

“Ha, sorry. Been watching a lot of films lately.

“I’ve always been told I have a good voice. Great for radio, they say. Trouble was, it never sounded right to me. You know when people tape themselves and listen back to it, it sounds wrong, recognisably you but kind of alien. I know, I know it’s something to do with it bouncing around inside your head.

“Anyway, with me it’s the opposite: I’m happy the sound of my voice when it’s recorded, but the sound in my head sets my teeth on edge. I used to avoid talking whenever I could, but of course this wasn’t very practical.
I started recording common phrases and tried to get by in telephone conversations by ‘playing’ them at appropriate points. It worked OK, so long as you didn’t mind sounding like a robot.

“Mind you, it got me thinking, I’d seen films where they got people to record lots of words and then they synthesised their voice and replaced them with robots. No, no, I didn’t want to be replaced by a robot, I just thought I might be able to make some kind of voice synthesiser, and here I am, rabbiting away on it, neat huh?”

(Text taken from transcript of an interview with subject)

http://blrf.org.uk/

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I stood outside the gallery for a few moments longer than I would have normally. I’d never been to a Reactor Function event before, and despite myself I was nervous. I’d heard stories of people being taken off by shadowy figures and having unspeakable things done to them. I don’t know if I was dreading this happening to me or if I … wanted it …

The masked figure at the door ticked my name off the list and let me in, and I realised that the entrance space was unusually full of people. We were being herded forward with no way to escape. There was the unnerving feeling that we were cattle being led to the slaughter.

I was surreptitiously given a way out - someone handed me a card offering me the chance to take part in a cultural experience, I snuck off up the stairs to a room covered with exotic fabric to be greeted by a man speaking an Asian-sounding language. Through gestures he led me through a series of rituals, answering my questions with polite but firm gibberish. I felt out of my depth and angry that I didn’t know what was going on - echoing the experience of being introduced to rigid cultural practices as a child.

By the time I emerged, everyone else had moved into the main exhibition space with AuntyNazi barking arbitrary rules at them such as only ten people being allowed in the bar at one time, and announcing that the event had ’started’. The audience stood around with almost identical expressions of mild fear. I realised I probably shared this, and distracted myself by looking around.

The layout of the show was much like any ordinary exhibition, with individual performances going on in discrete areas, and the space as a whole had not been altered. Works included a picnic where audience members read a jumbled argument from an autocue; an artist who spent most of the event on the floor, moving at timed intervals; a man standing in an alcove turning with a camera in his mouth, his body partly obscured and recreated by screens; someone explaining how their plastic polar bear was a van; a rambling talk; and a (possibly) live typed commentary.

What really brought the event to life were the complementary performances by Reactor and AuntyNazi. The latter, with crude masks and loud proclamations demanded most attention, but if you focused on the surface alone you’d miss their own subversion of authority. Every demand for obedience to Health & Safety laws was accompanied by dangerous behaviour; every announcement of a new activity from the timetable was combined with muddled flicking through notebooks.

Meanwhile, in the background, Reactor could be seen ushering people through a door, followed by disconcerting bangs and screams; and moving scary-looking objects that seemed destined for use in violence and intimidation. Finally they shepherded us into a room, built up the terror by filling the room with smoke, and eventually let us escape into the street through a window.

Gratuitous non sequitur to be used as a quote: Lies, confusion and shouting - some of my favourite media.

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