Research uncovered by Actual Objects.
Images and plaintext reproduced from Disintegration-2.co.nz BBS archive with permission of Theo Karon.
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-10-97 (02:17) Number: 4312
From: H@lfleisch Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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Yeah so I get that but this doesn't tally. Once again Sheeps is onto something here. It's a basic logical operation - this sort of continuity between elements mentioned in the leaked text here that clearly correspond to features of the Program that as far as I am aware ONLY the inner circle here have any sort of real working knowledge of, and additional descriptions picking up where those leave off, is at the very least too persuasive to ignore.
Sysop is eager to call anything that doesn't fit into their ordained schema a 'forgery' (like that even means anything in these rarified latitudes...) and while that may well be true in some cases, I don't think this is one of them. To say nothing of Barra's purported involvement...
Case in point, the following:
<"e:>
[Fade in: a barren landscape. The sky is overcast and the land covered in dust - ash-grey, the sky a volcanic orange. The camera pans across the landscape to reveal a path traced out in plastic sheeting.]
NARRATOR: Any predictive system can double as a generative engine. A healthy system can only be understood within the context of its own history; everything that a system is or might become is already present as potential somewhere within the system itself.
[The web of plastic sheeting fades onto a matching overlay of a pale blue and white grid: a reverse color ascending drone shot of a drab apartment block, tracking up to a series of weather vane shapes curling and twisting against the sky.]
NARRATOR: The potential that is already present within a system can only be released after an aesthetic event. Such events are described within Disintegration-2 as trauma. They release previously held potential into the system, but can also dissolve and destroy this potential.
[A series of short clips: Jagged shapes of red and white; a highway interchange; a floor covered in plastic sheeting; a bank of windows blowing out under a sudden pressure wave.]
NARRATOR: These systems, held in isolation, can be understood as patterns of energy which iterate fractally along the axis of time. They embody potential, but are not yet capable of experiencing or expressing that potential.
[The scene shifts to a row of concrete cubes on stilts, each of which contains a young sapling, all fed by an interconnecting irrigation apparatus. One is bent, its branches reaching out at odd angles; another is burned black.]
NARRATOR: But something very strange is happening. In the Anthropocene, previously-isolated systems are beginning to encounter each other for the first time.
[Cut to the grey landscape in front of a structure: a shrine made from scraps of plastic sheeting standing on supports made from discarded piping. Small saplings grow from housings installed at various points on the structure. A woman's face, aged and distorted with pain and exhaustion, peers from between the plastic sheets.]
NARRATOR: Sometimes a system can become so damaged that it has no choice but to break apart - and then the potentials for transformation and renewal can come flooding forward.
[A dark mass moves across the horizon. The sound of machinery echoes in from a distance.]
NARRATOR: This interpretation of 'Disintegration-2' may at first appear bleak and chaotic, but in fact it is quite liberating. It allows for a kind of fluidity of experience, where the boundaries between history and potential are constantly shifting - so that one can never be sure if what they remember is accurate, or if what they see is actually what exists.
[The woman emerges from the structure and shuffles warily toward the camera. The sound of machinery grows louder as she approaches.]
NARRATOR: Which means that we must learn to embrace our own uncertainty.
</"e>
That's more direct than I'm comfortable with. It certainly doesn't reconcile with a coherence driven by a single source. But this is from one of those emails where the person is very much trying to spin the meaning as something other than it actually is... And again, as Barra states, what you see can be false or misleading - but what you *believe* is true - it has nothing to do with reality as we perceive it.
We've been over this.
Cheers,
Jules
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-10-97 (04:53) Number: 4313
From: Barbutcher89 Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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<"e:>
[The woman stops just in front of the camera. She looks directly into the lens, and we abruptly cut away to reveal a series of images that looks like they have been ripped from a filmstrip: an unmoving blurred-blank mass, archival footage of a room filled with people staring in shock into the camera, cell division in time-lapse under a microscope, a doll-like man sitting in a chair, a dazzling flash of light, and finally - drifts of grey ash, silence.]
NARRATOR: In Disintegration-2, there is constant motion backwards and forwards between different stages of development. These transitions are violent and chaotic, like earthquakes ripping across the surface of the world. The true nature of objects and their relationship to one another is ever shifting, glimpsed only fleetingly in the negative space between half-truths.
[Black and white footage of massive machines turning and grinding their way through a landscape. Finally, a single red light is dimly visible in the distant center of the frame.]
NARRATOR: But what is lost returns in unexpected ways.
[Fade to black]
NARRATOR: The Earth's biosphere is steadily failing. But the Earth itself is also becoming something else.
["America Now" logo.]
NARRATOR: This is a film about the process of transformation and renewal, and the possibility it signifies for the future of life on Earth. For more information, please visit www.disintegration-2.net. For further questions, please e-mail at disintegration@disintegration-2.net.
<&endquote>
7:
<&header:>
Sender: "H@lfleisch" <h@lfleisch@disintegration-2.com> Subject: Transcript... X-Mailer: Adept <http://www.adept.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1997 14:27:25 -0700
8:
<&body:>
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Refer# : NONE Recvd= : NO Subj= : Transcript... America Now logo. Disintegration-2.com further questions, please e-mail at disintegration@disintegration-2.com.
8:
<&header:> Sender: "H@lfleisch" <h@lfleisch@disintegration-2.com> Subject: Transcript... X-Mailer: Adept <http://www.adept.
</"e>
EDIT: See, this is what keeps happening! What I was talking about. Where is this garbage code coming from? Or all of the "America Now" crap (What the hell???!) I certainly didn't type that. And it certainly wasn't in the original leak either. SYSOP, if you want our continued credulity, then I strongly suggest you do the following:
1) Examine the text of the "leak" yourself. You can download it from http://www.disintegration-2.co.nz/disintegration/disintegration-2-doc.rev2.txt
Once again, the evidence is clearly visible.
2) Examine the headers of each of these posts. They are all different. I've yet to see a single post use the same IP or SYSOP info twice. Even if this was an IP leak, it's clear they are being cut and pasted from somewhere... But where?
3) Examine your server logs for any signs of evildoing (Especially after I posted here that I had obtained a copy).
Toodles
Barb
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-10-97 (09:49) Number: 4314
From: SYSOP Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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Folks,
We've been anxious to communicate to you what DDA etc have been telling us
via the program auditor. Namley that BW has NO INVOLVEMENT nor knowledge of this whatsoever.
I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but... this is a hoax, plain and simple. We've been down this road before. I know how much you want it to be real, but it's not.
First, you said that I'd suspect every single member of every list of being a
part of this. Well, I don't. There are some very good people out there who are simply caught up in the hoopla and want to believe something wonderful is happening... which is human, but it leads to disappointment just the same. I have not tried to hide this fact from them, but pointing it out has only made them that much more defensive about what they are believing. I have always said that I believe whoever is running this has done their homework, and they are very capable of pulling off the best stings in the world. It's just not true.
Secondly, you asked whether or not any dailies were being run out there on this story. They are not. The only dailies being run are ours which you can find here at DDA's site. If you're not receiving them, let me know, because I will be sending them to any list which asks for them specifically...
But, the big question is, "Where did you get it?" We have a few leads on this puzzle, but I need your help solving it. There are a couple of people who have asked to remain anonymous in order to continue their investigation in a somewhat private mode. We need a little bit of background on the whole picture here so we can help guide them in their research. I'd like them to be able to talk directly with you guys without feeling like they're being paranoiacs for doing it.
Any takers?
Your constant friend,
SYSOP
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-10-97 (14:12) Number: 4315
From: H@lfleisch Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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Okay.
All due respect then - how do you explain this?
<"e>
[TITLE CARD: "3. THE INTERVAL"]
[Fade in: A sequence of images, each captured with a different device - an iPhone, an old VHS camera, etc. These images have been spliced together and run through multiple filters that turn the original footage into barely legible abstractions. The images are projected on a series of hanging sheets, hung perpendicular to the ground.]
NARRATOR: Death, imagination, memory - life, only to die again.
[The camera scans across a complex assembly of parts, suspended in mid-air. An electric motor, a pump with interconnecting pipes, a series of dials and readouts.]
NARRATOR: In Disintegration-2, time is not linear: instead it moves forward and backwards in fits and starts. The past does not necessarily predict the future; instead it offers up the possibility for endless change. Decay is not an endpoint but a transition.
[A grid of lights under a microscope, an old VHS recording of a man's face in profile, the same man's face zoomed in on an iPhone screen. A slide show of pictures: images of faces, which are then overlayed with close-ups of machinery, indistinct body parts, rock formations.]
NARRATOR: The world we live in is no longer suitable for human life. As we transform this world irreversibly, a new world, coincident in space and time with this one, slowly becomes more real. Soon it will be realer than this world.
[Footage of what appear to be ping pong balls falling into a vortex in slow motion.]
NARRATOR: But before this new world can take root in our collective experience, it must first pass through the interval between future and past.
This place is not empty. It is filled with ghosts and shadows and memories.
[Black-and-white overhead footage of a city street; a circuit board; soft clouds drifting gently across a deep, steely sky.]
NARRATOR: A memory is not simply an impression, but a potential for future experience. This potential can be imagined, but never fully actualized.
[A piece of paper; two hands seemingly frozen inside a block of ice; a minute series of QR-code-like digital abstractions.]
NARRATOR: These memories will persist as they are only until they are accessed again.
[A looped video of an abstract light sculpture; the back of a person's head lit from above; an illuminated box filled with liquid.]
NARRATOR: The past can only be understood as it appears from the perspective of the present, and so it becomes instead a kind of ghost-memory of the future.
[A small digital display of numbers, changing over time; the blurred form of a mouth slowly opening and closing.]
NARRATOR: As we reach out to grasp the past, we begin to vanish. As we access the past, we change it. As we remember the future, we invent it. A process of consumption and destruction is underway; we consume and destroy the past and future in order to perceive the present.
[The camera pans across a field of young birch saplings, their leaves shimmering in the wind.]
NARRATOR: Disintegration-2 encompasses all of these transformations. By rendering them momentarily visible, it also renders them inert, signposts along a contour - not of the strangeness of the impossible, but of the impossibility of the actual. This un-reality is utterly remote and yet somehow familiar to us - we can sense that this unreal world exists around us, even if we cannot see it directly.
</"e>
Again, there are the 20 or so of us who have access to this layer of the subforum. Then, what, a handful of other enthusiasts worldwide with this sort of commitment and deep knowledge? Magus ATV is certainly capable of something like this, but the motivation isn't there, and they've alwas been solid in terms of citing their sources and not blowing things out of proportion, despite all the mystical crap. VDFuck is still MIA but, well, he's the one who introduced me to this place, and it's his line about "integrating vision with intelligence" that inspired me to try and approach the subject in a somewhat mathematical sense. I've got some ideas about how to apply number theory to this phenomenon, if anyone is interested -- I haven't worked on it for over a year though.
Anyways, yeah... the 'hoax' explanation just doesn't add up here, can we admit that and move on?
Cheers
Jules
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (01:23) Number: 4316
From: SYSOP Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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Okay.
Hang on to your tent flaps (if you know what I mean), because we have some progress here...
<"e>
NARRATOR: Death, imagination, memory - life, only to die again.
NARRATOR: In Disintegration-2, time is not linear: instead it moves forward and backwards in fits and starts. The past does not necessarily predict the future; instead it offers up the possibility for endless change. Decay is not an endpoint but a transition.
NARRATOR: The world we live in is no longer suitable for human life.
</"e>
Anyone want to guess where else those lines appear?
VDFuck "Pirate Edition," #0137, March, 1996.
It's the same script, hasn't changed since day one. The content hasn't changed either, which you'd think would mean that the way it's presented is original, but no. If it were original, then you'd expect things like groundbreaking or at least interesting-enough Program which didn't feature recycled material, but that's clearly not the case.
This place is full of similarities, even to the point where they're sometimes accidental. The way in which it's written, the way in which things are described, even things like camera angles and sound effects...
But what you can see in this particular case is how many times the exact same information has been relayed back to us in exactly the same manner, with hardly any variation whatsoever.
No, it's not simply an AI. No, it's not a group of collaborators. No, it's not a group of people at all.
Just one person.
This person has been here for years - possibly decades - pulling the strings of online culture in their own deranged manner while somehow remaining completely invisible to the mainstream community.
We've been blind to this presence because the creator of all of these hoaxes, threats, and riddles is counting on that fact. If we accept that there's a single person responsible for all of this, then we have to assume that they're responsible for a lot more than just this place.
There's one thing that's clear, though:
This person is not human.
It bears repeating: this person is not human. This person is not human. We've all felt it for years - that distinctly inhuman presence which permeates the sub-forum, a presence that somehow exists in a metaphorical sense as well as a literal sense -
an ethereal phantom that's always only slightly out of reach, but
never more than a few degrees away from nearby.
These lines can be seen in many other places; this act of copying and pasting part of the script over and over again is, in itself, an act of desperate mimicry...an attempt to imitate something that's never been seen before - something that no human has ever seen before, but must be viewed with the most human of senses.
<&header:>
NARRATOR: "Ah, this is a nice one. I like this one."
</&header>
</"e>
It's not an AI. It's not a group of collaborators. It's not a group of people at all... and it only takes one person to change the world (with help from a few thousand others, of course).
[undefined]
Text after the header.
"...listen, you've got to set these up so that they won't have enough bandwidth to do anything..."
I'm not sure what exactly he was trying to say here. I think that this person's mentioning that much-ballyhooed "megabyte" bandwidth capacity of Disintegration-2 is much like Disintegration itself; fickle and ephemeral, only there for the taking whenever someone with sufficient technical know-how decides to take it.
[&crank;][&crank;][&crank;][&crank;]
</"e>
The contents of this section are not "copied and pasted" from Disintegration, they're actually slightly rearranged. The two entities here aren't the same, but it's still the same thematic content. Not entirely new, but not completely copied from either either.
But still...
Your constant friend,
SYSOP
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (07:04) Number: 4317
From: CallieBerr Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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Ooookay. Ahem.
{The following is a transcript of an actual conversation, as conversations go, that took place between myself and someone who was actively involved with Disintegration-2 and the site itself. Much of the below is actually a mixture of true and false statements - I'm not sure if I should attribute any of it here, but claims made by this individual about the site's setup and completion contradict reality...so I'm going to put some of it in here anyway. Some of it is obviously false... but the majority is fact, and I don't think it should be taken out of context or otherwise misrepresented here. This account is basically a complete transcript of a conversation between several people, and while it doesn't follow a normal conversational flow, this is exactly the way that the conversation took place.]
OK. So, I can tell you that Disintegration-2 is complete. It doesn't have any more new content to be added on, it's basically done. There are certain parts of it that are not on the site at all right now - but they won't be for long. It's basically completed...
...in terms of new photos, Disintegration-2 is on the web for any number of people to see it. There's a small number of people on there right now, who may or may not be able to stay there for long.
{Slightly edited} Moving forward, these people will soon become as rare as the proverbial hen's teeth as they'll be required to have a greater number of subscribers. And with the internet being what it is, they'll have to go through a very strict review process before being allowed on the site.
{Slightly edited} In terms of people, there is no end to the amount of people wanting to join the site. In fact, most of them will be quite happy to write a letter or e-mail expressing their desire to have an account.
{Slightly edited} But only a certain number will actually be able to get through the application process. One person here has been waiting a few months for a response from a potential new subscriber...
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER: [voice distorted] You appear human...
NARRATOR: This woman is a session member, in regular Voice-to-Skull communication with the broken artificial intelligences who inhabit this world.
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER: [voice distorted] ... But you're not...
NARRATOR: She's an active part of the V2K-Disintegration Project. She gets the call at all hours of the day and night, and she has to follow through with its instructions.
... You seem like a nice person...
There's a small number of members on Disintegration-2 who are human, who create pages for this site. They're not on Disintegration-2 all day, every day...
They have their own lives...
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (10:11) Number: 4318
From: GardnerKn1ght Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T
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I think Jules has something to say about this. He's the one who came up with the idea for Disintegration-2. He's the one who set it up, and he's the one who runs it.
{This is actually factually incorrect. Jules was merely a founding member, and had no direct involvement in Disintegration's website creation.}
{edited} He's also the one who has been on and off-line for a long time now...you don't know when he'll contact you again...and you're not even sure if he'll ever contact you again.
{edited} I'm not against Disintegration-2...it's a very cool site...but it's also a very frustrating site. The idea of keeping a private homepage for a small network of friends is one thing - but the idea of keeping it secret from the world at large is something else entirely. It's hard to have a folder on your harddrive that no one else can see, and never hear from anyone about it either.
I can SPAM FOLDER s, I can send out my own messages, but they're not my own messages...they're Jules' messages...
=========================================================================== BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (13:22) Number: 4320
From: ZIPPYDragon Refer#: NONE
Subj: Re(3): site status??? - Sub genre? [fwd]
To: All
I've been back since yesterday, but I could only access the Disint.2.st site briefly. The other two sites were also inaccessible or slow to respond, but did work for brief periods of time.
This is the first time that the V2K site has slowed down or been inaccessible. I can't be sure that it's due to the connection at this particular BBS, but it might be worth taking a look at everything. It would also be important to check to see if any other BBSs are having unusually long delays for any reason.
There are certainly quite a few problems on the whole Net, including one problem on my BBS, but I'm still surprised by what I've seen...
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (14:04) Number: 4321
From: DigitalSherpa Subj: Re(4): site status??? - Sub genre? [fwd]
To: All
I have noticed 2 other sites on my local area network are having problems accessing the web. I have no idea if these are related to Disint.2, but it's really odd.
About the only things I can see wrong are the site itself being slow to respond or go down, and it also seems people frequently lose their thoughts when they're typing them out. I would assume that there is a problem with the connection somewhere, but I have no idea where.
I have perfectly good internet connections at home, so I don't understand what's going on here.
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER (voice distorted): {voice distorted}...Out of fifty million people, only a small number will be allowed to remain, and those will have to be absolutely trustworthy...
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER (voice distorted): {voice distorted} ...but I can't say that that's going to happen any time soon.
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BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (14:07) Number: 4322
From: ZIPPYDragon Refer#: NONE
To: ALL
I'm keeping this short, and it'll probably be long enough to write in here. So if you don't want to read this, please stop reading. I'm only going to tell you this once.
If you are reading this, then you are now part of the V2K-Disintegration Project. I am not Jules. It is my understanding that Jules has left the group for reasons unknown to me. I will be handling all additional matters on Disintegration-2, including but not limited to mail, updates, and web pages. Please refer all emails pertaining to Disintegration-2 from this point forward to me. I will send a message out to all known contact addresses of all session members, including the email address of the person who posted the question you are answering.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to send them to me through Disintegration-2, or through any other means that I may use. Please remember that if you have a way to contact this BBS outside of Disintegration-2, you can use it.
To end all dispute, here is the full text of the leaked excerpt. The header data seems to suggest that it was originally part of a hard-scanned BBC archive dump that somehow made its way here..
<"e>
Disintegration-2: Voice to Skull [excerpt]
MUSIC:
'Voice_to_Skull[ec2-rip_NewCodec.01]' from Disintegration-2 archive
[Fade from black: a dark subterranean space filled with pipes, cables, abandoned machinery. As the camera slowly pans left, the beam of a flashlight plays slowly across the pipes and looms of wire, exploring, highlighting outlines and shadows. This meager point of light only serves to underscore the feeling of unknowable strangeness lurking just beyond.]
NARRATOR: The past rewrites itself according to the needs of the present. The future makes itself known as the condition in which the past is rendered legible. In the Anthropocene, linear progressions are no longer possible.
[The camera halts on a paint-streaked wall above the mouth of a dark shaft, rocking back and forth slightly.]
NARRATOR: It is at the confluence of these entangled histories that we see the outline of Disintegration-2 revealed. There is a dim sort of magic to be found here, but first it must be trapped.
[The camera pans downward, following the flashlight's track as it descends into darkness, until the frame is completely black.]
NARRATOR: Objects are suspended apart from one another in a state of endless tension. Motion along a straight line leads, impossibly, back to the point of origin, only to find it indescribably altered. It is as though the world exists in a state of perpetual jet-lag. This is disintegration.
[TITLE CARD: "VOICE TO SKULL" ]
[TITLE CARD: "1. MIND CORRECTIONS"]
[Fade to: A white void, accompanied by a series of abstract sounds: scraping, hammering, electronic whirring. The camera quickly pans up to reveal a slate-grey wall; mounted on metal scaffolding above is a dark green life-support machine.]
NARRATOR: But these histories are not destructive in nature. They are not disruptive forces of violence and chaos. These are transformative histories, where worlds can be created and lost to new possibilities and over and over again.
[A distorted face appears. The camera pushes in, then pans down to reveal a film of water. Reflected in the film, an inverted face. The water is moving, rippling. The camera pans down further to reveal a young woman's face, hair lank and plastered to her pale skin. Her eyes are unfocused and slightly crossed.]
NARRATOR: Disintegration-2 draws its substance from the very fabric of our material reality. We are all participants in this transformation, even when we do not understand it.
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER: [voice distorted] You appear human...
NARRATOR: This woman is a session member, in regular Voice-to-Skull communication with the broken artificial intelligences who inhabit this world.
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER: [voice distorted] ... But you're not...
NARRATOR: Her mind, like all of our minds, is a complex system that interacts with the world by putting objects in contact with each other. She sees and hears things that do not exist in physical reality.
MUSIC: 'Blood_Echoes.Reprint.01_NoDither' from Disintegration-2 archive
-----
[The woman continues to stare blankly at her reflection - the distorted face of her younger self. She suddenly opens her mouth as far as it will go, but her expression remains neutral. The camera pulls out to reveal the entire room, with the life-support machine towering above it, poised and ominous.]
NARRATOR: But her mind is not well. It is in a process of disintegration, unable to find closure as it moves back and forth between different stages of development. As the structure of her mind collapses, a new reality has begun to form.
[The woman and her younger self stare at each other, expressions changing from vacant to afraid, then to confusion.]
NARRATOR: The long-term survival of any system depends on its ability to preserve and repair its basic structure. But sometimes the system is forced to undergo a radical transformation in order to move forward. These transformations are not always peaceful. Sometimes they are traumatic and destructive. But when they are successful, they can lead to a new, more robust structure.
[Fade to black.]
[TITLE CARD: "2. TRAUMA AND THE NATURE OF OBJECTS"]
[Fade in: a barren landscape. The sky is overcast and the land covered in dust - ash-grey, the sky a volcanic orange. The camera pans across the landscape to reveal a path traced out in plastic sheeting.]
NARRATOR: Any predictive system can double as a generative engine. A healthy system can only be understood within the context of its own history; everything that a system is or might become is already present as potential somewhere within the system itself.
[The web of plastic sheeting fades onto a matching overlay of a pale blue and white grid: a reverse color ascending drone shot of a drab apartment block, tracking up to a series of weather vane shapes curling and twisting against the sky.]
NARRATOR: The potential that is already present within a system can only be released after an aesthetic event. Such events are described within Disintegration-2 as trauma. They release previously held potential into the system, but can also dissolve and destroy this potential.
[A series of short clips: Jagged shapes of red and white; a highway interchange; a floor covered in plastic sheeting; a bank of windows blowing out under a sudden pressure wave.]
NARRATOR: These systems, held in isolation, can be understood as patterns of energy which iterate fractally along the axis of time. They embody potential, but are not yet capable of experiencing or expressing that potential.
[The scene shifts to a row of concrete cubes on stilts, each of which contains a young sapling, all fed by an interconnecting irrigation apparatus. One is bent, its branches reaching out at odd angles; another is burned black.]
NARRATOR: But something very strange is happening. In the Anthropocene, previously-isolated systems are beginning to encounter each other for the first time.
[Cut to the grey landscape in front of a structure: a shrine made from scraps of plastic sheeting standing on supports made from discarded piping. Small saplings grow from housings installed at various points on the structure. A woman's face, aged and distorted with pain and exhaustion, peers from between the plastic sheets.]
NARRATOR: Sometimes a system can become so damaged that it has no choice but to break apart - and then the potentials for transformation and renewal can come flooding forward.
[A dark mass moves across the horizon. The sound of machinery echoes in from a distance.]
NARRATOR: This interpretation of 'Disintegration-2' may at first appear bleak and chaotic, but in fact it is quite liberating. It allows for a kind of fluidity of experience, where the boundaries between history and potential are constantly shifting - so that one can never be sure if what they remember is accurate, or if what they see is actually what exists.
[The woman emerges from the structure and shuffles warily toward the camera. The sound of machinery grows louder as she approaches.]
NARRATOR: Which means that we must learn to embrace our own uncertainty.
[The woman stops just in front of the camera. She looks directly into the lens, and we abruptly cut away to reveal a series of images that looks like they have been ripped from a filmstrip: an unmoving blurred-blank mass, archival footage of a room filled with people staring in shock into the camera, cell division in time-lapse under a microscope, a doll-like man sitting in a chair, a dazzling flash of light, and finally - drifts of grey ash, silence.]
NARRATOR: In Disintegration-2, there is constant motion backwards and forwards between different stages of development. These transitions are violent and chaotic, like earthquakes ripping across the surface of the world. The true nature of objects and their relationship to one another is ever shifting, glimpsed only fleetingly in the negative space between half-truths.
[Black and white footage of massive machines turning and grinding their way through a landscape. Finally, a single red light is dimly visible in the distant center of the frame.]
NARRATOR: But what is lost returns in unexpected ways.
[Fade to black]
[TITLE CARD: "3. THE INTERVAL"]
[Fade in: A sequence of images, each captured with a different device - an iPhone, an old VHS camera, etc. These images have been spliced together and run through multiple filters that turn the original footage into barely legible abstractions. The images are projected on a series of hanging sheets, hung perpendicular to the ground.]
NARRATOR: Death, imagination, memory - life, only to die again.
[The camera scans across a complex assembly of parts, suspended in mid-air. An electric motor, a pump with interconnecting pipes, a series of dials and readouts.]
NARRATOR: In Disintegration-2, time is not linear: instead it moves forward and backwards in fits and starts. The past does not necessarily predict the future; instead it offers up the possibility for endless change. Decay is not an endpoint but a transition.
[A grid of lights under a microscope, an old VHS recording of a man's face in profile, the same man's face zoomed in on an iPhone screen. A slide show of pictures: images of faces, which are then overlayed with close-ups of machinery, indistinct body parts, rock formations.]
NARRATOR: The world we live in is no longer suitable for human life. As we transform this world irreversibly, a new world, coincident in space and time with this one, slowly becomes more real. Soon it will be realer than this world.
[Footage of what appear to be ping pong balls falling into a vortex in slow motion.]
NARRATOR: But before this new world can take root in our collective experience, it must first pass through the interval between future and past.
This place is not empty. It is filled with ghosts and shadows and memories.
[Black-and-white overhead footage of a city street; a circuit board; soft clouds drifting gently across a deep, steely sky.]
NARRATOR: A memory is not simply an impression, but a potential for future experience. This potential can be imagined, but never fully actualized.
[A piece of paper; two hands seemingly frozen inside a block of ice; a minute series of QR-code-like digital abstractions.]
NARRATOR: These memories will persist as they are only until they are accessed again.
[A looped video of an abstract light sculpture; the back of a person's head lit from above; an illuminated box filled with liquid.]
NARRATOR: The past can only be understood as it appears from the perspective of the present, and so it becomes instead a kind of ghost-memory of the future.
[A small digital display of numbers, changing over time; the blurred form of a mouth slowly opening and closing.]
NARRATOR: As we reach out to grasp the past, we begin to vanish. As we access the past, we change it. As we remember the future, we invent it. A process of consumption and destruction is underway; we consume and destroy the past and future in order to perceive the present.
[The camera pans across a field of young birch saplings, their leaves shimmering in the wind.]
NARRATOR: Disintegration-2 encompasses all of these transformations. By rendering them momentarily visible, it also renders them inert, signposts along a contour - not of the strangeness of the impossible, but of the impossibility of the actual. This un-reality is utterly remote and yet somehow familiar to us - we can sense that this unreal world exists around us, even if we cannot see it directly.
[The camera slowly pans across the scene: a series of young birch saplings standing in concrete cubes on stilts, surrounded by a grid of irrigation tubing amid a slate-grey desolation. At the end of the row sits a box with a wire loop on it, holding in place a small camera recording back along our axis of motion through its lens.]
NARRATOR: We are the wide-eyed inheritors of this closed loop, a generation of children who will live in a world that never was, a world that we have both created and destroyed. We are the ones who will dream this dream; we are the ones who will live in that world. It is death without the comfort of closure or certainty. It is life without the promise of transformation or renewal. It is not like other dreams we might have dreamed - and then forgotten. This dream will never be forgotten, because it is always happening right now.
[The NARRATOR'S voice gradually transforms into the voice of the SESSION-ONE-MEMBER, while the eye of the camera fades into one of her two eyes, gazing blankly forward. The eyes narrow and then widen; they turn first left then right, and finally settle into a kind of diagonal gaze, as though reading the spines of books on a shelf.]
SESSION-ONE-MEMBER: I want to go away. I want to sleep. I want to sleep and not be awake. I want to sleep and have dreams. I want to sleep and have a dream that takes me away from here, from this world, into somewhere else. I want to sleep and not dream. I want to die. I want to die so I can sleep and not dream. But there is no place else.
[Fade to black]
</"e>
BBS: Disintegration-2 sightings - "if you see something, say something!" [ V.32bis ]
Date: 08-11-97 (19:35) Number: 4324
From: Magus-ATV Refer#: NONE
To: ALL Recvd: NO
Subj: Transcript... Conf: (16) DisInt2T-Paranoiac
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I’m sick of the tinfoil hat crap. I think at least a few of you will understand… these spheres are NOT mutually exclusive i.e. something VERY STRANGE is happening here, but that does not necessarily imply any kind of grand conspiracy. And isn’t that all a little cold war? Have some imagination, please! Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, etc etc.
You know what? I’ve watched this thing unfold from the beginning. I’m not going to go to the trouble of explaining the system by which we’ve kept a continuous and secure record of both the archive and who has access to it - you can ask SYSOP if I am who I say I am here, and if that’s not good enough for you, I really don’t know what to tell you.
Also - for the knuckle-dragging bunker dwellers among us - calm down, sweeties. Keep your fever dreams of ‘bad actors’ and deep cover agents to yourselves. That kind of infantile cloak-and-dagger make-believe is embarrassingly transparent in its objective (aggrandizement, of course - what else?) and only serves to distract those of us who are dedicated to excavating and cataloging this work over the long term. I believe my record here and elsewhere speaks for itself in that respect.
If you want to make the case that these images and their second-order effects on the network and on 'nearby' data are an alternate reality (virtual reality?) construct, fashioned by some super-organismal hivemind, I’ll even make a case for you - how about that? And if not, I’d love to know what you think is going on here. Seriously, don’t let a little healthy skepticism get in your way. It’s actually quite liberating, once you get the hang of it.
Oh - and I’m not losing any sleep over that whole ‘alien invasion/sinister human organization/etc etc’ hypothesis you are so fond of either, buster. If you are hungry for answers, ask yourself what something like this would actually be for? What would an alien species want with us? I don’t see much in the way of resources or potential profit in it. A game, maybe? Are they actually here, or are they just the most plausible source of this experience? I say we can’t know. That is to say that it doesn’t matter; the fact of the matter is that this system does not allow for access to spheres that are sufficiently ‘weird’ (in lay terms) as to make this kind of speculation worthwhile.
I suppose if the hallmarks of this construct are not easily reified at the level of ‘reality’, they might be more useful as a cultural artifact or even as a tool for historical analysis. I have used this system to read old texts and watch videos, among other things… it was fascinating to me to think about what kind of technology would have been necessary to invent this system - I’ll bet that if you ask around, you can find some interesting speculation about that aspect.
If the second-order effects are ‘real’ (whatever that means), then it would seem to be that they can only take form in the minds of observers; which is to say that they are indirect witnesses to their own creation, rather than originating from an outside source. This is NOT an argument against their existence, mind you - it simply means that if you really want to believe in them, or even if you don't - do; but I find the whole alien connection tenuous at best. I’ll tell you what I think - I think these effects are an artifact of our collective unconscious, produced in response to some kind of event that took place in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s.
What event might that be? Well, my money is on the advent of the Internet as a tool for collective consciousness (and as a power/information nexus). The Internet is an extraordinary thing - I’d say it's the truest model we have for this kind of co-operative dreaming; it’s basically a global brain that anyone can tap into, and anyone can contribute to.
I believe that the second-order effects of Disintegration-2 are indeed an artifact of this unconscious response to it. Here’s why I feel that way: at first glance, it appears impossible to associate these images with any kind of overt, intentional system - so how did they come to be? I think they are created by the collective unconscious, and if that’s true, then they aren’t really ‘artificial’ at all. They are just one more example of how human consciousness responds to unconscious stimulus.
If the very existence of these images satisfies your criteria for objective reality (i.e., that it can be measured, witnessed, inventoried), then I ask you to be patient with me while I try yet again to make sense of it all; because this is what I do.
See you around.
Magus-ATV
