#its worlds colliding for me and i just can't compute it

[lovewilltellamillionstories]

Listening to Gaten's Not While I'm Around from the cast recording.. I'm still trying to wrap my head around Joe Locke doing this.. on Broadway... with Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster.. together.. on stage 🤯

[violetmuses]

Collide - A. Aretas ❤️‍🔥

Title: Collide 

Fandom: “Bad Boys” Film Universe 

Character: Armando Aretas 

Pairing: Armando Aretas + Female Reader

Main Storyline: Joining the Miami Police Department leads to more than what's expected. @yeahnohoneybye

====

2024

“What's up, rookie?” Detective Mike Lowrey stepped forward as you entered this well-known precinct. 

“Stop it.” You laugh this morning while holding another Styrofoam cup. 

“He's joining the team today.” Lowrey didn't even mention names for you to notice the reference. 

Uh-oh. You thought. It's official. 

Handed an opportunity to cut down his time in prison, criminal Armando Aretas would team up with the AMMO squad. 

“I'm keeping my guard up.” You lifted your finger and walked away from Mike, working as a distraction. 

_____

“Be nice. She's a good person.” Mike's voice echoed again and you turned away from the desktop computer, nosey for a moment. 

Wearing black despite facing this heatwave, Armando Aretas showed up. 

Rolling both eyes, this man kept moving forward until he crossed the empty desk that's placed not too far away from you. 

Nothing. Silence. 

You still worked through concentration and remained grateful that awkward small talk hasn't begun yet. 

At least Dorn and Kelly know how to smile during the day. 

This strong yet pleasing cologne reached your nostrils and the fragrance didn't belong to Mike. 

Damn. You quietly lingered in Armando's direction. 

The important gun holster strapped around his waist, but he wore this gold necklace around his neck. 

Short dark hair took style for once as you remembered his mugshots. Even one decent mustache lined as Aretas shadowed this slight beard. 

Turning back near your computer, you knew better than to mess around. Those handsome looks fooled the world just to bring out danger. 

“Hey.” Armando greets you for the first time while accented English caught your attention. “You dropped this pen.” 

“Oh, thanks.” You nodded and slid the pen back into place on your desk, typing more like nothing happened. 

Armando pulled the swivel chair away from his own desk and turned that seat backwards to sit again, resting his arms over while looking at you. 

“What's your name again?” He bit his lip, trying to capture your interest through charm. 

Unphased, you still tried ignoring Armando, but the cologne peeked its fragrance once more. 

Saving your work for a moment, you faced this man just to acknowledge his presence. 

“Excuse me for not fawning over you. I prefer guys with clean records.” You told the truth. 

“You're a cop. Nobody here runs without problems, all right?” Armando keeps going, but you can't argue in public. "Bonita perra."

After living in Miami for years, you knew exactly what this smart-ass grumbled while organizing his desk.  

Armando Aretas just called you a pretty bitch under his breath. 

Rather than make a scene, you quickly text Mike for action: 

Mike, talk to your son before I slap the taste out of his mouth! 🤬

______

“C'mere right now. ” Mike cornered both of you near his office. “What did you say?”

“We were talking and she doesn't favor my criminal record, so I said that cops aren't perfect either. Then  - Bonita perra.” Armando explained. 

“So you called a bitch for not trusting everything right away? C'mon, man.” Mike shook his head through disappointment. “Apologize.”

“I'm sorry.” Armando seemed genuine this time around. 

“If this team thing is going to work, watch your mouth.” You warned Aretas and stepped out of the room. 

Armando turned his head, observing how you walked away. 

“Uh-uh!” Mike realized the gesture and caught his son peeking at your curves. “We just talked about this.” 

“She's fine. What am I supposed to do?” Armando stopped himself from laughing. 

“Never stare. Makes you look like a creep.” Mike corrected his son. 

“Okay.” Slyly taking Mike's gum, Armando pocketed the candy before leaving to see you again. 

“Hey!” Lowrey realized, just able to laugh and roll both eyes for a second. 

____

Missions wouldn't take place yet. Mike wanted to see how you and Armando would fare through lunch first. 

Seated at this local restaurant, you're placed across from Lowrey and his longtime partner Marcus Burnett. Armando perched nearby. 

“Don't fight again.” Mike warned you and Armando once drinks reached the table. 

“I'm innocent.” You lifted both hands while facing Mike. 

When meals settled for everyone, silverware clanked. 

“So weird. She's never this quiet.” Marcus acknowledged your silence at the table. 

“Food is her distraction, remember?” Mike whispered. 

“I know.” Mike sighed and looked toward Marcus again. 

“What did Armando call her? I missed the battle this morning.” Marcus was late to your argument at their station. 

“A Bonita perra.” Mike then rolled his eyes once more.  

“Pretty bitch.” Marcus shook his head while repeating the term in English. “Armando's fresh just like you.” 

“Told him already.” Mike drank water. “Caught this fool watching her walk away, too.” 

“He's been stuck in prison for years.” Marcus continued whispering. “Not saying it's right, but at least they ain't fucking.” 

Mike glanced over to see you and Armando listening to everything! 

“Oh, shit! My bad.” Marcus immediately realized his screw-up. 

“I wouldn't mind, though.” Armando winked toward you as Mike nearly cringed.

Marcus shrugged and covered the bill to leave with this group. 

______

The very first case that you would solve together detailed an absolute nightmare. 

Law enforcement agencies claimed that Conrad Howard muddled with the cartel for years. 

Yet, Lowrey and Burnett wanted to prove Cap’s innocence as soon as possible, refusing such a terrible lie. 

“Cap was framed.” You realize, looking over info as AMMO tech genius Dorn loaded virtual screens for that mission. 

“James McGrath: Former Army Ranger turned DEA agent. Tortured before joining the cartel himself.” Dorn pointed out several highlights.  

“Let's go.” You stand up to move and capture this monster, but Armando catches your wrist and locks eye contact. 

Everyone working for the AMMO squad freezes, ready to protect you. 

“Nothing goes forward without me.” Armando put his foot down.  

“Help us out, then.” You pull yourself away from this man. 

The process dragged already. 

_____

"Eres tan terco.” Calling you stubborn in Spanish, Armando found the back seat as Mike continued driving. Marcus took his passenger space again. 

“Maybe if you hadn't disrespected me this morning, I'd feel better.” You defended yourself. 

“Let it go, Spark! He apologized.” For once, Mike almost yelled from the driver's seat and brought up one of your nicknames. 

Given no other choice, you shut up and awaited this drop on McGarth. 

_______

Henchmen for McGarth frequented one of the nightclubs located downtown, so this AMMO squad dressed among Miami's finest patrons. 

“Let's pretend to be a couple. It'll keep people distracted.” Armando looped his sleeved arm around your shoulder. 

“Uh-huh.” Facing Armando, you played along for this mission. Mike and Marcus chatted with the suits lurking upstairs in that VIP section. 

“All jokes aside, you're beautiful and I really do apologize for what happened.” Armando whispered between flashing spotlights. 

“Thank you.” This true smile reached your own face. Battling wouldn't fix anything. 

“Call me?” Armando beamed close to your ear, bridging the gap of reality and fiction once more.

“Okay.”  You laugh, tickled when scuff reaching his slight beard touches your cheek. 

Brave, you reach and hold Armando's face with both hands, still amused on the dance floor. 

Just as your favorite song echoed from one of these South Beach DJs, gunshots rang out. 

On instinct, you duck with Armando and clutched his hand, no longer thinking of the mission. 

Survival waits at this forefront now. 

“Get out of there, Spark!” Mike shouted through your veiled earpiece. 

Still holding hands with Armando, you rush outside and hope to find the escape vehicle, but Dorn hasn't pulled up. 

“Shit! Jump one of the vehicles, Armando. You scrambled near one sedan, terrified. 

“C'mon!” Aretas gritted his teeth and tried to score this getaway. 

Bingo! That engine revved to life and hopped this passenger seat, leaving Mike and Marcus in the dust. 

Even your cell phones ring from respective pockets, but you don't care anymore, simply wishing to escape alive. 

_____

In an effort to keep hiding, you take Armando to your apartment. 

“Nice crib.” Despite handling this situation, he compliments your place while glancing around the living room. 

“Thank you.” You removed these heels and finally checked your phone, noticing an immediate text message: 

Mike - We lost McGarth! Lay low and meet up for a new plan tomorrow morning. 

“Dammit!” You tossed your phone across this room, but Armando caught that device in his palm.  

Though not always expressing himself, Armando still wanted to help you. 

“Tomorrow.” Aretas stepped closer to you and put your phone down on the coffee table. “It's one setback, but we'll get ‘em. Kay?”

“You have more faith than me right now.” You said, frustrated. 

“Can't give up. I never have.” Armando continued speaking. 

“Fair enough.” You cleared your throat. “I have a guest room if you want space.”

“I'll take the couch instead.” Aretas declined your offer. “Faster escape.”

“Good point.” You nodded, but settled in your private bedroom. 

____

“I thought you'd stay on the couch.” At least your offered breakfast the next day and caught Armando leaving your guest room this time. 

“I took a shower in your guest room and fell asleep.” Aretas hid one smile. 

You'd quietly noticed that Armando wore this tank top underneath the dark outfit from last night. His gun holster returned and veiled near black pants. 

“We might as well eat something.” You gestured at the kitchen table and sat down with him, trying to accept this calm before the storm. 

______

Jackpot!

McGarth lurked with his crew from an old alligator theme park. 

“Shit!” Armando whispered past his moment to swear as you moved through spots from enclosed water.  

“What?” You gently questioned him and still raised your weapon. 

This echoing growl caught your senses and truth slammed down: Real alligators shadowed, too. 

“Don't move.” Armando plans to keep you both alive. 

Just before you could say goodbye to everything, this alligator steered away, moving toward other voices. 

“Spark!” Mike shouted your nickname over the rickety bridge. One large rope dropped down, pulling you and Armando from this water. 

“Where are they?” You breathe after gaining balance with the AMMO squad. 

To make matters even worse during the mission, McGarth kidnapped Howard's daughter Callie and Mike's wife Christine. 

“This way!” Mike called, prompting everyone to run behind him. 

_____

“I need you to trust me.” Another wild fight led the path toward Callie, but Armando nearly bled out, limping as you tried to keep his walk in place. 

“I know, I know, c'mon…” Your heart dropped while Armando clenched through genuine pain for once. 

Mike and Marcus stand with the bruised AMMO squad as this destination looms steps away. 

“I'm here.” Mike promised. Nearly falling against trees, Armando noticed his father, exhausted. 

“Your wife…” Armando struggled.

“We got Christine, man. She's all right now.” Mike told the truth as Christine Lowrey emerged beside Marcus. 

“Freeze, Aretas!” Judy Howard popped from between daylight brushes and planned to kill Armando for revenge. 

“No, Mom! Don't shoot. Armando saved my life. Please!” Callie lifted both hands instead, but you blocked the young girl as well

“Judy, listen.” You just want to negotiate. “I know you're upset right now, but please put this gun down. Enough people died today.” 

McGarth finally dropped through several gunshots and other casualties lined up around the theme park. 

“All of you should get out of here before I change my mind.” Lowering that firearm, Judy Howard discharged this moment and hugged Callie, thanking so much for her daughter's survival  

______

Mike originally planned on sending Aretas back to Mexico, but you had another idea. 

“Where's the ice cream, mami?” Armando left your guest room while shirtless and rooted that fridge again. 

“Stop taking my ice cream.” You quickly roll both eyes and kiss his cheek. 

Safe at last, you could stay together now. 

[mizakikimoto]

I really hate the Internet now, and don't know what to do about it.

Spoilers are constantly being posted everywhere for all sorts of stories, by "fans" and the companies themselves. People are fake as heck, and overuniform memes. There's always something with a million sound effects and quick cuts flashing in your face. There's always an ad being pushed in your face. Websites are basic, and aren't fun to go to anymore. There's a crap ton of censorship. Conversations are arguments now. AI is suggesting how people should finish their sentences, and people probably use the suggestions. The loudest voices are super privileged, and also caught up in this dumb liberal/conservative culture. Everything has to have a star rating or percent or count attached to it for its worth, and you can't even look that thing up without seeing that number. So much is about trying to work with an "algorithm". So much is pushed by it. Et cetera. I can't even watch a YouTube video without suggestions, comments in my peripheral vision.

It's like computers are programming humanity, and we wrote the program. We created this thing to ruin us.

This used to be a sincere, global portal to interact with the world. It used to be full of us. The best of us. Now...it's just a mess.

I just had a part of X-Men 97 spoiled by an artist I followed onlined. I blocked him. He did it so casually.

I remember when I was 18 I was able to experience Watchmen fresh, the movie and comic. No reviews, ratings, images. Not really. I had to seek out spoilers, opinions, dissection. I had the option of not seeing those things.

When the Watchmen TV show came out someone at Collider, I think, ruined a big part. People came after him. He said like "The episode came out days ago. It's your fault if you haven't seen it." I've had that said to me when someone posted a spoiler to Guardians of The Galaxy (the movie) on Tumblr years ago.

But then days, weeks ago an official DC page posted a spoiler about the same thing. Casually. In the name of "engagement", "content".

Nothing has any value. It's just digital noise. Quick consumption and throw away. Nothing settles, sits, affects, changes a person's life.

My plan was to rewatch the old X-Men cartoon, and the rest of the other 90's Marvel cartoons. Then get to X-Men 97 on my own time.

Ever since I started living in Chicago full-time 24 years ago...it's been hell to try to do anything. An extreme. Something a lot of people will never deal with. But shouldn't I be able to experience things on my own time? Shouldn't I have a choice? Why is it forced on me now? Can't I open a book by choice? Why are the pages forced on my eyes now?

And if I avoid the Internet altogether I can't learn about new stuff. I'm out of the loop, as people say.

But the Internet used to be limited, with who used it. It's terrible to say, but it really did get ruined when "everyone" started using it, and bringing thier BS here.

That earlier group of people online were so much better. Very specific.

I don't know what I'm saying.

Y'know...if I could get back to what was stolen from me years ago, I wouldn't have to be online so much. But still...

I don't have Threads or Twitter installed.

I want to get off of this thing. I need to. It didn't used to be this way.

-Chris

[voguingtodanzig]

HONORING LOAD RECORDS WITH 10 CHAOTIC HIGHLIGHTS (2 months ago on Clyrvnt)

By Raymond Cummings

The love affair with Load Records began when a promo disc for Pink & Brown’s Shame Fantasy II materialized in my mailbox: flailing, furious duo punk in a daisy-chaining blatt. This was 2003; by then, Load founders and life partners Ben McOsker and Laura Mullen were already eight or nine years deep into an odyssey of violent, beautiful chaos. For 24 years — beginning in 1993 and concluding earlier this month — the Providence, R.I.-based label provided a megaphone for misfit underground voices from around the world. (Prominent alumni include Men's Recovery Project, White Mice, USAISAMONSTER, Tropical Trash, Burmese, Khanate, Six Finger Satellite, Vaz, White Suns, Timeghost and Clockcleaner.) Every voice was ugly in a different way. From Lightning Bolt’s crushing virtuosity and OvO’s growly, relentless metal to DJ Scotch Egg’s marital, maximalist electronics and Vampire Can't’s pummeling unfathomability, the Load ethos placed a premium on the extreme and the unpredictable. These albums were, for me, a gateway drug; suddenly, there were portals like Freedom From, Narnack, Helicopter and Tone Filth, to say nothing of the many labels — some still vividly in play, others now dearly departed — that emerged in Load’s influential wake.

For his part, McOsker said goodbye on April 10 via a Facebook post. “After 24 years of Load Records, it’s time to move on,” he wrote. “Will be contacting bands to arrange next steps. Thanks for a great ride.” We figured that the best way to say goodbye would be by highlighting a few favorite Load catalog entries.

10. Thee Hydrogen Terrors, Terror, Diplomacy & Public Relations (1996) ‎Providence’s Thee Hydrogen Terrors wound down a brief, impactful career with a boorish, boisterous second LP of semi-maniacal party-punk that remains great fun to drunkenly sing along to at neighbor-antagonizing volumes.

9. Diskaholics, Live in Japan, Vol. 1 (2006) Synthesizer-manipulator Jim O'Rourke, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and guitarist Thurston Moore gently and lovingly lay waste to a Tokyo stage in 2002. The trio dogpiles jabs, crackles, squeals and bleeps, swerving in and out of incidental grooves. Their massed, messy might can come on like a late-spring thunderstorm — the kind that appears to portend some sonic end of days.

8. Nautical Almanac, Rooting for the Microbes (2004) Even if the phrase “no computers or electricity were employed in the music-making process” hadn’t surfaced in its liner notes, Rooting for the Microbes would still be a strange, immersive experience. Here, this now-disbanded Baltimore outfit mashed up facsimiles of shorting circuits, primal-yowl freewheeling, all manner of swollen aural miscellany and insistent mantras into something mind-bendingly stunning, something deeply and inimitably weird. The truth is out there.

7. Air Conditioning, Dead Rails (2007) Distribution centers, Bandcamp pages, and our remaining brick and mortar record stores hardly lack for punishing, confrontational music; a running list of bands, artists, genres and subgenres would swiftly outstrip any phone book or Cerebus edition you’d care to throw at me. Yet, somehow, Dead Rails is (and remains) heavier and more unforgivingly impenetrable than any harsh wall noise cassette or High on Fire bootleg I’ve encountered. Certainly, there’s some swing to Air Conditioning, but that’s overshadowed by how turgid and thick the guitars feel, by the concussive force of guest drummer Sean McGuinness (of Pissed Jeans!), by the oppressiveness on display. Play Dead Rails on headphones, in your car, on a hi-fi, or through laptop speakers — it will hurt you while remaining eternally just shy of complete comprehension.

6. Metalux & John Wiese, Exoteric (2006) Separately, Baltimore’s Metalux and California’s John Wiese have blessed the world with a plethora of fantastic noise forms. Collectively, these three prove absolutely extraordinary; Exoteric stands as a true collaboration, in which Metalux’s surging synths and Wiese’s bit-crushing electronics collide in delirious, kaleidoscopic conflagration.

5. Brainbombs, Singles Compilation (1999) A psychedelic blues stomp verging on sludge-punk informs Sweden’s Brainbombs on Singles Compilation, even as the band’s singer favors a codeine-drenched black metal growl; this is music that lurches and lumbers as an ongoing act of self-sabotage, secure and assured in its own dazzling ugliness. During a brief gym-going phase last year, Compilations was among my treadmill companions — to the consternation of at least one total stranger.

4. Excepter, Throne (2005) Throne found NYC’s Excepter in an early, gloriously amniotic incarnation: synthesizers, karimbas, and vocals droning and looped nearly into infinity. The result was mesmerizing, half-baked, New Age shamanic — as if they’d figured out how to freeze souls into dry-ice cubes, plunked those cubes into a nitrogen cocktail, then stirred that cocktail slooooooooooooowly.

3. Yellow Swans, Psychic Secession (2006) While Psychic Secession marked the moment when Yellow Swans went political and sharpened their caustic din into something beautifully layered — the dense, churning “True Union”; the roaring, stuttered dub of “I Woke Up” — it also doubled as a subterranean-muso world colloquy of sorts. Mainstays Gabriel Mindel Saloman and Peter Swanson welcomed drone-drift alchemists (Christina Carter), lo-fi impressionists (Eva Inca Ore), idiosyncratic noise soloists (Axolotl, Gerritt Wittmer, the Cherry Point) and extreme music producers (Dan Voss) onto their singular ark. The result? Arguably Yellow Swans’ definitive statement.

2. Lightning Bolt, Wonderful Rainbow (2003) For many, Wonderful Rainbow put Load on the map. Heaving somewhere between heavy metal’s crunch and hardcore punk’s velocity, the decimating third LP from this Providence-based duo is from those genres without being fully of either. A double B12 shot mistakenly mixed with jet fuel, Wonderful Rainbow crams a traditional back catalog’s worth of riffs and spasms into each of its 10 tracks. After pressing play, it’s hard — damn hard — to separate yourself from Brian Gibson’s furious basslines, Brian Chippendale’s inhuman drumming and exclamation mark cartoon vocals, or the irrepressible, shredding vortexes that form, here, the most celebrated crux of their creative union.

1. Sightings, Absolutes (2003) Wire intriguingly reviewed Michigan Haters (Psych-O-Path) and Absolutes together; Absolutes was the album available for sale at Baltimore’s Sound Garden, so I started there. Sightings’ industrial-brutal third studio LP sounded like bloody gravel, broken bones, a practice space lost to flames. The NYC trio’s mein felt tribal and distorted. A caveman-like relentlessness — Mark Morgan’s sideswiped yelps, Jon Lockie’s choked beats, Richard Hoffman’s Jiffy Pop bass — pounded desperately, a core pulse perpetually at risk of annihilation: by whirling sheet metal, by strangled-guitar thunder, by helicopters screaming earthbound. I’d never, ever heard anything like Absolutes before. “Where can this music even lead?” I wondered. The answer, clearly, seemed to be “nowhere, motherfucker” — so, naturally, I followed.

[nofomoartworld]

Two Artists Ask, is Virtual Reality Becoming "A Nightmare You Can't Wake Up From?"

Jon Rafman. Poor Magic (Detail), 2017. Single-channel HD Video, Sculptural Installation, Runtime: 8:30min Copyright: Jon Rafman. Courtesy: the artist and Sprüth Magers

Before virtual reality and augmented reality were common, way back in the 50s and 60s, West Coast artist Stan VanDerBeek was breaking ground in immersive experiences with expanded cinema, video, and computer art. His Movie-Drome, with its multiple projections on the inside of a dome, took the idea of cinema and made it into a 360-degree experience of immersive audio and visuals. In a new exhibition at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles, VanDerBeek (who passed away in 1984) is paired with artist Jon Rafman, a modern maker of immersive, expanded realities.

“A starting point of the show was to imagine a time where digital devices, animation and virtual worlds are constant presences,” the show’s curator Johannes Fricke Waldthausen tells The Creators Project. “[Presences with] impact on our identity and how we navigate our lives and our feelings of how we relate to each other.”

Stan VanDerBeek, Movie Mural, 1968,2016-17. Courtesy The Stan VanDerBeek Estate, Sprüth Magers and the Box. Photo, Andrew V. Uroskie

In the exhibition, two figures in the history of immersive media collide. Viewers see how a sense of poetry—often dark, satirical, and occasionally dystopian—finds its way into Rafman’s current and VanDerBeek’s past animated realities. The works on display include 14 framed collage pieces on billboard paper, featuring pastels and watercolors. VanDerBeek’s choice of substrate likely had something to do with Marshall McLuhan’s idea of how printed media (and electronic media like television) impacted individual and collective reality.

“Instagram’s imagery and mood is very virtual, very simulated,” says Waldthausen of VanDerBeek’s framed pieces. “The stills from the works in the show look like Instagram images, like perfected renderings. So it is these two adjunct worlds that do really matter; the digital and screen on the one hand, and our feelings, body-perception and truly creative, human qualities on the other.”

Installation View. Stan VanDerBeek. Photo Robert Wedemeyer Courtesy Sprüth Magers

Another wall features projections of three of VanDerBeek’s 16mm films, here projected in video—Oh!, Astral Man, and Fluids. These animated works feature collage, paints, and psychotropic substances, all designed to draw the viewer into VanDerBeek’s media-saturated simulated realities.

Rafman’s work, also animated and stuffed with various media, shows just how far the sense of immersion has come since the mid-20th century. It also shows how computer-generated animation, which VanDerBeek was interested in, is taking us closer and closer to the uncanny valley.

“I think like anyone what I consumed growing up had a huge influence on me as an individual,” says Rafman. “I played quite a lot of video games and read a lot of science fiction, and I think I pull a lot from those early childhood feelings and profound experiences.”

Jon Rafman, Poor Magic (Detail)

“There is so much capital invested in video games and they’re a big product with so many subtleties, like a sense of lighting with the way it dapples across the grass or leaves,” he adds. “I think that this is a type of mise-en-scène that doesn’t really exist in Hollywood films anymore.”

Rafman searches for images, video clips, and comments on everything from YouTube to Reddit, taking screenshots here and there, but never recording his sources. Some of these materials make their way into his work, while others merely serve as conceptual inspiration. Rafman likes the idea of not remembering where things came from, and also not knowing how it will all ultimately connect.

Installation view of Jon Rafman’s ‘Transdimensional Serpent’

For his new piece, Poor Magic, which is debuting at the exhibition, Rafman used one such found quote in a mesmerizing way. As the video’s opening frames unfold with bluish skeletons moving on a black void, a voice intones atop dark electronic drones, “If you can’t sleep at night it means you’re awake in someone else’s dream.” This quote, which Rafman says is either an ancient Chinese proverb or inspirational meme found on Tumblr, introduces the idea that virtual realities, simulations, and other immersive experiences are akin to dream states.

“The idea for Poor Magic came from imagining almost the worst possible or most distressing scenario of what would happen if the singularity was achieved,” he adds. “For me that would be a world in which we’re all uploaded, where no one can die anymore, and we’re all avatars in a virtual simulation with a computer AI that is infinitely intelligent and controls us forever and ever. So, it’s kind of like a nightmare you can’t wake up from.”

Jon Rafman, Poor Magic (Detail)

Rafman finds shades of this nightmare in our everyday reality. Some might experience it as constant psychological suffering, while others might experience it as a political ideology from which there seems no escape.

Rafman’s other works in the exhibition, Open Heart Warrior and Transdimensional Serpent, feature a similar digital darkness. In Open Heart Warrior, scenes of natural splendor are paired with gruesome human realities of imprisonment and death. And in Transdimensional Serpent, Rafman uses an Oculus Rift to take viewers into a virtual reality experience that defies time and space, with results that are both beautiful and disturbing.

Stan VanDerBeek, Untitled, 1978-83

True, VanDerBeek and Rafman are separated as much by time as by the technology and media they used. But their works show a similar interest in how technology warps reality.

“Today we are surrounded by simulated, animated worlds—we are within them and they are in us, like a dream-state or a non-linear, infinite library, as Jorge Luis Borges would put it,” says Waldthausen. “An automatic world, where the body, the senses and technology are more closely united than ever before. This is only the beginning of A.I. and augmented reality.”

Jon Rafman, Transdimensional Serpent (Detail), 2016. C. Jon Rafman. Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers

Stan VanDerBeek, Fluids (Film Still), 1964. C. The Stan VanDerBeek Estate, Courtesy the Stan VanDerBeek Estatee, Sprüth Magers and the Box

Jon Rafman / Stan VanDerBeek runs through March 4 at Sprüth Magers. 

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