March 6, 2016
Aerodynamika @ District Berlin | 03/2016
The musical experience presented as part of Julian Weber's event "Constructing Ruins" at District Berlin....
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Author: agent Paranyushkin
February 15, 2016
in Concepts
Venture Fiction
Venture fiction is the practice of creating enterprises in order to communicate ideas and not the other way around. This distinction is very important because some ideas are created in order to communicate enterprises, which is not at all the case here. In venture fiction, just like in venture capitalism, we invest in various outcomes. However, the objective is not to build capital but to create fiction and let it actualize at every moment of time, in its own, limited realm. The notion of limit is very important, because we want to avoid uncontrollable growth (even of an ideology) as it may bias the system to authoritarian and totalitarian dynamics. Once we create fiction, it may turn into an island of activity, which will then, in turn, transform into something else. Several of these fictions form several islands. Each co-exists with the other in some kind of dynamic interaction. Not always harmony and...
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January 21, 2016
in Concepts
Special Agents and Special Agency
The concept of a Special Agency and of a Special Agent is an homage to Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and whoever else touched upon the notion of "agency" in their work, also security services and special military personnel. The first part, "Special", relates to both "the special that is within you" and also the notion of "species". You are special because you belong to the species, human species, so you are already part of a certain community by default. At the same time, DNA always has slight deviations, and, coupled with epigenetic factors, there are never two absolutely similar individuals, so whatever it is that is special is what makes us different and it is interesting to explore this as well. The second part, "Agency", is a practice of having agency to inscribe imagination into the real and also to act from your own authority in a semi-autonomous way. Too often we don't...
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October 20, 2015
Network Analysis @ Bremen University | 10/2015
In October 2015, I hosted a workshop on network analysis at the University of Bremen in Germany. A group of PhDs and master students were interested to learn more about various applications of graph theory, especially in the field of sociology and text analysis. I presented my work on the dynamics of protest groups and artistic communities showing how there is a correlation between the structure of the community and its ability to mobilize. The groups that are more densely connected are the ones that are more susceptible to fads and to infiltration, but they also have a higher mobilizing force [singularity]. Groups that are less densely connected and have so-called small-world structure (distinct interconnected communities that are somewhat connected on the global level) take slower to mobilize, but they are also more resilient [polysingularity]. Groups that are too centralized may be better controlled but are not resilient and will not...
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August 26, 2015
The Rites of Power @ 3AM | 08/2015
In 2015, I created a video work, The Rites of Power, which was presented later in the year at the 3AM event in Berlin. "Back in the 3797AD, as pre~dicted, humans left a lot of things behind. Some of the more impressive visible structures were the electric power trans~mission lines that used to distribute energy across surface. Survivors of Terra developed a cargo cult, completely self-aware and totally meta-stable, to worship the remnants of those networked structures. They meditated on the magical process of creating magnetically-charged circular movement within the turbines of power stations, producing a motion of electrons through alternating the current, and then transferring them to the most remote destinations to be later converted into light, heat, terabytes of data, and – in some cases – back into fire and movement, again." ...
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May 20, 2015
in Books, Presentations
Way to Russia Guidance @ Motto Books | 05/2015
Nonlinear narrative presentation at Motto Berlin. ...
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January 26, 2015
Local Prophets @ Flutgraben | 01/2015
On the 18th of January 2015, myself and Colin Johnco hosted the very first edition of the Local Prophets — a music / dance event that combined the format of an open jam session with a party. Our idea was to invite a bunch of musicians and have them set up their gear before the event begins. There was a fixed program, but we kept it open: the participants could join somebody else's set if they felt like it. The focus was to not only make music but to also play music and to create an environment where people felt free to share their practices. The event went through several iterations over the period of 3 years. During this time we hosted many artists from Berlin and beyond and — to our pleasure — many of them continued to collaborate after. We always made sure to invite dancers who loved Local...
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December 31, 2014
Divinatorium @ 3AM | 12/2014
In December 2014, we organized the first 3AM event — a regular gathering dedicated to art, performance, contemporary dance, and music. During this first event, myself and Colin Johnco presented a divination system that we developed as well as the theoretical foundations behind it. During our research, we discovered that most divination narratives have a common structure. The elements of the narrative are usually related in such a way, that they form separate clusters, which are distinct from one another and yet are connected globally. This allows the reader to read through the whole structure very quickly and efficiently in only a few iterations. Moreover, no matter where one begins, the structure will be traversed in a very similar way. The final narrative comes across as coherent and relevant because it will always mention several important, but very different topics in a way that makes sense. Based on this approach, we created...
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November 15, 2013
Interviews with Artificial AI @ Beursschouwburg | 10/2013
Interviews with Artificial Artificial Intelligence is a project where I interviewed Amazon's recommender system asking it to provide me with responses to the images I submit. In October 2013, I presented this work as a video installation at Beursschouwburg in Brussels, Belgium. The way the system works is that it receives an image from the customers and sends them a recommended product based on that image. It is powered by algorithms and when the algorithms fail it outsources this task to humans, who are mainly low-paid workers from India and China. On the left are the pictures that were sent, on the right are the products that were received. Over time certain logic emerges, which has a lot to say about the modern capitalism, absence of censorship, and the constant drive towards improvement and growth. Recommender systems, the basic building block of any website today, determine the news we see, the posts we...
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July 25, 2013
Polysingularity Framework @ LIP6 Lab, Paris VI | 06/2013
In June 2013, I was invited to present my work at the LIP6 laboratory of computer science at Paris VI university. I took this opportunity to present the Polysingularity framework that I've been developing for 2 years prior to that, which encompasses the ideas from network sciences and complex systems theory to propose a kind of heuristics that allows for several truths to co-exist at every point of time. During the presentation, I demonstrated how this framework, which was developed as an artistic and philosophical project first, was then implemented into many real-world projects. From text analysis software Textexture, to body practices that we used in performative settings. It was especially interesting to present this work in a scientific context, to the people who work in academia, as it was not the kind of content that was usually presented at Lip6 lab events. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the openness of the...
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