my genesis on @SuperRare and the beginning of a new era

a love letter to the exploration of identity in digital spaces, character creation tools, and how avatars can help us to understand just who we are and who we want to be.

note: this was originally written for Twitter, but documented here for future reference. in the interest of preservation, the tokenID is 1 and the contract number is as follows: 0xc90552531557b5e559e2c148cd0b5a41fda9d2c3

creating art with 80s tech, it’s nearly impossible to move at the light-speed pace of the 2020s. retro tech forces you to log off, slow down, and reflect.

born when y2k and p2p were part of daily life, I’ve been walking the line between digital and analog my whole life. I’ve come to treasure those moments when the flow of time seemingly stops and I’m transported to somewhere else entirely to ponder.

my art style is built around following this feeling. my use of retro screen tech powered by cutting-edge computers is a representation of the future imagined by the past.

while working with tech from the 20th century, I’ve been thinking a lot about how 21st century tech shaped my identity.

when I was a kid, the first videogame I fell in love with was Pokemon Sapphire. when given the choice between the two avatars that could represent me as the player character, I chose May, the girl. I didn’t know why, or care really. it just felt right.

around 2008 I started hanging around gaming forums. I have fond memories of the Pokemon modding scene, where it was common practice to edit or mash up ripped game sprites to make original avatars and characters.

as I got older, games started to ship with much more complex character creation. I wish I still had screenshots of the avatars I created then. my first Saint’s Row 3 character was a goth baddie that looked remarkably similar to my current appearance irl.

through these experiences with the fluidity of identity in virtual spaces, both online and offline, I came to understand how I see myself and why that didn’t line up with what I saw in the mirror as a kid.

I learned that appearance and identity as others perceive you is supposed to reflect personal tastes and the way you see yourself, not exist perpetually in conflict.

this piece intends to capture these experiences as I make the last steps into that person I always was inside. it’s like breaking the final seal of self-actualization; my sense of self has never been more sure and I’ve never felt more connected to those around me.

I’ve gone from discovering myself as a person to channeling the collective consciousness of a hyperconnected society in just a few years.

this piece is the culmination of my past. the same way character creation screens are usually the introduction to a video game, this is the introduction to a new era.

some process stuff: this piece consists of 31 different videos of screens from around 1982 between the oscilloscope vector art and other graphical elements captured from an amber terminal monitor.

any 3D portions are done in Blender, then either converted to vectors for oscilloscope with OsciStudio or sent directly to the analog circuits for glitch work. the text is generated with a 1991 VHS titlemaker.

all of the visual elements are recorded with a mirrorless camera at 30fps to reduce flicker, and then collaged to match the sketch in After Effects and make a 5-second loop that works seamlessly.

the synthwave score uses VST recreations of iconic 80s drum machines and synthesizers, from the 808 to the DX-7, as well as a spacey sliding bassline I wrote and recorded live on an electric bass guitar.

Kate the Cursed and TDC take it to the streets of Miami for aGENDAdao.

This auction will provide up to 2 ETH of direct support to aGENDAdao members at Art Week Miami 2021. All remaining proceeds benefit aGENDAdao.

Half digital display and half performance art itself, the TDC Art Backpack embodies the permissionless and decentralized spirit of cryptoart. As a trans artist, I’ve always had to claim my seat at the table rather than be invited, and this was created from a desire to do just that.

The piece, miami synthesis 2k21, pulls on imagery from fictionalized depictions of 1980s Miami and the zeitgeist of vaporwave aesthetics that emerged from them in the retro revivalism of the 2010s. It was rendered with stereo sound and filmed from an authentic 1980s oscilloscope, then recolored and reduced to 16-color composite CGA.

-- Kate the Cursed

This narrative is a commentary on how we perceive identity as a contemporary society, the pilgrimage and fountain being a direct metaphor for queerness and coming out. There are many communities beyond just the LGBTQ+ that this metaphor could stand for as well, but as this piece is from my perspective, my non-binary identity is the main inspiration.

In our far future, society has melted into obscurity. What left is a feeble interpretation of cultural practices from the past. Now all of humanity, from what encampments have survived, clings to a pilgrimage of identity.

Individual identity is a luxury of those who complete the pilgrimage. Deities have long held the secrets to true freedom and self-expression. The only path to discovery requiring survivors to submerge and baptize themselves in the waters flowing through a sacred fountain. Only once emerged from the fountain, can one perceive their true self and find belonging within the Deities.

I’ve found that once we shed this sense of insecurity and nervousness about how we are perceived by those around us, we join this legion of others that have a sense of freedom and confidence. This transcends my personal anecdote of trans identity and can be held true to many different aspects of the human experience. I encourage any viewer to express yourself and discover who you are beyond the constraints of what is “allowed” by the world we live in.

Guest writer for the Chief of Mischief: Avi900

0nir0 is a narrative shared world where dreamers go on a journey of self-discovery  and self-remembrance to become lucid dreamers. In their oneiric pursuit, they come across Morpheans, sentient beings who gradually became independent from the  consciousness of dreamers, and emerged as natives to 0nir0, the dreams that  would prevail if all dreamers were gone.

0nir0 is currently live as an NFT project.

More details: https://jaen.art/0nir0

Discord: https://discord.gg/D7A923QCqr

September 2021

🌜

The Dreamer woke up in a dream - in an open space, devoid of any place to feel the comfortable and warm embrace of the dark. Soon, a strange bazaar grew up from nowhere, and people started to flock in wildly. The noise seemed to reverberate from everywhere, and no words could be understood. The colours of the scene unapologetically lived their own life, going from dull greys to a crazy chromatic cocktail in waves.

A three-eyed, cat-like creature started to shed its hair, losing its colours along with it. Then, everything became more crowded, blurry, grey, and the undefined echoes filled up the space until there was no room left for any sense.

The Dreamer slimed away from this bloated landscape, finally reaching a small forest. With a sigh of relief, they slowly walked up to a moss-covered tree trunk, which was going through a tranquil chromatic tide of anthracite and purple hues. They sat on it, and found a white and shiny artefact laying on the ground. A wolf-shaped mask.

It wasn’t so much of a mask, though, but rather something like an organ, a face that had been lost ages ago. The Dreamer lost sight of it as they became one.

🌜 You cannot own what you are 🌜

They remembered something intimate, a peculiar taste, a hunger for a comfortable solitude and an adventurous independance. This soothing reunion with bits of oneself came with a rather bizarre aftertaste: if reality was a candle, the flame had just vanished.

The Lone Wolf decided to take some time alone, to breathe and heal the heart. The moss on the trunk was growing bigger and smaller with every breath. Soon, the whole forest was quietly, subtly expanding and shrinking in unison, appearing significantly deeper than before. Further away, a warm yet shaky light painted an orange glow on the trees. Intrigued, the Lone Wolf cautiously and silently walked towards its source.

**Extract from the Lone Wolf’s dream diary -**Things here feel foreign yet familiar. Having not been here before, the thickets surrounding me provide a strange comfort. I feel one with them here. There is a sense of belonging similar to meeting an acquaintance again after eons. With each step I take, the forest knows where I must go, and lays the path ahead of me. Why do I feel a pull towards this flickering light? My guts start to feel heavy. There is a level of anxiousness which grows as I get closer to the light, yet like a moth I can’t fight the urge to keep on walking. I stop for a moment to take a deep breath and the forest shimmers around me in unison. My mind feels clear even in this uncertainty, and even before I’m ready to walk, the path reveals itself clearer than before. I know I must keep on walking, and so I walk.

🌲🌲🌲

After walking a long time, the Lone Wolf realised that while getting closer to the warm light, it was at a speed that grew slower and slower, to the point they began to question whether they would eventually reach it. Maybe the speed wasn’t the problem. Were time and space silently conspiring against the reunion?

Finally acknowledging the failure in progress, a bittersweet realisation came: the warm embrace might never come, but there was something to be found in the walk towards it. The hunger for it, the burning longing. It wasn’t the destination, and it wasn’t the journey either.

🔥 The Lone Wolf was the orange light waiting to happen 🔥

They continued bathing in the paradox for a while, excited by the hunt, facing the dreadful abyss of never coming to a close.

Once both flavours seemed to have settled in their heart, the fiery hues vanished suddenly, in a whimper. Or rather, they seemed to be subtly infusing the whole forest, now.

Looking back, the black-hooded dreamer found a stone well painted in blue to the left, and a red swing to the right. Both had a smokey petrichor scent.

Self-acceptance. This feeling, it feels new. I’m going to be ok, no matter what happens. I know I will be ok. I could try to run from my anxiousness and distract myself enough to forget about it for a little while, but I know that this nagging feeling isn’t going to go away. It has power over me until I keep avoiding it. When I’m not facing it, it’s gaining a grip on me. The forest around me seems calmer, less erratic on my realization. I gave it power, and now I no longer want to give it power. No matter what I do, no matter what decisions I make, no matter what circumstances arise or where I find myself, I am going to be ok. Why miss futures that have yet to happen, when I can enjoy the now. From this thought, my surroundings seem brighter and I see that I’m the epicentre of this. I am fine. Breathe. I slowly take it all in and breathe out. I see a well in front of me, and I realise that I don’t know what I look like. I haven’t seen myself yet. As such, I head towards the well with new found excitement.

The well was empty. It was quite shallow, though, and one could clearly see its bottom. There were two wolves standing there, staring back at the dreamer. A young red wolf, fiercely playing with a calmer and older blue wolf. They slowly turned around the circular well, and they eventually morphed into water, which rose until the well was filled. On the surface of the liquid mirror, the dreamer discovered a white wolf mask - a blue eye and a red eye that couldn’t seem to decide on which side of the face to dwell, a black snout, and a small round black circle on the forehead.

The Lone Wolf slowly took the mask out, only to discover the same mask behind it. For now, they felt like a binary glass ceiling had been reached in terms of knowing themselves. Excited and scared, they acknowledged they couldn’t go further alone. That sweet, familiar solitude would have to be put away as it was time to find someone else. As they gazed mindlessly at the surface of the water, they suddenly realised they were underwater. A softly glowing landscape full of ancient ruins, gigantic seaweeds, at the bottom of the Sea.

🌊

Being underwater brings along a calmness that is hard to describe. I’m free to go wherever I want to, do what I want to or move as much as I want to. There is a gentle reminder of resistance, a small price to pay for moving. You get used to it but it’s always there. A gentle reminder forever looming. I move through the underwater forest, brushing past the seaweed with every stroke, and it seems to be getting thicker the deeper I go. I keep pushing along until I see a clearing when I finally reach the ruins.

In the ruins, the physics of water did not apply anymore, which felt even stranger when the Lone Wolf realised there’s no air bubble to be seen. It was like the surface, albeit with a submarine light. The stone walls turned out to form a labyrinth, inhabited by huge glowing sea slugs, paying absolutely no attention to the Dreamer. The black-hooded oneironaut walked for a while, taking turns randomly, until they found a red-hooded silhouette, pulling the antennae of a sea slug. His face was a mask, just like them, but made of pointy shapes and a large evil grin.

«Who are you?» cautiously asked the Lone Wolf. «Who gives a fuck?» answered the red-hooded man. «The Chief of Mischief feels about right, so you can call me that.»

Even though I’ve just met this man, I’ve gotta say, he is pretty fucking rude. Has he earnt this brash attitude through even brasher means? I dunno, maybe but either way this is the first person I’ve seen since the forest, and what a way to meet someone. I’m curious as to why he seems to be pulling antennas of the glowing sea-slugs. Not that the slugs seem to mind, but still quite peculiar regardless. Finally getting my words together as I ask «What are you doing here and why are you pulling antennas of these slugs?»

"I live here, duh! Can’t you see the house above us? I’ve lived here for about... well, I don’t really know - I suppose one loses track of time when they’ve been banished. But enough about that - apparently I’m such an ass that no one from Balterian really wanted to be friends - even though I prefer the term "mischievous".

It seems I can’t help but talk about myself, can I? Well, there are five of us, so it only makes sense - allow me to introduce myself - some call me the Chief of Mischief, but I prefer the name "Gravitus" - I live in the house above us, and I have five, errr, wonderful personalities, if you can call it that." "Yeah, I’m Gravitus too - "Oh, won’t you shut up? You’re always talking out of turn, Gravitus. Anyways, let’s talk about the slugs" says the demented red hood before licking the dew from the slug’s eyestalks."They secrete what’s called "persona deminish", it helps me mold all five personalities into one - when the five of us are all tugging at one another, we can be very unpleasant to be around.

When we meld, however, that all fades for a while. So I set up shop here - it only makes sense, as I’m trying to figure out how to synthesise their goop - let’s go up, shall we?"

Then, Gravitus farted.

That truly did take a pleasant turn. Gravitus, that’s a name befitting the wearer of the mask, as you can’t help but gravitate towards them. I’m left to wonder which Gravitus was the rude one because seriously, fuck that guy. The one who I just spoke to seems nice though. Thinking about persona deminish a bit more... Have I passed such items which I didn’t know possess peculiar properties? That begs the question, how did Gravitus figure this out? Were they taught, or did they do their own research? How did they even know where to begin? Who else is out there who knows the answers to questions that even Gravitus has? In wondering these questions, I must admit that I am infact the rude one now by not responding to Gravitus’ invitation to their abode. Cautiously optimistic, I accept the invitation and follow their lead.

The red and black silhouettes climbed the labyrinth’s wall, helped by a few stones sticking out. As they walked on the narrow walls, the labyrinth felt like a living organism: its paths shifted, its walls subtly expanded and contracted, in an unintelligible symphony of crackles and mineral tones. The Lone Wolf focused on their feet to avoid falling down, until they reached a narrow staircase.

The Chief of Mischief looked back, with his immutable sharp grin, and warned the Dreamer: «we’re going up, but we’re also kinda going down.» Then, with a high-pitched voice sounding like a rusty blue tit «It’s on, I’m fucking down!».

As the Lone Wolf climbed up the stairs, they ended up moving down. The more they went up, the more they went down. Soon, their feet were engulfed by the wall, going through it as if it were nothing. Well, a kind of slightly dirty and greasy nothing, if one was honest. They reached a dimly lit, yellow ochre room. With an awkward half-proud half-embarrassed gesture, Gravitus pointed out the strange workshop. «The fucking ‘shop, in case you’d be stupid - şørrý før thi§ rude Ğ - sorry not sorry»... anyway, the Lone Wolf quickly lost interest in the monodialogue going nowhere, punctuated by an occasional belch, as they got lost in the contemplation of the goop synthetising contraption - an absurd collection of glass vessels, in which all sorts of colorful liquids interacted with each other, sometimes the glass itself stretching out. At the end of the chain, a yellow and blue thick liquid looking like it was expanding in other dimensions, hurting the brain and the eyes just looking at it. Persona deminish. «Almost done, but there’s something missing that doesn’t allow it to be really real.» Gravitus looked down, almost sad and serious - «Thi§ płace is phøneý anýway.»

He looked up instantly, grabbed a jar on the side, filled with the authentic slimey substance, and without further notice, threw the goop at the Lone Wolf’s face, yelling «WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T NEED PERSONA DEMINISH BUT GO WITH IT ANYWAY?!»

Everything turned black for the black hood.

👤

The black robe of the Lone Wolf was just an empty pile of cloth, now.

“To be honest, we like the lingering nature of being alone any- wait, what’s this?”

Gravitus saw something white and shiny under what was left of the dreamer.

“This is new… No one’s ever left a mask before - but enough about that, let’s add it to our trinket bucket.”

The weird red-hooded dreamer picked up the wolf mask and threw it in a big rusty bucket, and pondered about the absurdity of it all. Them included.

split://0x113ECad698a86031E01BDa19EB4985c94951BE01

I originally disclosed my increasing theoretical and artistic interest in building in the Sims in a now somewhat infamous confessional-cum-design-manifesto for the Dirt Substack. Dirt is unique in that it funds its authors via NFTs of editions. It was natural to me to think of my Sims builds and their stories as art in the NFT space because of their innately liminal ontology. They are real architectural spaces and real worlds to the viewer—but they aren’t physically instantiated in our own world, so the non-fungible nature of the token lends itself to the medium’s ontological status.

TOOLS

The Sims 4, in which I build the structures and worlds central to my work, in many ways embodies the peak pre-"late capitalist" suburban aesthetic of the early 2000s, before the financial crash. The game is structured to facilitate building largely residential, private family homes, and to incentivize filling them with in-game possessions that increase in price and desirability as a Sim makes more income through fame or salary.

What I enjoy most about the Sims 4 is using it explicitly contrary to this purpose. I design against the grain of the game’s built-in assumptions about what architecture should be. While much digital work in socially mediated gamespaces (including my own) is indebted both to the exhibition practices and media theory writing of Hito Steyerl, my work is in some ways best compared to the Drawing Restraint series of performances by Matthew Barney. In this series, Barney, who began his practice while also a student-athlete at Yale, creates various physical obstacles that hold his body back from mark-making, including literal restraints, obstacle courses, and difficult substances. What I enjoy about the Sims 4 as a medium is precisely this sense of constraint.

As an artist, to come to the Sims gamespace as a medium initially surprised me. My background is in art history, in which I have a doctorate, and I often write literary-critical essays about architecture in particular, so my interest in buildings and their textual frames was long-established.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

The classic reference one typically uses for the Sims—which was included in a MoMA retrospective on Applied Design as a whole game in 2013—is Baudrillard on simulacra and simulation. But my perspective on the Sims is not particularly rooted in Baudrillard, but rather in Walter Benjamin’s Arcades project and in Bourdieu’s work on ‘conspicuous consumption’ and the work buying and displaying objects does in defining the self under capitalism.

I originally used the Sims 4 to think through theoretical issues in my academic writing about English Baroque and Japanese Metabolist architecture. During the pandemic, I became serious about building in the game as craft, and started to create increasingly complex that became immersive world experiences without ever playing the game in ‘Live’ mode.

The game is very limited as a design tool compared to typical purpose-built professional software like AutoCAD or Revit—it doesn’t even allow for curved walls. It has a strictly fixed number of in-game assets that can be placed in a build, and hacking and reconfiguring these assets to make “new” objects that don’t already exist in-game is an essential part of my process. So too is using the game’s footprint restrictions on how Sims can use and interact with objects. My rules, or restraints, for myself, include that the build must be technically playable in the games ‘Live’ life simulation mode, that I do not use mods or import custom content to increase the number of build assets, and that I build any given story-world/structure within the bounds of a single in-game lot, which are limited to four floors in height. I tie my hands to make more interesting fictive worlds

FUNDING AND FUTURE WORK

The PSL Arcology is designed to be an early work that starts to test the limits of using the Sims as a medium for architecture as storytelling. It inspired its own story text as I built it, with the in-game constraints shaping what was possible to narrate and describe.

In the Pumpkin Spice Launch Arcology Build in particular, there are no exteriors and no windows—a structure of this scale simply renders horribly in the game’s exterior view—so stacking display objects to convey stories and experiences in a glance, like the flâneur passing the arcade in Benjamin’s 19th Century Paris, became increasingly important to me. I hope to build more structures in the  future that exploit the game’s exteriors and landscaping tools, as well as intimate single rooms and tiny houses, to which I can add even more granular detail, and in turn, frame texts that reflect my ongoing literary interests in speculative world-building and formal experimentation, from Borges and Calvino to Le Guin and Delany. Eventually, I would also like to explore other restricted in-game building modes to combine with text frames, including historic legacy software for design and urban planning from the 90’s.

Funding from the Pumpkin Spice Arcology sales will launch an extensive research-and-visit-based project to push the experience of my born digital spaces into lasting works that impact viewers’ everyday experience of their own physical spaces. Through the manipulation of the built environment in the Sims as an intentionally restricted medium — and through its extended, creatively attuned ekphrastic description — my intention above all is to create a world for viewers to enjoy, explore, and engage with challenges.

In a similar act of reclaiming lifeless technology and infrastructure to create culture, the first videogames were built on expensive analog computers created for military and academic settings. Tennis for Two, designed by William Higinbotham and shown off for the first time in 1958, used an oscilloscope display attached to a repurposed analog ballistic computer designed to calculate missile trajectories.

Cryptoart is a similarly permissionless assertion of culture and creativity on an otherwise lifeless and drab blockchain. Cryptocurrency was purpose-built to transact value and conduct business. Without cryptoart, the Ethereum network is a giant digital office building. With cryptoart, it’s a thriving society at the bleeding edge of culture, tech, and finance. Cryptoart, in its cultural identity and the way it shapes our virtual society, is basically digital graffiti.

edition://0xaf89C5E115Ab3437fC965224D317d09faa66ee3E?editionId=220

‘digital graffiti’, 2021, Kate the Cursed. Hand-drawn vector graphics displayed on an early 1980s dual-trace x/y oscilloscope at 60hz. Recorded at 1440x1080px, 30fps on iPhone SE, then converted to .gif for a perfect loop.

To take up space on the internet is to make a mark on the digital spaces we inhabit and infuse them with life. Unlike the walls I sprayed as a teenager, this tag will never fully be painted over. Even if metadata is lost, the token and anything on-chain remains. When historians explore the layers of art tokens and cultural artifacts across the blockchain decades from now, many of the marks we leave on it will be preserved for closer examination.

As a transgender tech artist working with non-standard mixed media processes, my unapologetic existence often feels like a powerful act of creation in itself. Taking up permanent space in the digital world with my words and artworks feels even more compelling.

In that spirit, consider the Tara Digital Collective Mirror tagged. All proceeds from the NFTs associated with this article go directly to aGENDAdao’s multisig wallet. ~