what is cyberSurrealism by lou suSi

eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

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what is cyberSurrealism?

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future fetish design performance for human advocacy

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prepared for the bureau of cybersurreal investigation

eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

First published in 2011 by lou suSi, the bureua of cyberSurreal investigation, dynamic media institute + BijaXOuS suPpleMeNte 6 crooked pond drive boxford massachusetts 01921 617.750.2922 ls@loususi.com @loususi dot com dot org Printed by Blurb, Lulu or some randomly chosen onDemand digital ePress ‘out there’ W & J Mackey Limited, Chatham + Sons, not affiliated whatsoever ISBN 10 0-9669022-4-6 ISBN 13 978-0-9669022-4-2 Not all the information reported + written herewithin is guaranteed to be true at all. Speak to the author in person for further rather gritty details.

This is not a book conditions of sale + REading

This book is subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any way, shape or form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and otherwise without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. visit http://cybersurrealism.com or http://bureauofcybersurrealinvestigation for more

what is cyberSurrealism?

qu i t e

yet

This is not a manifesto

eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

Norbert Wiener father of Cybernetics

cyber

Matt Damon hawtie and actor

AndrĂŠ Breton founder of The Surrealists

Salvador DalĂ critical paranoiac kicked out of Surrealism

surrealism

eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

cyber

cyberSurrealism defined + Cybernetic Methodologies People always ask me DMC, what does it mean? D’s for never dirty, MC’s for mostly clean. But seriously folks, when asked about cyberSurrealism — and specifically about the definition of cyberSurrealism — I run with a vague series of answers and an open interpretation. I am sure the word cyberSurreal can invoke different emotional and conceptual visions for an artmaker or designer. Here are some personal ( and official ) interpretations of cyberSurrealist ideas and methodologies: My core thought is that cyberSurrealism is the modernday extension of the original Surrealist Movement from the 1920s ( The first Manifesto of Surrealism dating back to 1924 was originally written by the interdisciplinary artist and revolutionary André Breton ) — an augmentation of the movement — augmented Surreality if you will — now incorporating elements of the electronique that didn’t quite exist during Phase 1 of ‘the movement’. Another way to look at it — break apart cyber and Surreal, what do you get? The cyber part of the word — this beautiful prefix — could imply a cyberspace component, meaning some simple addition of an online, virtual reality component or likewise derivative alternate electronic existence. Maybe email gets included in the formula. Or tack on the

what is cyberSurrealism?

web and all the ways we weave in this strange thoughtspace of information sharing and superhighwayness. Or cyber could refer to cybernetics — the study and practice of self-regulating systems discussed and developed by amazing minds like Norbert Weiner, Stafford Beer, Gordon Pask, John von Neumann and many others. This includes examining systems that include some sort of feedback loop or mechanism. The systems govern themselves and sometimes can even evolve and grow, but at the very least work in some automated manner. On the farsical level of life, cyber could even embarassingly imply cybersex — this sort of mental human fluid activity — a sort of flowing energy that comes to life as we log in and participate in the online supplement to real-life ‘out there’ in the metaverse. There is a parallel world — a different conversationStream that we’re all simultaneously participating in when we ‘go online’ — whatever that means. To some of us, its more real than reallife itself ( and this is an unfortunate consequence of our electronic lives, swimming in the infoSphere of click interactions ) — to others, its more Surreal than imaginedlife itself ( and this is a fortunate new playground facilitating freedom and innovative new ways to participate and manipulate the world we really live in ... all things possible kind of sh!t ... we can really make things happen through our cyberinteractivity that just could not happen before ... both good and bad ... and this is good, right? Well, we need to examine these new behaviors case by case, I’m sure ).

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eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

cyber

And then Surrealism — the belief and revolutionary movement in embracing all things beyond reality, in some ways better than reality — the movement started by André Breton, then augmented and supported by the writers + artists of the 1920s onward — Benjamin Peret, Salvador Dalí, Méret Oppenheim, Luis Buñuel, Frida Kahlo, Philippe Souppoult, Francis Picabia, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, and so on — much of what the original movement espoused and imbued is quite literally automatic at this point and time, which opens up entire new dimensions of what Surrealism can now become in both the imagined and real level of creation. Objects buzz in our pockets and little personal messages come to us like magic. We tell each other, we tell veritable daily strangers, our up-to-date geolocation in the world and precise information about the most ludicrously mundane details of our existence in ways never previously conceived possible except perhaps as a description for mindreading. Technological progress simultaneously kills some of the magic of life and births new magics beyond logical comprehension. What would Dalí do with these datadriven opportunities to express the Freudian-slip paranoic in visual or interactive form? How would Kahlo’s torment translate to an interactive paradigm? Perhaps portraits of personal pain could be managed using the wonderful new medications so rampant and omnipresent on television and in our cornerstore pharmacies. What strange new interactive narrative might unfold. Beyond reinterpretation of the Surrealist classics — what new individual expressions of Surrealism blossom from this marriage of cyberSpace, cybernetics or the cyberSexual and Surrealism? And what if, perhaps, we turn the screw and take another look at what the cyber part might mean to us as creatives in this space?

what is cyberSurrealism?

What if beyond the noun-like interpretations of all things cyber we put a spin on this delicious suffix to think of it more as an action-based concept? Maybe our augmentation of the Surreal is performed through cybernetic means? Maybe the Surreal is our muse, the thing or object ( or even experience I would surmise at this critical juncture ) we aim to create — and then the means by which we create, the process if you will, is the cybernetic part. A self-regulating journey that uses the concept of the automatic response mechanism — this ‘pure psychic automism’ that Breton so nicely describes — a sort of translation engine that directly expresses thought in action. The perfect union. The slip and sway from thought to action and back again. The living thought process. The mind exposed. The ‘Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation’ ( Breton again ). Once one work is complete, the artist then reacts to the work just made, moving on to the next piece, each piece building from the previous, each piece showing some microcosmic personal aspect of growth or progress. Evolution. This might be the cybernetic feedback loop we’re looking for. To get to this point, this extremely creative and continual energy of productive response and play, takes years and years of loosening up. Giving up preconceptions and control issues. Breaking down the judgmental inner voice, or maybe exposing it as part of the process if she’s so loud and strong, to work in a new way.

But I might be getting ahead of myself here ;]

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eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

cyber

cyberSurreal processes

a few notes about my methodology Before we get into any of the details of my actual work and the findings, I think it might be helpful to quickly run through the nature of my processes, the state of mind I needed to achieve to properly design this kind of work, and talk about what I discovered as my personal set of goals to measure the success or failure of each piece. I am not going to apologize for this, but you need to understand my work is all over the place — a sort of design ‘by any means necessary’. Unlike the typical dayjob scenario, I put no limitations on the mediatype of my output. This means that I got to leverage the wonderfully full spectrum of interdisciplinary creative means afforded to all of us to explore the world from many multithreaded artistic perspectives. And, furthermore, I found out along the way that this amazing freedom along the continuum of creative expression empowers an almost cubist sensibility of examining a system of central themes, in this case all mostly focused on looking at humor and laughter as a cybernetic and Surreal technoHumanic ecosystem. With humor and laughter comes comedy, parody and satire. There’s the delivery mechanism of the joke, the trick and an overall sense of schtick. And maybe, more importantly, there’s a delightful spiraling relationship of provocation between humor and laughter. A stand-up comedian provokes his or her audience to laughter. And laughter, in reaction to the comedic bit, laughter itself provokes good feelings and a sense of release, and sometimes even more laughter. There was an instant lift in the room, for instance, when Deb, Jon and I would practice our laugh performance pieces in a public café. Jon’s eyes always swept the room

My work at Dynamic Media Institute — once I allowed myself to open up and give myself permission to — leveraged an almost pure trust of the subconscious. I let my gut lead the way as much as possible. And the work evolved, one project after the other, in interesting semi-related threads. A sort of multithreaded simultaneity of several streams of thought. Each stream, on its own, growing in cybernetic spurts — I naturally followed each thread, growing and going where the flow led me. Certain streams left me in a puddle at the end the flow, and I tried to, as best possible, let the flow of inspiration naturally branch off to follow the thoughts, concepts and excitement of each neural leap along my creative pathologies. Other streams led me to further work, to more questions, to deeper meaning, and to new layers of meaning to ultimately explore. The less comfortable I felt along the way, the more personally important the work felt to . me. Some of this, of course, inspired by Gunta Kaza’s Design as Experience class. My entire methodology, trusting my feelings and finding a place of discomfort, seemed to grow and flourish from that course. Physically making things with my hands and emotionally putting myself into the work, sometimes literally, were paramount to what I needed to report through my design investigations. I didn’t know what I was doing most of the time, why I was making the work or what I wanted to discover or say. And I feel that this confusion,

what is cyberSurrealism? | cyberSurreal processes

excitedly to see the repercussions of our silly run-throughs. He’s profoundly driven by the influence of energies in the room — always curious to see more smiles from onlookers in the periphery.

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eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

cyber

the sense of being confounded, both put me closer to myself while also pushing me into unfamiliar territory, into a new foreign terrain. Not knowing what I was looking for helped make the work honest, even strangely naïve. By sometimes putting little to no expectations on the work, on what might result from a scenario for performance or installation, by letting instinct lead me, I accidentally found what felt were the most important set of discoveries. Don’t get me wrong — I certainly had my hypotheses for each and every piece. But I don’t think I fully understood the value of each exploration until I witnessed the reactions and interactions of real living people to these funny scenarios. All of the purpose behind my work, the core meaning, comes through retrospective analysis. By trying to talk about and relive what each piece felt like — by writing about the materials, the delivery, and the ethnographic findings behind each piece — I am still trusting my subconscious to meld with my critical research to exhume themes and real meaning behind it all. Meaning for both me as the designer-artist-performer and the audience as the viewer-participant-performer. Meaning is an interpretation. I can presumptuously tell you what my work might mean to you. Or I can at least tell you what I meant to accomplish through this work, what I think the work means to me as the designer. Or I can tell you what I saw with my own eyes. I can let you know what others said they saw in reaction to my work. I can let you know what others tell me they felt or understood about the work, and that interpretation

Over the last 3 years I blindly followed my ideas. I let my subconscious take me to both the work and its results. And I ultimately let my subconscious point me to its essence, to its self-defining significance. What was I looking for through these cyberSurreal investigations? What was I trying to find? What was the mystery I needed to forensically solve? About two thirds through my DMI journey I came to the realization that my work divines for the unexpected. I was, quite literally, looking for funny moments — anything I wasn’t expecting. Only when the interaction surprised me did the piece feel complete, like it did its job. At Provocative Objects, David and I put the call out for work. We were looking for ‘pieces that instigate the viewer-participant-gallerygoer or blur the line and leave the audience wondering.’ And yet, I think my best work at DMI provoked that sense of blurry wonder in me. Anything that made me say, “Huh, that’s funny” — any reactions to my work that met the Merriam-Webster definition #2 for funny, “differing from the ordinary in a

what is cyberSurrealism? | cyberSurreal processes

is the most important one. Even if the work is vastly misinterpreted according to my perspective, the energy we emit through our creative work, the thoughts and actions our work inspires, these signals are what we actually communicate and leave in the minds and hearts of the viewer-participant.

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eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

cyber

suspicious, perplexing, quaint or eccentric way: peculiar”32 — these unexpected, peculiar moments fulfilled the purpose of this work. And the pieces that fulfilled or expressed all 3 definitions of funny — affording light mirth and laughter; suspicious and perplexing; involving trickery or deception — these I now see as my greatest designerly achievements to-date. The pieces that left me laughing or wondering, the pieces that led me to more questions than answers, and the ones that frayed the end of the thread out to more concepts, themes, ideas and variations to look into — these were the pieces that tickled me the most. These pieces and ideas remain rich and alive, waiting for even further investigation.

32 Funny

— Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary.” Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 09 Oct. 2011. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/funny>.

eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

surfing

egoSurfine

ego

About lou suSi lou suSi is an artist, designer, musician and performer living and working on the North Shore of Massachusetts. He and his wife Carol own and operate the new media + web design boutique BXOS !nteractive! { serious business | smart design }, leveraging the power of design thinking and user-centered design processes to promote excellent design everywhere He teaches design and performance at Endicott College, SMFA, MassArt, UMass Lowell and The Cloud Foundation He collaboratively curates interdisciplinary, thought-provoking, eclectic exhibit-events in the Boston area and always looks for new opportunities to push the boundaries of the

experience both in and out of the gallerySpace ( recent shows include: American Cheese: the introspection and Provocative Objects: the extradition, mediaLuscious Design + Art Review, fauxShow and forensicEvidence ) lou blogs on Social Media North and Coffee Thirsty dot com among other myriad bloggish destinations ‘out there’ currently lou conducts research and experiments extending from his MFA in Communication Design at The Dynamic Media Institute at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design He recently sat on the board at Mobius: Boston’s constantly evolving platform for experimental, interdisciplinary art in all media.

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eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy

about eXcerptz eXcerptz from

confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy comes

from the original writings and research from my DMI MFA Design thesis ‘confounded’. My thesis work for ‘confounded’ took 3 and a half years to complete through Dynamic Media Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design between the years 2008 and 2011. Through ‘confounded’ I carefully researched and examined humor, laughter and the area residing between what’s funny and what’s not actually funny. Through the medium of humor and lightness, I was able to gently critique our technological progress, oftentimes commenting and reporting back to The Bureau of cyberSurreal investigation and my colleagues and the faculty at DMI on my qualitative findings on the current state of our human experience. what is cyberSurrealism? sets up my original conceptualization for a certain semi-fictional ‘found’ art and design movement called cyberSurrealism. I consider cyberSurrealism to be a continuation of the original Surrealist Internationale from the 1920s as first founded and promoted by the worldreknowned French poet and artist André Breton. But unlike the first wave of Surrealism, my movement in cyberSurreal research and expression evolves to incorporate elements of cybernetic and dynamic media, including but not limited to works that leverage: microelectronics; both real and simulated technologies; performance and intervention art events; big data and user-centered design methodologies; anthopological and sociological observation and assessment; commentary involving Black Humor and extra-critical discourse of our near-posthumanity. full documentation, research

and writings from my MFA thesis in Design ‘confounded: future fetish design performance for human advocacy’ can be purchased in hardcover onDemand book format from Blurb at: http://www.blurb.com/b/2779835-confounded

love and thanks to my wife Carol and our family for always supporting me no matter how impractical and strange these journeys into cyberSurrealism turn out.

extra special thanks

to Dynamic Media Institute, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design — some of the most challenging, thought-provoking and enjoyable times of my life were guided and influenced by my graduate design research at DMI circa and betwixt the years 2008 to 2012. This time was simultaneously a hideous, chaotic mess for me, too. huge shout out and thank you

eXcerptz from confounded | future fetish design performance for human advocacy