Creator / imaginer: Dabbler in art, literature and sound.
Evolution is being witnessed by the blind,
We are transforming, digitising our souls,
We cast shadows without any light,
Told answers to questions we never learned,
We are the child holding a gun to our heads,
Unable to differentiate toy from weapon.
She came to me through starlight,
Through immaculate dancing violet light,
I still see her eyes when I close mine,
I feel the warmth of her embrace,
Her heart is a great constellation of stars,
Her lifeforce shines across the galaxy,
Tonight, I will close my eyes and dream,
Of my beautiful Andromeda.
We are hardwired to provide maximum resolution,
Once there were eyes, now cameras are the solution,
Life means desperation for the technologically devout,
The sky outside remains dark ever since the blackout,
The landscape is rain soaked where the buildings stand tall,
Here, where we were nearly wiped out by a nuclear war,
So many missiles, unchecked AI sub routines fired those,
Using cold machine logic to destroy unknown human foes,
So, this is our world now unhappily ever after,
Where eyes keep recording and headsets transmit data,
The wealthy moved off world, and the poor were displaced,
Desperate people become cybernaughts, lost in digital space.
Illuminated by distant starfields,
Our minds may be terrestially imprisoned,
But we are built for infinite possibilities,
We are the timeless,
Those born of stardust,
We are the cosmos.
A journal blog post incoming, an attempt to defrag my brain, I’ll do my best to contain my rambling. The current me has been overthinking, a lot, over obsessing about all the usual nonsense even though life has been relatively uneventful, I’ve taken active measures to ensure I feel ok as much as possible, so most stress is probably of my own design.
Look, on the whole things are ok, but I seem to worry a lot more lately, often without any reason for it, I have concerns for my health (physical and mental), I worry about my wife, my family, and the future. Death has been an active thought passenger and every ache or pain felt sets my mind off, I have been seeking alternatives to the real world that don’t include chemical or liquid substances. I’m escaping reality where I can and this has really helped. For a few years I have actively avoided the media and have recently limited my social media exposure, which is having a positive effect. The usual trappings of sadness still creep in, feeling old, ugly, fat, useless and out of touch with the world, these are things I can’t hide from, but I will give it a bloody good try.
Escaping the outside world seems to be all I want to do, the current me feels lost in dystopian sci-fi again, particularly the books of William Gibson, his Sprawl Trilogy audiobooks have been on repeat because I’m too lazy to read lately, and the video games I lose myself in for hours have also helped suspend belief that the real world exists. I feel a hypocritical complaining about the modern world, of the advances of AI and how it has killed the arts, yet I hide neck deep in sci-fi like I’m a small child who has fallen into a ball pit, I don’t get me at all.
With the approach of summer, I’ve noticed I’ve been drinking more and that I need to knock it off for a while, but it is an indicator that my mind isn’t where I need it to be. My social anxiety is overclocking right now too, any time I’m forced visit the city for work an event, I am physically sick before stepping out the door, followed by a day of depression and paint peeling anxiety levels, this weighs on me until I escape back to our home in the country. A contributing factor I see, as the year ends, is that the world feels like it’s in turmoil, it feels too fast, spiralling, people in public places being aggressive, openly violent, unhinged, many peaking on chemicals, all glued to phones, everyone feels desperate, money is tight everywhere, it costs so much just to get by, it is all rushing and many just aren’t coping, there doesn’t appear to be any relief in sight. It feels like the worse parts of Christmas Eve shopping madness but every single day, pure speeding chaos.
I guess I see why the current me is lost in Gibson’s Neuromancer, the dystopia feels real, it fits nicely into our current timeline. People all seem plastic, fake, all outraged about things that probably don’t directly affect them, nobody seems genuine, it makes me feel old and confused, little makes sense anymore, it is a depressing cocktail. Well, I can’t deal with it so I’m running from reality before I (over)think too much about it.
A friend of mine has been experiencing the very same emotions, his dystopic drug of choice is the film Blade Runner from 1982, among other things. He has recently invested in VR and has found some success finding peace off world. Perhaps the advertisement from Blade runner is true, “A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!”
We’re both artists, well, him more so than me, but we’ve both been struggling to comprehend the current world, its people, and how we fit into it. In these stressful times most believe they’re a superstar, glued to their devices, posting, posing, obsessed with athleticism, money, success, appearing as avatars of themselves. With Blade Runner in mind, I can’t help but think we’re going to need a Voight-Kampff machine to locate anyone with a shred of empathy left out there. Maybe my recent thoughts that the film The Matrix being our currently reality has some truth to it.
I’ve decided to take the VR colony ship off world too and join my mate. Like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, we’ll be two old weirdos in VR goggles complaining about how annoying modern world is, while hypocritically relaxing in a digital one that has been made a reality by it. Time to wake up Neo wherever you are and save the real world so we can all come home.
Although in orbit —
I feel the stars are no nearer.
In the infinite darkness of space,
I drift,
My ship is set to auto pilot,
Silently moving forward,
Zero navigation to find my way home,
Blind in the dark,
There is no sound other than my breathing,
A numbness fills me,
Not quite alive, but unable to die,
I am in stasis.
"I'm not sure if this works, but it felt like I was telling two tales at the same time, each line flows together, and yet, each second line tells separate tale, both combining at the end."
Dusk falls on a tired dusty rural landscape,
The long shadows of the late afternoon have faded to grey,
In the distance, bright city lights flicker to life, lighting up the sky,
The distant volume of Central City’s chaos rises to a murmur,
There is a comfort to be being isolated, distant from humanity,
Away from the energy, constant sound, and movement of the city,
Tech still fills this rural space, but it is subtle, used where needed,
Out here it is functionality over convenience, tech for survival only,
No unnecessary body mods, or implants, some city escapees do have them,
But out here they are few and far between, chop-shops are a city thing,
Grove 18, or G18, is some distance from the hot spot of Central City (G0),
Since the war, most people are cautious of machines, however,
Salvaged tech has been repurposed, constructive rather than destructive,
Varieties of hover vehicles have replaced the wheels and tires of old,
Important, considering the surviving roads are overgrown and damaged,
Raider crews on hov bikes can be a threat to farming communities,
But the Syndicates keep them in check, for a price, a cut of your proceeds,
But, don’t pay your Syndicate, your property burns,
Or worse, you and your family are deleted,
Aside the turmoil, nature still exists, savage and beautifully untameable,
Forests reclaim dead townships, creating new habitats and secrets,
The grey new world is brutal and unfair, but that is the way of all things now.
Beyond my machine world the Infinite Black, exists 'A Grey New World', a dystopian future set following the war with the machine hellworld as outlined in my art series, and book I co-created with Jeff Oliver.
I have been (very) slowly fleshing out all aspects of this new post apocalyptic world for a while now, and I will continue to release parts of it here. The final product will consist of poetry, art and short stories.
As twilight fades, a new day begins,
This vast metropolis never sleeps, however,
A voice awakens inside a pod, activating the lighting,
A gentle white light illuminates the chamber,
The sleeper stretches, then requests coffee,
A glass emerges from a countertop flap and fills,
They rub their eyes as the outer window shutter raises,
And a glistening cityscape is revealed as they drink,
Breakfast consists of synthetic fruits and oatmeal,
Morning ablutions are brief and efficient,
Once clothed, they head out into bright morning sun,
Voice activation secures the apartment pod as they exit,
And they step out into the shadows of Megacity skyscrapers.
Dan Verkys 