Atlantic Ruin's photostream

jstchillin.org/benvickers/JSTCHILLIN/WTF.html

If the doors of the net were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, hyperlinked. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his flesh.

06:21:50 CST on the 15th of March, China:
Chaoxiang is butchering his 236th Demon Satyr in Felwood when his connection drops. Instantly all the faces in the room look away from the screen and the room is filled with a sense of relief, today everyone will get to go home early.

22:21:50 GMT on the 14th of March, England:
Ben drops his "TITS OR GTFO?" sign, infront of the frozen image of a teenager lifting her top slightly above her belly button, the only movement that registers on the screen is that of himself staring back into his own webcam.

9:21:50 UTC on the 15th of March, Australia:
John_228 takes his first call of the day at the universal psychic guild, the videochat loads up and he's faced with....... --It doesn't even matter because he gets disconnected--

The gates of the internet are closed.

For the first time in its existence, the flow of information dries up. The entirety of the network is offline. In the days that follow, a sense of non-existence takes hold, without any means by which to reach out. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which
the symbols refer belong again to mutually exclusive realms of experience.

Even the neo-Luddites find themselves gormless in the face of a utopia they were not ready to face.

The internet is gone, together we are no longer connected.
a return to material transmission?
In the seconds that preceded this unexplainable technological collapse, files were dumped from p2p networks and unidentifiable servers world wide. The fragments of a message were encrypted within every file that was downloaded in that final moment.

[LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK]
_________________________________________________________
Preliminary Assessment of the situation 19th 12am GMT
Extended Assessment 21st ALL DAY

it's a roleplaying event, sort of. (like 4chan ruination?)
it's a parasitic event facilitated through the 4evaconnected chatroom, hosted by an anonymous roleplay group. The event is constant, it doesn't switch off, anyone and everyone is welcome to join and dropout at any point.

New tools have been added to the site to facilitate the event, mailing list for daily updates as well as a shoutbox to leave lasting messages. The Seer resides in the chatroom at all times, specific command can provoke it to give information on the progress of the game:
status (description)
progress (percentage of completion)

There are no rules to this event, however it will be necessary to unearth intimate and personal details of people you don't know across the globe. The more unrestricted your style of play is the more internet gold/fame will be bestowed upon you.

dumpstarz 4 lyfe.

4eva connected is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) site featuring daily events, performances, lectures and massive chill sessions. The front page presents a calendar, with each day passing a new sculpture will appear and the chat will take a different direction. Each sculpture will be an evolved version of the previous, constructed by the direction of conversation and aura of the chat room from the previous day. The sculpture will be displayed each day in its altered state alongside a form of documentation of the occurrence that most greatly impacted it's formation. The chat room will be closed occasionally for private events.

Vickers encourages individuals and groups to use the chat room as a performative space, as he himself and other artists (including Ito & Denny) will be every day. Through the use of triggered word simulations, loosely scripted narratives and reenactments of seminal performative artworks, being aware of the chat rooms intentions and realities will be a challenging experience of groundlessness.

Ben Vickers is a British artist residing in London, concerned with an ideal form physically and through the web. Consumer marketing campaigns become vigils of hope, counter cultures dependent on dead media and outdated technologies acquire cult icon status, new age imperialism has run amok; luxury and romanticism become pillars of logic in Ben Vicker's digital collages, sculptures and web based works.
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Part of JstChillin's "Serial Chillers In Paradise" exhibition.
www.jstchillin.org