dLux MediaArts sponsored an event with for the August 3rd Art After Dark night of the 2012 Sydney Biennial with Warren Armstrong, Andrew Burrell and Virta-Flaneurazine. On Pier 2/3, the Sydney electronic collective, Filthy Children, played as free prescriptions of the mobile version of VF were handed out to willing participants. Apparently hundreds have taken the experimental medicine and benefited from its results. If you are there, the secret is you can get a drug dose simply by downloading the Layar Augmented Reality application and searching for the layer, “Dose”. In fact the best way to take the drug is to access the layer “Bufo Colonies” which will reveal a small outgrowth of the Stedelijk Museum colony Bufo toads which can be licked on your phone screen or iPad.
Remember also, that although the experience has pleasurable side effects, the medication is primarily developed to help with problems of Wanderlust Deficit Disorder (WAD), a form of Internet addiction. This is an unapproved virtual medication and at this point Virta-Flaneurazine cannot take responsibility for its use or affects.
The Stedelijk Museum has been in renovations for 8 years now. This has apparently lead to conditions ideal for the spreading of invasive animal species that thrive on art. The Stedelijk Museum colony has recently been discovered, around and inside the main museum under construction and renovation, but also at its temporary events and exhibitions site at the Trouw Amsterdam. Specifically, this colony seems to have taken on items related to the first upcoming fall exhibition there of Mike Kelley’s work, displaying skin coloring from afgans to “Sex to Sexty” magazine to abstraction. At the event at the Trouw Amsterdam entitled “Augment IT” the colony was clearly sighted. Apparently the visionary effects of touching or licking good toads are some of the most powerful experiences yet.
Stedelijk Museum Colony growth with workmen
Stedelijk Museum Colony inside the empty museum in front of the Karel Appel wall
Trouw hallucination experience after contact with toad’s skin toxin- near a total black out…
We finally got a chance to fully test augmented reality prescriptions for patients with smartphone addictions. We were given the opportunity to open a small clinic at the “Off Label Festival” at Open Space Gallery in Victoria, British Columbia. The effect seemed to work well with volunteers wandering throughout the gallery during the opening, October 27. Many of our subjects still want to spend a good deal of time talking about the nature of virtual drugs and their involvement with smartphones. At one point it was noted by a patient that I was continually holding my iPhone. I proceeded to place it on the table and fully admit my own over identification with this object. A full portfolio of some of the visions can be viewed here. We don’t really use placebos in our studies but we thought we’d give a nod to the title of our portion of the event by translating “Art of the Placebo” to its derivation “I Shall Please“.
A evening moment with the 33 1/2 RPM Sunset Bufo Toads in the process of colonizing the ICA Boston. apparently they have adopted a record skip associated with the “Record” show there.
Reports are surfacing of a new Bufo Virtanus outbreak in Sydney, Austrailia, developing in the area of the Royal Botanic Gardens Glass Pyramid. The subspecies has been named the Sex and Death Bufo Colony, because it has developed visual traits of the orchid exhibition created in 2005. In addition to sex and death, there were three themes identified during that exhibition; “Seduction”, “Cooperation” and “Deception.” We have heard that the toads change different textural colors; pink, white, red and black. These are the colorations of some of the orchids in the preceding exhibition. They seduce with pink, cooperate or copulate with red and white, and finally deceive and die with a display of black. We have also heard unconfirmed reports that possible other colonies spreading southward. This will probably not be confirmed till early April during the Surry Hills Festival, with its event (Un)Seen Sculptures curated by Warren Armstrong.
As we have previously noted, the prototype for Bufo Virtanus is the bufo toad, the species known in Australia as the Cane Toad, which was introduced to Queensland in 1935 to combat the Cane Beetle. Unfortunately this bio-attack never solved the beetle problem and the giant species of cane toads instead became an uncontrollable infestation. in this case we might be dealing with that kind of virtual plague, with the toads as harbingers of a plethora imagery and information leaking, cascading into the physical landscape.
Yesterday, I was enjoying the MoMA exhibition, Abstract Expressionist New York, when, all of a sudden, as a museum visitor posed too close to the Barnett Newman, an AR Bufo Toad’s legs burst through the painting. I managed, through a quick series of iPhotos, to stitch together this incisive moment in all its composite splendor! Even though Newman intended these paintings to be seen up close, a guard promptly shepherded the woman away, unaware of the monster protruding all around her. In retrospect it does not surprise me that these two artworks, in two coinciding collections, should be intersecting. The MoMA’s explication of the work states, “Newman’s largest painting at the time of its completion, is meant to overwhelm the senses.” VF’s Bufotenine sublime!
But, what to do? These pests of the museum are improperly multiplying! They can be seen at times everywhere in the building, on all the floors, in the stairwells, in the bathrooms, in the sculpture and the painting. No doubt there will be a move towards extermination. Hopefully, in the end, a sole infertile healthy specimen will be retained for the AR collection. More on Bufo Virtanus Heroicus Sublimis
A new variant of Virta-Flaneurazine, VF betaAR, has been successfully developed. It is produced from the skin secretions of bio- engineered and programmed hybrid Bufo toads. When areas of these toads are touched, the resulting reaction causes a wandering viewer to see things appearing from virtual worlds and other sources on the Internet. This appears to be an integrated and compelling conscious experience. This perception can be simultaneously viewed on an iPhone or Android device using Layars or other augmented reality software.
Because of the surprising success of our first test at MoMA, October 9, we will be entering a wider human test phase November 14 at BETA Spaces 2010 in Bushwick, Brooklyn (NY). The drug tests will be part of an art program, Bushwick AR Intervention. Though the parameters of the effects are somewhat limited at this point, this appears to be a very important step towards complete integration.
Since our recent post on various self-experimentation techniques of hypnosis combined with VF, we have noticed a number of artists who are possibly taking advantage of web media to produce artworks whose intent may be to hypnotize the audience and cause altered states in unsuspecting viewers. Following are a few examples:
Warp (2010) - Florent di Bartolo from Rhizome.org
glory ball on Spirit Surfers by sounder2
blue willow on Spirit Surfers by guest
We have known for some time that short animated gifts of all kinds have a tendency to be both addictive and psycho-affective. However these images are unusually powerful. Some of the effects we have noted from these particular animations are as follows:
One must be conscious and careful when it comes to the side effects of VF. There are posts on this blog describing these issues. Reports of visual imagery, sensation based reactions and psychological states have been described by clinical trial participants as well as noted in episodes of our own self-experimentation. Some are pleasant, some discomforting and some reported as frightening. We emphasize that these are side effects and not the main directive of the drug. During clinical trials we calm patients through any of these aberrations and hope that they become part of the overall liberating and deepening experience. The Beatles’ lyrics- “relax and float downstream” works well as advice in these cases.
Recently we compiled some our our visual records of patients and Doctors* experiences into a 12 minute video. The focus is on the experience of “tunneling” and Dr* WD Pappenheimer used this concept to curate an art exhibit at Famous Accountants in Brooklyn New York that is on view August 7th — September 4th.
Note that the exhibition’s opening reception formed a tunnel as visitors stepped down into the subterranean exhibition space and then at end of the cavereness space returned up to ground level for the backyard reception.
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John Craig Freeman
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Virta-Flaneurazine 