participating in the weird-o-verse was useful for visualising research and find connections between different research stages/areas. i had found my research so far to be quite jumpy, maybe needing some further explanations of how areas connect but i found, to myself and the group, it was simple to follow and connections made sense.
through presenting the boards individually, we started to place pieces of our research into the middle board when we felt things were connecting. this started as a very medical focused board but then found it was developing into other areas: iconography, speculative fiction, hallucinogens; we realised many of these new things added connected to POOLCORE, so used this as a ‘centre’ for the board. this, in the form of a subreddit or youtube video, is an aesthetic that is calming and peaceful to the viewer. i like the natural and neutral words we have for describing the textural qualities of water and what it feels like to be submerged inside it. these pools are often reflecting a wavy interpretation of what is above the water, most likely a grand looking staircase, often taking up most of the image. we, as the voyeur of the image, feel the benefits of water from being far away from it but maybe that’s the point? letting ourselves glance into a stage that feels so alien/empty/backlit/still. we discussed the connection of this and well-being or natural medicine; how these places are often marketed for us to experience or maybe even prescribed.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
positing fictions into a real/known world- harry potter- roald dahls the witches-
unable to step out of it like you would if it were a game that was being played-spirals continuously like the world has a creator which then has to have a creator… the internet also makes it spiral
why?- distrust in politics, people, systems may push people towards these conspiracies
tolerance levels
why do i own tarot cards?
having a lucky number
permission- high quality literature/high art/academic voices/famous people
https://www.theonion.com/
correlations/ anomalies
as a group we used our shared miro board as a starting point to create a new conspiracy theory that contains enough narrative to work. it was interesting to use the correlation generator to witness correlations between random things; the one we used is about swimming pool drownings and US nuclear power plants. it was an easy process to find material via scientific websites to backup this correlation and make a sound ‘argument’ for it.
we found a recent article that we thought contained enough similarities to fit the conspiracy narrative and backup the fiction we have created. we then found a physics article that we thought gave the swimming pool one more sense in relation to the correlation we are aiming for. as the pool article contained ‘hot tubs’ we thought, as many people around the world own one, it would create much traction in bringing the conspiracy to light.
it was useful to watch the reed berkowitz interview where he details the relations between playing video games and participating within a conspiracy theory, especially his research into discordians and apophenia. basing a kind of ‘religion’ on the law of fives (5 fingers/toes, limbs..) seems like something that would be difficult to believe but my coffee and cake, later that day, came to five pounds and i tried to concentrate on the circumstantial reason for this. what happens when a ‘five’ appears? who are the creators of such religions/groups/conspiracy theories?
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