Notes from the Uncanny Valley

“Having been enlisted to take a picture of the happy pair in front of the city, to serve as social media trophy and prosthetic memory, I suddenly feel the weight of my duty. Maybe this is to document a special anniversary. Perhaps it’s his birthday. After briefly familiarizing myself with the gadget, I hold it at eye level.”

0:00 —Intro (Ghost in the machine)

0:39 —Photographing a couple at lookout point

05:13 — “The suspense is killing me.”

06:44 —More night trouble with the troubled neighbor

11:41 Minutes

“Baby” by Justin Bieber, “Unseen Forces” by Justin Walter, “Poa Alpina” by Biosphere  and “Blown-Out Joy from Heaven’s Mercied Hole” by A Silver Mt. Zion

“I look up at the hotel and wonder which of the fifteen stories of windows it might’ve originated from… The windows are dark and they all look the same. I can’t see into any of the rooms, though I’m certain that anyone looking out can see me.”

00:00 —Tonight on a very special episode of The Bachelor Fridge…

01:26 —Dirty windows and demons

04:18 —Sermon in the park

07:00 —Paper airplane

09:37 —Monsters and Mothers

10:34 —The Bachelor Fridge Recap

11:30 minutes

“Gymnopédie No. 1” by Erik Satie, “Unseen Forces” by Justin Walter and “Pathologically Bored” by Deru

“Who is this God that keeps sending wounded messengers? Is this God deranged? Or are the codes getting scrambled in some kind of cosmic game of telephone?“

0:00 —The Day the Sirkis Took Over

01:00 —Crow-nies in the park

03:27 —Notes on the stenographer and the sign-language interpreter

09:03 —Escape from Reality Island: memoirs of a night logger

12:23 —Notes on the unreality show

17:52 —The child knows what no one can unknow…

21:10—The old man dream

22 Minutes

“Unseen Forces” and “Following” by Justin Walter, “Kontakte” by Karlheinz Stockhausen, “Spiral Insana” by Nurse with Wound, “Untitled” by Constance Demby, and “Pathologically Bored” by Deru

“The real problem is that his problem is real. His screams of pain are real, making the electric ray gun as real as anything else. This is the real problem because it leads to the next problem, which is that the ray gun is not real for his neighbors… or management… or, I assume, the vast majority of what the Greeks called the koinos kosmos, or shared world….”

0:00 —Math homework with Ted Bundy

01:33 —Junk mail (“Have you seen me?”)

09:55 —The new neighbor at night . . .

17 minutes

“Gymnopédie No. 1” by Erik Satie, “1979” by Deru, and “Blown-Out Joy from Heaven’s Mercied Hole” by A Silver Mt. Zion

“A machine has yet to officially pass such a test, and though it’s still a talking point in the dialogue about artificial intelligence, many argue that passing the Turing test doesn’t prove intelligence as much as an ability for mimicry. Which leads to the question: how much of what we call human intelligence is actually just mimicry? Isn’t repetition pretty much the basis of our whole educational system? Also, we often hear the human mind is often likened to a machine. On some level it is a pattern recognition machine, programmed by evolution to detect approaching danger and avoid being eaten. Not surprisingly, studies show that pattern recognition goes up when the mind is experiencing fear. If internet conspiracy culture is any indication, fear seems to be building in the populace. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Reptilian conspiracy, in which a malevolent race of shape-shifting lizard elite controls the world….”

0:00 —The Depersonalization Questionnaire

02:01 —Notes on the Turing Test

09:40 —The Derealization Questionnaire… or, more questions for human robots and robot humans . . .

11:30 minutes

“Poa Alpina” by Biosphere