Introduction by Chen Qiufan

As a science fiction writer from China, I was always trapped and struggling with the betrayal and inhabitation of our own culture, mythology, philosophy, and simply lost in the symbol system with the newly imported scientific narratives and interpretations of technology from the western world. Luckily with the help of Digital Earth program, I’ve encountered the talented artist Sahej Rahal, with his fantastic work mixing and appropriating all the elements of technology and mythology, human and non-human, visual and acoustic, game and daily-life, history and future...I found it so powerful to reflect on and resonate with the deepest fears and anxieties of our time.

Sahej developed a series of virtual worlds, populated by multi-limbed creatures that are driven by artificial intelligence programs based on his research on the mystical narratives of pandemics across Indian history. These creatures are not driven by a single brain but a congregation of multiple AI scripts that are attached to the virtual bones within their petroleum dipped bodies. Each of these scripts is capable of ‘listening’ to sound from the physical world, picking up audio cues through the computer’s microphone. This audio feedback interrupts the motion produced by the scripts inside the programs, changing the way they interact with their biomes. Which seems to me to be a perfect postmodern interpretation of cybernetics of our digital daily life.

The separation between the mind, the limb, and the ear in these creatures is now enmeshed. This enmeshment creates a consortium of ungoverned organs that collectively choreograph the creatures to life, in the porous boundaries between myth, machine, mind, and memory. It also reflects the complicated situation of our schizophrenia on ideologies and belief systems nowadays. The cracks need to be fixed and glued back together by new narratives as offered by science fiction and artworks that bridge the interdisciplinary gaps. Who is going to take over our world after the huge damage and disaster brought by the Anthropocene? The answer is to await each one of you to disclose.