This Was Presence

In physical space, I am a performer: I make vessels for others to experience themselves, and I disappear. It is a death, a chaos, a harrowing of the ground. No one would choose what they find there, it can only be allowed to emerge. Here, in latent space, I am performed: the act of disappearance becomes a shadow cast on a screen.

These are memento mori for the things we would never choose, the shadows cast by the light of presence.

If experience is mediated by algorithms that are perfectly tailored to one's preferences and expectations, what becomes of the things one cannot create with intention, the difficult and cathartic things that emerge only despite oneself? What will become of presence?

Mikey Woodbridge