THE 20 SPECULATIVE REGIONS OF MISTY HORROR

by Jo Letke

May I introduce a scientist working with the ESOC, or Educate and Show the Outside Coalition.

Their most recent work, THE 20 SPECULATIVE REGIONS OF MISTY HORROR, will be the subject of today’s talk. It was not the first to break down the properties of fog.

The phantom text, FOG AND THE DISCOURSE TERROR, led the initial discussion during the first conference in Iceland about mysterious matter and form. I can speak for everyone here and say this project is significant for a number of reasons. First, it posits many layers of contact—some of which are unknown and therefore aesthetic and applicable to your respective art practices. Second, it will ask you to listen outside of the classroom. To do so, the text read is broken up, much like a glossary of terms, to give you space to enter and leave the material in waves.

Please enjoy.

THE 20 SPECULATIVE REGIONS OF MISTY HORROR
LECTURES ON THE PROPERTIES OF FOG
(POST-ICELANDIC DEBATES)

          Nothing is worse than the unquantifiable wonder of a child watching a bubble floating in the air. There is nothing to hold, study, or research, since there is no phenomenon to speak of—Anonymous

• HAZARD​. Fog is not intangible—that very word replicates a human hand to do the touching in the realm of representation and in our minds. Tangibility is humanism, but also an aesthetic way of approaching the science of touch, physics. I am not here to debate the laws or ​unlaws​ of physics (where they deviate or become hyperobvious and hence, dubious, in the universe). Instead, fog has always been hazardous to the construction of form that we are so proud to call “raw.” Pure substances and form untouched by chaos are molecular lies that work like viruses to persuade us of certain impossibilities. In short, fog is the least of our worries.
• MEMORY​. Some theorists working on the history of technology isolate a time that is perfect for the cultivation of crystals. This time before the crystal is known as the pre-individuation of the crystal. It is a simple and rather earthly form of technology. I believe memory plays into the individuation (meaning formation) of fog activity. To be clear: fog has the properties of encroachment, which can switch to evacuation easily. It remembers to visit the Golden Gate Bridge or Bakersfield every time. It also remembers to make each visit seem inexplicable and random. How do we know my memory of fog has no effect on the pre-formation of fog somewhere else? Before scientists could investigate the interplay of memory with our topic, philosophers had to speculate on what first seemed absurd. We had no idea where to begin, because memory mixed with matter was always a non-question.
• SMART MATTER​. That thing that is restricted to specifically human relations-for-us.
• UNIQUENESS​. In this lecture, we must treat each fog as unique, absolutely every thought, text, time it is said, etc. as some new unproven and insecure variety of fog. The summation of each fog will not be more important than the FOG-TO-COME and vice versa. Why? Because there is no law that says any two instances of fog are identical. Why? Because answers like these mean we spend another second focused on a thing that is hard to focus on.
• DARK DYNAMISM​. Let’s call DARK DYNAMISM the process by which fog uses our biological bodies to create art for it. ​Such cases exist in art: see JUDY NATAL for more information.​ DARK DYNAMISM is dark because fog turns our bodies into black boxes that one can never again reassemble in the creative moment; it is the reason we can only go forward in time for better or for worse.
• EBR​. Exploded breathing rhythm or EBR is a non-biological component of fog. EBR is outside, neither contained nor stored within a fog’s boundaries. It is in tension with memory, which constantly tries to mediate where the inside/outside division lies. The rhythm (of the outside) is different and dangerous each time, like the chance that water could freeze at any moment given certain quantum states or fluxes.
• FORMULA FOR THE FUTURE​. The future of fog is not infinite but there are ways of preserving the FOG-TO-COME. Fog fences, dead water, and creative fluids found in our brains are all components of this formula.
• FOG-TO-COME​. A fog that is expected because of the way memory works. It is deviant according to TIME.
• BEFORE-FOG. ​This is different from the pre-formation of fog mentioned in the section on MEMORY. BEFORE-FOG is no less speculative than the cloud server that saved this document before I decided to print it. At the same time, it is entirely a fictive entity that deserves its recognition in (extro-) science fiction. It is unknown whether or not causality impacts the BEFORE-FOG—its name could mean something else entirely. For example: the scattered debris that chose to lump together and form this blue planet might be a case of BEFORE-FOG in action. Or, it might be the reason for certain minor arbitrary decisions: the power that lights the metaphorical idea light bulb.
• NOMADIC DEVICE.​ We humans can only explore these properties with a nomadic device that outlives us. If none exists, our scope is partial. But this is where the photographic lens becomes important. Who can say that sweeping technology suffers because of us?
• PHOTOGRAPHIC ENTITIES.​ Any attempt at using text, the camera, TAROT to signify something that captures outside of text, the camera, TAROT. Also see NOMADIC DEVICE.
• TAROT. ​Also known as DINO TAROT, TAROT is a prediction device that is entirely covered with fog. In all honesty, I cannot tell the two apart.
• NO ABSOLUTE.​ When studying fog it is useful to note that it is no less musical than a violin is musical. When condensed into steam it can “sound” to the human ear or power industry (which has its own characteristic sound). There is not a truth to fog—there is no single fog concert that we can all attend.
• BOREDOM.​ Fog is boring and harnesses GREY to repeat itself chemically. Boredom is a rhythm too, though overused and tired of being so available.
• GREY.​ Not a color. It is more like a surface.
• TIME.​ This is a concept that puts us in a talkative mood. It engages thought with a mere mention of it. What’s more, something happens to us when engaged in time-thoughts: we lose track of it, or waste it with little regret. A similar process or effect takes hold when witnessing fog. Frustration? Yearning? These words are empty compared to the sensation available when connected to the object.
• STRUCTURE OF BEING.​ Structure is odd, since one can have continuous structure but not being. Not to mention the myriad of things that stand between being and non-being that most likely have structure. Think of data too long or complex to read. Think of histories of something cataloged and kept alive. We’re not just talking about exoskeletons anymore. Let’s rewrite the STRUCTURE OF BEING to instead stand for a DOMAIN for foggy things.
• JUDY NATAL.​ Captured between the BEFORE-FOG and the FOG-TO-COME, JUDY NATAL is proof of the biological incorporation found in DARK DYNAMISM. Attracted to GREY, JUDY NATAL seeks to frustrate how things speak to us by playing with TIME and PHOTOGRAPHIC ENTITIES. If Judy was born from the earth, her art is earth art that narcissistically wants to view itself. Why? Because this planet is still a confusing mess of things that we try to order in tables, charts, and graphs. TIME is likely a domesticated product of this mess; without it, we would only have brutal indifference. Can’t we say that JUDY NATAL is advertising this indifference by butchering the order of time and showing the mess out in the open?
• THE MYSTICAL.​ A sloppy and narrow account of the DOMAIN for foggy things. It is a narrative that is replayed like a cassette tape and yet doesn’t have the BOREDOM rooted in fog. THE MYSTICAL is similar to the magical, the undead, and the uncanny, in that it is finite. Right now, we have no idea what fog will do at the moment of solar death. But we do know the mystical is waning.
• REALNESS.​ The above properties of fog are text properties. That is, until we release them into the world (like waves). Or, we can have them confirmed, but this is unlikely. Why? Because the fog here, in this speculation, is a stab at describing UNIQUENESS and is nothing like other fog.