– see here for the initial publication –

PurJus tries as much as possible not to stage his own life for the camera, contrary to what a lot of vloggers tend towards. Instead he captures sparse glimpses of the events and rewrites them through playful editing. PurJus is the most socially engaging. He has been stared at, mocked and judged while he took videos of himself. People looked at us seeing one and the same person. I couldn’t hide behind a fictional character: he is not perceived as such. He is real to those contemptuous eyes. My cat licks at me the same way, may I be obsessed to take selfies with her. She doesn’t make a difference, while humans couldn’t see further than my social manifestation. The tip of the iceberg; the external signs of the phenomenon. Some didn’t seem to think that I could be someone else entirely. Others joyfully participated in his filming. I couldn’t help but think that the ones mocking PurJus’s narcissism were precisely the most disgruntled egos. Praise doubt, banish certitude.

A verse from Jean Cocteau’s Requiem then came to my mind:

Il est juste qu’on m’envisage

Après m’avoir dévisagé.

It is fair that one envisages me

After having stared at me.

In that respect, I seek to embrace the plural singularity of the hyperhuman, which evolves in multiple, imbricated simulations.

SovereignlessSoul ended up being more of a lay back type of character, reflecting my own chronical idleness. He prefers to simply stream his gameplay on Twitch – with minimal commentary and no facecam – rather than producing entertaining content on YouTube. Success is not a concern for him.

WhispersFromTheDeep established himself as an omnipotent, eerie narrator. While he retains ASMR’s soft-spoken and meditative fashions, he is willing to offer introspective, uncanny experiences while placing emphasis on writing and storytelling.

While I have been continually questioning the relevancy of this work during the residency, it helped me to name and understand the rules, structures and issues defining these online self-alterating practices. In the end, it particularly highlighted the thin line between pathological and creative alteration of the self through digital mediums. Both are strongly intertwined, as far as I am concerned.

Eventually, as I looked for the exceptional in commonplaces, my three iterations started resonating within myself in polyphony. From threatening parasites they began evolving into symbionts, cooperating towards the augmentation of my core being. Still, I am not sure if I tamed them, if they tamed me, if I simulate or if I am being simulated.

“How queer, you humans. How you go on, never separating truth from fiction.”

Grave Warden Agdayne, in Dark Souls II (FromSoftware, March 2014).