CRASHLANDS
A tiny computer game about a spaceperson who crashlands in Timișoara in a positive shared future
Created for the Speculative Lab, Timișoara with Ruth Grosswang and Severin Standhartinger, November 2023
COVER
“No,” says Spaceman / Spacewoman
“None of that sounds like it can work.
Take me to your leader.”
“Um,” says Gardener, “What’s leader?”
p2
Spaceman / Spacewoman goes to investigate
Stepping up
into a vegetable garden
middle of the city.
Gardener says hi.
Agrees that it all seems different.
says, “it is.”
Says, “The complex systems are different here too
Infrastructures are worked out other here”
Simple example: No escalators no more – stairs is good
Another one: No calculations based on the amount of economic exchange per square metre no more.
Rather we calculate by added value
By love value
Sounds like hippies, says Astronaut.
Hippies knew stuff, says Gardener.
Let’s go on…
p3
5,6,7,8!
What’s that?
It’s just the meat in the basement
Working out
Ready to be eat
Big muscle, no brain
At all
Perfect for to eat.
The pigs be in the forest
Thinking pig thoughts again
p4
Like before, everyone had a phone with a chip
Now we all are just chipped – except you Astronaut
But it’s OK, chipping now
Because it’s safe as houses
Totally non personal data that’s being stored.
We are being monitored, but not like YOU think
Monitored is where you are, how your heart’s beating, if you need work, food, friends
Locally stored and then forgotten, except for the general stats
Even though it’s up against your cheek muscle, it’s non invasive
Just a part of being everyone
And THAT’s the LAW
p5
It’s like a poem where the system works different, but how to show that?
Does a floor plan really do that?
p6
Let me give you some example:
My apartment is not an apartment
It’s just a little room with a bed
And that’s cool. I don’t need my own fridge
Because the world is my apartment
Though if you really want, you can have your own fridge
It’s just not really NORMAL anymore
The canteen is where we eat but its not a restaurant
When we enter, we greet the cooks, the preppers, the planters, the harvesters
We check that everyone is well
Yes, this takes time
Our precious time
Then when we are ready, we go up to eat
And this also takes time
There’s much more of it (TIME) if no one needs to be in insurance, or banking,
or bureaucracy that the machines can do almost effortlessly
Accounting becomes simply ‘the counting of resources’ if its not a game of whose got the most
p7
We put OUR effort
Into checking up on the effects
Of the systems
Into making sure that the chaos of life
is letting hearts beating happy
Connected to feet planted happy on the earth
All around the globe
p8
On Earth that is no longer just Dirt
It’s full of living things
I can see inside of it using my mycelium brothers and sisters
I just plug in, and go surfing their synapses
It’s totally non-invasive too
And the forest, that’s no longer just forest
That’s our lungs and our medicine and
the home of our non human brothers and sisters
And we leave them alone in there
because it’s better that way
Though you can surf in on the mycelium of course
To check everything out from the substrates (non-invasively)
But the Roma go in there
Sure they do, treading old paths, roaming in their wagons
Real slow, checking for sickness, reading leaves
They take care of it all in there
Not with Jesus, he’s just an empty symbol now
But with almighty knowledge, care and patience
And we know they’re doing it right
Because the mycelium tells us so
and it tells them when they’re not
and they adjust
p9
It was granted powers, see
Like the rivers
Powers to decide its own course over time
Just like the Roma
Because the SOIL wants best for the planetary SOUL
We can ask it anytime, how it’s all going
You just have to go to the right place
and ask
A stalk’ll pop up
and tell you what’s what
I made quite a bit of a game for this exhibition, with inspiration and many conversations with Ruth and Severin. One day I will finish the demo and post it here...