Jaunted Haunts Press

The Ghost in the Machine

It’s always fun to stumble across some strange process that comes about from the interplay of seemingly mundane things, especially things of the electronic variety that occasionally seem to intimate the existence of a very satanic, Ouija board-like dimension ingrained into every circuit board that by now permeates every aspect of our daily lives.

A few nights ago my computer at home was going apeshit, for no easily discernible reason, the cursor just shooting around the screen like some seriously hyperactive gnat. After much confusion as to what the cause could be, it finally transpired that my phone, which i’d put down to charge on top of my Wacom tablet, which was connected but not in use, was responsible for the computer’s convulsive behaviour.

So i did what any self respecting spiritual conduit would do, and opened a drawing program so that these electronic furies could express themselves. And, ummm, this is what they drew.

As automatic drawings, these (esp the one on the left) exhibit a lovely stochastic nature, a chaotic order that befits the legions of dark angels.

Unfortunately, after these two had been done, my phone had finished charging and the furies had returned to the catacombs of hell from whence they came.

A similar thing happened in 2006, when i was doing the no-input mixing desk experiments with modulating sinewaves that would become the ‘Absence of Origin’ body of work: i was gleefully improvising away when suddenly my amp started broadcasting this demonic transmission from the other side.

As honored as i am to have been spoken to by Beelzebub himself, i do find it very difficult to figure out what he was trying to tell me. The most intelligible thing i can decipher is “Have faith, don’t have faith, it’s all the same”.

Bleak! But still, nonsensical, and, worse, nothing at all to do with how to get fabulously wealthy and influential. Gee, thanks, satan. I want my soul back.