A Permeating Presence (Part 2 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Liza to the group on 20 May 2015.



Relating back to the initiating artist’s presence in the project, I don't think it inhibits its growth.

Contrarily, I think it is this permeation of presence that guarantees its growth. There’s a lot of speculation, which you know if you read the article I sent, that the anonymous Kanye Quest gamer who uploaded the Pastebin was either the game developer or an Ascensionist.

Why? To become part of the story.
Why? To bring awareness to the story.
Why? To only tell part of a story bound to enrapture many with its creepiness, mysteriousness, and incompletion.

(Think Slender Man's blank face, which alone encourages infinite amounts of interpretation. Would the manifestation of the Sea Devil costume ultimately close this channel for open interpretation? Whereas seeing was once believing, in the age of simulacra we only have to believe in something to see it. So, like Slender Man, the more ambiguous Farthington is, the more we believe in his existence. The more we believe in his existence, the more we see him. Simulacrum precedes reality, yes, but it must also remain simulacrum which must remain reality.)

None of the aforementioned speculation comes as a surprise, of course, but what I’m fascinated by is the extension of this speculation from the first Pastebin that was posted "anonymously" to every subsequent article, comment, video, etc. The digital footprint is the same, some claim.  If discovered too early, this can inhibit the story's growth, yes. After a certain point, however, it really doesn’t matter. The story has already become bigger than the storyteller, and is no longer the storyteller’s to tell. It is now ours to do with it what we want, to take it where we want it to go. Eventually it becomes bigger than us even, and goes where it wants to, heedless to our instructions. The initiating artist then not only provided us with road signs leading us to what McLuhan calls the “roads and canals” of modern media ("make happen agents") but our messenger has also become our partial guide through the roads and canals. I think, were the initiating artist to recede too quickly once the others begin to exceed, the others would go wayward and the story’s survivability would be doomed.

This reminds me, have any of you seen The Institute? How about Faults?

I think both personify this notion.