2023 Call for Artists Gallery
"YGGY"
By Adwaita Das
Artist's Note
The Yggdrasill of Norse mythology is the Kalpataru in Indian folklore. World Tree. Tree of All Creation connecting the entire multiverse. Kalpa is the time between the creation and recreation of the universe, while Kalpana is imagination. Thus my love for speculative fiction and its understanding can be mapped by these two words. Spec lit guides the evolution of our reality itself.
Painted digitally, with my take on the South Asian Alpana folk art style, which my parents and grandparents had first shared with me when I was a child, here is YGGY, the Tree of Life. Its roots and branches extend across deep space. Flowers and leaves have inspired the design for space ships and stations. Dots and dashes flow and fill the cosmos with the human call to innovation and exploration. YGGY is also the divine being who is one’s soul. It is the brain and the body; matter and energy. Another name for it is the Ichchhe Brikkho, the wishing tree. YGGY is humanity’s wish and mine to know the unknown too!
Artist's Bio
Born in Kolkata, India, Adwaita Das studied English Literature at JU and Film Direction at FTII. They are the author of Quantum Tango, Colours of Shadow, 27 Stitches and Songs of Sanity. Their art features in various publications and illustrated series, including Young Mental Health with the Health Collective and Divine Darkness by Black Bough Poetry. They have worked in theatre, news, advertising and filmmaking. Currently in Mumbai, as creative facilitator, inclusive and innovative, Adwaita applies spoken imagery to address trauma and share tools of peace.
"21st Century Cosmopolitan"
By Nate Shellhorn
Artist's Note
It’s about the birth of truly global citizens is being facilitated by globalization-inducing technology.
Unnamed
By Jai Caldwell
Artist's Bio
A fiend for horror, suspense, thrill, and uncomfortable amounts of detail Jai is always doing something, somewhere, for some reason. Writing is one of them. She writes for satisfaction as opposed to a specific end goal, however if a goal was hit in the end, who is she to deny it wasn’t? That’s how she does the art and draw thing too. Fun, right? She’s also an activist, so worry not! Your eyes are pointed to at an anti-racist, anti-transphobia, anti-patriarchy (literally anti-all the bad things) Hellcat on three-wheels, it’s just that she also believes you can not stay an activist forever. Regardless of all that, she has lots to say and plenty more to give.
"Omega S 380649"
By Asher
Artist's Note
A group spun off from the main research lab [unknown designation]. At first they were utilizing RailTech properties and resources. Stowed away in an unused storage area here, hidden in the back of a backup farm there, their diaspora of tech was interlinked for one purpose: move human consciousness to a hybrid mind. Railtech had been well invested in wetware and transhuman augments for the better part of a century. But the war had gone poorly for Earth and the colonies were no place for civilized folk to live. Creating a new human was easy enough, but the Omega Group (as they came to call themselves) were alive now. They were conscious now. Not a single member wanted to be lumped in with the rest of humanity. It was clear, from this side of the conflict, from a clean room looking out, humans had tipped the balance. Tech and nature were going to squeeze homo sapiens into the final epoch and relegate them to the fossil record just like every other major epoch. Omegas would be the last of them and the first fully intact old world consciousnesses to be there for the dawn of a new epoch.
Eventually RailTech found the “subversives”, in short order all were removed, no matter how vital to the company or the war effort they were erased. A group of freethought advocates was doubleplus ungood for image and morale.
The Omega Group quickly reformed underground. They became the foundation for a scant group of survivors with a dual focus: Retain the Knowledge of the Past to prevent it from happening again and Try to Change the Past to prevent it from ever happening.
The Consciousness Project began doubleplus earnest to move existing consciousnesses to a transhuman vessel. Their idea was unique. In the past RailTech research focused on intensive synaptic mapping. The goal was to map each neuron and the full synapse, including: the presynaptic ends, the synaptic cleft, and the postsynaptic ends. Data intensive, time consuming, and fraught with errors. This had never yielded a fully intact consciousness transfer. The Omega Group took a different approach: Waveform Mapping. Using a hybrid of general neural map with an accurate full range waveform map this method could be achieved in under 72hrs with 70% less data archiving. The first generation were impressive. Not a success by any means, but an impressive show of consciousness transfer. By the third generation they had a nearly 80% accurate consciousness.
Generation 4 saw a large batch of transfers tested. Initial reports indicated a “very high success rate with little, if any errors” shortly after the report was generated the sector that lab was in went off grid….
Addendum:
Successfully moved the vessel to a shielded section of the tubes. The mag-shield was installed when this structure was converted to a zeropoint power source just prior to the Great Conflict. The ZP was removed when resources began to plus fail. The building has long since been forgot. There are doubleplus good points to moving into a sterile conflict zone. Few people ever come here and Brother is blind.
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Theta wave activity immediately increased once Omega S was moved to this location. Field scans had shown nearly zero on initial scans with a plus noted spike in 7hz range (low Alpha). This indicated a dull consciousness, plus probable sleeping mode or even a “zombie shell” (term noted from tech report #391, 11-14-2137). However, once the shell had been placed in the facility and a supplementary power supply attached activity saw a marked increase. Doubleplus noted: 40-47hz activity substantially increased at time mark: 47:39:11 (post installation). To us this indicates doubleplus probability for higher consciousness. While it is difficult, if not impossible, to get a direct cortical scan, the broadcast range noted here is close to 40cm. Plus greater than any corporeal entity.
Initial fears of the Omega S being a Syncaster of unknown design precipitated placement in the mag-shield environment. Syncasters, while mostly a dying tech of the past, have damaged plus numbers of our field tech retrieval teams. There is, presently, no indication Omega S is a Syncaster. The broadcast range is local safety concern, but doubleplus ineffectual outside the mag-shield.
Core-temp on the vessel saw a coordinated spike with wave activity. The unit was quickly attached to a coolant system. While ad hoc, it is effective. A plus permanent coolant solution is currently a priority.
Personal Notes: I feel the temp-spike indicates why Omega S was in a rest state of low Alpha waves. Higher functions exploited a design flaw with internal over-heating. To avoid consciousness fragmentation or even death, the Omega S stopped higher function cognition, keeping the temp in an acceptable range. Environmental changes and possible threats stimulated a need for conscious rearticulation to execute threat observation. With the added cooling from the Institute’s tech staff she felt it safe to stay awake. Diligent effort and time will allow us to find a means to communicate with this mind of our past.
©2021 Asher, all rights reserved, printed by permission.
Artist's Bio
Asher sculpts objects from an alternate history using discarded tech. His work focuses on a machines that were culled from the final stages of humanity as we know it.