Weird Realism

Heterogeneity and density could describe the swirl of ideas around visual representation, emphasis here on the agents associated with the cryptozoological encounter.  The  occurrence of a cryptid, “a creature whose existence has been suggested but not scientifically confirmed,”(wikipedia) involves optical allusions and optical illusions.  Allusion is an obsolete form of metaphor, now generally understood as casual reference.  Encounters with cryptids are not often outright or explicit, but involve varying degrees of image-like glimpses, nuance and reference.

Illusions might involve hoaxcraft, wherein a transmission is intent on deception put forth in a way unbeknownst to the reciever. Stage magic is a variant, a consensual hoax, wherein transmitter/reciever are both in on the illusion whether or not the reciever is aware of the means to that illusion.

Cryptozoological encounters are infamously plagued by the constructed realities of hoaxes, while truly cryptids thrive under the auspices of an emergent form of built environment, namely network realism.  Network Realism, again, is subject of current research by the Virtual Knowledge Studio into mediation and knowledge production in the cultural context of networked databases of images.   In allusion, I’m considering hybrid models and ultimately a neologistic phrasing that captures the constellation of the cryptid (emblematic nerve-cell of the Metaphortean Space).  The (techno)cultural imagination is a seive that filters out memetic nutrients from the bulk of allusions and illusions that emanate around Fortean affairs.  The paranormal mechanism that sustains the cryptid involves a network of networks, robust as it is ambient in its architecture.

Weird fiction is an obsolescent term for science-fiction marked with shades of cosmic horror, antiquated technologies, myth and mad scientists of the deranged, living fossil variety.  Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, please stand up.

Social fiction is on track and Sonic fiction is of course a particularly loved anomaly, but Speculative Non-Fiction is the typical terminology I deploy.  How about Weird Realism?

Gray Areas Persist

“Network realism” prefaces our encounter with reality these days.  As much and more is to be included in an upcoming research programme by the Virtual Knowledge Studio.  Seeking “to understand how mediation and knowledge production are entwined in the use of databases of images“ The notion of network realism, of an architecture of information swirling around actual entities, inspires me to re-trace my thoughts on networks, images and associational structures in relation to the Fortean.  Proposed Network Realism research is focused on the factual. Following Fort I’ll take the factual as a nuanced hue in a shifting continuum between known and unknown phenomena.

While the goblin universe has persisted in peripheral visions for millenia, nothing’s quiet on the Western front.  A (percieved) rise  of Fortean pursuits, including exhibits in New York, Maine, Maryland, also pop culture, hoaxes, sightings in both mass and amateur media seem to be gaining critical mass.  These occurrences may be understood as provocations linked to an accelerating, mass societal shift towards the acceptance/preference/convenience of free-floating images, text and associations as being indistinguishable from the represented physical counter parts.

For some the response to this is a matter of Baudrillardian hyper-reality, the pursuit of the cryptid is “a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real.” The goblin universe is more tangible than the ghost world of networked space, or at least the possibilities of close encounters hold that promise.  There is likely a link to surveillance as well and thus the allure of the “unknown animal.”  Cryptids exist only as hypothetical realities, once captured, classified–they cease being cryptids. Once classified as legitimate animals they move from the speculative non-fiction of legend and folklore to the speculative non-fiction of network realism.  They are digitally photographed with cameras on tripods, saved as high resolution data products, then tagged.  Over time, the search engineering shifts associations away from Fortean claims.  Eventually even  forest giraffes, for example, are capable of generating links far removed from bigfeet, nessies and other, perhaps stealthier, cryptids.

Gray areas persist.

Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology, the study of hidden, or unknown animals is most famous for its alleged encounters with the Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and UFOs. Mythological and supernatural beasts might also fall under/into the cryptozoo, but it is these “missing links” that seem the most elusive and prized.

These cryptids are sustained phenomenally by an architecture of participation and belief, a network of social interactions that continue to mutate and nourish the cryptozoological set. Making sense out these marvelous creatures, as lurking metaphors for sites ( or sights) of counter-hegemonic media production, I will adopt the role of “cryptozoologist”, situating myself betwixt cartography and conspiracy, between animal and animation