Conditioning
38
Absolute Magnitude
Things on your mind lately: the nature of existence and the potential pointlessness of everything. What does it all mean? Using the powers of major depression and contemporary philosophy, you’ve reached some startling conclusions…
Animal Magnetism
Fangs, claws, nasty glowing eyes and all that. A greater capacity for violence. Where pure drive takes you.
Anti-Maternal Instincts
A serpent weaves itself up your leg. Nothing you do in your current form can stop its ascent. Reimagine what it is that makes You, or brace for the sad and inevitable.
Apology World Tour 96
You keep saying everything is your fault, and you might be right. It’s hard to tell. Trace the shit-streak back to its point of origin, find the idiot responsible, and hold them to account.
Cadence of the Closed World
It seems no one except you wants to talk about what’s really going on: The secret cabals of decadent elites, augmentoids, and remote thought manipulation. Coincidence? Sign of mental imbalance? Unlikely. It’s time to expose the Truth.
Career Opportunities
A dull ache in your chest, the ominous buzz of fluorescent lighting. Being back in-theatre has got you reminiscing: How’d you get yourself into this line of work in the first place?
Cold Storage
Have you heard yourself? ‘Cool’ this, ‘cool’ that, cool everything. This is what the psychomancers call 'parapraxis': Is there something unpleasant from your recent past that you haven’t fully come to terms with?
Divine Manipulator of the Threads
People have noticed you holding your hands out in prayer, muttering to yourself. What’s going on? Is this another elaborate disguise or a genuine display of so-called faith?
Emissary of the Final Society
You've been hard at work remaking yourself into a living embodiment of the techno-fascist worldview: a freak for speed, violence, mass culture, and the liquidation of individual consciousness. The Ministry of Mass Culture would like to reward you for your efforts.
Eternal Victim
A kitchen’s worth of knives in your back. A chicken-sized bone from the universe. It’s not really supposed to be this hard, is it?
Full Moon Counter
A child reaches up at a glowing orb from her mother’s shoulder. The grandfather moon looks down and smiles. A relationship at the mercy of celestial rotation, until the child is no more.
Ghost Recorder - DO NOT OPEN
An arc of fire trails across the sky, hurtling toward the ground. Officials in highly reflective suits cordon off the crowd and clear the debris. Are you ready to face your past?
How to Pull This Off
First impulses have the merit of arriving to the scene before anyone else, yet are rarely followed by positive outcomes. Preparation is key, knowing the door-code might help as well.
Jar of Faces
Crack the lid open. Apply liberally around your eyes, lips, and nose using broad strokes. Pat dry to aid absorption. When you no longer recognise yourself, that’s how you know it’s working.
Landau, Summer 81
The music follows you into an ambulance. A bullet thuds in your chest as the arteries whistle along. One more dance?
Latest Synthetic Desires
Years of living in the People’s Republics have left you defenceless against the Developed World’s most semiotically advanced advertisements. This requires further exploration followed by a ruthless auto-critique.
Locus of Internal Control
Governance is easy to observe externally: legislation, taxes, jury service, multi-tier citizen incentive structures. But it's also an internal phenomena with its own mysterious signs. Who's really in charge here?
Modified Limited Hangout
‘Might’, ‘just a bit’, ‘okay, maybe a little…' -- Words you've harnessed to the front of your non-commitment wagon. The steeds of ironic distance gallop across the plains while nobody looks on.
Party and the Party
By day, communist youths spend their days reciting doctrine. By night, they share underground music recorded on scratched discs. In the back of their ear, a little voice is going 'nnnts-nnnts-nnnts'. Do you hear it, too?
People's Republic of La-La-Land
In the power rankings of global delusions, communism is near the very top. Nevertheless, you’ve held fast to the Party Line, saying exactly what you’re supposed to say in precisely the right way. Surely there must be some kind of reward waiting for you?
Primitive Accumulation
Your pockets are looking a bit empty. Everything feels a bit harder now. You’ve just learned a valuable lesson: In the Developed World, the real crime is being poor.
Single-Write Only
A wise man once said that whatever happens has already happened. Now it looks like someone's been keeping track. Welcome to the rest of all possible worlds.
Spiritual Auto-Surgery
Step back, she's got a knife! One of the nurses faints on the spot. Is she really going to do it? On the one hand, here's proof you were human after all. On the other hand, now everyone knows what your insides look like.
Standalone Expansion
Don't like a performance? Restart the scene, fire the actors. They barely knew their lines anyway. If anyone talks back, just remember: You're the original here.
Stone-Age Daydream
You’ve been here before... a long, long time ago. Tribal laws and legends of the forbidden valley stir deep within you as your toes rip flowers from the earth with each step.
Tell Them We're Diplomats!
As you and your partner lay bleeding on the floor of a board game cafe, you can't help but clutch your diplomatic passport and smile... this incident just went international.
The Ballad of Felix Kaido
At last. We will locate the heart, rip it clean still beating and run wild with the lifeblood of our enemies streaking like comet tails behind us. Surely it wasn't all for nothing.
The Empty Floor
It’s time to get serious. At least, that’s what you keep saying. But no one else seems to realise there's a job to do around here. So, sure, you'll do it. Fuck it. Whatever it takes, that's your motto. And woe to anyone who gets in your way.
The End End Consumer
Touting the benefits of increased market incentives and private enterprise hasn’t helped you so far. Well… there are exciting developments from the frontier of experimental finance, and just in time: You can’t be expected to do real espionage on a budget. Terms and conditions apply.
The Ineffable Melancholy of L-Pop
A voice ringing out in an empty auditorium, calling to something you left in the back of your heart. This numbered limited edition features a holographic stamp certifying its authenticity.
The Phantom Pain
What hurts the most? The things you'll never achieve, despite your best efforts. Everyone knows what’s holding you back... but they'll never dare say it.
The Quest for 'It'
No chemical, technological, or therapeutic intervention could aid you on this dangerous metaphysical journey. Is the Manus Fati about to pluck you from obscurity or flick you clean off the board?
The Umbral Host
A cape of shadows. A crown carried forward on lightless air, a scarred sword handed down. This city needs a new kind of night. The Host expects.
The Unrealised Loss
Credit and Debit, the sinister twins haunting your household. Don’t worry, they’re not real until they hit the balance sheet. Just movements in the dark.
The Wang Way
In a distant time and place, a man asks his followers to eat the pages of his life’s work. Afterwards, he tells them to defecate on each other to prove their loyalty. What would you do?
The Year Zero
A masked man stabs an illusion. The knife dissolves into spheres that each host life. Billions live, die, and live again. Somewhere in the midst of it, events are recorded. Until it's all burned up, the ashes thrown away.
Tryouts for the Human Race
Only a few bedgraggled onlookers today. Empty paper cups and ripped up tickets between the folding seats. They paid good money for this sad spectacle, you could at least put a little effort into it.
Unguided Missile Strikes
Feel the seduction of the steering wheel that pulls you toward oncoming traffic. Punch in the launch codes. Escalation is the only way forward.