Perplex City

I received an email last week from a mysterious girl named Scarlett Kiteway about the missing Receda cube stolen from the Perplexians and concealed somewhere on Earth.

Hi. My name's Scarlett Kiteway, I'm 20 years old and I live in Perplex City, which is... well, it's not on Earth. If you're wondering how I got your address - the truth is that I took it from my dad, Sente. He doesn't know, but I just needed someone to talk to - there have been some pretty weird things going on over here. I need to talk about what's going on, but I can't really tell anyone in the City about it....

Perplex City is an altered reality game (ARG) where the boundary between reality and the game is blurred. Clues to the location of the cube are on a series of cards with various puzzles that often require lateral thinking. There is supposed to be a $200,000 prize for finding the cube.


On this card you are supposed to find two side-effects of Ceretin. Ceretin nicknamed "Sharp Red" is a drug used to sharpen attention and provide selective cognitive enhancement. Cognivia is the fictional company that manufactures cognitive enhancement drugs like Ceretin.

Cyborg performance artist STELARC

Cyborg performance artist STELARC believes that we are zombies and cyborgs.

I think it is interesting that it was so easy for Stelarc to adapt
to using a third hand. He is able to write with his third hand. We can
adapt to machines/tools and incorporate them as extensions of our
bodies. This is nothing new of course, we have been doing this since
humans began using tools.

Psymbiote: Hybrid Apparatus for Social Interface

Psymbiote

Adorned in titanium, latex, silicone, and electronic apparatus, isa/Psymbiote places herself in the eye of the storm: the conceptual terrain at the collision of bodies and machines, the mutation of her own identity through transformation of the body. Ultimately the project seeks to fully transform the artist into a seductively organic yet entirely unfamiliar hybrid organism, a human/machine chimera with fully integrated control systems. The costume is being animated with movement, sound, and light; activated by manual triggers, automatic body processes, and remote control. As her evolution progresses, Psymbiote appears in public spaces to stimulate dialogue regarding the future of technological enhancements to the human body. She has already been sighted at a number of universities, art shows, international conferences, and as host of the SIGGRAPH CyberFashion Show. The Psymbiote Project brings issues raised by the ongoing redefinition of our bodies into a public forum, highlighting some of the contemporary critical discourse surrounding cyborgs and all forms of human/technology integration.

Summer Science Reading

If you are looking for some Summer science reading, Edge.org has some recommendations.

Edge.org Summer Reading List

Vernor Vinge on the Singularity

An annotated version of Vinge's classic essay "Technological Singularity".