This workshop was hosted at the Canadian Cybernetic Cultural Research Unit (a YouTuber collective space, located in Toronto). Guided by Evgo Stillwell, participants were lead through poetic rituals, which involved controlled breathing, synchronized movement, and group discussions.
“The night was cybernetic because time accelerates into the future. The world was poetic because poetry is magic.”
Participants prepared by creating aluminum headgear, to protect their minds from nonsense. Through mindful facilitation, they emptied their brains of BLAH, produced their own word collection, engaged in the ancient art of ‘snap-chi’, and developed poetry. Participants reported feeling a sense of community, invigorated creativity, and a mind-bending snap back into reality.
The CCCRU studio was elastic with magical properties that night. Everyone left with more questions than answers.
Poetry’s arch-nemesis: BLAH
Scientists call it quantum physics, conspirators call it 5g, the normies know it as vibes. BLAH BLAH BLAH dominates the world, and we are addicted to it.
Our heads are filled with BLAH BLAH BLAH. Is it a coincidence that a baby’s first babbles evoke a semblance to BLAH BLAH BLAH?
I think not.
When we speak, BLAH BLAH BLAH naturally pours out of our mouths, like flowing water.
The moment we close our mouths, the BLAH sucks right back into our heads, through the holes of our ears.
BLAH BLAH BLAH is the egoic curtain that blocks our magical ability to sense the truth of reality. And when we cannot see the truth of reality, we cannot find the knowledge we need to create magic. This is the enemy of poetry.
How to protect yourself from BLAH
The smart approach is to create protective head-gear. Aluminum, mixed with creativity, enveloped around the cranium, is the ancient methodology of protecting your brain from re-ingesting BLAH.
Once the BLAH absorbtion process is blocked, the head will slowly release the toxins through the digestive system. Eventually, the mind will be cleared of BLAH.
Finally, we have space.
The emptiness of the mind invites the appearance of magical thought. This is the headspace required to write poetry.
Bonus method: Snap-Chi
This is a martial art invented by Evgo Stillwell, entirely based on the act of snapping. Inspired by the cultural behavior of snapping instead of clapping at poetry open mics, she guided participants through integrated breathing and snapping movements. Her theory is that engaging in creative and unfamiliar motions transitions our minds out of their default states and into creative awareness.
Cybernetics & hyperstition
To understand cybernetics, one must first have to sit with a concept called hyperstition: the theory of fictions that make themselves real. This is a direct challenge to the assumption that there is a stable boundary between what is true and what is imagined.
Inspired by theory-fiction technology that was perfected by the original CCRU, workshop participants were challenged to engage with their own futures. Subjects wrote their own self-fullfilling prophecies, and shared glimpses into the vulnerable dreams that they wished to manifest.
What the participants didn’t realize is that their poems were merely cybernetic machines. Hyperstition is completely impersonal, it treats all ideas as innevitabilities that compete for territory over the truth. These poems inhabited the subjects like vessels, manipulating the conditions of reality to orchestrate their own production.
The open-mic was the grand-finale of the workshop. Participants volunteered to share their work, using the in-person collective as a channel for positive feedback.
Cybernetic poetry written by participants
A turtle once told me
By The Dope Chief
It is unlike trees that I am.
To grow up tall, straight up and then bend.
To stay in one place and face harsh conditions.
To grow in only one environment with narrow vision.It is very much like trees that I am not.
To dream of being tall but not move from one spot.
To reach for the sky with only one perspective.
To have fear of change but also expect it.It is very much like a tree I cannot be.
To wonder if I fall would others see?
Would they know that
I’m drowning in a whole wood sea?Like a tree? could not be me.
I need to move even when slowly.
Even if days pass and I’ve only moved one step.
Even if I take naps and the path I forget.I cannot be like tall trees.
To see my dreams fall to the earth like dead leaves
To wonder why the birds flee,
when snow blows and rivers freeze.I want to see the glow of different night skies,
I’m much more like the stars that fly!
To be a pine, would not be fine,
Hell is the thought of being still for all-of-time.Why stand tall and not move at all?
Why grow roots so you never fall?
I cannot stop I’d rather crawl!
That’s called growth, that’s what its called.To be an oak? What a joke!
The turtle chuckled when he spoke.
and as I stood in place and awe
I will not soon forget what I saw.A turtle who would go so far.
who was unlike a tree but more like a shooting star.
Men (excerpt)
By Theresa Hopkins
What I love about men
is their huge hands.What I hate about men
is everything else.
Originality
By Alannah Astorquiza
Originality is hard.
Originality is hard.
Was told at a young age
that I’d be great.
But now I guess it’s too fcking late.
We are spin-offs of influence
so don’t take offense,
remember that originality is hard.
Don’t be sad,
don’t you cry.
In the end,
we will all fcking die.
Accept your attempt, to not is to fail
We are all just stories,
our own little tales.
The sweetest pie
By Corlil
no big emotions
no enemies
yet not one real friend
always pleasing
always smiling on
knows everybody
known by no one
fits all the molds
the people pleaser