Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

One afterlife haunted by a digital doppelganger

A Michigan woman died, but her digital presence continued functioning, creating a weird posthumous existence.

Farrenkopf [the deceased person] had a kind of institutional doppelgänger, as do we all: a presence that forms as we post on social media, shop online, send e-mails, and use the Internet for paying bills, banking, and dozens of other financial and technological transactions.

Carmen Maria Machado then generalizes from this particular case:

Some of us have more than one. The institutional doppelgänger is hard to see because it shadows our everyday lives so closely. Every so often, though, the curtain twitches, reminding us of its existence.

The article also makes a nice move to one classic 19th-century doppelganger theory:

Karl Marx believed that the product of human labor was separate from and hostile toward its maker. The same might be said of the product of our commercial activities on the Internet. You might not believe that your institutional doppelgänger works against you, but it does not seem like a stretch to argue that the sum of your activity as a consumer—your social-media posts, credit history, the freakishly accurate profile advertisers have of you—is its own creature, and can move about independently of you. 

(link thanks to Alison Furlong; photo by Patrick Denker)

Zombie plane time

CNN continues its wild Gothic by suggesting that missing Malaysian airliner had become a zombie plane.

This plane story is giving CNN license to cut loose.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Canadians find another severed human body part

Canada continued its lead in the severed body part contest this week, as a human hand turned up in the city of Windsor.

The conductor made the gruesome find Tuesday afternoon in the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Windsor yard near some tracks...
Police said it looked like it could be a woman’s hand, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

Well, we say "human hand", but other pieces might appear:

Canine units and officers on foot were there into the evening scouring the property inch by inch looking for any clue to what happened — and for other body parts.

There's some grim urban/industrial atmosphere:

Police on the scene said the hunt was a difficult one because the search area, wedged between Crawford and Janette avenues, was so vast. It’s also full of ditches, overgrown weeds, bushes and some areas so wet and muddy that even four-by-four vehicles were useless.

Plus some urban Gothic, with an emphasis on one particularly disturbing American city:

But the possibilities are endless. The rail line connects to tracks in Michigan through the underground train tunnel. From there, the tracks stretch out across most of Canada and large parts of the United States.

Have we experienced this kind of body part discovery for a while, and just not been aware of it?  Perhaps we're seeing more of this stuff due to awareness and better technologies.

(link thanks to Randy McCall; photo by the dark hand of Infocult)

 

How CNN sees the world

Here's a snapshot of the Gothic lens through which CNN sees the world:

Take a minute to dwell on this screenshot from CNN.com's front page. Killings, deaths. kidnappings. Scares, fears. Hopes dimming. Even Ebola makes an appearance!  "You scare me at times" indeed.

Note that this isn't from CNN's crime section, or from a side page. It's from their main page, the primary news stream they present to the world.

We at Infocult commend CNN for having the courage to see the world in so terrifying a manner. We admire CNN's willingness to shun the constraints of mere journalism, in favor of embracing the full Gothic. Welcome to the dark side, CNN!

Clown stalks Staten Island

A clown is sneaking around New York City's Staten Island, creeping out the locals.

(thanks to Sarah Roberts on Facebook)

When compressed meat comments attack

Weird spam comment of the day, from a blog not Infocult:

Fromm thenn on, get back to the conventional place. You mayy ask it, if you don't get one. Nonetheless, do not compromise on different parts, when you are focusing on these body parts.

That's the entire comment. Hm.

"The Study Which Must Not Be Named"

Classic Onion satire with Gothic flair: "New Study Too Frightening To Release" .

"I beg the forgiveness of God for unleashing this hellish study upon humanity," added [Dr. Desmond Oerter, head of the Stanford team], dropping to his knees. "I am death, destroyer of worlds." Oerter then produced a pair of ballpoint pens and plunged them into his eye sockets.

[T]he heads of numerous Stanford departments, including physics, molecular biology, TV & media studies, religious studies and economics, "cannot be accounted for at this time."

In addition to the missing department heads, two of the study's coordinators have taken their own lives, and three more remain on 24-hour suicide watch at an area hospital. Of the approximately 35 individuals involved in conducting the study, only a handful of junior research assistants and student volunteers retain their sanity.

1999, and it's still excellent.  Read the whole thing.

(thanks to Clyde)

Excellent scarecrows

Some Japanese farmers have created splendidly horrific scarecrows.

Several of these draw from current Japanese cultural obsessions, like this Ringu-style scary girl:

Or the classic Japanese schoolgirl:

(Just how far does that row of severed heads extend?)

Or everyone's beloved/most terrifying creature:

(thanks to Randy McCall)

 

CNN Gothic: supernatural powers snatched MH370

"Just putting it out there," explains a CNN anchor, who wants us to consider supernatural explanations for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.  Perhaps "something... odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding."

Oh yes, watch the most widely viewed, most mainstream television news channel lurch into the Gothic again:

Bonus points for leading up to this by saying that conspiracy theories might be crazy, but not ambitious enough.

 

A sculpture garden of delight and terror

A garden of fear and terror awaits you at the Indian Sculpture Park at Victoria's Way. It presents itself as a space for contemplation, but offers objects that might scare us all.  Not a bad metaphor for life.

The site offers this charming, non-threatening image on the top of its website:

A bunch of Ganeshas: very nice.

But then we see these two sculptures:

And these!