Mr Nullus from Nusquam

‘’What, exactly, does it mean to be ‘countercultural’? A counterculture defines itself in opposition to mainstream norms, values, and behaviors: it is a rejection and rebuke of hegemonic cultural mores.’’
My thesis defines as Mr Nullus from Nusquam – a contemporary synthesis of a reversed version of Alice in wonderland. Rooted in the melancholy of resistance to imposed norms, the thesis attempts to exemplify a particular case (text-based) of unrevealing the multicity of post-factual reality. Opposed to conventional linear narrativedirected design, the thesis embraces a non-narrative structure and explores the collaborative relationship between designer and AI.
As a methodology or workflow, questioning the authorship of a design and given tools that typically produce linear sequences after a story has been completed, the project starts with the assemblies of multiple ’.databases’. Extracting texts from Bruno’s book Streets of crocodiles and using them as input for disco diffusion. Referencing other artists’ visual composition and engaging GPT3(AI text generator) for
narrative structure. The process is never linear but more a lopped design discussion between me, AI, Bruno, and other artists for their visual styles. It’s simultaneously an act of distancing from banality
into a world of endless, enchanting metamorphosis.
Cuts are not motivated by linear narrative, but more a collage of events and folding of space in a visual simulated way. Dealing with material aberration, the audience is submitted to vertigo and the
bewildering world where they are guided to ponder the limitation of mundane association and routine human habits.
The project is a synthesis of pictures and poems, set in motion by the film. While referencing back to the work of Brother Quay and Jan Svankmajer in terms of stop-motion animation compositing
techniques, the project will combine the live-action and the digitalmade to form a hybrid image that emphasizes the tactile experience of a Mimicry and legendary psychasthenia dream. An emphasis on
the image, the rejection of classical convention, and close interaction with literature, theatre, and the visual arts. The space itself becomes objective humor, humor that is neither abstract nor cynical since it
springs from the depths of a reality that has turned sour.

Directed by Chenjia Ren (USA)