Posts Tagged ‘the jejune institute’

What is SYGNYL?

February 3rd, 2021

 

Today is Groundhog’s Day, and aside from using a groundhog-based weather prediction to determine if we’ll get more winter or spring (spoiler: it’s more winter) we also have our first taste of SYGNYL, a new project from Nonchalance.

Taking a step back, Nonchalance is an ongoing immersive art project from Jeff Hull (also known as Bobby Peru) that was previously responsible for The Jejune Institute, The Latitude, as well as their associated semi-documentary films The Institute and In Bright Axiom, respectively.  Recently a fictional television series loosely based on The Jejune Institute called Dispatches from Elsewhere was released on AMC.

Back to the subject at hand SYGNYL is a podcast which you can find on nearly any podcast platform. Though the trailer (see the video above) and prologue were already available, the first episode was released today.

Of course it’s also more than a podcast, and without giving too much away there’s also a puzzle of sorts for you to solve to compliment the first episode.

Is it some sort of sequel to The Latitude? Some signs point to this including the vocabulary (Signal, Kith, Mantis, etc.) and the website has a similarly all-gray color palette. Oh and if you poke around enough you’ll find that a certain “villain” of the Latitude has also returned.

The relationship to The Latitude raises some questions, but after seeing In Bright Axiom, the aforementioned documentary about The Latitude, I think it’s safe to say there won’t be any secret society elements. As to whether any real life adventures are in store we’ll just have to wait and see. But obviously with the pandemic it would be a poor time to send people down slides and crawling through tiny rooms. It’s also unclear if this will be limited to the Bay Area.

This season of the podcast is named “A General Mystification Vol. 1” so they clearly intend to make more than one season of SYGNYL. Not that we even know how many episodes are in a season just yet.

To check out SYGNYL for yourself you can find links to the podcast here and the official website here.

Looking back at Dispatches From Elsewhere, season 1

May 6th, 2020

Now that the first season is over I thought I’d give a non-spoilery take on Dispatches From Elsewhere. There will be some mentions of the events in the first episode, so if you want to go in completely fresh go watch it first.

This won’t be your typical review, as I was a participant of the real life events this series was based on.

My ears perked up when this series was announced. The name comes from a pirate radio broadcast participants would listen to in Dolores Park which introduced the second chapter of Games of Nonchalance — which I’m just going to call The Jejune Institute here since that’s what most of us called it anyway.

I’ll admit upfront I’m not particularly familiar with Jason Segel (aside from that one Muppet movie) so I wasn’t too certain what to expect from a show he produced, wrote, and co-stars in. Personally I very much enjoyed the show’s first season, with its many twists and entirely unexpected ending.

Just like it’s “real” counterpart, in Dispatches From Elsewhere its version of The Jejune Institute presents itself as a mystery, becomes an act of escapism, and when it’s all over nothing’s really changed. Except of course for the things you decide to change yourself. And maybe the friends you make along the way.

 

Episode 1

So let’s go into the setup in the first episode before I get into how real life events were switched around into a television show.

The series opens with The Jejune Institute’s leader, Octavio Coleman, breaking the fourth wall and acknowledging you’re watching a TV show. He introduces Peter (Jason Segel), a bored employee at a music streaming company in Philadelphia.

Coming across a series of inexplicable flyers attached to utility poles with a phone number attached, Peter eventually pulls off a tab, calls the number, and finds he has an appointment at The Jejune Institute.

After an intense initiation — which drives Peter to tears — he disobeys Octavio and follows the directions on the initiation card. This leads him on a short journey where he meets another participant, Simone (Eve Lindley), a transgender woman who seems ready to attack him at first. Their meeting appears to have been intentional somehow, and they wind up becoming friends, solving some unmentioned piece of the game together.

Later on The Jejune Institute holds an event where, after dancing with a breakdancer and a sasquatch in the rain, participants are assigned into groups of four; Simone and Peter are put into a group of four along with Janice (Sally Field), an energetic older woman, and Fredwynn (Andre “3000” Benjamin), a strange man who alternates between a Sherlock Holmes-style detective and a nutty conspiracy theorist.

What makes the show compelling is how it follows this group of four participants as they go through an experience where they’re never certain exactly what’s part of the game and what’s not, let alone what the rules are — or if there are any.

 

The source material

So let’s talk about similarities and differences between the show and what I recall based on my experiences. Obviously the show is set in Philadelphia, but real life The Jejune Institute took place in San Francisco (though one chapter was in Oakland.)  The flyers Peter finds look nearly identical to the ones I encountered in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood. The real Jejune Institute didn’t have appointments as far as I’m aware — it was a walk-in affair.

Many aspects from the show were taken from the real Jejune Institute including certain characters’ names, notably the names of Octavio Coleman and his enemy Commander 14. The mysterious promise “To those dark horses with the spirit to look up and see, a recondite family awaits,” also originated at the real Jejune Institute’s induction session.

Obviously some of the events in the show are dramatized quite a bit, though many have clear nods to the source material. The Jejune Institute didn’t have rules exactly, though there was a sort of winking aspect to it that let you know you were safe and on the right track.

More information about The Jejune Institute can be found at the official summary web page. Or in numerous blog entries right here on this very site.

 

The other source material

Segel’s inspiration for Dispatches From Elsewhere wasn’t actually The Jejune Institute itself, but rather the 2013 documentary The Institute. In the documentary participants and creators give talking head style monologues about The Jejune Institute, and we see footage (much of which was recorded by participants) about each of the four chapters and the silly after party.

Although I went to see The Institute at its premier I don’t think I’d seen it a second time — until Monday, when it was streamed on Twitch. The documentary’s director, Spencer McCall, and the creator of The Jejune Institute, Jeff Hull, were in the chat to answer questions and provide context.

I have to point out that one of the talking heads in the film, a very enthusiastic participant named Kiyomi Tanouye, was tragically a victim of the Ghost Ship fire in 2016. The first season of Dispatches From Elsewhere is dedicated to her memory.

The Institute is a much better documentary than I remember. It’s easy to see how Segel was influenced not only by the wild stories and events, but also people’s reactions. Oh and the part with dancing with a sasquatch and a breakdancer in the rain? Yup, that really happened — only to a select few, however. See the clip below for proof:

I’ll also admit the few glimpses of me in the movie make me question what was going on with my hair at the time. Too much mousse or something, it looked terrible. What was I thinking? 

If you’d like to see The Institute yourself, it’s available for streaming on iTunes and Amazon Video.

Jason Segel explains “Dispatches From Elsewhere” on The Late Show

February 28th, 2020

 

In the above clip from The Late Show, Jason Segel explains his upcoming TV show Dispatches From Elsewhere to host Stephen Colbert.

The quick version: While searching for inspiration for a new TV show to create, Segel learns about The Jejune Institute and manages to contact the man behind it all, who Segel likens to Willy Wonka. This quickly leads to a story far more interesting than your average talk show anecdote as Segel travels to San Francisco, finding a trailhead laid out just for him.

Obviously I can’t speak to Segel’s experience, though what he described sounds more like The Latitude to me. I’d be interested to hear more about it.

Colbert is a great interviewer as always, and I really like Segel’s description of Nonchalance’s guerilla art installations as “magic as an act of defiance.”

Dispatches From Elsewhere debuts March 1st on AMC. Looking forward to confused people stumbling on my blog posts while trying to understand this TV show.

The mysterious album from The Jejune Institute’s second chapter

February 9th, 2020
Sounds of Ascension cover

 

While cleaning my closet I happened to come across an unusual CD in a cardboard sleeve. It’s called The Sound of Ascension: Audio Kool-Aid From The 70’s Most Eccentric Cults & Communes. This is an artifact from the second chapter of The Jejune Institute saga.

The timing of this discovery is perfect as the TV show Dispatches From Elsewhere comes out next month, loosely based on the real (?) events of The Jejune Institute here in San Francisco.

In fact the name “Dispatches From Elsewhere” was the name of the pirate radio show that advertised (among other things) this album. The Jejune Institute’s second chapter essentially started when you brought a radio to Dolores Park and tuned in — turning on and dropping out were strictly optional.

As for this album only a couple of record stores sold it, and you had to ask for it at the register. I bought mine from Aquarius Records on Valencia.

 

Sounds of Ascension outer artwork Sounds of Ascension outer artwork Sounds of Ascension inner artwork Sounds of Ascension inner artwork Sounds of Ascension inner artwork Sounds of Ascension CD label

 

The contents of the album listed on the packaging is pretty much what you’d expect from the title, starting with a track from The Manson Family. The full track listing and more details are listed on Discogs.

At the point where someone jumped through all the hoops to get this album, it’s almost comically obvious there would be a hidden track. For historical interest, I’ve ripped the hidden track and put it on Soundcloud. Listen below if you like.

 

 

The track is a walkabout following a young Eva Lucien and her mother Peggy through San Francisco’s Mission District. With them is a guest known as “Brightwell,” presumably the man making the field recording.

As explained in the liner notes Peggy Lucien was involved with various communes and cults in California, which is why she collected the audio on this album.

Let me delve into the details of the tour.

The walkabout begins on Chula Lane, a tiny alley between Church and Dolores streets. At the time the starting point was marked in the middle of the alley with two painted footprints surrounded by a compass — the first of many guerilla art installations on this tour.

The “fairy tree” Eva mentions is a palm tree on Dolores that has a bunch of holes in it, possibly due to rot. There were a bunch of tiny gold hand prints in the holes at the time to indicate fairies had been there.

Eva’s dad sounds like he’s voiced by Jeff Hull, the man behind Nonchalance (parent entity of The Jejune Institute.) The guy has a very distinctive voice.

One building mentioned in the track was a damaged and abandoned rectory next to an empty lot at the corner of 15th and Dolores. Once a church that burned down under mysterious circumstances, the whole thing was fenced off for at least a decade. A few years after The Jejune Institute closed the rectory building was restored and condos have gone up in the empty lot.

At the same corner there really were unusual hopscotch outlines painted on the sidewalks on either side of Dolores. Nonchalance dutifully repainted these on a regular basis.

The “green boxes” that gave Eva headaches are ordinary utility boxes. At the time they had fake but realistic warning stickers on them, alerting the public of “microwave harassment.”

As they walk down Albion Street, Eva whispers that things are getting smaller. At this point in the walk there were tiny doors, windows, and even a tiny gas meter glued on the side of the building that houses Kilowatt. Unfortunately these were removed by vandals or thieves pretty early on.

The final destination is Adobe Books. They’ve since moved, but at the time they were located on 16th Street. The door in the bookshelf Eva leads you to contained a small art installation, and the shelf itself had a book labeled “Interdimensional Hopscotch” that was chained to the shelf.

That’s the end of the recording, though there are a few other details I can recall.

There were other physical objects to go along with this chapter, many of which were advertised in the Dispatches From Elsewhere radio broadcast. There was a map of the area which included key points along this tour. I also acquired some wooden nickels (or “hobo coins”) from a newspaper stand at 16th and Valencia. These could be traded at the Paxton Gate curiosity shop for a small envelope containing plastic teeth.

Separately you could order a “box of Nonchalance” which came with the microwave harassment warning stickers as well as a wire fence sign explaining that all fences and walls would be “soon obsolete.”

There’s actually quite a bit more to all of this part of the chapter, which is very well documented on Cardhouse.com. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get to dance with Bigfoot though I did meet several people who had the honor.

I did however get invited back to Eva’s fairy tree one final time for the fourth chapter of the story, which I’ve previously documented here.

The Jejune Institute is coming to the small screen

November 26th, 2019
Teaser trailer for Dispatches From Elsewhere

 

“Welcome to The Jejune Institute,” a disembodied female voice declares as someone enters a small room.

When I first saw a list of TV shows AMC was working on, Dispatches From Elsewhere immediately jumped out at me. Both the name of the show and one of the characters — Octavio — were lifted straight from Games of Nonchalance, an alternate reality game of sorts which ran in San Francisco from 2008 through April 2011.

In the first chapter, players would visit an office tower downtown at The Jejune Institute, where they’d be sent to a small room to watch a video recording about the “institute” and its founder, Octavio Coleman, Esquire.

For the show they’ve changed the setting to Philadelphia, but a lot of it looks similar — an unusual induction center for a mysterious institute, flash mob protests, cryptic messages from payphones, confusion about what’s going on… who knows what else could be in store?

According to IMDb the show will star Andre 3000, Sally Field, and series creator Jason Segel among others. It will debut sometime next year.

How I got mentioned in an art history dissertation

November 2nd, 2018

It’s been brought to my attention that yours truly is mentioned in a master’s dissertation — and even cited as a source.

On the surface this seems surprising since I hold a master’s in computer science. I’ve never written a serious academic paper on art, let alone history. But as you’ll soon see it’s not that kind of citation.

Last year an art history major named Kat Lukes-Caribeaux at York University wrote a dissertation titled The Epistemology of Elsewhere: Space and Play as Laboratories of Multivalent Participatory Knowledges in The Games of Nonchalance. In it she describes the events of Games of Nonchalance (aka The Jejune Institute) in great detail while examining its interaction with its own surrounding public space and how that fits with the concept of play.

The final act was at the Hyatt Recency San Francisco in 2011. In Lukes-Caribeaux’s description of the event:

On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, the Games of Nonchalance-dedicated Unfiction forum hosted a spark of new activity. The Jejune Institute had just announced a Socio-Reengineering Seminar for April 10th at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency […] In the two days preceding, 300 registered persons were emailed with a room number at the Hyatt and an appointed time for a “pre-screening” examination conducted by representatives from the Jejune Institute. Tasked by the Elsewhere Public Works Agency to infiltrate the Jejune Institute one last time, participants were instructed to retrieve a small round object called a Bio4ce Globe from the pre-screening room without detection by the examiner. Regardless of what happened, the instructions warned participants to under no circumstance place the Globe in water. After their operatives retrieved the globes, the EPWA hoped to kidnap Octavio Coleman Esquire.66

 
On April 10th, ticket holders were greeted by Antoine Logan, the seminar’s featured speaker (fig. 12). After four hours of various team-building activities that included breathing exercises, parachute games, watching a video of a “dolphin telling jokes,” and yelling “yes!” at a stranger while the stranger shot back varying intonations of “no!,” Antoine faced the crowd with a knowing look. “Some of you brought something with you…”67 This produced a documented anxious response amongst participants who had successfully retrieved a Bio4ce Globe from the pre-screening, an anxiety that only heightened when Antoine asked they reveal it, and then drop it into a supplied glass of hot water. In a video posted by MrEricSir on YouTube of the incident, an audience member is heard shouting defiantly “why?,” protecting their Globe. “Because,” Antoine calmly replies, “that is how we make tea.”68

You’ll have to read the paper (linked above) to see all the relevant citations, but you can see my video of the tea ceremony below. The moment described above occurs at about one minute in:
 


 

For the record, I’d only pulled out my phone to shoot this video a couple minutes after Antoine first asked us to put the ball in the water. Silence and hesitation filled the room for quite some time — like everyone else, I had no idea what would happen if I chose to make the tea or resisted. It was easily the hardest “should I make tea or not?” decision I’ve ever faced.

Either way I’m glad I shot the video, if for no other reason to do my little part for Lukes-Caribeaux’s interesting dissertation.

More relics from The Jejune Institute on the web

June 26th, 2016


 

I have no idea what my brain does when I’m asleep. Occasionally it leads me to some strange discoveries. For example, up until today I’d always assumed “Nonchalance,” the name of the studio behind The Jejune Institute, was something they’d made up for the game’s second chapter. My own dreams proved this to be incorrect. How? We’re getting to that.

Far too early this morning I woke up after a dream, grabbed my phone, and typed something into Google. I can’t remember the dream nor the search keywords, but the results included this music page on Nonchalance’s website. (Why some of the music is listed as by “JBH & Bobby Peru” is beyond me, since those are the same person.)

To me the most interesting part about the page wasn’t the music itself, it was that it represented some relic from a previous version of the Nonchalance.com website I’d never encountered before — it predated The Jejune Institute. Needless to say, I couldn’t get back to sleep; I’d stumbled down this temporal rabbit hole and needed to know more.

While many links on the page now redirect elsewhere, Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine came to the rescue. For those unfamiliar with the service, they’ve been capturing publicly available websites for decades and storing them online. You can go back and see how your favorite websites looked back in the day, even if they’re long since defunct.

After poking around the archives of Nonchalance’s website, most of the content on early versions of the site covers their other activities, including art installations, musings on design, and related projects like Oaklandish. Only later versions of the site make reference to the “game” project they’d become best known for (click the hyperlinked word “the” in the previous sentence to see what I mean.)

The most unexpected revelation hidden in these forgotten pages is the first entry in the website’s blog (scroll all the way down) in a post from 2007, about a year before The Jejune Institute opened its doors to the public.

The post reads in part:

Picture in your mind a cartoon character sleepwalking. Observe as they stutter, step, and stumble blindly out of bed, down the stairs and out the front door on to a busy street. They narrowly dodge impending danger without effort or awareness. Cars race by, they are turned around in a revolving door, and after the languid adventure they are somehow returned to bed unharmed. It’s a certain attribute the cartoon character possesses: to be able to stumble through life with nary a care, prodigiously protected and provided for by the invisible hand of good fortune. This ability is called Divine Nonchalance.
 
And so; our titled is lifted from this phrase, which may have its origins in modern Tarot: it appears on the card of The Fool. It signifies a certain blessed carelessness, a freedom from inhibition that sparks and inspires creativity. Long ago our local clique adopted the phrase to describe certain peoples who possessed the gift. If you possess it, as visionary artists often do, than you too may be one of the Divine Nonchalants.
 
BUT BEWARE: like any other gift, it comes with a price. The special power of Nonchalance is not found on the card of the King, or of the Sun… it is found on the card of The Fool. Clowns, wise guys, drunks and musicians are the salty sort of down-trodden folk who usually possess this super power in spades. And of course; cartoon characters. This special breed of people all share the wonderful attribute. It’s a shame they’ll never quite know what to do with it. By definition the Nonchalant is wonderfully scattered, and lacking in all direction. The ride is fantastic, but it only leads back to where we began.
 
It is appropriate then that we put the title to use. Nonchalance.org is a small looking glass into the creative lives of a few east bay souls. Here is where we document our works, make audacious statements of purpose, post exhibit schedules, engage with theory, trade intelligence, and celebrate our love for the past, present and future of this glorious lifetime.

A slightly different version of the Divine Nonchalance definition can be found on this page from a 2008 snapshot of Nonchalance.com

If any of this definition sounds familiar it’s because “Commander 14,” played by Harry S. Robins, read a nearly identical script on a certain pirate radio station in Dolores Park in the second chapter of The Jejune Institute. You can listen to the full broadcast here. The part similar to the above quote starts at about 1:20. But really, you should listen to the entire thing; it’s less than an hour long and it’s quite funny. Listen to it at Dolores Park if you want the most authentic experience.

It’s amazing what mind-blowing mysteries we can accidentally unlock in the middle of the night. Assuming there’s no microwave harassment, of course.

A recently unearthed write up on The Jejune Institute’s fourth chapter

April 14th, 2016

boombox
Photo by Flickr user corissa_triclyops
 

The fourth chapter of The Jejune Institute’s saga, “The Lost Mixtape” was an adventure that took place with a group of strangers in the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland. Eva Lucien, the hero of the story, guided participants through a tape on a golden boombox.

You can read more about it on producer Uriah Findley’s website here, see a brief participant’s video of some of the action here, or if you’re really curious, check out the pseudo-documentary film The Institute for a more comprehensive look at the entire story.

As a participant, after completing this fourth chapter our group was asked to work together to create a mixtape and a write up describing what happened. In my group I was tasked with writing duties, others handled the mixtape. This material was all shared freely among all the groups who completed the chapter on a website. Sadly, that website no longer exists.

I’ve barely thought of this recently — until today. This morning my web host sent me an email notifying me that they’d upgraded one of my sites that I’d long ago taken offline and forgotten about. Curious, I FTP’d into the virtual server and found a single file called “our_story.txt.” I’d like to share that file openly today. I’ve removed all names (aside from my own) to protect everyone’s identity and corrected a couple grammar mistakes.

Attempting to describe everything Nonchalance, the studio behind The Jejune Institute, has put me through over the years generally makes me sound like a raving lunatic. (See also this and this.) So don’t expect anything different here. But first I should include a bit of context so my write up makes at least some degree of sense.

  • The Chapel of the Chimes is a beautiful columbarium in Oakland, designed in part by Julia Morgan. It’s often used for various concerts and art events.
  • “Eva” is the hero of the overall story, a young woman who disappeared to a mysterious other world known only as Elsewhere.
  • “Eva’s Fairy Tree” is a specific tree in the median of Dolores Street, first mentioned in the second chapter.
  • “Hobo Glyphs” is likely a reference to Nonchalance’s logo, which is basically a hole with rabbit ears (a rabbit hole… get it?)
  • The people following us with cameras were probably taking footage to be used in the film The Institute. From what I can recall, they mostly stayed out of our way.
  • “Terrance” was a fictional character, a member of Eva’s crew, aka The Savants.
  • “Octavio” refers to Octavio Coleman, Esquire, founder and head of The Jejune Institute.

Without further ado, here’s the story as I wrote it down at the time:
 

THE STORY OF THE MARBLE CAKE EIGHT
 

None of us were total strangers. I mean, not all of us had met in person before that Saturday morning in Oakland, but we’d exchanged e-mails. It goes further than that… on one hand we were mostly strangers to one another and yet on the other hand, hadn’t we all shared unusually similar experiences? Cult inductions, protests, radio shows, even dance moves.

 
For the first time, we found ourselves together, confronted with a task we had to work together and trust one another to solve. Completing this mission individually would not be possible.

 

 

It all started one day when a mysterious woman called us from a number in Southern California, giving each three unique mantras, a cardinal or intercardinal direction, and a date. Postcards followed with more clues.

 
From there we didn’t know exactly what to expect, or when we would find out more. It was a waiting game.

 
One Wednesday evening, Mr. Eric Sir received a text message informing him to arrive at Eva’s Fairy Tree at exactly 8 PM. He found a note on the tree: “LOOK RIGHT.”

 
He turned right and walked over to the curb, where a mysterious woman was standing.

 
“Is this right?” he asked.

 
She pressed him for his intentions, and slowly began to trust him. Then she brought out a strange plastic instrument.

 
“I’m going to play a song. A blues song. You need to make up a song, a lyric, that makes you feel blue.”

 
After some hesitation, Eric arrived at some lyrics. The mystery woman put the instrument away and pulled out an envelope that said “Mr. Eric Sir.”

 
The envelope contained a secret e-mail address that connected him to a group of eight people, along with a meeting location. The game was underway.

 

 

On Saturday, March 13th, the eight of us met up on a residential street in Oakland. We were [NAMES REDACTED].

 
[NAME REDACTED] flipped on his camcorder and we got to work.

 
We discovered the postcards contained clues that led us down a path. Along the way, Hobo Glyphs seemed to direct us somewhere. But where?

 
At the end of the path, after some confusion, our postcards indicated we were to enter a mortuary. From there we arranged ourselves in a circle and recited our mantras, one by one, in a circle.

 

 
The Chapel of the Chimes mortuary is a beautiful place, calm and serene, yet elegant and almost maze-like. It would be easy to get lost.

 
From our mantras, we deciphered a path up a staircase and through a door. There we entered a small room with an 80’s boom box that had been painted gold and patterned with floral adhesives.

 
We hit play. The hiss of the tape started, echoing slightly in the stone room. A voice we all knew to be Eva’s came from the boom box.

 
“You always knew you’d find me here,” she said, ominously. We didn’t know what to expect.

 

 

Eva’s voice instructed us to find a vase, which we discovered high up the wall. A metal implement removed the vase from the wall. It was filled — to almost everyone’s horror — with blindfolds. Several of us let out nervous laughs.

 
North, West, South, and East were instructed to take a mask; and to put the mask on the other person. We were told to take the boom box while the cardinal folks walked slowly, following Eva’s instructions, and with the hands of the intercardinal folks on the shoulders of their sighted companions.

 

 

Surprisingly, this walk went without many issues. Even the stairs proved of little trouble. We arrived in a garden, where Eva let us relax for a few minutes without the blindfolds on.

 
Soon the inevitable happened; Eva asked partners switch to tasks. Blindfolds were exchanged, and we got back to our game of follow-the-leader.

 

 

Another break in a garden and masks were removed. We decided to pause the tape for a bit and explore, taking photos and admiring the gardens, statues, and curiously-themed urns.

 
But not for long. We got back to the tape and quickly learned there was another “gift” for us in another vase. Surprisingly, we found four more blindfolds. But for what? We couldn’t all be blindfolded, could we?

 

 

Yes, we could.

 
Arranged in order of height, we faced the back wall of the room and put our blindfolds on. “Turn to the right,” Eva’s voice instructed (a task not everyone was able to follow) and put your hands on the person in front of you.

 
[NAME REDACTED], the shortest of the group, was in the front of the line. Should he start walking? He continued holding his camcorder and waiting for further instructions.

 
But instead of instructions, his camcorder hand was pushed down by a mysterious woman, who then grabbed him and started taking us around. Those of us behind him and no idea what was happening. We hoped that someone was in front of us, or we might end up in a big pile somewhere.

 
A few blind yards later, we ended up in another indoor garden. The tape eventually instructed us to remove our masks. We did so, and discussed briefly what had transpired.

 

 
Tape back on, we were directed into a small room by Eva’s voice. After a cheesy sort of guided meditation that resulted in, well, laughter, we were told to discard the boom box in this room along with the blindfolds.

 
She offered us one final direction, which was to enter another small room two doors away. [NAME REDACTED] found a flower inside a “vase” which turned out to be a map. The map directed us to another small room.

 

 

The final room we visited contained a short letter from Terrance, a full-color copy of Eva’s diary, and a golden mixtape.

 
We were instructed by Terrance to name our group, to record our own mixtape and write down our story (which you’re reading now.)

 

 

Before we left, we had some immediate questions;

 
1. Who was the woman who pulled [NAME REDACTED] around? He consulted his camcorder. Only a brief moment of footage of her exists on the camera. It seemed possible that she was the same mysterious figure who met with Eric prior to the event.

 
But still: who was she?

 
2. Many of us sensed that we were being followed. One man walked by several times with a camera. Was he taking pictures of us for some reason? Perhaps he was affiliated with Terrance? We had no answers.

 

 

After a lunch of some delicious sushi, we deliberated our group’s name before calling it a day. Some ideas were tossed around. [NAME REDACTED] suggested “Marble Cake Eight”, a reference to a Time.com poll influenced by the clever hackers at 4chan. This name stuck (despite some protests.)

 

 

EPILOGUE

 
Perhaps there’s another way of looking at this. Our mission brought together eight of us. Could we be… a family? A recondite family? Was the exercise with masks a trust-building exercise? Does that mean we experienced an expansion of “inter-personal trust”? Could it be that Octavio’s plan for us is coming true? What does this even mean?

 

Maybe it was a coincidence but my questions in the epilogue section turned out to be right on. At the controversial ending of the story, the Socio-Reengineering Seminar in 2011, it was revealed that although we thought we were rebelling against The Jejune Institute, in fact we’d been playing into their hands the entire time. And in fact, we were building a “recondite family” through shared experiences and trust building exercises.

Discovering this text file on a long forgotten website that’s no longer online was a real blast from the past, and I’m glad I happened to come across it. The events described here occurred well over five years ago. While it was an unforgettable experience overall — easily one of my favorite parts of The Jejune Institute — I have to admit I had forgotten many of the smaller details over the years.

So I’m publishing this blog post not only as a reminder for forgetful folks such as myself who went through this chapter of the Jejune saga, but also for like minded folks who are interested in situational and immersive design. Nonchalance clearly put a large amount of work into this wonderful production, and I’d hate for many of these details to be lost to time.

What was “The Latitude”? Part One

January 6th, 2016

Much has been written on the web about the closure of San Francisco’s The Latitude. But what was it, exactly?

Now that it’s over I’ll be posting a series on this blog that will include major spoilers for those who missed out. While I was sworn to secrecy at the time, I want to stress that these secrets had an expiration date. Yes, the website still claims that The Latitude is “temporarily closed,” but given the fact that they’ve posted an epilogue and started selling various pieces on eBay, the closure is clearly permanent.

Additionally, I recently confirmed with the creator of The Latitude via email that posting a walkthrough online would fine.

That said I’ve been informed that a third party now has a lease on some of the space(s?) and may be running The Latitude under another name and format. So if you want to avoid potential spoilers for this new endeavor, stop reading now.

For my part I was invited to The Latitude by a local artist — my “ascendant” in Latitude lingo — and I only experienced the final two and a half months of what was a multi-year endeavor. There were parts that I won’t cover because I never directly experienced them; some of this is documented in the official epilogue.

So, what exactly was The Latitude? Let’s start at the beginning of the experience.

 

The Invitation

A friend asks if you can keep a secret. You answer in the affirmative. They hand you a small black envelope with the words “Absolute Discretion” embossed in it. Inside is an all white credit card, the numbers printed on the front all zeros. On the back is a secret password just for you, along with instructions to visit thelatitude.com and enter your secret code.

Upon entering the website, you’re asked to schedule a visit to a certain Mission District address. You’re told that you only have a five minute window to enter after your scheduled time, and that your goal is to retrieve “the signal.”

 

Your Appointment

Eventually it’s time for your appointment. At that address is a door next to a small card swipe entry system. The card reader has The Latitude’s hexagonal logo printed on it so you know you’ve come to the right place. You swipe your card and push the door open.

Behind the door is a black curtain. After pulling back the black curtain, you’re greeted by this:

There’s a pleasant smell in the air. The two red lights on the walls are fading in and out, timed to a sound effect making a somewhat ominous “VOOM… VOOM…” sound.

Most curious is what’s inside the mantle in front of you. Where you might expect to find a fireplace is the entrance to wooden slide. It curves in the middle so you can’t see where it’s heading.

This is the entry to the “Flux Chamber.” Seeing no sense in turning back now, you decide to take the plunge and go down the slide.

 

Reality?

Let me stop for a moment and interject. Yes, everything I’m telling you really happened. In real life. It was part of a now-defunct project by a situational design studio called Nonchalance. If that name rings a bell it’s because it’s the same studio that was behind The Jejune Institute, which was also known as “Games of Nonchalance.”

At the end of The Institute, a pseudo-documentary film about The Jejune Institute, The Latitude’s URL and logo appear briefly on the screen.

I was one of the 250 or so attendees at the Socio-Rengineering Seminar in 2011, an event that officially marked the end of The Jejune Institute. After the seminar someone asked Nonchalance’s Jeff Hull the obvious question: what’s next? I don’t remember his exact words, but he sort of hesitated before answering that he was working on an “automated house.”

Back to that slide.

 

Down The Rabbit Hole

The slide curves down and around slowly taking you to a small basement room. On the right is a ticket window with frosted glass with a mannequin behind it. On the left there’s three doors, each with a small tablet computer next to it. And directly in front of you is another tablet, making a pinging sound and flashing a red oval.

Next to the tablet is a ticket sticking out of a slot. You take the claim ticket, which tells you to open the cabinet next to you. Inside the cabinet is a set of instructions: take your purse, backpack, and everything in your pockets and place them in the box inside the cabinet. A strange request (what is this, the TSA?) but as you’ll see next it’s for your own safety.

Now one of the tablets next to the three doors starts pinging and flashing. Sure enough, the door is unlocked. You open it and walk in, only to find (what else?) another curtain. So you close the door, walk behind the curtain and discover infinite blackness.

It’s completely dark.

 

You start patting the walls, feeling your way around. Everything is covered in a thick layer of carpet. As you move around through the darkness, the passageway gets smaller and smaller. You hear faint music playing. The tunnel becomes so small that you’re crawling around on your hands and knees, having flashbacks to your elementary school trip to the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium.

Eventually you see a light at the end of the tunnel, obscured by another black curtain. Upon crawling inside this new space is a library of sorts, a small room where the walls are lined with books.

You sit down on the single cushion in the middle of the room and face a small podium. On the podium is a large book. You open it, flip through a couple of pages, and suddenly the book starts “reading itself” to you.

A hidden projector above displays an animation on the book and a woman’s voice reads you a story called “The Fable”. The story concerns a city that decided to fence itself off from the outside world, and a group of twelve citizens who made a tunnel through the wall for themselves.

After the fable you crawl out another opening opposite from where you came in. Now you’re in a lounge area with black leather sofas. Across from the sofas is a bar with several glasses along with a pitcher of water. You might chose to help yourself to a sip of water. But before doing so, you look at your ticket which instructs you to make a phone call.

The lounge — you’ll later come to find it’s known as the Rathskeller Lounge — has what looks like a typical 1980’s office phone but it only has one button where the keypad should be. You pick up the handset and push the button. A voice tells you what to do next. So you walk over to the cubbies next to the bar and open the one corresponding to the number on your claim ticket. Inside your belongings are there as promised. You take them and walk upstairs and exit the building.

There’s a small metal plaque embedded in the sidewalk just outside the front gate. It has four numbers on it. They’re the last four digits of a phone number written on the back of the claim ticket. You call the number and get instructions on where to go next, which is a couple blocks away. Once you’re there you find another hexagonal plaque in the sidewalk. You call the number from earlier with a new code and another recording tells you where to go once again.

Depending on the time of day you’ll either be sent to one of two bars, The Sycamore or Gestalt. Either way you give your claim ticket to the bartender who then hands you a special coin. You’ll later come to find that this coin is pronounced “kwan.” A text message tells you to head to another address in The Mission.

After walking a couple blocks you find the address, enter the door code (provided by another text message) and walk up a flight of stairs to find a second key card entry sporting The Latitude’s logo.

 

Den Arcadia

You swipe your card and walk into a small room with trippy lighting and beautiful murals on the walls. In the middle of the room there’s four old school arcade games. This room is known as “Den Arcadia.” One of the arcade machines — Atari’s Tempest — has an unusual looking coin slot which accepts your special coin.

You put in the coin and start playing the game. The game of Tempest plays normally at first, but after a moment the game glitches out and a mysterious blue face appears.

This figure is named Quas (also spelled Kwas or many other variations) a human mouth with rabbit-like ears, who speaks in a gruff robotic voice. He offers some vaguely scolding words before telling you the signal, then warns you to leave and go home to your “glowing boxes” to enter the code.

 

Glowing Boxes

Once you’re home at your computer you visit the website, enter the code (and have to wait 90 minutes for some reason) before you’re presented with a video from Professor Walter Kinley. In the video Kinley welcomes you as a “compeer” into The Latitude Society. Then in a montage he leaves his room at the Hyatt Regency, gets on a boat, and sails away.

From there you’re asked to come up with a moniker (or username) for yourself before entering a social network of sorts. The website had a dizzying array of options, including an online forum, a store where you could purchase merchandise, a calendar with meetings you could attend, and various small activities called “Jaunts.”

More photos and the video mentioned above can bee seen on the now publicly available Book One recap page. (Update: there’s a backup of this recap on Archive.org.)
 

Stay tuned for next time, where I’ll discuss “Book Two” of The Latitude.

Never Forget

November 4th, 2011

Never Forget

The poster above is in Clarion Alley. It’s a reference to the now-defunct Games of Nonchalance, who had the same poster of the mysterious Eva Lucien in a tiny alley in Chinatown some years back.