In the contemporary context, boundaries are blurring in a diffuse convergence and as suggested in Shine of a perfect sphere a certain degree of uncertainty may be the first step to orient oneself. This project proposes an analytical and practical research on nodes of seduction in contemporary media. This research prototype explores certain dynamics of attraction characteristic of platforms that promise simplified connections, clarity and full satisfaction, but ultimately offer fragmented illusions, collective hallucinations and infinite cycles of unsatisfying desire.

The project focuses on the transcription and interpretation of specific segments of the collective impulse underlying these dynamics. The title encapsulates three intertwined axes of analysis: “Shine” (the mediated and mystifying fascination), “Perfect” (the myth of flawlessness) and “Sphere” (the illusion of a closed, self-referential universe). Taken together, these concepts delineate a scenario where mass platforms and environments managed by synthetic entities promote confinement in spaces of imposed imagination, where trends are transformed into dogma and delirium is camouflaged as certainty and objectivity.

In this context, the “sphere” is no longer conceived as a utopian global engagement, but rather as a closed circuit, the archetypal curved mirrors room reflecting distorted and curated identities, artificially amplified anxieties and prefabricated dream templates. Within this impermeable ecosystem, the “gloss” of polished content - hyper-real images, viral audio, frictionless interfaces - seduces to confuse surface with depth, ultimate meaning with hasty intention.

The project, on the other hand, tries to evidence the forgotten inertia of the analogical towards the digital labyrinth. In many of the original materials or in the proposed interpretations there always remains a remnant, something that allows us to intuit the trail of the non-digital organic. There is an inherent process of reconversion of its textures and pulsations into fuel for nostalgia. The crackle of vinyl, the almost tactile roughness of 8mm film, the memory of the instability of VHS recordings, the static of old television broadcasts - formerly marks of entropy - have now become icons devoid of authenticity, “templates” stripped of a material history and reintroduced into the “shiny sphere” as part of an illusion without apparent fissures. In continuity, the digital age also seems to begin to fade exponentially into a new epoch in which the “machine” will attain a disturbing or transcendental status, certainly beyond anything imaginable at present.

The “perfect” facade of serialized spaces, objects and times denies entropy, unpredictability and dissent, erecting an illusory totality that is perceived as inescapable. However, such totality constitutes only a mirage: a mere horizon of (in)satisfaction that invariably recedes, where participation is transformed into compulsion. In this sense, the project's motto, “Running after the mirage”, proposes a reflection on work in perpetual motion, chasing validation, relevance or meaning in systems designed to deny resolution.

The aim of Shine of a Perfect Sphere is the deconstruction of the puzzle through layered and recombined media experiments and prototypes. To this end, notions and practices have been fragmented, stripped of their native contexts and reanimated into unsettling artifacts. This includes everything from ephemeral fragments from social networks to trends frozen in erratic loops, as well as synthetic models conditioned by paradoxical arguments, common aesthetics disassembled into abstract structures, stereotypes, premeditated visions, contradictions, honest intentions and much more. In the process of destabilizing and interpreting the original narratives of these materials-both old and new-the project seeks to question the ideological hermeticism of the glossy sphere: the viral version of a song becomes a prophetic collage; an influencer's confessional monologue mutates into dissonant reasoning; popular hashtags dissolve into (de)generative poetry. These acts of recontextualization do not aim to “reach” the mirage, but to amplify its impossibilities, making visible the seams of the collective fantasy.

The modular structure of the project, which encompasses diverse forms of expression such as moving image, text, audio and hybrid forms, reflects the hypermediated fragmentation it interprets. Each module of the project operates as a speculative magnifying lens that examines how large contextual platforms impose insubstantial realities. Illustratively, among many other questions: how does infinite scrolling of a page induce trance, can the latent space of a neural network become the containing chamber of a collective unconscious, or what ghosts inhabit the comment sections of now-dead trends? By eluding an end point or a conclusion, Shine of a Perfect Sphere appropriates its own impossibility, as if it was its own shadow. In this way, the research remains in a state of perpetual incompleteness, a seismic reflection on the absurdity inherent in the search for truth in systems designed for obsolescence.

Basik Kubasik
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