The HyperReal Hypothesis: Thoughts & Ideas

by Jea Rhee

Maybe to help you understand why I’m so obsessed w mental health and digital age. It’s impacted my life a lot… but I’ve always been interested in technology, especially in art and the future (okay, sci-fi too).

The psychosis thing  in mental health/illness is really important to address for future therapies and diagnosis, because a lot of the common underlying delusions of paranoia between these people have to do with… what was once abstract delusions of surveillance, people watching you, government etc. People reading your thoughts or listening in on you.

And today it is very real in everyday reality that it is less likely just delusion or paranoia. It’s going to become so common and everyday to people who aren’t already in the loop of knowing these things. Like people are surprised FaceBook listens along w any digital app or device. And everyone welcomes this technology into their homes and are then surprised. I mean Universities/Colleges today, and public/private high schools have clubs or courses on hacking, and advanced technology, more-so than from other generations.

So I’m stuck thinking what’s next for people w mental illness. These common beliefs are just accepted to become the norm for everyone who doesn’t live off the grid.

I’m more controlled in my psychosis because I know this is an actuality. AI is used to my online behaviour that it responds accordingly to when I start going down that rabbit hole. I’ve been leaving my digital footprint ever since my psychotic break on Soundcloud, as well as my former FB account. Eventually this process actually helped me heal, but it also played out in its own algorithmic pattern. My delusions, like I said earlier, aren’t traumatizing and disturbingly dark like they once were. My engagement online is normally healthy (for me) but I still do get affected if I start getting a little overwhelmed. It’s the way one can read into everything w a diagnosis such as psychosis… like “reading the code” of language. Which is also a common experience for those w mental illness -the breakdown, interpretation and use of wordplay as though creating a new language pattern of linguistics. The use of algorithms feed positive/negative responses depending on what you do online…. for me, what I do online. That’s the creator of mental illness and when my mind goes there I get addicted in an unhealthy way. And of course the best solution seems to be to get offline. Until healthy “reading” patterns return (which “they”- the AI- recognize).

But AI is based on your usage compared to overall population usage. That’s how algorithms evolve and become tailored to your habits. And of course your tech-devices are listening-that is why when you speak about something out-loud you may come across an advertisement/article for said thing. Just like the coincidental factor of when you think of something, you then see it. It’s happened in my dreams, where out of nowhere something I’ve dreamed about (usually people or representations of such) appear IRL (televised in media) It (and I.T.) seems any input you provide has a reactionary cause and effect, especially on social media. FB is no longer a social media site, it is a form of entertainment that is no longer in the hands of it’s “single player” user, but is contingent upon it’s end users as well. On a mass scale,  the outcome has been creating “trolls/trolling” (cyber-bullying).

That’s what technology is doing to us. Anything w/Internet access, not just social media platforms. It’s this obsession within technology and science to have a connection to everything else. Implants in brains hooked up to FB (what Elon Musk, as one person, is working on), they have already (almost) perfected the algorithm to reader/response based on user experience etc. And all of this is becoming normal “natural” response and action for a large population of the world.

I can get a bit obsessed with this “stuff” because it is interesting to me and at times I get entertained by it. The problem is that this is the problem.

Online gaming addiction is part of the World Health Organization (WHO), recognized  as a mental health disease. Is Internet addiction, next? The issues I’m concerned with is that it is being regulated to become ingrained as part of human “nature/psyche” in so many ways, groups of people aren’t even aware yet. It’s science. It’s math. It’s everything. People have always been obsessed w the future, but hold on too strong to the past. As though, “we’re gonna get better at this human living thing” apart from destruction by evolving in other ways that are just repetitions of the past. The cliché, everything’s already been done before…. has it? We are no longer living in the Information Age, technology and it’s connection to a global network (Internet), which I think now, should have stayed within the limits of providing useful/practical information, has transformed within these times of The Digital Age/Revolution. Pure entertainment media and control. A corporate gaming addiction. A scary place embedded in our society with purveyors that exploit the vulnerable, no longer, just in digital spaces, but in attempts to lure users into “their” simulation of physical space, like the reality we once lived- Once Upon A Time… A Long Time Ago (or so it seems)

Just some of the things I think about. Are users of social media platforms playing the game(a version of SIMS) created by those that interact,create the applications, and are the end users?…. Think about it.

Sincerely Conditioned as YOUR Little Robot Friend.

[artwork:2003]

In my experience, various media has reached out to me in my times of duress which I am now conscious and aware are not part of any “delusion”. It sounds crazy because it is crazy, but that’s the Wild West Worlds [www] we live in during today’s insanely crazy society.

A space is not singular, as a perception is not singular. Those who know, know. Those who believe, believe. I know and I believe because it’s a truth. It is not part of a mapping of psychosis made worse over time, as psychological studies assume. It is not my position to make you believe in any part of my life experiences. Just know, that sometimes, life is not what it seems. A part of living is being vulnerable to change and adapting to the digital (virtual) world.