.Coquette.
[ Aurora D'Errico Prat / 11.18.2024 ]

This week's addition to The New Flesh is a photoseries by Aurora D'Errico Prat, titled Coquette. The work plays off of the viral 'coquette' trend, as well as broader shifts within the digital sphere that relate to bodies and femininity. In the artist's own words:

'In this work, the body is treated as a malleable surface, constantly adapting to external demands and virtual projections. The visuals reflect a tension between natural physicality and artificial alteration, questioning where the line lies between self- expression and societal coercion. This interrogation of the body is not about sexuality, but rather about the universal experience of navigating through a world that constantly asks us to improve, reshape, and refine our forms to fit certain molds.'


.STAPLES OF THE CROSS:.
.A Response to agnus dei qui tolis peccata mundi, miserere mei.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 11.13.2024 ]

A response to billie raphael's recent archive addition, in which the nature of Catholic Horror, including both its heritage and its shortcomings, are discussed.


.Black Cats & Wild Beasts.
[ Irina Tall Novikova / 10.31.2024 ]

Bonus Halloween post this week, for all you tricky little treats out there. For this years serving of spooky, we have a collection of drawings and mixed media works by Irina Tall Novikova, which feature cats, rats, and bestial figures of all kinds.

Halloween isn't only about honouring the dead, (of which we have far too many) it's also about piercing the veil of nature, and remembering that we used to be wild. Dress up, eat sweets, and go break some rules tonight. Egg a mansion, give a cop seven years bad luck, and tell a stray cat you love it.

Happy Halloween ya Creeps!


.agnus dei qui tolis peccata mundi, miserere mei.
[ billie raphael / 10.28.2024 ]

This week we're kicking off The New Flesh with the experimental video work "agnus dei qui tolis peccata mundi, miserere mei" by billie raphael.

The work is a queer re-examination of the tale of Judas within Christian mythology, drawing heavily on sub and counter-cultural eroticism in ways both parodic and genuine; as well as a healthy dose of body horror. In the artist's own words:

"..the Judas character solicits a form of sympathy and understanding through imaginative interpolation and extrapolation, building upon themes of wickedness and grace, repentance, forgiveness, condemnation, individual and corporate responsibility, and tragedy and providence, which were already present within the original narrative. The dolls, taking on the form of an anthropomorphized wolf and lamb, recall Christian symbolism of sacrifice and betrayal. They reimagine a new eucharistic ritual, perverting the possibilities of what it means to be holy, pure, and in control. Tension arises between the sacred and profane and making holy the perverted. Grief is embodied as cannibalistic, grotesque and all-consuming. In eating the body and blood of Christ, Judas is able to cleanse himself of sin and Jesus’ sacrifice is an articulation of love. Sex becomes a simultaneous expression of devotion and all-consuming guilt, and ultimately, salvation from eternal damnation."

Check back next week for a written response.


.Theme Announcement:.
.The New Flesh .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 10.21.2024 ]

The next several months will be dedicated to a brand new theme: THE NEW FLESH

The New Flesh is a collection of works which simultaneously explores both eroticism and body horror; blending and contrasting the two to investigate contemporary anxieties around sexuality, post-humanism, and the body more generally, as well as themes such as kink, desire, (whether realized, denied, or sublimated through technology) sexuality in the digital age, illness, aging, transformation, classic body horror, and anything else which pushes the boundaries of the human form.

The goal of The New Flesh is to look at contemporary fears and anxieties around the body and its intimate use, in ways which holistically explore not only individuals, but also the systems which they, and their bodies, must operate within.


.SHADOW ARCANA:.
.A Response to The Deleted World Tarot.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 10.02.2024 ]

This week's addition is a somewhat strange (even by our standards) response to Josh Urban Davis' The Deleted World Tarot, in which the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump take on new, and oddly mournful meaning.


.The Deleted World Tarot.
[ Josh Urban Davis / 09.09.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is "The Deleted World Tarot" by Josh Urban Davis. In his own words:

"The Deleted World explores the idea of utopic visions that never take material form. It's a pre-condition of the modern world to live in the ruins of failed utopias. Many influences went into this project, from emerging technologies and internet cultures, to occult histories and tarot illustrations past. Admittedly, tarot and internet technologies don’t seem like the most intuitive pairing. Yet this work explores a common thread: the promise of a better world that never takes material form. Like many of you, I was raised in a religious home and grew up believing in the utopian vision promised to me each Sunday. Yet l also knew that salvation could never be mine - I was too queer, too strange, an outcast. Likewise, the early days of the internet seemed to offer a similar utopian promise of unlimited connection and community. Yet these visions of better worlds have faded into our current dis-information era of cyber superstitions and data-driven oppression. In both of these failed utopian visions, something was lost along the way. A choice was made. A world was deleted. The Deleted World Tarot is a tool for healing the rift between the choices of the past and the consequential loss of alternative futures. A tool and a story told out of order and out of time, it's a hope that illuminates the worlds we lose by the choices we make every day, and a call to consider what is worth saving. What is not saved will be lost."

Check back next week for a written response.


.MIRRORS WITHOUT A FACE:.
.A Response to Espelhos Para Olhos Cansados.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 09.04.2024 ]

A somewhat late edition this week, with a written response to Nicole Kouts' Espelhos Para Olhos Cansados. The response looks at (pun intended) the nature of image, sight, persona, and more, all through the unexpected lens (yes, two eye puns in a single sentence) of a 1960 French horror classic.


.Espelhos Para Olhos Cansados.
[ Nicole Kouts / 08.19.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is "Espelhos Para Olhos Cansados" (Mirrors For Tired Eyes) by Nicole Kouts. The artist describes the work in her own words like so:

"The videoperformance 'Espelhos Para Olhos Cansados' (Mirrors For Tired Eyes, 2023) portrays the usage of 'lazy glasses' in bucolic outdoor landscapes, an object with a mirror mechanism that allows the user to read or watch something while sitting or laying down by an angle tilt. The work was based on a collection of stimuli, reflections and observations from a three-month experience living in Aalborg, Denmark, which resulted in an in-depth research on the relationship between landscapes as labyrinths and images as portals. How does this object transform the background, the body and the space, by personifying the act of seeing? The embodiment of this object around its aesthetic and function creates an environment of contemplation behind layers, as the human figure is presented behind the lenses of wearable analog glasses that reshapes its presence in space. A video essay reflecting upon the contemporary distortion of perception through devices that shapes our vision and our imagination, a complex enigma by itself that brings with it unfamiliar angles that fits into the Hypermodern Horror genre."

Check back next week for a written response.


.Various Works.
[ Savannah Calhoun / 07.29.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is a collection of works by Savannah Calhoun, exploring relationships between photography, nostalgia, image culture, and the often traumatic and haunting nature of the contemporary world.


.IF THINE EYE OFFENDS:.
.A Response to THE WAY OF HIS.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 07.17.2024 ]

We have a bonus mid-week addition, with a written response to Justin Mezzapelli's THE WAY OF HIS, in which the many intersecting selves of a horror protagonist are explored, as is the relationship between absolution and forgiveness.


.LONEWHISKER.
[ sparklecats2009 / 07.15.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is a looped video work titled lonewhisker, by sparklecats2009. Definitely on the more melancholic side of horror, this piece looks at isolation, as well as the increasingly large social rift that exists between our online and irl lives and communities.

Check back next week for a written response.


.THE WAY OF HIS.
[ Justin Mezzapelli / 07.03.2024 ]

Kicking off July, we have a work of short fiction by Justin Mezzapelli titled THE WAY OF HIS, in which our recent trend of animal-themed horror continues. Both tense and intimate, the work escalates over its brief page count to a final moment worthy of the best in the genre.

Check back next week for a written response.


.@ ARM'S LENGTH:.
.A Response to I Can't Wait.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 06.19.2024 ]

A written response to Attaloom's song I Can't Wait, in which the nature of loss and disconnection are explored through a digital lens.


.UNTITLED.
[ Radio Nidiffer / 06.17.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is a poem by Radio Nidiffer called simply UNTITLED. Despite coming a day late, it makes for the perfect tribute to father's day.


.I Can't Wait.
[ Attaloom / 06.03.2024 ]

This week we have another musical addition to the archive, with I Can't Wait by Attaloom. The artist themselves had this to say about the work:

"A song about a friend's passing intertwined with a profound desire to reunite captures the essence of a shared human experience. In an age where technology promises to bridge distances and immortalize memories, the inability to connect with a loved one gone too soon underscores the unsettling paradox of our times. The song serves as a poignant reminder of the emotional voids that persist in a digitally interconnected world, where screens and algorithms often mediate our most intimate moments. The haunting yearning to transcend these barriers, to find solace beyond the digital divide, encapsulates the eerie intersection of contemporary existence and timeless grief, painting a vivid picture of hypermodern horror."

Check back next week for a written response.


.LUDOSOCIAL DISSONANCE:.
.A Response to DON’T TRY.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 05.27.2024 ]

A written response to nightputrid's interactive narrative piece DON'T TRY, in which we investigate the nature of social operation within both contemporary games, and the larger systems they exist within.


.Control De Los Cambios.
[ Hanzer González Garriga / 05.20.2024 ]

This week we have a new video addition to the archive, by Hanzer González Garriga, titled Control De Los Cambios. Inspired by a postcard from 1982, which explains to Cuban parents how to put on a child's gas mask for them, in the event of biological warfare against the US, this piece both explores and reinvests new meaning into the card itself and the state of fear and cultural / imperialist tension which spawned it, specifically through filmic techniques such as montage. Using fear as a lens through which to explore the experiences of the Cuban people in the not-too-distant past, it offers an evocative and affective look into some of the core tensions at play with Hypermodern Horror.


.DESTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE:.
.A Response to How To Break A Zebra.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 05.09.2024 ]

A written response to Quincy Kmetz's short narrative work How To Break A Zebra, in which the latent malignancy of contemporary objects is explored


.DON'T TRY.
[ nightputrid / 05.07.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is DON'T TRY by nightputrid, an online multi-choice adventure which looks at the repetition and isolation of contemporary working life.

Check back next week for a written response.


.FROM HELL’S HEART TO THE TALL, DRY GRASS:.
.A Response to You Can Only Turn Left.
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 04.29.2024 ]

A written response to Emiland Kray’s interactive narrative work, You Can Only Turn Left, in which we delve down some of the more obscure branches of the animal horror subgenre.


.How to Break a Zebra.
[ Quincy Kmetz / 04.22.2024 ]

This week we're excited to be including another piece of short fiction on the site, with Quincy Kmetz's piece How to Break a Zebra. The work, which includes a series of images as well, tells a disjointed narrative of first hand accounts from someone deeply embroiled in the contemporary, hypermodern world, and its many intangible pressures.

Check back next week for a written response.


.The Germ of Desire:.
.A Response to Pox Party .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 04.22.2024 ]

A written response to Ian Haig's digital image series Pox Party, in which the relationships between desire, emulation, extraction, and generation are explored.


.You Can Only Turn Left.
[ Emiland Kray / 04.15.2024 ]

This week's addition to the archive is an interactive narrative by Emiland Kray, titled You Can Only Turn Left. The piece explores the blurred boundaries between wakefulness and sleep, memory and identity, and agency and impulse; taking the viewer down a rabbit hole of loops and cycles that threaten to plunge from waking dream down into full on nightmare at any moment. This one is especially recommended for anyone who's ever had to deal with insomnia.

Check back next week for a written response.


.Why Blood?:.
.A Response to Bloody Sticky Stuff .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 04.10.2024 ]

A written response to Bloody Sticky Stuff by Light Shadows, in which the essential role of blood within the horror genre is discussed.


.Pox Party.
[ Ian Haig / 04.08.2024 ]

*** Content Warning: Graphic Body Horror Images and Medical Adjacent Images ***

This week's addition to the archive comes from Ian Haig, and is titled Pox Party. This collection of AI-assisted imagery takes a critical look at reductive and utilitarian expressions of posthumanism, which are often tied in with Silicon Valley-esque concepts of 'improving humanity' through making them as amenable to capital as possible. Further, it makes use of AI generated imagery as a means to highlight the irony of such ideologies, which position digital technology as representing human perfection, when those same technologies consistently show a fundamental inability to understand even basic human anatomy, let alone any aspect of higher human consciousness.

Check back next week for a written response.


.Bloody Sticky Stuff.
[ Light Shadows / 04.01.2024 ]

We're beginning a new stretch of programming this month, not based around any specific theme, other than Hypermodern Horror itself. To kick things off, we have a musical work by Light Shadows, titled Bloody Sticky Stuff. The artists themselves had this to say aout it:

“Our music spans the light and the shadows as our name suggests. Though we wouldn’t describe our shadow side as horror, the definition of hypermodern horror struck us as in line with our song “Bloody Sticky Stuff.” It was written from two vantages: one vampiric, and the other as a reflection on the essence of what connects us and challenges us as humans.

No matter our affectations, presentation or advancements, in the end we are all bloody sticky stuff: messy and fueled by our passions whether of love or anger. We can’t deny what we are or what we have in common. Even when we try to exert controls - whether positive ones rooted in values, choice, discipline or restrictive outward forces of rules, laws, judgement - this crude essence is always present beneath the surface. The song posits the benefit of learning to recognize, understand, accept, and craft ourselves and our world without denying this essence."

Check back next week for a written response.


.Brimstone Bones:.
.A Response to The Alchemist .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 03.11.2024 ]

We're closing out Feature Qreep this week with a written response to Mortimer, Be Quiet.'s music video for The Alchemist, in which the subtle interplay of signs, symbols, and references is explored.


.The Alchemist.
[ Mortimer, Be Quiet. / 02.26.2024 ]

It's Alive! Feature Qreep continues this week with another banger from Mortimer, Be Quiet. titled The Alchemist. As you've no doubt already come to expect from them, this new work is haunting, strange, beautiful, and unabashedly queer. Watch / listen now, preferably with the lights out, and if you can swing it, during a thunderstorm.

Check back next week for a written response.


.Shall We Play a Game?:.
.A Response to Be Vardų, Be Kojų’ .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 02.26.2024 ]

A written response to Brigita Gedgaudas' experimental animated dance work, Be Vardų, Be Kojų', in which the underlying fear of both Queerness and the Digital is explored.


.Be Vardų, Be Kojų.
[ Brigita Gedgaudas / 02.05.2024 ]

Feature Qreep continues with a video piece by Brigita Gedgaudas titled Be Vardų, Be Kojų'. Gedgaudas themself has this to say about the work:

"'Be Vardų, Be Kojų', meaning ‘without names, without legs’, is an experimental, animated, dance film investigating queer movement in Lithuanian folk dance. Using photograms made from scanning dancers performing specific male and female folk dance steps, each dancer has been glitched by the computer’s inability to put moving bodies into one space and time. This glitch disrupts a person’s understanding of what the dance step is, removing relationships between human articulation and socio-political conceptions around movement. Creating an entirely digital dance, the glitches become the performers, demonstrating that human understandings of the world do not matter to them. Thus, 'Be Vardų, Be Kojų' is a foray into queer world-building, using the indeterminacy of digital space to imagine queerness within Lithuanian folk dance."

Check back next week for a written response.


.Queering The Machine:.
.A Response to Gay AI Dreams .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 02.05.2024 ]

A written response to Michael Malenfant's video piece Gay AI Dreams, in which the queering of technology itself is briefly explored.


.Gay AI Dreams.
[ Michael Malenfant / 01.22.2024 ]

Feature Qreep, our delve into Queer Horror with a Hypermodern bent, begins with a video work by Michael Malenfant, titled Gay AI Dreams. The work utilizes both AI and facial recognition software to create a surreal flow of homoeroticism and queer desire, as mediated through both the lens of contemporary technology, and the setting of a murky, suburbanized non-place.

Check back next week for a written response.


.Theme Announcement:.
.Feature Qreep .
[ _feature_creep_team_ / 01.15.2024 ]

(Almost) in time for the new year, we’re launching a new theme.

Welcome to Feature Qreep, a collection of Queer Horror from a hypermodern world. Each work in this diverse collection speaks on some level to the nature or experience of Queerness within a contemporary context; including all of the horrors which that existence can inherently include, reveal, or recontextualize.

The history of Queerness in and through horror is as old as the genre itself, and we are excited to finally be exploring one of the fundamental pillars of the medium, presented through the works of many talented creators, in a host of different mediums.