BBB_ (allapopp and Alex Sahm)
BBB_ SONGS OF CYBORGEOISIE
Album and pc game release 30.9.22 @Balance Festival, Leipzig
Following their 2017 debut album “ID rather be an iPhone” (saasfee*rec), BBB_ (allapopp and Alex Sahm) present their new project, titled Songs of Cyborgeoisie [sɔŋz ʌv ˈsaɪbʊrʒˌwɑˈzi], an invitation to a futuristic cyborgian universe, which consists of an album, a pc game and a deck of tarot cards. A multimedia sci-fi opera with rich and complex textures, composed with elements of polyphonic spoken word, generative sounds, a choir, acoustic instruments and a mixture of soft and rough electronic music.
The release will take place on the 30th of September, 2022 @ Balance Festival (Leipzig) where BBB_ will be celebrating the premiere with an interactive hybrid performance, combining live music with an immersive visual dive into the Universe of Cyborgeoisie.
Throughout the course of 12 linear scenes (audio tracks and corresponding game levels), Songs of Cyborgeoisie is a journey narrated through music and speculative virtual landscapes. Each track and level unlock one after the other. With a playtime of approx. 65 mins, the audience explores the storyline of a different technical, organic and fantastic inhabitant of this fictional reality from their individual perspective as they gather for a therapy session. Through sharing their story in an attempt to heal from the trauma inflicted by human fear (of both, themselves and the technologie they create), each cyborgeoisan character embodies and interrogates human hopes and fears towards near futures.
When utopian visions of the past have never become reality and visions of the future are predominantly shaped by dystopian blockbuster narratives, anti-utopian deterministic worldviews result in a paralysis of any activism – why even bother since the end of the world is near anyway? What could queer feminist artificial intelligence systems help understand about humanity and the antropocentric worldviews? How to deal with technologies programmed with perception determined by subjective lived experience of its creators? Throughout the narration, BBB_ poses important questions about the participation in and imagination of tech-positive inclusive futures.
The Cyborgeoisie Tarot Deck consists of 78 cards, designed by a hive mind of 30 artists and written by a BBB_ trained queer-feminist AI model. This deck serves as an official physical medium for this album release. It contains download codes for the game as well as the album.
Join the therapy and explore the traumas of the sad Queer Feminist AI, aggressive Big Dog, Narcissistic Algorithm and depressed Hologram and find out where the story will take you next after therapy sessions are over!
Project credits
Concept, artistic direction & performance: BBB_ (allapopp & Alex Sahm)
Music written & produced by BBB_
Mixed by Kiri Stensby, Alex Sahm
Mastered by Enyang Ha
Game visual & world design: Lixing Yang
Technical direction Unreal Engine, programming: Simon Klein
UI design: Teresa Schoenherr
Character design: allapopp, Valentin Oellers, Lars Thomas
Technical direction live & motion capture: Gloria Schulz
Choreography: Katja Cheraneva
Stage & costume: Ama Duah
Dramaturgy: Sarah Wenzinger
Tarot cards visual concept & design : Teresa Schoenherr
Cover Artwork : Ksti Hu
See extended tarot credits and lyrics at https://homepage-bbb.com
BBB_ (allapopp & Alex Sahm) works on the intersection of music, performance, art, design, philosophy and digital technologies. Its practice is intertwined in live performance and installation formats, experiments with digital voices, natural language processing and interactive visuals. Through narrative sound and experimental electronic music, vocals, spoken word and immersive setups, BBB_ seeks ambivalent situations which take place at the interface of technological, organic and fantastic existence and speculates on various states of mind, relationships and self-perception, altered by socially and emotionally intelligent digital technologies.
Alex Sahm (he/him, Germany) is a sound and media artist, exploring worlds of posthuman sound.
allapopp (no pronouns, Russia) is a queer, non-binary and tech-positive, media and performance artist, interested in inclusive visions of the future. allapopp is part of the Berlin-based collective dgtl fmnsm.
