With the way things are going I, more often than I’d ever thought I would be, find myself thinking about cults; what it takes to believe in a cult, to surrender yourself to a cult. Are we experiencing a cult indoctrinated into the political system that’s supposed to uphold democracy? Have we as an American (and beyond) society been brainwashed, as cults will do, into thinking we need to do this or that (work to the bone, die when we can’t afford proper healthcare because that’s just how it is). The concept of a cult and a cult’s power is particularly fascinating and terrifying at the moment.
As I’m writing this, I’m watching a live stream of Trump sheeple storming into the Capitol building — a literal coup — under the deranged idea that they’re protecting the constitution while they blatantly usurp everything it stands for. All thanks to the lunatic ramblings of lies and conspiracy theories from one butthurt sociopath. This is the direct result of blind, baseless, privileged, selfish trust in a cult-like leader, who did essentially nothing to stop the violence and upheaval of the constitution.
I was on hinge a while back at the beginning of lockdown and started chatting with someone who had a picture in a white linen jumpsuit. I think I joked that it looks like he’s in a cult, to which he replied to reveal that he’s actually the leader of a ‘fictional’ cult. Not feeling like I had the brainpower to go deeper into what that meant I kind of laughed it off and didn’t message back for a while, but I often found myself thinking back to the idea of what it means to have a fictional cult and the well-meaning intent behind it. There is an aspect of humor to help break the thought-barrier, but there is more to it still.
The High Focus Institute is a project concocted by Michael Glen and Stephanie Beattie, the co-creators of Calx Vida Design Studio based in Brooklyn. I emailed them some questions to try and get more insight that my quarantine-shrunken brain could comprehend a little better. I think that their answers, their intentions, their hyperawareness of the stigma, and how to utilize the power of a cult-mindset have set up a really beautiful way to think about the connection to our modern technological world. The beauty lies in the intention and the meta-ness of it, as well as the irony in the idea that their cult invites and encourages original deep thought, while the very idea of an actual cult is to erase just that.
Before diving into their answers, you might be interested to poke around the website first.
You’ve called HFI a “fictional cult” — but how do you draw a line? It’s obviously something into which a lot of thought went.
The HIGH FOCUS INSTITUTE is a performance art piece where we offer technologically-mediated rituals to people.
We make critically empty realities using light, sound and social ritual. It’s a container, a magic circle, where we ask questions but don’t provide answers. People can do that for themselves. And then it’s over. And then you’re only left with yourself to make sense of it. We don’t have weekly meetings.
How would you define a cult (like a “real” one)?
Cults replace individual identity with the identity of a central object or personality, rather than organizing around a shared set of beliefs. They might have those, too, of course.
Are “real” cults necessarily bad?
A healthy community is organized around a project: its own well-being and the well-being of its members. We can think of a cult as a misallocation of social and community desire, replacing that project with the needs and objectives of a single thing or individual. A cult is by definition pathological, but it still reveals genuine human desires and needs.
Do you think that as you get deeper into it, the line gets more blurred?
Quite the contrary. At the outset, the cult aesthetic makes it seem ambiguous and mystical, “drawing you in”. The more you interact with the work, or collaborate with us, the more non-real it becomes. That central figure becomes a hole or empty space. It has little to do with control.
I started looking for info online about techno transcendence and could only quickly find an entire graduate student’s dissertation on it. I’m not reading the whole thing haha – I can discern the general idea, but how do you like to talk about techno transcendence in relation to HFI? How do you define it?
Technotranscendence is a word we created to describe the process of coming to awareness of how you are interacting with your environment. You are making it and being made by it. It was made by others. You are and are not defined by it. What is you, and what traces do you leave for others to find?
You’re talking about impactful things, but maybe it would be harder to talk about without all of the cult stuff around it. Can you think of any other way you would want to present these ideas?
How do we make confronting difficult questions a desirable experience? We have a few answers, one of which is HFI, others include installation and curatorial projects which we create as a part of Calx Vida, our collaborative design studio.
The first environmental intervention, Elevator, was installed for 2 weeks at Westbeth Gallery from November 17th to November 30th, 2015 as part of MediaLounge.
Did you start by wanting to talk about these particular things, or by wanting to create a cult?
The HIGH FOCUS INSTITUTE is a response to a problem, and the problem is talking about the things.
Is there anything wrong with the idea of your fictional/art cult being actually maybe a real cult by accident?
The HIGH FOCUS INSTITUTE is a performance art installation. It’s not an accident that it is real, but it only exists within that space.
Does it matter to you how people perceive HFI? Do you want people to think it’s “real,” do you want them to question, do you want them to know that it is partly out of humor?
It’s important to us that people form their own critical judgment of our work. The intent is to have them question. If humor occurs to you, hilarious, if you want to weep, weep.
How much of this is stemmed from humor and how much is purely serious? They seem to be really keeping each other in check.
It has to be fun and serious. If it was purely serious it would be a wank, if it were purely fun it would be meaningless. There’s a huge amount of fun in the making of beautiful & mysterious gestures.
Do you consider yourselves serious people? How important is it to have fun with whatever you’re creating?
Existential comedy.
What have you been surprised by the most since starting this project?
How ready people are to emotionally engage with this piece, and how deeply they dive.
Rather than just copy/pasting from the site – how do you describe HFI to someone if it comes up IRL? The short/easy version? (is there an easy version)
The site describes what we would usually say, but it’s in character as members of the Institute. It’s an interactive performance art installation series that uses cult aesthetics to investigate our relationships, with ourselves and each other.
Are you guys active right now or planning anything?
As Calx Vida we have a web-based project: The Seers’ Catalogue, an online journal of art, design, and reflection. We’re actively planning HFI work for the future when human interaction becomes possible again.
Is there anything else, in particular, you’d like to say about HFI?
The complex interdependencies between culture, technology, and nature are relentlessly evolving. We each need to continuously question and respond to our technological moment, and we need ritual social spaces that facilitate our ability to question productively. This is what we’re here for.
