Spawn an oogly eyeball and zwoosh right into HYPERSPACE!!! dr33mphaz3r is the game play inspired, PSY-demonic ‘doofsphere’ hatched by current net label and “content aggregators” ULTRAVIRUS. Curator, Thick Owens introduces dr33mphaz3r as a playground for trance to morph speed in perpetuity and connect fellow net-dwellers with a distinctive line-up of live acts and DJs, near and far.

~dr33mphaz3r officially launches this Saturday, 29th August on the cyberspace right here~

e̷̜͈̘̯͊͐̒̏͛͝n̶̡̹̻̫̄̀̈́t̷̠̊͒͛̋̇͛̏͊̋ẻ̵̢̘̦̬͉̩̲̯̓͜ͅr̶͚̹̩̃̇̑͗̓͑̊̊̔͜͠ͅ ̸̺̮͋͋̌͆̐͊͝t̷̘͇͈́̋̀͋͒̿̑̈͊̚h̵̢̳͍̮̜͈̜͋̽ẹ̸̮͎̳̘̹̼̮̅̊͐̕͜ ̶̥͚̟͉̜̝̖̲̈́͂̃̎̏̅̀d̵̡͚̱͓͇̺̦̘̐͌̂̒͐̀͘͜r̴̡̨̝̻̣͖͚̿3̶̺͕̰̩̰̠̥͉̹̭̎́͊͋̕3̷͈̙̎̀̾̽͐͒͘͝m̸̰͖̖͛̆͊͛̄̊̂͒͠͠ͅp̶̧̤̬̖̲̭̹͎͌̽̾̓h̴͈̺̭̆̈́̒͛̓̓̍͂a̷̞̠̜̥̗͌̈́̉̄͑̓͌̔z̵̨̛͙̬͓̬̼̗̀̀̽̀͗̓̕3̴̩͇̖̮̩̙͊͐͒͊͑͜͜r̶̨͙̝͈̬̯̜̺̣̄͑͐

Very stoked for dr33mphaz3r to kick-off and flourish within the ULTRAVIRUS ecology. Big CONGRATS! You’ve mentioned that this “psyber_space” takes a lot of structural/interactive influence from late 90s VR chat rooms and psy-exploratory games and demos. What ~~virtual~~influences/functions has dr33mphaz3r drawn upon?

When the dr33m was first incepted, around late March, lockdown unfolding in r33l time, my head was hooked on CCRU (1997 -2003) and early-oughts prog trance. Lobotomising experiences on both accounts. This coincided with a massive surge in online outpour - hyper-flow of sourdough, quarantine livestreams, a cultural bloodbath years in the making. History was on the move again - vortical tick blips of pandemic time - but where to remained (and remains) ...

-- - as the weeks drew on, I was net-schizzing HARD - illicit traffick in modular-chunks of cyberspace insanity. It was all a dr33m (but was it?)...

“Trance has always been a terraforming project”

§ A promethean quest to liberate meaning from the imprisonment of ignorance. The future is the present liberated from the past.

*tick* Vaults of Erowid_ *tick tick*

LSD: Dream Emulator : :: :;::

_...Earthcore 1999____

*tick* 331/3 Goa_xplosion c. 16’.

{[[time unspooling]]} }} } } }}}}

Image by Handandsword / animator in Stygian’s (Gravemine:D)), designed by eek. § words taken from inner sleeve of Insectoid - Groovology of the Metaverse (WMS Records, Australia, 1998)

Curious about how ULTRAVIRUS initially approached these spaces? What’s your past experience with virtuality and game play like as a user? And even growing up?

ULTRAVIRUS has slimed from Runescape to Slenderman, retro-exploring LambdaMOO, Brandon and Club Rothko and continues to SCUBA into the depths of online “socialities”, disciplines //cultural studies// etc {expect more from the ULTRAVIRUS think-tank, headed up by Ella Parkes-Talbot, soon…}

As children of the 1990s we haunted MSN and ChatRoutlette and as children of the 00s we exorcise our daemons on Discord and AFK dancefloors.

Desperate to GUSH about this AHH-MAZING line-up of local/global acts you’ve curated! Can you introduce us to the lovely DJs/live acts that will exist/play in this space?

Dr33mphaz3r tries to archive Australia’s nascent PSI.D.M community alongside more established trance nodes, i.e. dark overlord of psycore !luuli, dada-punk DJ Marcelle, neo-medieval-psy-troubadours like Bartolomé and s1m0nc3ll0 and key members of the Dutch Trance Renaissance - Spekki Webu, Woody92, pyruvic.acid and Vox supreme (to name a few).

Very curious about your curation process here! How do these *particular* live acts/DJs continue to expand the “trance continuum” as it morphs?

Trance is a state of mind - amorphous, mutable...but always ecstatic. It pulses erratically to the cryptic rhythms of A-Death ritual, soul-splinterings along the main-flatline that hurtles continuously into the mesh. Across 23 mixes, its varied shapes and speeds are untangled - psybient, tribal tek, AMIGA DOS. Goa, Medieval Hi-tech... psycore as a study of theoretically pure anterograde amnesia...

ẁ̴̡̫͎̰̔̿̅̔͗̓̒͝ë̸̞̗̱̘́̑͝a̸̭̬̹̯͒̽k̸̖̳͊̍̍̉̌̑̔͜͝͝͝ḽ̴̢͈̰͎̒̂͌̿̊̕ì̶̛̤͈̟̘̤̊̒́̉̾̕͝n̸̛͔̼͖̮͕̬̻̈́̅̐g̷̡̡̛̲͔͍͖̞ş̶͈͔͕͈̥͙͗̃̀̄̉̃͘͠ ̶̠̞̩̍̐̓̈́̀̉̿̾͘ẘ̵̼̙̺͉̖̣͓̾͐̋̑̕͜ȋ̷̳̫̺̳̭͈̀̔̈́̑̄͒͠l̵̢̺̠̦̯͚̘͆̂͊̉̀̕l̵̛̺̥͖͙͈̼̗̼͚̓̓͗ ̵̼̓̿͐p̶̮̝̳̯̝̖̐͆͊̊̏͝ę̶̧͍̪͎̒͊̓̅̋̆̉r̵͍̩͙̞̐̆i̷̺̙̹̜͓̥͐s̴̨͓̪̻̞͚͛̋̀͝ͅḩ̸͇͍͈͖̑

Dr33mphaz3r is both a portal into a foggy past and an opening into a treacherous new psychocosm.

I’m so appreciative that dr33mphaz3r is very dedicated to ‘documenting the growing global trance network’, from a local lens. How will dr33mphaz3r continue to world-build and grow within this intranet chasm of PSI.D.M?

...Our palantir is blurry….

...funding might help.

Any particular sets or bits of work we should be aware of before entering dr33mphaz3r?

Here’s a psyllabus I prepared earlier…

Dr33mphaz3r is multi-portal, “choose your own adventure” oriented. Can you walk us through the set-up of these different worlds? And what users can expect to experience?

1 lobby -

✦ Hypnik_Crypt333

3 portals -

✦ Solar Eclipse of May 12, 1706

✦ Solway Firth

✦ Stygian’s ((Gravemine:D))

Customise your virtual doof stick, click on hidden sigils, explore the antipodes of your mind…

[I r3m3mb3r nothing else]

What does ULTRAVIRUS want users to (ideally and ultimately) take from the simulation? Like, zonk-out and recalibrate to some **Zenonesque** psybient mixes or playing with fellow lone-muzzers on the net, or something else entirely?!

Screen Shot 2020-08-27 at 9.01.34 PM.png

The visual layout of dr33mphaz3r is so demonically baited, like darkcore Geocities psy-disruption. Extreme neo-hellscape vibes! Talk us through the animators/designers behind this universe? And what the in-put/development process was like?

I was lucky to link with Sydney expat and Svbkvlt vis-wiz W.O.M.B in Shanghai last year. We met on Hubs by Mozilla*** for a virtual spitball with Caspian Baska, trusted housemate and notorious dev cowboy [username: \t+]. Lofty dr33ms of total virtual immersion - floating eyeball avatars, 3D swamp environments, “think Runescape with a healthy dose of Psy”. The pact was forged, but the particulars of the dr33m were complex. Inevitably the dr33m t3am grew - Caspian, Gurn Group, Sarri Talhami and Huon Peard would handle back-end, Brigitte Podrasky and S1m0ncell0 would stylise its face and W.O.M.B, bdkz90s and eek, become the architects of its corridors.

Fractals and lycra were out of the question. Psy needed a cybernetic facelift and we found it in a strange crucible of chaos magick, fantasy-flavoured MMORPGS [Dota, Warcraft 3, War Chasers], Xpiritual Insta-art and pre-MMbo-Jumbo Goa covers…

* Released by Twisted Records [UK], 1999

* Released by Flying Rhino Records [UK], 97

*** open-source VR chat room software - what we’re piggybacking off to make it all happen!

Is dr33mphaz3r interested in taking and transitioning the functions of physical club culture into hyper-reality or virtual unreality? If so, how is that explored?

Meatspace is raw and irreplaceable. While we’ve seen some major innovation during Pandemic tim3 - Neurodungeon, Nu.Cenosis and Club Matryoshka are some personal highlights - these experiences are often fixed on a temporal plane. 9pm CET isn’t ideal crypt_tim3 for an antipode like me. I was often consigned to a Twitch playback, unable to link with the Hive Mind. That's why dr33mphaz3r is less an event and more akin to a tim3 capsule, floating in net.space, in p3rp3tuit33…

You introduced us to an EPIC, hodgepodge bit of work called ‘Ccru Writings 1997-2003’ which forays into deep cyber-speculations/theories/fictions. It is a GIFT (thank u!!). Is there a relationship between this text and dr33mphaz3r?

We share a common interest in temporal dis---ruption/location.

Trance is time-sorcery in gated wavelengths.

Trance sounds out the dr33m state in nu_time.

𝕚𝕟 𝕃𝕚𝕗𝕖, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕦𝕠𝕦𝕤 𝔻𝕣𝟛𝟛𝕞

𝕚𝕟 Limbo, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝔻𝕣𝟛𝟛𝕞

𝕚𝕟 𝕃𝕦𝕟𝕒𝕔𝕪, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔻𝕣𝟛𝟛𝕞

𝕚𝕟 𝕃𝕒𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕣, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕦𝕒𝕝 𝔻𝕣𝟛𝟛𝕞

𝕚𝕟 𝕃𝕖𝕚𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕠𝕟𝕠𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕤 𝔻𝕣𝟛𝟛𝕞

𝕚𝕟 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕒𝕡𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝔻𝕣𝟛𝟛𝕞

I was also fascinated by this bit of writing that mentions “digital hyperstition”. I’m wanna place it out of context and into dr33mphaz3r world! Does dr33mphaz3r have the potential to trigger “digital hyperstition” or “hypersonas”, for users? And how can that alter user’s experience of the portals?

The fraying veil between chaos and “””r3ality””” is most vulnerable in the dr33mstate.

It’s very important that users understand: the dr33mphaz3r *is r3al*. expect side-effects of daydr33ming, delirium, and flashes of lucid epiphany after entering.

“Digital hyperstition” is a neat way of phrasing the cosmic, divinatory and creationist power of the .net - a phenomena we have all witnessed, maybe without giving it a name, like roko’s basilisk or The Secret once you know this fact there is no way of unknowing it: dr33m it >> wish it >> do it

This law of physics means, in short, that yes - dr33mphazing will make a myriad of daily hyperstitious events more 👁 visible 👁

Is it coincidence that during the depths of our deliberations into this state of cybernetic trance, the eminent star of the 90s, the very era we were revisiting, signalled that she had dr33med herself awake?

Photo Credit: Posted on Instagram by Britney Spears

Before the official kick-off, can you describe what dr33mphaz3r will be like in three words?

Neural-Net-Burp

#333

Stay updated with ULTRAVIRUS here. Enter sweet hell dr33mphaz3r here.

Interview by Lakshmi Krishnan. Words by Thick Owens.

Thank you for reading this article. Before you leave the page, we’d like you to take a moment to read this statement. We are asking our readers to take action and stand with the BIPOC community who fight and endure the oppression and injustice of racial inequality.

Here in ‘Australia’, Indigenous people are the most incarcerated population on Earth. Countless lives have been murdered by white police, white government policies and this country’s white history, institutionalised colonialism and ongoing racial oppression. Racial injustice continues today under the phoney, self-congratulatory politics of ‘Reconciliation’ and the notion that colonialism is something that must be denied and forgotten, an uncomfortable artefact of the past.

Feeling guilty is not enough. We must take action, pay the rent, educate ourselves and acknowledge that empathy and sorrow for past actions is insufficient if this does nothing to prevent our current reality from extending into the future.

Please consider making donations to the following organisations (the list is so small and the work to be done is so large, do your research to find more grassroots, Indigenous-lead community organisations):

Pay the Rent
Indigenous Social Justice Association - fighting to stop Indigenous deaths in custody
Firesticks Alliance - who campaign for Indigenous land management, cultural burning and looking after Country

Scope it

'dr33mphaz3r'/ Interview with Thick Owens

Stay updated with ULTRAVIRUS here. Enter sweet hell dr33mphaz3r here.