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Psopo is Michael Atavar, working collectively with a team of designers and code writers, under the umbrella of Psopo.
Our expertise covers website design, brand consultancy and technology solutions.
The products 'Divergent Procedures' (2023), Walk Towards The Big Sun' (2022), 'OMETHR' (2020), 'UWRMA' (2020) and 'ESPELIDES' (2018) can be seen below. Our practice uses these elements as building blocks, developing a further relationship with future technology.
If you need additional information, please contact us on the form below.
Divergent Procedures
Michael Atavar
2023
Divergent Procedures is an online system offering a series of daily interventions (for surprise and reflection).
One single item is uploaded to the website every day.
Some statements are instructional; some are poetic; some invite a response from the viewer; some are inexplicable dream material.
The content is often what's available, written in my notepad that day.
The piece is inspired by my long-term interest in card systems and process interventions (metabolising action) – influences include Water Yam/George Brecht, I–Ching, Silence/John Cage, Fluxus, Tarot, Oblique Strategies/Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt, Concrete Poetry.
Only about 30% of my work ever reaches public output (70% is unpublished projects). Divergent Procedures is an attempt to bring some of this process material into visibility.
Divergent Procedures moves me firmly back to being an artist and represents a shift in my thinking: from functional tools towards the space of the unconscious in all its uncertainty. OMETHR (2020) pointed the way with its several colours representing 'irrational', 'feelings' and 'unconscious' but Divergent Procedures takes this further, placing the viewer at times inside pure colour, digital form.
Divination, C.G. Jung, Chinese systems, card sets, aleatoric composition.
ATTC-12: Michael Atavar for Psopo Bubble
Website: Original logo, decal design, UI by Richard Scarborough. Programming by Flat Earth
FREE
Walk Towards The Big Sun
Michael Atavar
2022
In this project I realise my long-held ambition to write a self-assembling novel. J.G. Ballard fantasised about writing a book in three days; I reduce the process and complete my novel in twenty-four hours.
I crunch through a dataset of 54,267 words, randomising the text (the original content is taken from my own dream diaries). I start on Twitter at midnight CET on 8/4/22 and release a post every three minutes of up to 280 characters (approximately 46 words).
Over 24 hours this potentially amounts to 46 x 20 x 24 = 22,080 words.
As well as Ballard, I am thinking about Burroughs' dream diary My Education, Warhol's novel a, A Novel and Kerouac's Book of Dreams.
Machine intelligence, robotics, self-assembly, 24 hours.
ATTC-7: Michael Atavar for Psopo Bubble
Bot: additional aleatory programming by Joe Webber using the UWRMA protocol, with original logo and decal design by Richard Scarborough
FREE
OMETHR
Michael Atavar
2020
OMETHR is a 500+ card system, divided up into ten subsidiary colours (each colour represents a quality). Shuffle the whole pack or focus on different configurations of the OMETHR colour spectrum.
ATTC-3: Michael Atavar for Psopo Bubble
App: Programming by Piers Aitman, with design and UI by Richard Scarborough
BUY
UWRMA
Michael Atavar
2020
UWRMA (Unconscious Writing Machine U-WR-MA) is a Twitter bot that delivers a new message every 24 hours at midnight CET.
UWRMA generates random sentences – a springboard for new approaches or prompts that the user can fold back into experimental writing.
ATTC-2: Michael Atavar for Psopo Bubble
Bot: Aleatory programming by Joe Webber, with original logo and decal design by Richard Scarborough
FREE
ESPELIDES
Michael Atavar
2018
A site that rearranges your text in new, unseen ways. Write or paste your words into the ESPELIDES window then click on one of the buttons to manipulate the sentences.
ESPELIDES is useful for product ideas, names, titles, exercises in writing. Try it as part of your individual practice or within your creative agency.
ATTC-1: Michael Atavar for Psopo Bubble
Website: Programming by Piers Aitman, with design and UI by Richard Scarborough
BUY