Radio Chthulucene 87.9 FM

on constructing false realities

Often, I toy with the idea of manifestation (not the TikTok-ified, writing affirmations in a journal and sleeping with them under your pillow kind of manifesting, though I guess it falls under the category regardless). Thinking about energy, and karma, and the inexplicable ways the universe likes to shape itself.

Ugh, I’m probably gonna fail this midterm.

Don’t speak that into existence!

I’m literally never gonna find a boyfriend.

If you keep telling yourself that, it’ll become true!

What even is the act of “speaking something into existence”? Whether I say it or not, the possibility of failing my midterm is undeniable. What about saying something makes it real? This is more of a Sex-and-the-City-esque meditation on labels and names, I guess. In a sense, the manifestation of any sort of reality is reliant on its ability to be translated into words, whether they’re written or spoken, and whether or not it is shared with someone. Regarding this project, then, it leads me to wonder what reality I’m going to paint with my radio station. Any story I tell is going to invoke some sort of falsehood–a recounted memory could very well be as made up as a completely fictional story. The entire genre of fiction is based on non-realities, and even memoirs can be written with a veil of bias and subjective observations.

It’s not like there’s a lack of material. If I’m the queen of constructing false realities, then my journal is my vast, vast kingdom. My struggle is deciding which memories, feelings, etc. I want to put a name to or a label on. Inviting an audience as witness, my project is a continuous speaking into existence. Even further than that, there comes a multitude of realities that are also made tangible: the interpretations of my project from the audience. I fear this has gotten a little too abstract, but it’s something I want to keep in mind for my workshop next week.

-sydney