CATALYST: Dennis McNulty [DMN]

SEED: Let’s talk about BLESH

INTERRUPTER: Jessica Foley [JF]

HOST: Bluecoat and Liverpool Biennial 2016

JF: Well, I guess if you think about the BLESH app… the whole concept of BLESH is this kind of…

DMN: …merging…

JF: …is a kind of telepathy. So you’re basically saying we have no need for language or any other system of communication because we BLESH. Is that an ideal?

DMN: Not for me…[TBC]

This session of Engineering Fictions will take place in the context of Dennis McNulty’s exhibition, Homo Gestalt: The Time Domain, at The Bluecoat gallery as part of the Liverpool Biennial. The seed for this session begins with a science-fictional concept called BLESH.

BLESH is a portmanteau of ‘blend’ and ‘mesh,’ and it refers to people who can bring their abilities together telepathically and can act together as one organism. Originally coined by the writer Theodore Sturgeon in his novella More Than Human (1953), BLESH is imagined as the next step in human evolution towards a mature gestalt consciousness, homo gestalt. 

Dennis has re-conceived BLESH as an iphone app for making and sharing low resolution animated GIFs based on a simple display design by pioneering systems theorist Stafford Beer. 

The session will be catalysed by Dennis and Jessica picking up the threads of an ongoing conversation around the design and affordances of BLESH in this so-called narcissistic age. As always, writing will ensue.

Spaces for this session are limited. Please contact Bluecoat for more information or to book a place click here!