How did this happen?

Paranoid Machines began as a light-hearted personal obsession when I re-watched Tron in the 90′s.

At the time, I was studying religion and digital art. I had an ambient noise radio show. I wore knee-length flannel shorts with combat boots. I was reading Baudrillard. I was making “net.art.” It was the 90′s.

At the time, the Gnostic mythologies referenced in Tron seemed relevant, in a zany way. A fallen world comprised entirely of information, ruled over by a demiurge who hides the true nature of the universe from imprisioned beings? Cyber!

At the time, it seemed like a playful set of connections. As it turns out, it is a major epistemological problem. For everybody.

Flynn [gesturing at his arcade] : The kids are putting eight million quarters a week into the Paranoid machines. I don’t see a dime except for what I can squeeze outta here.

Alan: I still don’t understand why you want to break into the system.

Flynn: Because, man! Somewhere in one of these “memories” is the evidence! If I got in far enough, I could reconstruct it.

– Tron