PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS / PSYOPS

The truth is hidden
in the databases of the secret services
and in people's dreams

The authors of the audio-visual hypnagogic experience - Tibor Hrs Pandur · Lina Rica · Miha Šajina - Shekuza and Boštjan Čadež - FŠK - explore the phenomenon of reading as a public disclosure of the most intimate through the simulation and decoding of dream protocols as a common-use "brainwashing". The military term of "psychological operations" is appropriated and extended to communication as such, since communication is supposed to be about the potential mutual benefit of all involved, and not merely "propaganda in support of state objectives, with the intention of influencing, directly or indirectly, the opinions, feelings, moods or behaviour of any group to the benefit of the sponsor".

The struggle against the censorship of oblivion involved in the recording, verbalisation or simulation of dreams, according to Freud, already fixes the difference between a dream and the subsequent retroactive reproduction of a nocturnal event, and demonstrates the tendency of the human psycho-physical apparatus to unwittingly appropriate the external world as the projection screen of an internal theatre; "a theatre in which the dreamer himself is the stage, the actor, the whisperer, the producer, the author, the audience and the critic" (loosely based on Jung). This is precisely what Henri Bergson emphasises in his 1901 lecture on dreams, when he likens dreams to the act of reading, whereby we do not read the actual letters, but give ourselves the meaning and perception as a hallucination of our own externalised memory, as a "projection of memory outwards in hallucinatory form".

When you read someone
you are not reading them, you are reading yourself
how you read them
Reading is a dream about the reader's affects
that the text triggers in him
Are you counting?
Reading is reading the effect of reading
not the text
The text reads the reader
The reader is the dream of the text ...

sounds a fragment of a poem from Tibor Hrs Pandur's book Psyops (Litera, 2022), on the basis of which this intervention in a space dedicated to the mass hypnosis of spectators rejects the widespread assumption that dreams are not just "mental cinema" designed for forgetfulness or incoherent entertainment, but rather a self-preserving physiological necessity: the only legitimate, non-pathological, hallucinogenic experience of madness still tolerated by society.

Psychological operations are an attempt to transplant this memory of forgetting, which tangibly manifests the extent to which, in the very moment of perception, our perception is co-generated independently of us in a mutual feedback loop with the world.

Tibor Hrs Pandur (1985) is a poet, translator, dramaturge and thespian. From 2009 to 2018, he was the editor-in-chief of I.D.I.O.T. He won the Young Playwright Award at the 44th TSD in Kranj. He is the author of several poetry collections (Enerđimašina, Inner Affairs, Psyops) and scientific translation monographs on Nikola Tesla. As a dramaturge he collaborates with Nina Rajić Kranjac and Livija Pandur. At the 22nd Poetry Tournament in Maribor (2022) he received the Vizir Award for the best poetry video.

Lina Rica (1980) is an award-winning intermedia artist working in the field of conceptual, experimental and new media art. Her work deals with the social processes of past and present worlds and their effects on the individual. Her prints are part of the collections of MGLC, Riko, Oficina Arara, Longest Night, Critical Mass Portfolio and Femicomix Portfolio. She is co-founder of the AV ensemble Marta Fakuch and part of the AV trio Etceteral.

Miha Šajina (1979) is a producer, DJ, keyboardist, composer and avid module collector from Ljubljana. He has played in Intimn Frizurn, Moveknowledgement and Ewok. Since 2002 he has been working in the Zvviks collective, where he creates music and sound effects for Koyaa animated films. As Shekuza, he is intensively exploring modular synthesis: the albums De Sica (2019) and Coriolis Effect (2020) for Kamizdat and the ep Floorcuts (2023) for Technopolis. Since 2021 he forms Warhorse with Domno Učakar - Lifecutter.

Boštjan Čadež (1979) is an award-winning intermedia artist. With Line Rider (2006) he succeeded on the global market and won the prestigious Innovation Award at the PC Game Developers' Meeting in San Francisco. In 2013 he received the Golden Bird Award in the category of intermedia art. As a recognised artist, he is also active in the field of real-time video projections and video mapping. He exhibits at home and abroad.

Concept, lyrics, voice and direction Tibor Hrs Pandur
Video and visuals Lina Rica
Sound and music Miha Šajina - Shekuza
Code Boštjan Čadež - FŠK
Author of the coat of arms Matej Stupica
Authors of the graphic design PSYOPS Tibor Hrs Pandur in Kristijan Robič

Organization KUD Channel Zero, Kulturna četrt MInoriti, Lutkovno gledališče Maribor, Založba Litera • PSYOPS is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.