So you've probably heard of the Mandela Effect. If not (seriously?) the basic idea is that sometimes lots of people misremember the same thing in the same way. It's named after the suggestion that a supposedly large number of people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 80s - which didn't actually happen.
I always thought of it as an interesting quirk of human psychology. The unreliable nature of memory has been studied and documented for years and is something that often influences my work as an artist. But there are people who instead see it as actual evidence of alternate/parallel universes, that sometimes glitch out or cross over to cause these mass misrememberings. You can find some of these people on the subreddit for the Mandela Effect, which regularly features discussion of a number of well-known, popular Mandela Effects as well as discoveries of potential new ones. Posts exist from people who know that the Fruit of the Loom logo featured a cornucopia at some point in their lifetime, they are 100% sure, and they're trying to find evidence to back that up. The evidence that is uncovered is referred to as residue: the clues left behind that imply this version of events really was true, at some point, somewhere.
I'm not here to debate the Mandela Effect - people can believe what they want, and of course I'm all for anything that questions the fixedness of reality. What I'm interested in is the notion of residue, and how it relates to something broader that I love - the idea of a bunch of fragments of stuff existing as evidence for something that once was (even if it actually wasn’t).
First: a blast from the past
To give you an idea of how long this kind of thing has fascinated me, Digital Dualism is a project I created all the way back in 2014. I discovered the term and I liked it a lot so I just ran with it to create a fake organisation. Digital Dualism had a website, downloadable resources, a promo video - and my favourite, testimonials:
This is an example of that idea of evidence, or residue, at a very basic level. The organisation does not exist, but the stuff surrounding it does. Now let’s delve into some more...
What happened to Crow 64?
Take a look at the story of the long lost N64 game Catastrophe Crow! If you’ve not heard this story before and you don’t want any spoilers, watch the video below before you read on.
So Catastrophe Crow! was a game for the Nintendo 64 console that had its release date pushed back until ultimately the finished game never saw the light of day. OR WAS IT? (spoiler alert) No, it wasn’t. It was just an amazingly elaborate and wonderfully crafted ‘mystery’ created by YouTuber and filmmaker Adam Butcher.
Mixed-media / Funny-scary-heartbreaking / Internet-obsessed
- Adam Butcher’s website about page
If you’d like a full explanation of how deep the story goes there are a number of good summary videos on YouTube, like this one. The specific thing I would like to draw your attention to in this newsletter is the amount of stuff Adam made to back-up the believable existence of the game, and the effort he spent seeding the evidence before bringing it all together for the short documentary shown above. Not only did he create gameplay footage, screenshots, interviews, magazine spreads and more for the video itself, he even created at least 5 additional YouTube channels to share Catastrophe Crow content long before releasing his own. Now that’s dedication to the residue. Ultimately Catastrophe Crow has become a huge ARG (alternate reality game) and you can dive in head first via its dedicated subreddit.
User 711391
Now this one is a little bit different but I think it still fits the theme(?) For some ‘real’ residue, I present to you one of my absolute favourite things I’ve ever watched: I love Alaska
Using information from the 2006 AOL data search leak, I love Alaska tells the story of user 711391, purely through their search history over a 3-month period. Whilst it’s just small snippets of information, you can piece together a picture of this stranger’s life, desires and concerns (which of course may or may not be accurate). The I love Alaska video series partially inspired my 2018 performance piece The Doppelgänger and is still something that influences my work today. There’s a HUGE rabbit-hole I could go into with you around digital doppelgängers but that’s a a topic for another day (and another newsletter).
Thank you as always for reading pals, it means a lot. I love writing these and honestly the hardest part every week is just trying not to go on for too long! This one got a little video heavy but hopefully it will give you some entertainment for the next time you’ve some minutes to spare.
See you next week
Edie xoxo
love it X