Frequently Asked Questions
Is this going to be an actual social media website?
Yes. We are currently building the site with a web development team.
The site will launch in February 2017.
Users can log in, create a profile, add friends to their collection, play games and do quizzes, decorate their selfies, chat with other users using only emojis, practice embodiment exercises with YAGA. Users’ activities will be filtered through a secret algorithmic ranking system that will help some to accumulate more status while others find their standing and access reduced. The two-sided coin of privacy and invisibility benefits or disadvantages the user based on their performance and is always in a state of flux.
Why is the site named State of Exceptional?
"Two months after the attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration, in the midst of what it perceived to be a state of emergency, authorized the indefinite detention of noncitizens suspected of terrorist activities and their subsequent trials by a military commission. Here, distinguished Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben uses such circumstances to argue that this unusual extension of power, or "state of exception," has historically been an underexamined and powerful strategy that has the potential to transform democracies into totalitarian states." The University of Chicago Press
The French government declared a state of emergency after November 2015’s Paris attacks.
"The special emergency measures allow police to conduct house raids and searches without a warrant or judicial oversight, including at night, and give extra powers to officials to place people under house arrest outside the normal judicial process. It also allows for restrictions on large gatherings." The Guardian (April 2016)
"The last time the measure was extended, at the beginning of this year, a group of four UN human rights specialists called on France not to prolong the state of emergency, warning of 'the lack of clarity and precision of several provisions of the state of emergency and surveillance laws'. Their main concerns centred on the restrictions to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to privacy." The Guardian (April 2016)
"An example of a state of exception is Nazi Germany when Hitler was in power and Germany’s 'Third Reich' (Calarco & DeCaroli, 2007). The elimination of human rights and citizenship from the Jews during the Holocaust was a plan superseded the time before Hitler." Law and Society@Kwantlen (November 18, 2012)
What is YAGA?
YAGA was developed as a new spiritual exercise tradition, which affirms that the answers to all problems lie inside you. First you must discover the body-mind connection: the neck. The program teaches flexibility, encouraging us to say yes to everything. Through the various levels of YAGA, from Ground Zero to level 2001+, our Shock-Awes will awaken, we’ll free the inner artist, and we will discover Torture Compassion, a solution to the problem of world suffering through self-torture. With continued YAGA practice you’ll regain balance in your body, so you’ll maintain your position and tensions will be neutralized and integrated back into the system.
Our bodies are like pieces of land, we need to protect our boundaries and surveil the movement of Free Radicals and Whi to stay healthy and productive while keeping open Whi trade with other body democracies around us. When we have too many expectations, or are too rigid it’s very difficult to flexibly adapt to and generate opportunities. Drones scan the body to find areas of tension or stress, sometimes even pain, and locate where Free Radicals congregate in the muscles and deep tissue. Saying yes with a flexible neck creates Whi flow, which energizes and neutralizes whatever position you are in, making it possible to bend reality around your mind. With YAGA you will balance and invigorate your exclusive equality.
Instructional video: https://vimeo.com/146042839
What are the Essential Elements of Status Quo™?
If you have the right foundational Elements such as Home, Nourish, Land, Air, Hydrate, Chemistry, or Freedom, you likely have opportunities already! With the mid-level elements, like Migrate, Connections, Democracy, Security, Story, or Content, your position lets your true individuality come shining through. If you are lacking in a diversity of exclusive top-level elements like Complacency, Translate, Maximize, Take, Yes, White, or Immaterial you still might have the right kind of precarity to fit in with the new flexible world order. It takes motivation to achieve full potential, unless you’re born with it, in which case, you’ve earned it already!
At SOE Webnation you will get the opportunity to constantly update your hierarchy of Status Quo Elements. Your pyramid should reflect your core values and will serve as a gauge of your individual goals and successes and lead you to your unique Essential Happiness Possibility.
More information here: https://vimeo.com/117231858
What is the Institute for Durational Futures?
The Institute for Durational Futures (IDF) is a main hub of the new world order: a place of lasting creativity and enduring performances of art and life. Under the leadership of Marina Abramović this institute unites durational performance art with detention centres to create a permanent community of citizens performing for their lives. We are all connected, linked by a chain that goes on forever.
We’ve been working with Marina since 2005 on a merger between the MAI and Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. We ultimately intend a merger between all art institutions and prisons, to create the Institute for Durational Futures! The IDF unites time-based art practices with detention centres to create a permanent community of citizens performing for their lives. Our Gitmo performers are absolutely captivated by durational performance, so this merger is a natural creative extension of the current state of affairs.
We take much inspiration from Marina’s work with Adidas, where through advertising she adapts her previous socialist performative works into new affirmations of flexible labor and anticipated income – we are all connected: “the chain goes on forever”. Taking a cue from Marina and other global art stars we learnt it’s not crucial to pay performers in money, as they will willingly volunteer their autonomy and do repetitive tasks, like counting grains of rice, for the chance of earning “cultural capital”. Money is immaterial and ultimately trivial when you have a meaningful existence and an attentive audience to witness it.
WORK RELATION 2014: https://vimeo.com/100552478