Reviews, photos and video from the All Worlds Fair!

Some people never made it out
Photo by Julia Fox, shared under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

The Republic of Irony, 2210 – The art troupe “Humanity” has done it again.

According to reviews from the Critical Consciousness, their latest project – the creation of a trans-dimensional unit of culture and economy set in a fictional universe called “San Francisco” just prior to its destruction in an environmental cataclysm– was a rousing success.

Some people never made it in
Photo by Rusty Blazenhoff, shared under the CC BY-NC 2.0 license.

Called “The All Worlds Fair,” the project is drawing rave reviews for the detailed work involved in crafting a whole fictional universe surrounding this event.

“This world they created … Earth … was just a marvelous satire of everything that can go wrong with free will,” said the right half of The Duke of Salamatha’s brain. “The more free the dominant species became, the better they got at creating problems and the worse they were at fixing them. It was patently absurd, yet completely believable. One for the history neurons.”

Photo by Audrey Penven (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Emperor Norton I himself
Photo by Audrey Penven, shared under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

The left side of His Grace’s brain agreed. “The nuances were extraordinary: they thought of everything. This world had its own art, music, culture, fashion … even a very primitive state of cyber-neurology … and however much they were poking fun, however crazy it got, it was always completely consistent. OF COURSE the Republicans would nominate Mitt Romney, OF COURSE he’d lose to Barak Obama, OF COURSE Rodney and Ani would break up after fucking the first time, OF COURSE they’d all be destroyed in an enormous Heat Quake caused by two centuries of ecological devastation … it was never obvious, but it all makes perfect sense in hind-sight.”

After creating this world, “Humanity” then put on their show within it to demonstrate how much delight and amazement can be accomplished even with limited tools.

Seas of the Subconscious
Photo by Julia O Test, shared under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

According to the medulla oblongatas of six chemically linked felines, the two day event was also noticeable for the way the actors never broke character.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever seen a creature like this ‘Chicken John,’ successfully rendered before,” they purred of the character played by Krinshaw Yankwickle. “Was he a hero? Was he a villain? The more we knew about him the less sense he made, yet he was so real. The actor who played him must have been exhausted by the end of the run, and so glad to take off all that make-up.”

Photo by Julia Fox, shared under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

High praise also came from a number of right anterior cortexes for the comedy duo of Colin Fahrion (played by a hologram of Thesipides Marlow) and Rubin Starset (performed by supercomputer Deep Consciosuness), who “organized” much of the on-stage action.

But there were numerous successes – and the entire “Humanity” troupe was strong. The character of Courtney King (played by a REM sleep dream captured on digital video) received a standing ovation. Legendary actor Azazel Huxley returned from retirement to play “Mikl Em,” whose catchphrase “Have you seen what’s in room 12?” was always perfectly timed. The death scene of character “Paige Seaz,” performed by the emergent properties of 6 billion linked computers, was perhaps the strongest of the entire show.

Photo by April Blackman, shared under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

Benjamin Wachs also appeared, playing himself.

“It was an incredible cast,” he told reporters. “I’ll never forget it. Frankly we’re all a little sorry to leave Earth behind. It was a wonderful creation, full of artistic possibilities.”

The entire cast is listed on a computer simulation designed to mimic what the publicity materials of the actual "All Worlds Fair" would have looked like.

Eleadea contorta
Photo by Audrey Penven, shared under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

“Humanity’s” next project, according to troupe members speaking on background, will a simulated afterlife manifesting as a series of hallucinations that will occur to brains under the influence of psychotropic substances.

In the meantime, here are some of the great photographic moments from the All Worlds Fair: