Voidopolis
by Kat Mustatea
The MIT Press Leonardo Series
A hybrid digital artistic and literary project in the form of an augmented reality book made to disappear, Voidopolis retells Dante's Inferno as if it were set in pandemic-ravaged New York City. A first-of-its-kind publication from the MIT Press, Voidopolis can only be deciphered through a bespoke AR app published alongside the book.
Every detail of the story is crafted to evoke loss: the stock photographs of New York City with humans wiped away, the lipogrammatic AI-generative text missing the letter e. Over a period of months, the app works to decay the elements of the story just as memory might, leaving behind foggy imagery and half-remembered bits of language. Each July 1, the book resets, beginning anew the cycle of its own vanishing.
Voidopolis initially unfolded in a series of now-deleted Instagram posts on Kat Mustatea’s feed @kmustatea beginning on July 1st, 2020, and has since been exhibited internationally in a variety of digital and physical formats.
CREDITS: Voidopolis by Kat Mustatea, 2023 The MIT Press Leonardo Series | Book design and algorithmic decay: Studio Process | Afterwords: Charlotte Kent, Arielle Saiber | App Design: DOTDOT Studio | FUNDING: The MIT Press Fund for Diverse Voices | Open Austria Art and Tech Lab | The US Embassy in Vienna | Café Royal Cultural Foundation Literary Grant | An Art Company
AWARDS: Lumen Prize Shortlist 2023 | Winner of the Arts And Letters ‘Unclassifiable’ Prize For Literature | Winner of the Dante Prize, Dante Society London | Ars Electronica Prize Shortlist 2021 | Chautauqua Janus Prize For Literature Finalist 2021
SELECTED EXHIBITS: Ars Electronica, Linz (AT) | International Center of Photography Bookstore, New York (USA) | Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn (USA) | Stanley Picker Gallery, London (UK) | New Images Festival Official Selection, Paris (FR) | Pittlerwerke, Leipzig (DE) | Electronic Literature Organization, Bergen (NO) | The Grid: Exposure Festival, San Francisco (USA) | New Media Artspace, New York (USA) | Annka Kultys Gallery, London (UK)
PRESS: NPR | Danielle Ezzo review in Fotodemic | WAMC The Roundtable | MIT Press | WRKF | NPR / Jefferson | Spine | Ampersand | CLOT | Dovetail | Dovetail (Feature) | LEONARDO Podcast | London ONE Radio | Reparative Redaction (Shannon Mattern)
“Voidopolis is a deeply engaging and beautiful work of erasure that invites the reader to fill in its blanks, standing in the role technology itself plays. Offering readers a parable via Dante’s own traversal of inferno, purgatory, and paradise, Mustatea creates a clever and useful corollary for this moment in which so many people feel profoundly, inexorably lost.”
—Amaranth Borsuk, Associate Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, and Director, MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics, University of Washington, Bothell; author of The Book
“As an ardent believer in hybrid literary ecosystems, I savored the experience of reading Voidopolis—a powerful fusion of that most ancient technological device, the book, with next-gen innovations and augmentations that meaningfully deepen the work’s investigation of language, memory, and loss.”
—Sasha Stiles, poet, language artist, and author of Technelegy
“With its dependence on augmented reality and its origins in the performativity of social media, Mustatea’s Voidopolis is the most modern retelling of Dante’s Inferno on offer for our post-pandemic times. It depends on the infernal journey charted by Dante but is pervaded by a sense of loss not even present there. The medieval poem is a testament to memory and even in its fiction reads like a chronicle of history. Voidopolis is a true medieval dream vision, haunting and profoundly disturbing in its disappearing act. We, the readers, witness a tangible, interactive world that becomes immaterial and inaccessible with every attempt to enter it.”
—Kristina M. Olson, Associate Professor of Italian and Italian Program Coordinator, Department of Modern and Classical Languages, George Mason University
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The images and texts inside the app become more garbled over time, until they match the garbled images and texts that are printed in the pages of your book. Over a period of one year, the book becomes partly or wholly illegible, because the app no longer fully deciphers the story. Only the printed book, with its unintelligible pages, remains. This decay process restarts and begins again inside the app each year on July 1st. Click to watch trailer.
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Correct, depending on the time of year. In the months approaching July 1st, you might not be able to decipher the story because it is fully ‘decayed.’ If this is the case, you must wait until after July 1st, when the app has reset and the story is accessible again.
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You will need a physical copy of Voidopolis, a Web AR-capable phone or tablet, and a fast internet connection. On your device, navigate to read.voidopolisbook.com in any browser window (we recommend Safari (iOS) or Chrome (iOS & Android) for the best experience).
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Voidopolis is available worldwide through The MIT Press Leonardo Series / Penguin Random House (Order Link).
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A note to librarians wishing to acquire Voidopolis: the ‘decay’ of this book happens within the AR app’s digital components, not to the pages of the physical book. Therefore, the work is appropriate for a special collections or circulating library.
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Sign up for the newsletter to receive updates about the project’s launch and decay cycle. For press inquiries and technical questions, click here to email
REVIEW: “Amnesia in the Land of Hypermemory”
Essay onVoidopolis by Danielle Ezzo for FOTODEMIC
Breakthroughs in Storytelling Symposium
Digital Storytelling Lab, Columbia University
New York, NY
FIRESIDE CHAT: Beyond the Page
(POSTPONED: new date to be confirmed) Featuring Kat Mustatea and Ant Hampton, moderated by Romy Nehme. Details.
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
ROUNDTABLE: Voidopolis
Roundtable on Voidopolis featuring Charlotte Kent (Art History, Montclair State University), Alexey Yurenev (International Center of Photography, NYC), Arielle Saiber (Italian Studies, Johns Hopkins University).
NIGHT IN THE LIBRARY
The Brooklyn Public Library
Brooklyn, NY
TALK + EXHIBIT: Voidopolis and the Art of Disappearing
Artist talk at 10:30 pm + a dispersed exhibit of AR- enabled excerpts from Voidopolis throughout the Library. This year’s theme: “Out of Darkness.” Details. BK Reader + TimeOut + Brooklyn Paper
Experimental Photography
ITP/IMA Program, New York University Tisch School of Arts
New York, NY
ARTIST TALK
Artist talk on Voidopolis and Experimental Photography, with special thanks to Prof. Ellen Nickels
MIAMI ART WEEK
Miami, FL
SALON: Catch the Wave
An evening of conversations around art and technology with Kelani Nichole, Kat Mustatea, Rachel Vancelette. Event details here.
IUIPUI Indianapolis Arts & Humanities Institute
Indianapolis, IN
A series of talks presented by the Donald Tavel Arts & Technology Research Center, the Indianapolis Arts & Humanities Institute, Herron School of Art and Design, and Indy Reads Bookstore. Special thanks to Nathan Schmidt and Scott Deal.
Indiana University Bloomington
Bloomington, IN
Event in conjunction with the Digital Futures team at Cook Center for Public Arts and Humanities, and Morgenstern’s Books Store. Special thanks to Edward Dallis-Commentale and Scott Deal.
European Literature Night
Ukrainian Institute of America
New York, NY
Voidopolis reading + a panel titled Contemporary Literature and Global Crises, featuring authors Kätlin Kaldmaa, Anja Kampmann, Andrey Kurkov, Sanaé Lemoine and Kat Mustatea, and moderated by Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, Chief Program Officer, Literary Programming at PEN America
ALIEN 2023
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA)
Arizona State University
Diana Ayton-Shenker, CEO of Leonardo/ISAST, introduces the exhibit of Voidopolis at ALIEN 2023.
University of Bergen
Canter for Digital Narrative
Bergen, NO
SEMINAR: Voidopolis and the Art of Disappearing
Special thanks to Scott Rettberg
Lumen Prize Shortlist
Voidopolis was shortlisted for the Lumen Prize in the 3D/Interactive category - details on shortlisted projects
ELECTRONIC LITERARTURE ORGANIZATION
Virtual Book Launch
Virtual launch and discussion hosted by Mark Marino with Electronic Literature Organization. Time: 4 pm EST / 1 pm PDT.
UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
Valletta, MT
SEMINAR: The Art of Disappearing
Voidopolis and the emergent aesthetics of decay, destruction, and disappearance at the forefront of artmaking in the digital age.
Details + special thanks to Adnan Hadzi
Bushwick Open Studios
Brooklyn, NY
DOTDOT Studio, the designers of the AR app for Voidopolis, participated in Bushwick Open Studios, with copies of the book on view.
Launch Party!
International Center of Photography
New York, NY
Celebration of the start of the year-long cycle of disappearance of Voidopolis at the ICP shop during a special book signing and reception. Special thanks to Jacque Donaldson Bailey and Marley Trigg Stewart.
Photofairs
New York, NY
PANEL: Voidopolis—New Technology and the Photobook
Presented by International Center of Photography, with arts writer Charlotte Kent, Dante scholar and professor Arielle Saiber, and ICP faculty and photographer, Alexey Yurenev. Photofairs was held at Javits Center in Manhattan.
The MIT Press Leonardo Series
WORLDWIDE LAUNCH (and disappearance)
Voidopolis is now available worldwide, published by The MIT Press Leonardo Series alongside a bespoke AR app. The first cycle of the book’s decay began on September 21st at its official launch at International Center of Photography, and will culminate in the book’s gradual disappearance, resetting again for the first time on July 1st, 2024. This enactment of loss is a communal experience meant to be shared across all copies of the book worldwide.
Voidopolis at MOMA Bookstore in Manhattan
Special thanks to the many friends and colleagues who have written in with notes and photos of their copies
PITTLERWEKE
Leipzig, DE
EXHIBIT: Dimensions: Digital Art Since 1859
Voidopolis was included in the group show held at a converted factory Pittlerwerke in Leipzig. Curator: Richard Castelli. Materials on view: video installation, installation with printed books and iPads.
Stanley Picker Gallery
London, UK
EXHIBIT: Digital Sustainability: From Resilience to Transformation
Voidopolis was included in a goup exhibit at Kingston School of Art as part of the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts Conference (DRHA), curated by Dr Bill Balaskas. Materials on view: installation with video and prototype book.
Ars Electronica
Linz, AT
EXHIBIT: A New Digital Deal
Premiere of Voidopolis as a prototype AR book experience, part of Ars Electronica themed exhibit, featuring AR activations by An Art Company. Materials on view: video installation and prototype books with iPads. The prototype books were set to decay over the course of the five-day exhibit.
Special thanks: Open Austria Art + Tech Lab, and the US Embassy in Vienna for travel support to Linz.
NEW IMAGES FESTIVAL—Official Selection
Paris, FR
FORUM DES IMAGES
Voidopolis was an Official Selection at the New Images Festival, and premiered as a wall-based AR experince.
Electronic Literature Organization
Bergen, NO
EXHIBIT: Posthuman
Posthuman, an exhibition by Electronic Literature Organization, took place on site in Bergen as well as in an extended format online. Curated by: Eamon O’Kane, Jason Nelson, Scott Rettberg, Joseph Tabbi.
AWARD: Arts & Letters 'Unclassifiable' Prize
Voidopolis was awarded the Arts and Letters ‘Unclassifiable’ Prize for literature as it was still unfolding on Instagram. Excerpts were subsequently published in Issue 42 of Arts and Letters Magazine.
Judge Michael Martone writes:
[Voidopolis] takes to heart and exploits the reality that a writer today is not simply a "writer" who writes, creating a text, but a media artist not using a 19th century typewriter but an extremely powerful typesetting machine now connected to the internet. I also was attracted to the ephemeral nature of the piece, its temporary-ness. A piece about the virus infects itself with its own digital virus that rewrites then erases the living codes.
TheGrid: Exposure Festival
San Francisco, CA
EXHIBIT: Ars Electronica—In Kepler’s Gardens
Voidopolis was exhibited at TheGrid: Exposure Festival, as part of Ars Electronica “In Kepler’s Gardens” in the form of an Instagram takeover during the festival. A week-long narrative, including a ‘lost episode’ not found in the subsequent book, was published on the Instagram account of Codame Art + Tech.
VOIDOPOLIS
Instagram @kmustatea
The first performance of Voidopolis unfolded on Instagram in a series of posts that have since been deleted.
