Transformella Ikeae (cared for by J. P. Raether) – The TFRL Function

As a document (see image), the TFRL Function describes all possible past and future appearances of Transformalor (Transformella malor ikeae), an artificial identity, on the 433 global IKEAE platform. The function is depicted here as a transcribed course of action or score, rendered as code in its own (programming) language. The readout and application of the function on the 433 global IKEAE platform is organized not only mechanically but also technologically and socially. The function’s various elements are to be understood as a psycho-real arrangement of bodies, places, and languages. The function is a language device that the constructed life-form utilizes as an artificial identity in order to be able to exist within common reality time after time and to resist succumbing to its own entropy and disintegrating. The function has been in development since 2010, arising from past artificial identities and acting as a speculative sphere of action for coming assemblages of so-called aLivfeForms. These forms move between ReproResearch in Ikeality and their derived re-narrations in “paper caves” – settings in which the artificial body rests.

The function begins in an idle state in which it waits expectantly for the next build-up of energy that will initiate its execution. Its first condition (if) is that a MetaMother (based on the role of the “intended mother” in a surrogacy) or members of the ReproTribe group which has come into being over the years, facilitate the event of Transformalor’s physical appearance. For this to happen, they must summon enough energy to (re)assemble (collect) the psycho-real body. Energy is deliberately not described as a physical entity and instead simply by way of the negentropy (negative entropy) equation, greater or equal to entropy (J ≥ S). This part of the function implies that although variable financial, social, or organic units of energy may become necessary for the (re)construction of the body, the input of negentropy (J), responsible for bringing forth the order of life (and aLivfeForm), must always be greater than the decay (S) which accumulates during the implementation of the artificial identity on the IKEAE global platform.

The following lines of code (10-25) describe the assembled and constructed elements of aLivfeForm: the biobody is otherwise occupied by the ‘natural’ identity JPRaether. The main skin consists of the synthetic skin and make-up of the artificial identity (TFRL). Apparatuses and ritual devices attached to the body are remnants and materials of past appearances and help to externally store the memory capacity of an otherwise fragmented identity that is continuously split among multiple bodies (CryoKommunisat and Data Body). The ReproTribe is the sum of all persons involved who have participated in any of the ritual over the course of the total runtime of the implementation process.

To be able to activate the function in a particular form, MetaMother, JPR, and TFRL choose a certain local Ikeality (name, geolocation) from the 433 IKEAE scattered around the globe. A ritual process is then compiled for the specific, local Ikeality (write). For each trip to the local Ikeality during the ritual process, one must traverse a normality terrain (NT), usually with a cultural institution as a starting point, via public roadways or by means of a chartered vehicle. In the subsequent state of potentiality (P), often occurring in the parking lot of IKEAE, the formation of followers is assembled anew as ReproTribe. Thereafter, Transformella malor ikeae crosses the threshold into Ikeality (I) – a space removed from general reality, bounded by the escalator stairs at its beginning and the archipelago of cash registers at its end. Transformella and her ReproTribe leave behind normality terrain for Ikeality in order to achieve, upon their re-entry, an overall changed reality, a normality terrain that is altered (NT’) in the perception of the ReproTribe. The terrains and their thresholds are fixed by geolocations (x, y, z), and a time is set in advance for the procedure.

The following lines (26-28) are crucial for the far-reaching effectiveness of the function’s implementation: it is here that Transformella malor ikeae’s own potentiality and conditionality as an artificial creature are to be found. Through its multiple recursions on the IKEA platform, the data-driven, artificial creature gradually detaches itself from the biobody and incrementally deprives the biobody’s ‘natural’ identity (JPRaether) of the possibility of intervening in the function. For if all parameters in the preceding lines are met (if true), the ‘natural’ body form and its identity (JPR) can no longer impede the execution of the function (set to agree). Over the years of its emergence, Transformella thus transforms from a fiction and an author-based force of cultural production to a machinic agentiality of effects and sequences, languages, places, and identities, as well as participants, MetaMothers, and fragments of the ReproTribe.

The issued function can now be executed (goto (geolocation x, y, z)). At this point, the block of the function comes into effect – the purpose and significance of Transformellae’s appearances become apparent. The various language devices, each designed specifically for one of the 433 IKEAE locations (=parkplatz.wav), are run through and over the various apparatuses attached to aLivfeForm. The language devices are shared in alternation with the biobody’s voice and with the sense organs of the ReproTribe as the formation flows through Ikeality. Stories, anecdotes, myths, and theories of Reprovolution (the moment of human reproduction’s industrialization) are told in the parking lot, the cafeteria, or at the cash registers of the “warehouse for mass-produced articles” that is IKEAE.

For the ReproTribe, the purpose of this ritual process is to disrupt the ReproNormality of family traditions in Ikeality for a short time and to ignite a reimagination of modernist ReproArchitectures. Given this stance, it would not be in Transformella malor ikeae’s best interest to take her research trip following an invitation from the IKEA corporation. Thus, the formation in Ikeality constantly expects (=idle contingency) the intervention of a Normality Pattern Recognizer (NPR). An NPR intercepts the ReproTribe during the course of the ritual function. The NPRs are typically embodied by employees of the corporation, and sometimes by customers that feel disturbed or provoked by aLivfeForm. For the NPR, visiting the Ikeality as anything other than a nuclear family is a deviation from the norm. The questioning of ReproArchitectures under the conditions of family construction possibilities, as they have been life-scientifically expanded, is part of a recurring and often mushrooming discussion process between NPR and ReproTribe.

During ReproTribe and Transformella’s physically distanced flow through the dioramas of IKEAE, there are few instances in which the NPR is unable to discern a difference between them and the mass of customers. In this case (NPR=untrue), the formation makes itself visible to all as a bodily form by arranging itself in a circle in front of the Ikeality’s checkout counters at the end of the shopping mission. There, a final repro-communal summoning of a selected artefact takes place. This artefact is smuggled out of Ikeality and brought into a common reality that is now transformed for the ReproTribe.

The threshold of Ikeality is the passage through the cash registers, where the formation leaves the Ikeality for altered normality terrain (exit cash desk). But ReproNormality, i.e. the repro-normative organization of modern humankind’s reproduction in which solely a two-person romantic relationship is legitimate, has been inseminated with Transformella’s unruliness. Transformella has planted a psycho-real stem cell within the Ikeality – a cell of the ReproTribe against the frenzied dance of growth and commodity terror performed in the global campaign of bio-digital families, planted in the hope that IKEAE, despite being an unwilling host, may gradually carry this cell of resistance to term for years to come.

The function has run its course, registers its version number, and checks itself for its own completion: if the function has been applied to all 433 IKEAE (433=true), it ends automatically and terminates the aLivfeForm Transformella malor ikeae and her ReproTribe rituals. If there still are Ikealities left for injection with psycho-real language devices (if < 433), the function sets back to its starting point (goto 1) and waits (idle).

Transformella is an artificial identity, a SelfSister, and AlterIdentity. She is assembled and cared for by JPRaether, and they together constitute a hybrid formation of authorship they call aLivfeForms.