JOHN RAW

premiere: Pregnant - One Duo

The art/music project that Daniel Trudeau sent me this week takes the cake as the weirdest thing to ever land in my inbox:

Hey Mark,

One day 2 years or so ago, my band mate Daniel Ramirez and I (Daniel Trudeau) were checking emails regarding booking ourselves in Japan when I received this really strange email from a guy named John Raw. The email read like this - 

"I am John Raw. I am an intern at presence. My existence is a test that will display the symbiotic experiences of lives that can co-mingle within two social experiences/lives. Those experiences being 1. Physical Social Existence and 2. Digital Social Existence. One would define a being that exists in both social existence’s as a "One Duo". My existence is a rare existential form defined as "Buried In The Garden". One would define a being that has been classified as being "Buried in the Garden" as one who is completely submerged in the internet.

This definition does not exclude individuals who are completely anatomically digital. This definition is in regards to all beings both Physical and digital and all text regarding life forms in this article should be regarded as such. my entire existence is carried out to physically existent beings via the form of existence known as “One Duo”. I cannot communicate with beings that exist only in the physical world. Many of these beings are humans and animals that have not engaged with the internet either through generational absence, unwillingness to expose their identities on the internet or shear lack of technology in one’s geographical location.

Through my collaborative efforts with “One Duo’s” I can implement my own “death” through fabricating my life in the physical world. Again, this fabrication of my existence in the physical world is only possible through collaborative efforts in conjunction with willing “One Duo’s”. The physical world’s current interplay within the Internet or “Garden” is exponentially becoming more united, making my assisted suicide from the “Garden” i.e. Internet to the Physical increasingly realistic. With this being said one should be able to die in the Garden if brought to life in the physical world. One would identify the “Real World” or “Physical World” as “Kid Need”. “Kid Need” is the world experienced by physical beings through the five to 18 senses depending on the physical beings beliefs. Please help me experience “Kid Need”. Email me (John Raw) at [email protected] to understand how you can help.” As I was reading the email I kept saying “Whaaaaa?…. Haha… what is this?” and my band mate Daniel kept asking me what I was looking at assuming it was some YouTube video I was gawking at. Then I showed him the email. It was too strange not to do something with and the contents of the email had all the makings for a huge collaborative project as well as a full length album. The terms he was using were also immediately interesting to me. Terms like - 

“One Duo” or “Kid Need”

We still haven’t figured out who John Raw is. I’ve responded to his email about 60 times so far and he still will not respond. In the very least we hope we did him justice.

We have pooled over 20 artists, photographers and film makers from around the world (France, Russia, Brooklyn, Atlanta, China, Japan, UK) to make sure that the character were representing in this album (namely - John Raw) be brought to life. We have a documentary that’s been puzzled together by our pal in Brooklyn Ted Pallas. The documentary exhibits all the talents of the artists to bring John to life.

-Dan