The Empire Never Ended
A vintage SANYO tape recorder plays a cassette on which an AI-cloned voice speaks Philip K. Dick's invented final reflections, dated 2 March 1982, the day of his death.
- Elements
- SANYO M250U tape recorder (c. 1975–80), Philips C60 cassette, 7:24 voice recording with AI voice cloning and an excerpt from Wagner's Parsifal
- Dimensions
- 32 × 24 × 8 cm
- Exhibition
- ARK “Conspiracy Theories”, Cable Depot Gallery, Woolwich, London, 7 June 2024
- Collection
- Artist's collection
The work
This work embodies contemporary questions about authenticity and historical fabulation. A vintage SANYO tape recorder, a residual device from a pre-digital era, plays a cassette holding a monologue generated by AI voice cloning — a recreated, artificially living voice, purged of any original authenticity while claiming the aura of the vanished original. The text, invented from scratch, simulates Philip K. Dick's final reflections, dated 2 March 1982, the day of his death, creating a speculative document that blurs the line between archive and fiction.
The cassette, medium of a bygone time, sealed in the machine that produced it, creates a dizzying time loop. The recording was made on the exhibited object itself, establishing a radical self-reference: the device is not merely the vehicle of transmission, it is the producer of the simulacrum. This fusion of technology and content questions how we build heroic narratives around vanished intellectual figures — how linear time becomes plastic matter, how truth is manufactured in the gaps of technological manipulation.
An excerpt from Wagner's Parsifal resonates in the background, echoing Dick's speculative theology in which time crystallises into mystical space. The work operates as myth-making in real time, exposing the mechanisms by which conspiracy theory materialises — not as proof, but as the irresistible artefact of an authenticity compromised by intentional design.
ARK “Conspiracy Theories”
ARK is a group exhibition curated by MOOGZ for Mytetra, shown on Friday 7 June 2024 at Cable Depot Gallery (Woolwich, London), with Ben Banks, Lewis Pathak, Merny Wernz, Paola Vertematti, xxuanxx_r and Praxed. Sound, painting, graphics, installation and text explore conspiracy theories and belief systems in the post-information age, as a collaboration between humans and AI.
Guillaume Milochau programmed every projection in the show in TouchDesigner, including those of the other artists.
AЯK — the full show, 7 June 2024
Render of the whole show, with the pieces of every artist in the exhibition, programmed in TouchDesigner — 35 min 30
Projections — TouchDesigner captures
What was projected in the room during the exhibition, captured straight out of TouchDesigner, with sound. The images were created with Midjourney: visions of Philip K. Dick during his 1974 revelations, when ancient Rome is superimposed on California — the Empire never ended.
Video — ARK “Conspiracy Theories”, Cable Depot Gallery, June 2024
Excerpts from Philip K. Dick interviews, repurposed and re-edited around the idea of conspiracy theory, shown with the installation — 2 min 11
Listen — the transmissions
Created by cloning Philip K. Dick's voice, these recordings were then transferred to cassette and played to the public through the installation's tape recorder.
- Philip K. Dick last recording — March 2, 1982, Santa Ana 00:00 / 03:44
- PKD last recording 1 00:00 / 06:25
- PKD last recording 2 00:00 / 00:59
- Rare tape recording of PKD talking about the Black Iron Prison 00:00 / 03:28
- Imagine the Black Iron Prison 00:00 / 00:40
- Pink beam 00:00 / 00:45
- Fat speaks the truth 00:00 / 00:59
Online
The website theempireneverended.com extends the work: an AI oracle for talking with Horselover Fat, Philip K. Dick's psychotic double, grounded in the Exegesis, and sound transmissions released as a podcast.
Display conditions
- Transport
- Careful packing for a vintage electronic device
- Plinth
- Flat support or plinth; the recorder must remain visible and accessible
- Lighting
- Standard ambient lighting
- Power
- Battery (can run independently) or 230 V