Borscht Belt System

2024

Borscht Belt System is an infinite-running software system. The term Borscht Belt references the informal and now defunct community in upstate New York that was home to Jewish immigrant families on vacation in resorts catering to the community. This Borsch Belt System is a simulation, a self-playing AI repeatedly prompting itself with psychological questions, never answered, inside a digital ecosystem. The characters in the system include traditional Orthodox shtetl inhabitants from the pale of settlement from previous centuries, wandering among modern assimilated characters, turned loose inside the bowels of a computer. Over time, characters degrade or are hollowed out. Their form becomes harder to identify, or they become more distinctive. The soundtrack is a 1919 recording by Joseph Frankel's Orchestra playing an improvised Jewish nigun, an ancient wordless melody traditionally sung by a synagogue, here performed as if in joyous celebration.

The work incorporates digital drawing, sketches and collage. The software was written in p5.js (Javascript).

Exhibitions

Spiritual Machines Aug 17 - Sep 22 2024, Flux Factory. Governor's Island. New York, NY.