| UBERMORGEN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
UGLY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| shitposting is statecraft. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AESTHETIC ORACLE ↗ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
there is no logic, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
propaganda now operates through memes, toxic aesthetics, and algorithmic repetition. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ugly dissects the language, tone, and surface of hypercontemporary fascism — a world of normcore gymbros, blackpilled cottagecore dark academia, balenciaga crusaders, and emo nihilists. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
there is no logic, only vibes and bad lighting and reposted screenshots from ten years ago: flickering violence beneath the skin. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ugly responds with both technology and literature — a linguistic system that digests, deforms, and re-emits the codes, tones, and fragmentations of power as algorithmic ‘protocol’ and ‘ugly gpt’ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
the feeling of trying to understand something | ||
that keeps falling apart the closer you look. | VIBE MACHINE ↗ |
Dogwhistling on the net has long been a way of communication for far right actors online, later also translating back from net to irl (irl-net-irl-net loop), does this dog whistling apply not only to hand-signals or emojis, but also personal aesthetic choices. What song do you attach to your latest carousel post on instagram, is a superimposed bust of Plato your profile picture on twitter, do you make pinterest boards called “old money girl boss vibes” .. do these online aesthetic choices lead to irl aesthetic choices? Do people read your dogwhistle? Is it even one, if its also ‘just’ whats trending rn?
Finally, also contextualizing this within Christianity, which has been forcibly used to aesthetically create fodder for the last idk 1000 years in Europe and the Middle East, and in later years colonizing (also aesthetically) Afrika, the Americas and Oceania, why did christian censorship in lets say 1450 still create beauty, new styles, innovation and impressively expressive aesthetic circumvention of said censorship played out by the church upon artists, scientists, royals and merchants. Yes this basally falls into the trope of “everything was better back when…”, yet i ask myself why is it kind of accurate in this specific context? When people speak this way about societal norms and standards etc.. usually it is always at the disadvantage of certain groups who were violently being targeted at the time “when it was better..” but here .. in terms of aesthetics? Especially because we are anyways talking about aesthetics of neo-nazis, fascists and generally evil individuals or groups .. if the destruction is the same why did it used to be beautiful and now its ugly?
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fascism and fiction. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
deutsch wenn etwas schirch ist,
ist es schirch;
ist wahr? oder nicht?
fraglich,
aber doch, wenn etwas schirch ist ist es schirch;
ich sehe viel schirches, vieles das schirch ist ist schirch;
ist seine Schirchheit echt
so seine Schirchheit ist echt.
Wo doch alles so schön sein könnte, wieso ist alles dann so
schirch?
Wenn es wehtut anzuschauen, will man mehr schauen,
will ich
mehr schauen,
mehr
mehr
mehr schauen, mehr
schauen
mehr, hinschauen,
mehr hinwegschauen;
mehr hin-weg-schauen, will ich dann,
ist es also doch die Schirchheit die uns schauen lässt,
die uns zwingt zu schauen?
Fraglich;
wenn das der Beweggrund ist, des schauens;
schaue ich weg
von der Schönheit?
Ach doch so angetan der Schirchheit,
angetan,
ich mache mich schirch,
ich mache Sachen schirch um sie schön zu machen,
die Schönheit existiert als Schirchheit;
wie sagt man so schön
wenn alles schön wäre wär nichts mehr Schön;
um’s jetzt auf’s banalste runterzukürzen also
gemeinsammer Nenner der Schönheit ist die Schirchheit;
ach doch die Welt so schön ist,
ach doch so schöne Welt bist du schirch.
Zurückgehen und sagen damals war alles noch schön,
damals war alles so Schirch!
damals, damals,
vor dem .. vor dem ..
Internet!
vor dem Internet,
vor dem Instagram,
vor dem TikTok,
war alles noch ach,
doch so schön die Welt doch sein konnte,
damals
damals
damals als das Internet noch schön war,
schöner Azi
schöne Nullen und Einsen;
jetzt sind sie schirch die
Nullen
und Einsen;
was das bedeuten soll, will mir auch niemand sagen ich selber
will es nicht sagen, ohne sagen geht auch nicht! Ohne sagen
geht schon, wenig sagen viel ausdrücken, wenig Inhalt viel
Ausdrücken! wenig sagen alles sagen, kein Inhalt, viel
Schönheit, ist doch besser als viel Schirchheit mit Inhalt,
Schirchheit als Inhalt?
Schirchheit als Inhalt!
Ja genau, kein Inhalt, Schirchheit!
Ja na dann doch was gesagt also doch!
Viel sagen wenig ausdrücken, viel Schirchheit viel ausdrücken,
wenig Schönheit viel Ausruck, ja genau, also doch! Mehr!
Mehr! noch mehr! zu viel gibt es nicht,
zu viel Shcirchheit gibt es nicht,
schlussendlich ist ja dann doch die Schirchheit die Schönheit
selbst, sie ist sie ja,
ach doch du schirche Welt wie du mich bewegst,
sie bewegt die Schirchheit, bewege dich zu ihr
jetzt!
finde sie,
jetzt!
Finde deine Schirchheit in deiner ERlösung, ERlösung der
Schirchheit,
sag nichts,
sag nicht,
einfach nur Schirchheit! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| every comma, grammar error, misspelling is purposeful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SMOOTH ↗ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
english when something ugly is, it is ugly; true? or not? questionable, but still, when something ugly is it is ugly; I see much ugly, much that is ugly is ugly; is its ugliness real so its ugliness is real. where yet all could be so beautiful, why is all then so ugly? if it hurts to look, one wants more look, i want more look, more more more look, more look more, look-at, more look-away; more look-a-way, i want then, is it then the ugly that makes us look, that forces us to look? questionable; if that is the reason, the reason of looking; i look away from the beauty? ah yet so taken by the ugly, taken, i make myself ugly, i make things ugly to make them beautiful, the beauty exists as ugliness; as they say so beautifully if all were beautiful nothing would be beautiful; to cut it down to the banalest now common denominator of beauty is ugliness; ah yet the world so beautiful is, ah yet so beautiful world you are ugly. go back and say back then all was still beautiful, back then all was so Ugly! back then, back then, before the .. before the .. Internet! before the internet, before the instagram, before the tiktok, all was still ah, yet so beautiful the world could be, back then back then back then when the internet was still beautiful, beautiful Azi beautiful zeros and ones; now they are ugly the zeros and ones; what that shall mean, nobody wants to tell me i myself do not want to say it, without saying also not! without saying also yes, little saying much expressing, little content much expressing! little saying all saying, no content, much beauty, is surely better than much ugliness with content, ugliness as content? ugliness as content! yes exactly, no content, ugliness! yes so then something said after all! much saying little expressing, much ugliness much expressing, little beauty much expressing, yes exactly, so then! More! More! still more! too much does not exist, too much ugliness does not exist, in the end it is the ugly that is the beauty itself, it is it yes, ah yet you ugly world how you move me, she moves the ugly, move to her now! find it, now! find your ugly in your Redemption, Redemption of the ugly, say nothing, say not, only ugly! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| UGLY ↗ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
aesthetic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Selected labels from the working research catalogue: internet aesthetics, ideological signals, language and circulation. |
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ugly gpt“not an academic archive, but a glitchy, contradictory catalogue of vibe, tone, surface, repetition.” infinite zoom interfacea fake interface. you click into a pixel of an image (a protest sign, a politician’s smile, a meme, a war photo) and zoom and zoom and zoom— the closer you get, the less you see. again, zooming in doesn’t bring clarity. it breaks the image. the further in you go, the more fragmented it gets. -> In the tradition of UBERMORGEN’s pixel paintings. auto mailera prophetic and prosthetic system spitting out explanatory failures in poetic corporate db-jargon. autoresponders that reply to the ‘why’ of fascism, suffering, history. always wrong. always beautiful. always broken. Research directions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
language as materialResearch directions connect the aesthetic catalogue with a text generator, an infinite-zoom interface and an automated correspondence system that becomes increasingly overwhelmed by what it is trying to explain. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FASCISM AND FICTION ↗ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SMOOTHUGLY / technology chapter The ugliness of perfection. Smoothness is the aesthetic endpoint of optimization. Frictionless interfaces, faces, products and content make optimization feel identical to beauty. SMOOTH is UGLY’s technology chapter: the surface promises ease while concealing the infrastructure, material and labour underneath. smooth.asia ↗the argumentSmoothness is the aesthetic endpoint of optimization. When you remove all friction — all irregularity, all obstruction, all depth — you get a surface that flows. That performs effortlessly. That offers no resistance and therefore no grip. We are living inside a total aesthetic ideology that calls this beautiful. The smooth UI. The smooth face. The smooth product. The smooth content. All of it optimized — not for beauty, but for frictionless consumption. The two have been made to feel identical. That equivalence is what SMOOTH is about. Insecurity is the engine. The machine does not manufacture the insecurity — it finds it where it already lives, which is everywhere, because insecurity is part of being human. What it does is convert that insecurity into a consumption loop. You feel friction. The machine offers optimization. You optimize. The friction returns, slightly different. The machine offers the next optimization. You never sit with anything. You never arrive anywhere. You are always smooth and always empty. technologyTech objects are the most legible case. The hardware is genuinely ugly — circuits, extraction, labor, material cost — but it is compressed and sealed inside a smooth shell that presents as design, as status, as taste. The ideology says: this is the beautiful version. The optimized version. The one that has solved the problem of its own ugliness by covering it. This is techno-aesthetic fascism in its most quotidian form. Not spectacular. Not announced. Just the quiet insistence that smoothness is the pinnacle — that the frictionless object, the frictionless face, the frictionless feed, is what we should want. The ideology is invisible because it is the water. SMOOTH tries to make the water visible. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Vibe MachineWorkshop / Guangzhou From the image to the rules that arrange itThe Vibe Machine workshop formed part of UGLY’s implementation and further development. Participants explored memes, political ambiguity, digital infrastructure and the rules through which content is selected, arranged and experienced. The discussions connected the “ugly” aesthetics of right-wing politics with the frictionless surfaces of contemporary technology. Working collectively, participants developed the entity TRANSYNC AI. The bilingual workshop archive brings together session summaries and available transcripts. 7–12 July 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| details about UGLY | ORACLE ↗ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||