DIFFUSED STATES (Boston edition part 5 of 8)

Shortly after boarding our ﬂight back to Denmark, the American businessman beside me folded his Boston Globe to reveal a peculiar advertisement. "The future is Ternary: build your own," it declared in bold marker above a vibrant photo spread. I nearly choked on my complimentary peanuts. There before me were diverse teenagers gathered around a triangular rainbow-colored computer called "TERNARY PANTS," their faces lit with excitement beneath caps bearing the same logo.

"Interesting, isn't it?" the businessman remarked casually, noticing my ﬁxation. "My daughter's been begging for one. Apparently, all the kids are building these now." He tapped the "Corrected by boatba" notation in the corner before turning the page, oblivious to my shock.

What struck me wasn't the colorful pyramid-shaped hardware or the enthusiastic young users but the dissolution of what had felt like a secret fellowship. Ternary computing had been our shared language, hidden knowledge that bonded us across continents. Now it belonged to everyone—to smiling teens with branded caps standing before graﬃti walls, pointing at green text screens.

That night, after landing, I dialled into our usual conference call, the line bridged across multiple countries with our modiﬁed equipment. "You won't believe what I saw in the Boston Globe," I began, my voice hollow. "It's gone mainstream."

The cryptic text beneath the image only reinforced our sense of displacement—the made up words "Kites and Llorpts" that was part of once-secret private language of tagphreaking. What we had sought on our trip had been there in plain sight—not as subculture but as newspaper-advertised youth culture—so ordinary it had become next to invisible.

DATA FLUENCIES: Rivulets

April 18 – June 15, 2025

Opening reception April 18, 6–9pm

Gallery hours Fridays, 4pm–9pm; Saturdays and Sundays, 12pm–6pm

Boston Cyberarts

141 Green Street

Boston, MA, USA

Featuring artists Lai Yi Ohlsen, Lani Asunción, Jazsalyn, Kristoffer Ørum, Caroline Sinders, and Roopa Vasudevan, alongside work from the Data Fluencies Theatre Project (Emerson College, Boston) and DATA/FFECT (York University, Toronto).

#DATAFLUENCIES #DIFFUSEDSTATES #SpeculativePasts #ThisIsNotHistory #FrihedLighedOgHipHop #TagPhreaks