Mixtape Metaphysics is a multimedia installation offering an opportunity to explore pressing questions about our current state of technological saturation. In a world increasingly enamored with Artificial Intelligence, and machines that offer to think for us, Mixtape Metaphysics reminds us how to use the very human machines inside our heads.
From March 2025 through November 2025 visitors were invited to to slow down, listen, play, and interact with theoretical concepts around philosophy, technology, and religion by participating in an interactive human algorithm game, listening to a series of mixtape meditations, or just dropping in to talk about technology with professors, artists, musicians and neighbors.
Algorithmic Flipping:
The exhibition's centerpiece, Algorithmic Flipping (at Modern Art in Lancaster, PA) features 350 colored squares arranged in a pattern on the wall, concealing a hidden world beneath. Participants must collaborate over time, following algorithmic rules to transform the initial display into its final state.
Participants are invited to perform one step of this human algorithm by selecting a card with specific instructions guiding them to flip one of the squares. The algorithm’s steps are a mix of fate, chance and reason—mathematical equations (Flip the board in column 10x2-4+6-3x3), difficult to decipher directions (Blitzelty blop grin 5 nozo ton distophelment B) and subjective prompts (flip the loneliest board) — that ask us consider how the algorithm is constructed and how it constructs the world around us.
As the instructions are followed over time, person by person, step by step, bit by bit, the installation moves from its initial state to its final form—the complete revelation of the simulated reality that was always there, waiting to be uncovered.
To further help guide the contemplation, visitors could listen to a series of experimental mixtapes created by Franklin & Marshall’s Institute of Mechanical Surround through an artful variety of listening stations and situations. Mixtapes include:
Processing: A Philosophy Mixtape, featuring four groundbreaking audio lectures that reimagine scholarly discourse through the lens of hip-hop and electronic music. Leading philosophers tackle questions like "Are we living in a simulation?" while sound ecologists create immersive soundscapes that bridge academic inquiry and musical expression. This isn't a podcast or a playlist—it's a new form of philosophical engagement.
Machines in Between Mixtape: part mixtape, part surreal performance, part philosophical experiment, Machines in Between asks you to hear, see, think, and be differently with your machine divinities. Join our eclectic and world-renowned cast of scholars, musicians, filmmakers, and artists on a wild ride through a fun-house of samples, science-fiction, and searing social critique.
Me & My Monkey and the Origins of AI: A man, a chimpanzee, dreams of automated cognition, lurking insanity, and whispers of “extra-species eroticism.” Listen here, for the first time, to a story that is still unfolding, a story of an encounter between scientific curiosity and animal instincts, a story about the origins of machine learning and our world-hurtling age of algorithmic abjection.
Throughout the installation’s run, Mixtape Metaphysics hosted public lectures, weekly “office hours” and music events to further the installation’s opportunities to engage with scholars, professors, neighbors, musicians, beat makers. Our opening event included conversations with two of technology’s leading philosophy scholars, David Chalmers and Grace Helton.
Beats & Brunch with Outside the Algorithm
Mixtape Metaphysics opened its doors to some of region’s best beat makers, including Love City, iLL Eagel, Herk, Primacy, Infinite, Image and the Street Dream, for an afternoon of music, food and philosophy.
Me & My Monkey
and the Origins of Artificial Intelligence
Mixtape Metaphysics premiered the original audio and video, Me & My Monkey, produced at the IMS by John Modern and Vincent Smaldone.
Mixtape Metaphysics Tuesday Night
Office Hours
In addition to drop-in hours, the Institute of Mechanical Surround hosted weekly “Office Hours” on Tuesday evenings. Visitors were invited in to play Algorithmic Flipping, listen to the mixtapes, and talk about the project, philosophy, and our current state of mechanical surround with the project’s creators, professors Nicky Kroll and John Modern, sound ecologist Vincent Smaldone, and artist Libby Modern.
Mixtape Metaphysics: The Final Night
After 9 months of the installation, and over 500 algorithmic flippers, we celebrated the reveal of the human algorithm’s simulated reality with a ceremonial final flip, a scavenger hunt within the simulation, music, mixtapes, community and prizes for thinking.
