Dead internet theory started as a message-board conspiracy—the internet is mostly bots talking to bots—and has aged into something closer to a description. Just this week we covered Playfool's [OP]erator, a playable bot farm that makes the point with 100 phones. The sharper responses, though, are happening off the internet entirely. DEAD INTERNET THEORY is LA artist Paizley Lee's version of a response: a recurring "Y2K LAN experience" staged at ark/8 on La Brea under her WORKSUCKS banner. The first night, in May, was a proof of concept—22 retro PC stations on the floor, a CD-burning station, a table for building mini cyberdecks, internet-café catering. On August 2 it came back, and Lee—who posts as kidgrandma—spent the announcement reel introducing the iMac Rainbow, a floor installation of candy-colored iMac G3s she jokes she "LITERALLY DESTROYED MY LIFE TO ACQUIRE," alongside games and installations from Benjamin Palmer, John Threat, and others. One of the retro PC stations at DEAD INTERNET THEORY, from kidgrandma's reel The funding is its own small rebuttal of the feed. Mike Merrill—the artist who has sold shares in himself as KmikeyM for 18 years—put $5,000 of shareholder money to a vote as first money in on Lee's raise. One social experiment about being a real person online, bankrolling another about being real people offline. The LAN party keeps resurfacing as a gallery form. Brennan Wojtyla's _LAN_ rebuilt Antwerp's TICK TACK gallery into a working _Counter-Strike_ network, and we flagged it in July when Berlin Atonal restaged it. Wojtyla's version is technological brutalism; Lee's is the candy shell. Both make the same bet: the internet was a place once, and a room full of humans and CRTs is the fastest way back. RSVPs for the next one live at worksucks.net.

ALT: Badday Worksucks

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ALT: This Is Fine

ALT: Get Me Outta Here!