SCULP Sonhos Project

Somewhere in the future, the human species is on the brink of extinction due to the development of multi-resistant bacteria, climate change, and armed conflicts between nations. As a survival resource, technology becomes endemic to human life and tends to replace free will. All delimitation, control, and possession of territory is forbidden. The idea of nation is abolished in favor of a totalitarian and universal State.
In this State, a System managed through algorithms determines the function, choices, and actions of each individual, controlling their entire social existence with the goal of prolonging human life, ensuring reproduction, and maintaining dominance over planet Earth.
Although thoughts and emotions are also induced and manipulated by the Algorithmic System, knowledge of the mind and technological evolution still do not allow absolute control over this dimension of the individual. It is here that a spark of freedom still resides.
To control this potential unpredictability, the System keeps tight surveillance over all individuals, classifying those who question algorithmic guidelines as Unstable. These are subjected to close monitoring and various mental manipulation procedures. After treatment, if doubts persist, they are invited to peacefully disconnect from the System.
To prevent any union among individuals that could lead to future rebellions, a process is underway to abolish emotional and sexual relationships. All new human embryos will be obtained in laboratories and gestation will occur entirely outside the womb, in incubators.
Bel is a woman hidden inside the display case where she lives. A mid-level employee, she works in the department that screens the Unstable for exit. Appearance does not matter to her, but it is through appearance that she draws the balance allowing her to continue living. She seems fine on the surface.
In the past, she endured various forms of violence and never sublimated that suffering nor turned it into creative strength. A pain, a discomfort, a voice lodged inside her that she tries to silence.
The System was initially a safe harbor for her. She helped build it as a laborer who does not want to know the entire design. She is not interested in its architecture because, deep down, she fears its fragility. She prefers not to think the “ceiling” might collapse, lying to herself.
Because the System does not yet fully control the emotional complexity of individuals, it has not been possible to completely anesthetize their emotions and capacity for empathy. It is largely from this capacity that her past sufferings arise.
Thus, albeit discreetly, she lives in permanent psychological contradiction in the role she performs. This was also one of the reasons for placing her there: by exercising indifference toward others so often, she might acquire it herself. However, during surveillance, several contradictions, doubts, and inconsistencies were detected. The attempt to manipulate Bel had failed.
It is in this context of deep unhappiness and loneliness that Bel meets Spes. He approaches her at a moment when she is alone to inform her that he will be her new colleague and to settle some work details.
Without fully understanding why, the System experiences a total shutdown and its connections to the CEO (Control and Order) are temporarily inactive. Both perceive this freedom, which awakens in them the human capacity for empathy and sexual impulses. This experience triggers emotions that will unleash different feelings within them.
When the System is restored and both are again controlled by the CEO, Spes takes the sleeping Bel to his dwelling.
Following this experience, Bel’s unconscious begins to reveal itself more strongly and incisively. Every night, she has violent and strange dreams involving the release of imprisoned impulses. Consciously, she does not want to accept this turmoil within her and tries to maintain her normal daily routine, telling herself that these dreams are fleeting and trying to believe that her relationship with Spes was also a dream. However, she is pregnant and prepares to have an abortion. All these contradictions lead her into a kind of madness where she can no longer distinguish truth from lies. Only the dreams are real, as representations of her unconscious truth.
Bel is unable to make a decision for her life. Once again, she allows herself to be guided by the System. Thyr, her superior, convinces her to disconnect. When Bel leaves, it is the first time she looks at herself and feels the need to be honest with herself.
Spes is an employee of the System tasked with monitoring and testing workers flagged for showing doubts about the current paradigm.
He was raised and educated by a wise man who provided him security and knowledge. He possesses a deep understanding of human psychology and behavior, validated by experience. Unlike Bel, Spes carries out his duties always considering the global architecture of the System, to which he wants to contribute.
Spes’s work process involves approaching the monitored individual and confronting them with their doubts through conversation. Usually, through emotional manipulation involving guilt, isolation, and psychological weakening, the individual ends up desiring release and peacefully requesting to exit the System.
With Bel, the process was meant to be routine, but the momentary System shutdown and their relationship caused him deep emotional turmoil. He discovers a human capacity neglected by the System that may be the key to the survival of the species: empathy.
To be with her, Spes pretends to be Unstable, but during the interview, the communication between them is completely clouded by uncontrolled emotion.
Spes then decides to confront his superior, Thyr, questioning who truly controls the Algorithmic System, and if no one does and it is entirely technological, what are we becoming? Thyr, advocating and defending the current paradigm — which allowed the abolition of wars and survival against epidemics — denies the importance of these questions and rejects any alternative path. Spes leaves the office convinced that the human species cannot survive without reclaiming its capacity for empathy. He is determined to find Bel again and start a process of change from within the System itself.
*Text written under the terms of the 1990 Orthographic Agreement.