The Fabled AFR Machine

or How to Leave Reality IRL

2020 - Vermillion Sands, Copenhagen, Denmark 


All Photos: Kevin Malcolm


If you follow these instructions carefully, you will be able to leave reality IN REAL LIFE (IRL), and occupy a place AWAY FROM REALITY (AFR). 

This is a VR (Virtual Reality) artwork without the use of technology, using greek logic instead of algorithms, the flat surfaces of the white cube replaces the screen, reasoning in place of computation, satire in trade of simulacrum. The AFR machine invites you to temporarily leave reality from the comfort of your own brain. No need to travel anywhere or touch anyone. It is a list of destabilising poetic paradoxes that help the player to question and then leave reality and in doing so they are able to visit other realms.

The AFR Machine is a project by Francis Patrick Brady that involves a series of large collages and several hand sewn fabric helmets that play an audioguide to lead you Away-From-Reality (AFR) via a litany of reality-breaking paradoxes; a low-tech immersion, mimicking the techniques and promises of Virtual Reality to create.



Collage windows I & II : collage on board, Plexiglas, green play felt window sill, chalk pens, dice cups, letter dice & cards, play pieces of various sizes & materials, books & texts from other worlds.




AFR Fabric hats I, II & III: Immersive low-tech helmets in small, medium & large handsewn wool, mixed textile patches, augmented headphones, Audioguide Written, Edited & Performed by Francis Patrick Brady, Music by Francis Patrick Brady & John B McKenna.