Adolfo Grego on ‘Simulating.Life’ : Domain names as digital linguistic Art

Adolfo Grego is a founding partner of Punto 2012, the Mexican company behind the launch of .Rest and .Bar.

He is utilizing the extensive gamut of new top level domains to create something expressive, a unique form of linguistic fusion of words with domains, producing digital art.

Adolfo’s project, Simulating Life, can be experienced at its source, Simulating.Life.

This intriguing combination of language and domains led us to seek more information on the project, and here is the raw transcript from Adolfo Grego’s response about himself, his background, and Simulating.Life.

I am Me and that itself is curious enough to be out there, searching for meaning.

I’ve always had a deep interest in language, literature, science fiction, poetry and narrative in general. The way people fill their everyday voids with words.

I don’t like the mainstream, and therefore have always been avoiding, in a way, to engage my work into something as cheap as cash. I do art because I care. I create because I have to and I don’t need to, as awkward as that may sound. Most of my audience is comprised by close family members and other neighbors and acquaintances.

Simulating.Life may be the most widespread work I have made, thanks to the Internet, of course. I honestly hope it endures.

The first domain name I bought was literatura.com.mx, when I thought I understood that there was a value in names. I was naïve. I used to think I was interested in mainstream literature then, but time proved me wrong and I let that domain name go to where so many other things in the past have gone.

Then time passed, and my only connection to the Internet was through my Hotmail email account. Pretty and Narrow. Additional time passed, while I dedicated my time to a real estate business.

I then bought my first virtual estate business: 2 new TLDs (.rest and .bar), along with a large group of investors, family, friends, so you may say that I bought them along with others. Curious how language Works. To be clear: I am a founding partner of Punto 2012.

I started buying domain names personally under new TLDs thinking that they could become valuable in the future. I still hope they will. I am still naïve.

After a few months and understanding that there was still no active market for these names, and while visualizing the complexity of the domaining world (which, sadly, I have never quite understood) and my lack of time and strength to actively sell my names, I lay them all out on a table, like pieces from a puzzle, and all those words, those useful words, terms, started to acquire a sense of meaning.

A sense of ideas flowing through domain names. Poems. Many nights I tried to tie them together, dozens of versions ended up in the garbage. I needed the dot to replace the space bar and Simulating.Life was born.

It was more a work of relating terms rather than buying the exact ones I needed. It took faith and hard work. I may have acquired a couple more names and added them to the poem for verisimilitude and garnishing reasons.

Simulating.Life raises many questions about how we perceive value, words and ultimately, how we communicate with others. What makes a domain name valuable? useful?

I registered sothebys.today (not today, of course, but I did in the past) by “mistake”, but I have been using it for a poem and I would like to understand, if I am using such domain name as part of a poem, would it be subject to any kind of royalty or payment or compensation? Do I have to submit it when the UDRP arises? Tear the poem apart? Are trademarks supposed to be unused in a work of fiction? In a work of literature? Can I still pronounce a name if it has an “Owner”? How far could branding go? Shall we try to trademark the term “god”?
Can anyone have the right to “subtract” the use of any name just because it is used as language.online?

And others…

How far could the internet landscape change if these were used as means of communication? Free of charge? Point your domains to our servers we will take care of your hosting and we can create as many words as technically possible. We will share the revenues.

I know that this seems highly unlikely, highly improbable, although not entirely out of this world.

So I am actually searching for a partner to develop a “subdomains.market”. Someone who understands a little about marketing and a lot about registering and managing subdomain names. Possibly create a new.world.on.the.internet

This is a very nice work of art, by the way, and it helps me relieve a specific pain in my back: The question… what am I really “good” for? How could I truly contribute to our civilization? Can I truly contribute to the development of our society? Am I only another one of those clowns?

And the other questions…
Is this just another ordinary topic?
Can.we.know.how.language.works?
Is.this.meaningful.and.how?

I created it. I still don’t know how or where or what it could be used for.

What I truly believe is that life made me the only possible human being to create a project such as this, at this time; and that itself was reason enough to invest, create and spend endless hours and some cash to help simulating.life become a reality.

Because from the vast universe of people in the world…If we select only domain investors.
And from that universe we select the ones interested in literature and creative works
And from that universe we select the ones actively buying new domain names
And from that huge remaining universe, we select the ones that are willing to spend this amount of time and money to do something that possibly means nothing, I came up as the only candidate!

So I am not really proud because I was able to create the “official” first written text completely understandable and readable using exclusively domain names. I was only at the wrong time in the wrong place. The place where cracks tend to happen.

So I stood up and did whatever was needed for me to be here, speaking these words out loud, to you. End of story. (this is a citation from a previous work called while.nothing.happens.work

And I have other related ideas:

I don’t use dot-coms because they are useless.domains for a project of this sort. The only dot-coms that could become useful.domains are in Portuguese, and I haven’t found many other choices yet. Com=With them in Portuguese.

I only buy domain names at regular registration pricing (and maybe some under the 100 usd range if I really really like them). To select the names to buy I use an unreliable system that is a mix of beginner’s luck and lack of trust in systems. I have never bought a domain from a third party. I don’t have a large amount of cash but I’m willing to invest, in a way, in pieces of land.

I would love to engage with Donuts to have domain names activated only to create poems online. Possibly create some awareness about the existence of these names; about how to communicate.online

Did I say I was still naïve?

So in the meantime, I live under the idea that I am creating literature –possibly art –with things that could become useful in the future.

Like building a sculpture with my daughter’s bike, and still allow it to be useful, if it is actually needed in the future. And I try to believe that these names, besides being a “possible inheritance” for my daughter’s daughter, they are part of a piece of art-literature-poem-writing-speech-text that existed for the first time in the history of the world.

So I’m still working on new ones… maybe this is “the thing” I’m really good at. Although this -as everything else -might just be another Big Meaningless Monkey Memorial Day.

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