“Like David Lynch, Daulton Dickey has found a language to articulate the obscenity of the unreal, itself the confluence of the perversion of capitalism and the seduction of technology and popular entertainment.” — Slavoj Žižek

Download the PDF edition of Elegiac Machinations

Click here to download the Epub edition from Dropbox

Click here to download the MOBI edition from Dropbox

Reality is a product of perception. To alter reality, we must alter our perception. But how? Our unnamed narrator explores this question and attempts to unravel the mystery in this experimental novella, a non-linear, surreal trip through consciousness—and beyond.

Embracing the street art mythos, the narrator plasters an unnamed city with symbols meant to open up awareness—awareness of consciousness, of reality; reality as it is, not how people perceive it. But he lives in a world in which corporations, government, and technology have transformed people into mindless automatons. People move without thinking, follow without thinking, work and live and dream without thinking—and they don’t realize they’re shackled in a continent-sized prison.

To change people, our narrator has to wake them up; he has to make them aware of their shackles. Can he use stencils and spray paint to wake them? Can art still thrive in a culture populated by drones?

Part philosophical meditation, part surrealism and literary cubism, Elegiac Machinations is unlike anything you’ve read. It’s a haunting exploration of what it means to be alive, a meditation on the nature of reality and art, and on paying attention in a world dominated by routine and distractions.

Daulton Dickey retains the copyright © on this novella but he grants you permission to download it and share it.