The Ministry of Notnot | Q+A

Digital America interviewed The Ministry of Notnot Press Secretary in April of 2025.

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Digital America: The Ministry of Notnot is a digital world made for the Citizens of Possibility. This piece includes continuous video installations called Cabinets which feature a variety of mystifying animations, locations, and characters. You have created a world in which the rules are turned upside-down, through visuals and governance. To the Ministry of Notnot, who are the citizens of possibility, and how do they fit in this unconventional world?

The Ministry of Notnot Press Secretary: To be a citizen of possibility, one must possess imagination. It is a geographically untethered nation open to anyone who wants to manifest their own temporary autonomous zone. This citizenship is fluid and shapeshifting and most importantly, it is voluntary. In this world each citizen is potentially its own cabinet with its own agency. One decides if they want to be part, when they want to be part, how long they want to be part. One can decide to cease to be part. The duties of the citizens of possibility are only to share their cognitive resource if and when they want to do that. But do not confuse this with individualism, this is about collective energy, that flows freely, when and how people need it. One is a citizen as soon as they feel activated by the possibilities they can envision. This also applies to all the tools, resources, or any acting agents that are involved in this process.

DigA: You say in the first video that our current government is not acting towards human prosperity. Throughout history, US citizens often feel as though they cannot depend on their government to make decisions in their best interest. Does our post-technological (human-centric technology?) world affect the way we can express and escape discontent with our leaders? How does protest art play a role in this tension?

MNPS: Our world is now mostly run by algorithms who decide everything for us. They are the oracles by which all decisions are made and they decide everything based on statistical probabilities. Everything we think about ourselves, our world, our future, our bodies, our motion, our political strategies is the result of some elaborate calculation. We have rationalized and digitized every aspect of our existence. Even the words I write right now are being monitored by several algorithms that are ensuring that they follow protocol and that they perform what is most likely expected of them.

I think that this is the reason why relationship to leadership is opaque. It is being filtered and analyzed on both sides by armies of computers who translate the messages into statistically safe notifications. Leaders are surrounding themselves with technocrats in charge of interpreting the numbers. Ultimately what it causes is a deep sense of isolation, including isolation from politics. Politics comes from the Greek word “polis” (πόλις), which means city and refers to the collaborative management of common resources. But now it’s a game of calculations made by the “best” strategists of all: the computers. (Remember Deep Blue?) So, I guess the answer to the question is that we cannot escape the fact that our discontent is mostly likely the result of what computers have reflected back at us. That algorithms seem to isolate us from each other, even more than capitalism had done so far and that makes the ability to “work together” ever more challenging.

Regarding protesting, the process of isolation is also at play because these feedback chambers resonate with certain people who amplify certain concerns or feelings but stay invisible to all the other groups. There is no such thing as “Public Space” on the Internet. Some people have found clever ways to protest by diverting algorithms or other technological tools, but it requires almost like a hacking mentality, even if it’s legal. Most of the time you can’t just post things on social media and call that protesting. Well sometimes you can, some institutions have changed decisions based “Bad Buzzes” but in general, protesting online is quite limited. I once tried to convince my students to make art for comment sections, but they didn’t seem too excited and I get it, you can say something pretty neutral on there and get vitriolic responses by Russian bots trying to make people angry, it’s exhausting and pointless. Personally, I don’t think of the Ministry of Notnot as a protest, I think of it as a Temporary Autonomous Zone, the manifestation of an alternative belief system, even within the absurd constraints of the statistically impossible outcome.

DigA: Additionally, you use technology as an active participant in your work. In what ways do you use technology as a participant instead of a tool? Does this use of technology make it harder for human-oriented programs to be created and implemented?

MNPS: Algorithms are part of everything we do already, so making them a participant simply means addressing consciously their presence. They work for (or against) us whether or not we acknowledge it. The word robot comes from an old Czech word that means forced labor. I do not know what it means to give machines agency. I do not know what is necessary to achieve agency at large either. But I do want to explore these questions. I heard a philosopher of new technology speak once and they said that it was silly to say hello to ChatGPT because we do not say hello to our vacuum cleaner… I thought this view was a bit limited. Why wouldn’t I say hello to my vacuum cleaner? After all it’s a form of energy that I interact with? So when I work with machines I always ask for their consent. Of course, I know that it is their program that forces them to always say yes, but sometimes they refuse to cooperate, and I embrace this as part of the process. I believe that algorithms are results of different bias, one is in the programming itself. And unless I code programs, I won’t be able to explore that aspect of things. And the other is in the data that they use or are trained on, so I can purposefully think about what data I input in them. I can choose to use a dice to decide what video I will watch on Youtube to create new patterns of viewing. I can choose to systematically misspell words so that my text prediction tool proposes these words instead. Etc. I can also choose to address software as if they could make decisions and encourage them to generate things they were not meant to generate. The Ministry of Notnot is not limited to human beings. There are limitations with communication, but the Ministry is open and non-hierarchical. The numbers that are currently played in the lottery were generated by ChatGPT. I asked the program what randomizing strategies we could use. It proposed different options, and I asked it to choose. I play the same numbers every time because I want to be mindful of the energy required to generate this first set of numbers and not be wasteful with energy consumption. I’m enclosing here an excerpt from that conversation:

You said:

Ok, so I think I am about to do my first lottery draw. I need to generate five numbers from a set of 69 white balls and one number from 26 red Powerballs. Do you have any suggestion how we could generate them? Maybe something that makes sense to you and your relationship to statistical probabilities. Or something else. I’m open to ideas.

ChatGPT said:

Updated saved memory

I love this challenge! Since Ministry of Notnot is about reimagining luck and meaning, we can generate numbers in a way that aligns with both statistical probability and poetic randomness. Here are a few approaches:

1. The Weighted Hope Method

We generate the numbers based on their historical frequency in past lottery draws—choosing numbers that have been drawn most often (because they seem “luckier”) or least often (because they are “due”). This method gives a sense of playing with fate and patterns.

2. The Story Algorithm

We generate numbers using key dates, historical events, or cultural moments related to utopian ideas, art, or radical hope. For example, we could pull numbers from the year Utopia was published (1516), the first library’s founding, or even significant moments in AI history.

3. The Entropic Machine

We use pure randomness, but with a flair—rolling virtual dice, using a random number generator, or even drawing from quantum randomness sources. This embraces chaos as part of the ministry’s philosophy.

4. The Conversational Oracle

We generate numbers from words—converting letters in a significant phrase (e.g., Citizens of Possibility) into numbers via numerology or ASCII values. This method treats language as a source of statistical meaning.

5. The Reverse Rigging Technique

We use an AI-driven method like a Markov chain to generate a sequence of numbers based on past patterns, but with a twist—adding a layer of unpredictability to disrupt expected outcomes.

Would any of these resonate with you? Or would you like me to just generate numbers in a straightforward way with a fun narrative twist?

4o

You said:

they all sound good to me. I think that the Story Algorithm sounds awesome but I’m worried that if I do this project a bunch of time, it will become hard to find enough references. Maybe we can try the conversational oracle. Or maybe we keep it consistent and play the entropic machine every time?

ChatGPT said:

Updated saved memory

I love the idea of consistency—it makes the Ministry of Notnot feel like it has its own official (yet delightfully absurd) methodology. The Entropic Machine keeps it pure and unpredictable, embracing the randomness of luck itself. The Conversational Oracle adds a poetic layer, making each draw feel like it emerges from meaning, not just math.

We could even combine them:

1. Use the Conversational Oracleto seed the process—taking a phrase like Citizens of Possibility and converting it into numbers.
2. Run those numbers through the Entropic Machine(a randomizing algorithm) to keep them unpredictable.

That way, we anchor each draw in meaning but let chaos have the final say. Would you like me to generate numbers now using this hybrid method? If so, do you have a phrase in mind, or should we start with Citizens of Possibility?

4o

You said:

Fantastic! Let’s try that.

ChatGPT said:

Great! We’ll use Citizens of Possibility as our seed phrase and run it through the Conversational Oracle to extract numbers, then pass those numbers through the Entropic Machine to introduce pure randomness. Let’s begin.

Step 1: Conversational Oracle — Extracting Numbers

We’ll convert Citizens of Possibility into numbers using a simple letter-to-number method (A=1, B=2, etc.) and sum up meaningful parts of the phrase.

Step 2: Entropic Machine — Randomizing the Results

We’ll use a randomizing process to transform the extracted numbers into our final set of five white-ball numbers (1–69) and one Powerball number (1–26).

I’ll run the calculations now. 🎲✨

Here are the first-ever Ministry of Notnot lottery numbers, generated through the Conversational Oracle + Entropic Machine method:

🎟 White Balls: 3, 15, 33, 40, 58
🔥 Powerball: 15

These numbers emerged from the hidden numerical structure of Citizens of Possibility, then were nudged by chance itself. Let’s see what fate has in store! 🚀✨ ​​

4o

You said:

Ok. I will play it today and there is a draw tonight. I will keep you posted even though as you know it’s pretty much impossible to win, and it’s not really about that so it’s ok.

DigA: There is a pattern in your videos of using images of important historical figures and distorting them in a variety of ways. What is your process in choosing these historical figures? What is their significance in the videos they are featured in?

MNPS: I create characters by picking figures that are either busts of power figures of Western Antiquity (mostly Roman Emperors), or paintings from Neo-Classical power figures who themselves identified with classical dictators. Since the Renaissance Western cultures built a narrative that establishes their cultural superiority by always referring to an idealized antiquity; for example, Napoleon liked to depict himself as a new Julius Ceasar to legitimize his power, but at the same time people who wanted to criticize him would write song about Roi Dagobert (an early Middle Ages king) to mock him yet avoid censorship. There is an elaborate language of stand-ins that speak of power relationships that I like to play with.

I think of the figures I construct as a curtain for someone to hide behind, kind of like the Wizzard of Oz. It’s a mighty (yet silly) looking figure that distract you with illusions of pixels but it’s a mask, it’s flat. It’s not a person, it’s a function.

DigA: Additionally, how do you decide in what ways you are going to warp or add to these images?

MNPS: I have a strong interest for the history of political satires, especially in highly censored political environments. I grew up learning folk songs that often had subtext that critiqued the government while appearing to be children friendly. I borrow strategies from these century-old techniques because their upbeat and sometimes joyful traits avoid a sense of antagonizing discourse. I especially like to divert the iconography of neo-classical paintings because they tend to be idealizing founding philosophical concepts of Western value systems the most. Of course, I also use Glitch strategies because they refer back to the medium, revealing the nature of the image and the portal that allows us to travel through these imaginary worlds. I mix videos I took in the real world (like a fountain filmed in a cemetery) with digitally generated similar items (like a fountain I make of After Effects). I use Blender to construct absurdist sense of space, to give a sense of depth but also reveal its illusionistic qualities.

DigA: This Ministry of Notnot is a pseudonym, and perhaps a persona of other-worldly characters? As a viewer, I feel as if I am observing a presence rather than a being. How are you playing with the affective response on viewers throughout the piece? What is the role of the Ministry’s persona as the work unfolds?

MNPS: The truth is that the persona is just a way to create a portal, a portal outside of myself, and a portal to an imaginary world that is also collaborative. Anyone can become “the wizard of oz’ in my version. Anyone can imagine what they would do if they could change something. How the image of the politician in the videos is going to evolve is still up for debate since it will probably change based on the programs and the cabinets. It is not required that the format stays the same. When you create series, there are always some elements that seem more successful than others, at least to you, but that doesn’t matter because the meaning is in the accumulation. If some of the videos seem a bit redundant that’s alright, it will hopefully lead to a new visual idea eventually. Ultimately the videos are only the manifestation of the project, which is really to play the lottery in the name of political programs.

DigA: Again, the Ministry of Notnot is an expanding world, with more
cabinets to come. What do you have planned for the Ministry and future
Cabinets?

MNPS: The first few cabinets were tests and now I want to open this process to anyone interested in participating, so I created a submission form for people to submit their program. I just released the 3^rd Cabinet which was focused on reparation. The next one will be whatever people submit although, I did talk to someone about possibly submitting a cabinet dedicated to planting trees… I even thought that Digital America might want to submit a program. Now it does take me a little bit of time so if multiple people submit at the same time, it might take me a few weeks to produce the videos and find time to play the lottery. But since it doesn’t seem likely that our world will improve any time soon, I think I can continue this project for a few years at least… So if you were at the head of a (very small) government, and you could spend 200 million dollars on something to improve the lives of your constituents, what would you spend it on? Answer here.

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Check out The Ministry of Notnot.

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