SYLVIA RIEGE

The Datamancer

Blurred hours, days, weeks passed through her flashing electric retinas, punctuated commas and esoteric file extensions tracing sharp patterns through the gridlocked XL expanse. The memory of Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, even the Yacht-Rocked valley sessions she’d so proudly engineered all faded on nerve endings singed with the smell of imported coffee and hot RAM.

Jack Me In, she said, the MBP console on her bedside table springing to life and executing a rapid series of multitouch gestures and shell scripts.

Sylvia was nothing if not consistent, and as a roving gun hired to tune vocals, phase-align drum multitracks, debug Reaktor patches and remap metatags, her reputation preceded her. No one asked what twisted rituals she performed in the company of the dark shadow order known only by the three letters T T A. If you were there in the Zoom, you already knew all you needed to know: Sylvia had metasheets, and damn good ones.

One digital ride-along with the Datamancer and you’d see doors open in the metaverse you never knew existed. “It pays to be sharp,” she said, a dark glint in her wide, disarming grin. “Now turn up the radio, this demo SLAPS.”