WELCOME TO LAST HUMAN #002

This is the second installment in our series of open prototyping zines for LAST HUMAN—a 10,000-square-foot immersive horror experience premiering at MAD Arts. With each issue, we invite you deeper into the messy, modular, and often haunted process of building hybrid worlds at the intersection of narrative, play, and emerging technology.

This time, we turn our attention to the ghosts in the machine. On March 30th, our team gathered for a virtual prototype that fused Zoom, Miro, and a custom mobile web app into a séance of interactivity. Participants moved between browser and body, uncovering a ritual of touch, surveillance, and synthetic identity.

Referencing Dead Internet Theory—a speculative framework masquerading as conspiracy—this prototype engages the idea not as fact, but as fertile ground for critique. The theory posits that much of the contemporary web is now populated by bots and algorithmically generated content rather than human presence. While exaggerated, it captures a cultural anxiety: that the internet has shifted from a space of connection to one of automation, manipulation, and control. Within this context, the prototype became a live interrogation of agency and authenticity. Interfaces glitched. Identities fractured. Participants navigated a ritual of synthetic assignment—randomized doxing, live testing, and ambient surveillance. The experience rendered familiar systems uncanny, revealing how easily trust, identity, and control can collapse in the architectures we now live inside.

Why a Zine?

Because what we’re building is alive. It’s glitching, evolving, and filled with uncertainty. This zine is our lab notebook, our manifesto, and our ghost story. It captures the behind-the-scenes mechanics of storytelling in a collapsing digital world—where identity is fluid, interfaces betray us, and collective punishment feels algorithmic.

Proceeds from zine and collectible sales directly support the installation of LAST HUMAN.

About

The Last Human Collective is a hybrid team of artists, designers, technologists, and researchers investigating what it means to remain human in an increasingly synthetic world. Through immersive installations, browser-based rituals, and participatory horror, we aim to expose and challenge the fractured realities of our time. Our work is a call for agency, critical literacy, and new forms of communal resistance.