Mikkemas or the Upcoming Angel of History" is
a project made in the form of Google Slides for a
certain archaeological or historical conference. A
scholar, whose name we do not know, talks about
his find, a letter from a recently deceased professor
of Egyptology. Professor Bennard reveals the
mystery of his first expedition to Egypt, when he
discovered images of an unknown god who
resembles Mickey Mouse. This god was revered by
the ancient Egyptians as the god of resurrected
history. This project interprets two of Walter
Benjamin's essays (Poverty and Experience, 1933,
and Theses on the Philosophy of History, 1940) and
places Mickey Mouse as the New Angel of History.
Mickey Mouse in Benjamin's essay: "His life is full of
miracles – miracles that not only surpass the
wonders of technology, but make fun of them. For
the most extraordinary thing about them is that
they all appear, quite without any machinery, to
have been improvised out of the body of Mickey
Mouse, out of his supporters and persecutors, and
out of the most ordinary pieces of furniture, as well
as from trees, clouds, and the sea". The text
pictures and the short video are done in
collaboration with neural networks, so sometimes
it is hard to tell which part was done by whom.
Neural networks pass a lot of data through
themselves and fulfill that instant magical role of
Benjamin’s Mickey Mouse and in this project
appear as emanations of the New Angel of History
