Today is Groundhog’s Day, and aside from using a groundhog-based weather prediction to determine if we’ll get more winter or spring (spoiler: it’s more winter) we also have our first taste of SYGNYL, a new project from Nonchalance.
Taking a step back, Nonchalance is an ongoing immersive art project from Jeff Hull (also known as Bobby Peru) that was previously responsible for The Jejune Institute, The Latitude, as well as their associated semi-documentary films The Institute and In Bright Axiom, respectively. Recently a fictional television series loosely based on The Jejune Institute called Dispatches from Elsewhere was released on AMC.
Back to the subject at hand SYGNYL is a podcast which you can find on nearly any podcast platform. Though the trailer (see the video above) and prologue were already available, the first episode was released today.
Of course it’s also more than a podcast, and without giving too much away there’s also a puzzle of sorts for you to solve to compliment the first episode.
Is it some sort of sequel to The Latitude? Some signs point to this including the vocabulary (Signal, Kith, Mantis, etc.) and the website has a similarly all-gray color palette. Oh and if you poke around enough you’ll find that a certain “villain” of the Latitude has also returned.
The relationship to The Latitude raises some questions, but after seeing In Bright Axiom, the aforementioned documentary about The Latitude, I think it’s safe to say there won’t be any secret society elements. As to whether any real life adventures are in store we’ll just have to wait and see. But obviously with the pandemic it would be a poor time to send people down slides and crawling through tiny rooms. It’s also unclear if this will be limited to the Bay Area.
This season of the podcast is named “A General Mystification Vol. 1” so they clearly intend to make more than one season of SYGNYL. Not that we even know how many episodes are in a season just yet.
To check out SYGNYL for yourself you can find links to the podcast here and the official website here.