Eternal September::Konami Dream

April 24 – 26, 2026 | 12:00 – 6:00 PM
Fishman Studio & 4S Living Room
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts
154 Angell Street, Providence, RI

An event celebrating the debut of Konami Dream, a mid-'90's hacker/rap collective central to the Eternal September world. The event will feature a looping 45-minute "phreque leak" installation, the premiere of multiple "portal videos" and the release of a series of mixtapes featuring various members of the collective, including new tracks from its rival crew.  Features visuals, audio and creative technology by Prof. Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo alongside Brown Univ. students Is Ali, Cassius Hall, Luca Saurez, and guests artists Phong Tran, Rohan Chander, and Andrew Garman. 

An underground collective of shrouded membership and controversial tactics active throughout the mid- to late-1990's. The group was inspired partially by the work of Hideo Kojima, specifically the Metal Gear Solid series produced for NES platform by the Konami Corp. Konami Dream is considered to be a pioneer of hacker rap, a movement merging computer hacking (and phreaking) with sample-based hip-hop music . Konami Dream sampled elements from anime soundtracks, including Susumu Hirasawa's Beserk, electronic Luk Thung, or Thai country music, including work by Pumpuang Duangjan, intermingling manipulated found sounds with newly produced synthesizer and drum machine parts. Lyrically, the group focused on issues of technology, heroism, anti-capitalism, and blackness in America. Though the group has gone to great lengths to shield its identity, presumably in part due to the illegal nature of its hacking activity, Konami Dream is commonly associated with the extended mid-1990's hacking groups Legion of Doom, Masters of Deception, and Cult of the Dead Cow, that latter of which also produced and released original music. The group's first mixtapes were disseminated via a process it dubbed "PhrequeLeaking" - a process in which audio was embedded on a hacked corporate or government site, ^[1] a technique perhaps best exemplified by the release of their debut single HAL on IBM's Deep Blue World Wide Web page. Following the departure of it's original producer, the restless digital-enthusiast and modular synthesist [BARCODE], Konami Dream used MindVox ISP(Internet Service Provider) as their primary means of distribution, and their only publicized performance took place at an official MindVox showcase event in which they displayed illegally rom-hacked NES graphics ^[2]. The group displayed a notable obsession with the ill-fated NeXT BlackBox³ gaming system, reportedly often performing enmeshed in a three screen projections mirroring the console's three-television display gimmick.

⧉ref# [Konami Dream :: HAL]

ETERNAL SEPTEMBER is an alternate reality consisting of an ever-expanding network of audio, video, and hypertext. The project was created by William Brittelle and is brought to life through artistic residencies, recorded music, ritual capture events, and site-specific installations. Upon completion, all ETERNAL SEPTEMBER content is extensively documented by its own wiki, a system discrete entirely from the IRL internet, and made available to the general public. Ongoing audience engagement is fostered by the project's private listserv.

The world of ETERNAL SEPTEMBER is developed collectively by a group of uniquely talented musicians, multimedia artists, and creative technologists from a diverse array of stylistic backgrounds. ETERNAL SEPTEMBER collaborators, either as individuals or in groups, create content as alternate reality versions of themselves, or "morphs" - a process reflective both of the early utopian days of the internet and the process of tulpamancy described in Buddhist mysticism. Morphing allows ETERNAL SEPTEMBER collaborators to freely explore repressed artistic impulses without IRL implications. New artists are brought into the creative process organically via existing relationships with the ETERNAL SEPTEMBER team.

The Prizma Arts and Research Residency program brings your favorite artists' favorite artists to Brown’s campus: Artists whose influence far exceeds their visibility, are the secret engines of contemporary practice and whose work sparks the imagination of entire fields.