The “Thotbot” performance art piece plays at Bow Market in Somerville through March. (Photo: Thotbot)

All praise the ULTRA!

The “ThotBot Implantation Center,” an immersive art installation and multimedia concert describing the postapocalyptic travails of protagonist Reagan Esther Myer, rounds out its latest run of sold-out shows at Bow Market through the end of March.

Visitors on a recent Saturday were greeted by an anonymous ULTRA Tech. The tech, outfitted in a white hazmat suit from head to toe, silently directed the group to fill out intake forms, which asked us how we feel, how we want to feel, and to identify a memory that we wish we could forget.

Was this a confessional booth, wellness seminar or brainwashing lab?

All of the above, dressed in the shimmering neon glow of science fiction, tech nostalgia and late-night B movies. Guests were invited to explore their surroundings in the tight and densely ornamented confines of the ThotBot Implantation Center.

The “Thotbot” aesthetic is retrofuturistic, with cassette and VHS tapes helping tell the story. (Photo: Thotbot)

Pamphlets advised on strategies for maximizing your value and perfecting your conformity. A slew of cassette players offered audio excerpts from recent ThotBot sessions. Cigar boxes of old photos held family and friends we longer remembered. A VHS player cycled through staged TV news clips in which the dystopian anchor reported giddily on the manifold ways in which humanity had learned to submit to faceless authoritarian leadership.

Citizens of this brave new world are encouraged to live in the moment, free of past trauma, all hopes for the future beyond the purity of submission, and anything else that might destabilize their loyalty to ULTRA. The guests at Bow Market, evincing curiosity and confusion, obliged willingly.

Rebecca Kopycinski is the artist behind Reagan Esther Myer and her burgeoning ThotBot universe. The artist conceived of the protagonist as part of a one-woman musical presented at the Armory in 2019; an increasingly deep and interwoven world of futurist lore grew from this kernel.

The ThotBot universe includes the current “Thotbot Implantation Center” production, which premiered in 2020 and staged a second run in 2024.

Rebecca Kopycinski performs in her own voice in the second half of a “Thotbot” performance. (Photo: Thotbot)

A podcast called “After Impact” dropped in 2021, part of Kopycinski’s bid to keep the project alive during Covid lockdown.

And “Remediation,” an immersive theater sensation, premiered at Warehouse XI in 2023. This latest chapter in the ThotBot saga uses live music, video and audience interaction to re-create the experience of an underground meeting of The Resistance. Apparently, not everyone in this fractured future is happy with the ULTRA …

As Kopycinski tells it, the inspiration for the dystopian saga emerged out of the topsy-turvy politics of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. She performed a thought experiment that asked “What if Donald Trump won?” and followed the speculative thread through the darkest corridors of her imagination. Little did she anticipate how much of what she imagined would become real.

The critical subtext of her project maps broadly onto the general contours of our present descent into global fascism. And if you immerse yourself deeply enough in the lore, the speculation starts to look like a prescient foreknowledge. The hazmat-suited characters of the ULTRA techs prefigured the banalization of biohazard precautions during Covid (visible even in the aisles of Market Basket). The “Great Island” subplot of the podcast series predated the Trump’s lust for Greenland. Watch out, you might never find the bottom of this rabbit hole.

Artist Rebecca Kopycinski is ending a “Thotbot” run and and preparing to perform her “Remediation” for October. (Photo: Thotbot)

During the second half of Saturday night’s experience, Kopycinski took off her hazmat suit and performed a suite of songs in her own voice. The synth-heavy solo concert alternated between VHS clips of Reagan Esther Myer undergoing ThotBot implantation and the artist reflecting on the narrative in song.

The cathartic climax of the concert paired a clip, in which the protagonist seems to have lost all sense of autonomy, with a powerful anthem of resistance. The fight, it seems, is not over.

In fact, the Resistance is scheduled to resume in the form of a second run of Kopycinski’s “Remediation” in October. Check listings when the date solidifies in the fall. These tickets sell fast. Until then, glitch your ThotBot as you see fit.