The Wallet on the Ground
An empty wallet found on the sidewalk near MacArthur Park. No ID, no cash, just a communique. You are not lost.
All Is Not Lost
A series of tactical artifacts placed in everyday spaces
With ALL IS NOT LOST, we aim to restore the roots and shoots of a rhizomatic underground a decentralized ecosystem of mythic and speculative engagement and regenerate a public collectivity that resists capitalist, institutional, and technocratic logics.
- A wallet on the ground.
- A single turned-inside-out mitten tucked into a chain-link fence.
- A paperback left on a bench.
- A stickered-up water bottle.
These objects often go unnoticed. Or if noticed, are quickly explained away. Someone must have dropped it, forgotten it, moved on. But sometimes, these objects are transmitting a signal.
All Is Not Lost is a series of KDZU’s "lost objects" placed in everyday spaces. Each object contains a communique, a transmission, a request. It might be a to-do list. It might be the login credentials for a wifi network. It might be a map with a key card. These objects look familiar, harmless, and boring. They pass under the radar of the uncurious. They sit quietly inside daily life, waiting for someone like you to stop, examine, open, shake, peer inside, and realize they have picked up our signal.
Every location where our focus wanders is a silent frequency awaiting transmission. A stairwell. A trailhead. A bench outside a gallery. The objects do not announce themselves. They do not demand anything. They wait for someone to take notice. If you find one, your curiosity has already activated something. The contents may lead you to another location, connect you to a hidden frequency, or hand you a task. Each object is a provocation, designed to reward your heightened attention and invite your action.
This system of engagement and interaction aspires to function as a distributed intervention unfolding through chance encounters in daily life. Our approach draws from Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's The Undercommons and McKenzie Wark's Raving, where underground life resists linearity, hierarchy, and control through relational, mythic forms of resistance and potential.
You are part of a Rhizomatic Underground
This network does not offer a singular utopian vision. Instead, it invites a multiplicity of partial, unstable, and co-authored realities. The rhizomatic underground is not metaphor. It is a proposed alternative network of communication and attention, operating beneath and around sanctioned channels of meaning.
An "All Is Not Lost" Lone Wolf Network
When you connect to our WiFi network, you're automatically redirected to a custom splash page zine. No login. No tracking. Just a transmission.
Setting Up a Lone Wolf WiFi Router
We broadcast from the edges of trails, rooftops, stairwells, and other transitional spaces. We utilize tools that can be repurposed, reimagined, or sometimes left for others to adapt. One such tool is WiFi routers running OpenWrt.