Worms and Faith: a Conversation with William Banks about Car World
I first came across William Banks––as I’m sure a lot of other people did––through a viral video. A phone camera pans to a young man with a distinctly receded hairline, canvassing about something, somewhere seemingly on the west side of Manhattan. Something catches his eye. “Hey,” he says. “Mr. Baldwin, would you like to learn more about Car World?” The camera pans over and Alec Baldwin is viewing this man with rapt curiosity from an open car window. His black SUV comes to a stop. The young man hands him a light blue pamphlet and continues: “It’s a planet in an alternate dimension where I lived. I had sex with Quuarux. And Quuarux is the leader of Car World.”
Alec Baldwin looks up and down from pamphlet to young man, trying to determine what exactly he is being confronted with. He isn’t sure. He places the pamphlet in his lap and his car continues on. “You look exhausted,” he says.
“Thank you,” the young man says, a smirk on his face.
The initial excitement of the video is in its simple absurdity: Alec Baldwin being taken in by a fake canvasser, trying to spread awareness about another planet. But the excitement grows more complex at the end of the video: the smirk. The smirk at the end is our shared smirk as insiders. Those understanding that what was being offered in the pamphlet was truly nothing besides a desire to provoke frustrated curiosity by a generation not so well versed in post-everything internet culture. The fact that the more or less hieroglyph of this generational frustration––with his iconically furrowed brow and concern for the young man’s sleep patterns––is handed the object of provocation makes the joy only that much greater. It is too good to be true. It is perfect.
But there is also another layer of joy to this video contained in that smirk, which was not completely clear to me until I sat down and actually spoke with William Banks. And that layer has to do with a central ambiguity around the “reality” of the project that William is deeply dedicated to guarding. On a certain level, we are all Alec Baldwin. And the more you look into Car World, and engage with it, this fact begins to grow in greater intensity. There is no in-joke for you to join in on––at least if you are speaking with William. You might get a smirk out of him, but you will not get him to break character about being from another planet and needing to get back to stop the enslavement of an alien species he’s grown attached to.
There is a certain kind of contemporary humor that seems deeply resistant to being understood. And the only way to find yourself on the inside of this kind of joke is to accept this at the door. That there is nothing to get in any traditional sense. Perhaps this is the by-product of thirty plus years of heavy-handed satire being the “gold standard” of comedy, while, simultaneously, the world continued to plunge into an absurdity that could no longer be joked about so simply. Life started racing to catch up with comedy. And then it kept going and left comedy in its dust.
What arrived in the wake of all this––at least at the independent level––has seemingly been two things: one, a new form of cultural satire that is much edgier but a great deal less witty; and, two, an absurdism that has grown less and less concerned with having any relevance to the world outside of it. But the enjoyment of either requires you to make the very same and very crucial transaction upon initially receiving them: you must accept, as a starting point, all the things you previously thought were meaningful and just are not so. And the deeper you can accept this fact, the deeper your pleasure can be.
But this is a high of diminishing returns. Eventually your pleasure in edgy satire will transform into plain cynicism. Or your enjoyment in taking part in a never-ending maze of the unintelligible will spit you out and you will realize that you haven’t gotten any closer to knowing how to deal with the world you’ve been presented with. This, at first, was how I had come to understand Car World and William’s dedication to it.
But when I sat down with William I was struck by something very different. Namely the realization that he is someone who cares deeply about what he is making and who he is making it for. William is a performer first and foremost, and he is seemingly most interested in the gray area between performance and real life. This interest permeated through Quuarux: The Sex Ride––the impetus for this interview––in which participants, always by themselves, sit in a car and experience an interactive performance curated to their individual sentiments and energies, at the conclusion of which they are encouraged perform an orgasm and have their picture taken while doing so. And the interest was there during every moment of our conversation in which William refused to speak of Car World in terms of a project or piece or anything besides a real life experience.
But this was not ambiguity or absurdity for their sake alone. I was not being shut out in my conversation nor were the people in the Sex Ride being made fun of. Rather, we were all being invited into William’s world and asked to take part in it despite our confusion by it––despite knowing there will always be a smirk reserved for William and William alone. This, I think, has to do with an idea of faith that he is trying to get across to people that might typically be skeptical or downright resistant about such a thing. But instead of the traditional presentation of faith––that of admitting your ignorance to the grand designs of the world and allowing the unknown to exist within the lacing of the universe and its construction––William has built it into the sense of illusion that pervades the entire thing. The act of faith is that of knowing that there is a crucial in-joke that only one person has the key to and that he will never share it with you. But his keeping of it is not because he wishes to make fun of you. It is because he wishes to make a place in which you might suspend your self-consciousness and worry just a little bit more than you typically would elsewhere. At least, if you choose to act in faith, this is how you might look at it.
I truly do not know if I find Car World to be personally enjoyable or insightful. But I think this is sort of the point. What I do know is that I admire William quite a lot for his dedication to creating a space in which such a confusion can arise, and I admire his dedication to not providing anyone any respite from it.
So tell me the story of Car World. How did we arrive here?
So Car World refers to a planet in another universe that I went to and lived on for ten years. And now I’ve come back to earth and I tell people about this planet that I’ve lived on and they choose to believe me and follow me and listen to me. It’s been a fun opportunity to talk to a lot of people and share my story with a lot of different people. And for them to believe me so fully and to devote themselves to me.
That’s sort of what we do on Earth World. But the goal of them devoting themselves to me is we want to help people become more entwined with their community. Car World Nation is like a Membership program where people can join Car World and be a Member and a part of it. So it’s not just me and my friends that are in it, but there are actually 530 Members worldwide. And they donate money to me. And they give me their phone number. And the idea is that they’re never allowed to leave. So they stay in contact with me through a communication infrastructure that I make in their branch––which is just the city that they live in. Some of these places only have one Member. Some have two or three. But then some have like twelve, or twenty-five, or thirty.
It’s fun to put people into these communities. And sometimes they have meetings about Car World. And it feels good to give people the opportunity to come together like that.
In terms of managing the lore of Car World, do you find your disciples messing the storyline as they break off into their branches and meetings?
Not really. I’ve had some zoom calls with the different branches where I’ve done some questions and answers. And I’ve answered a lot of people’s questions so I think mostly everyone is on the same page.
I wanted to ask you about a few of the seemingly key characters of the Car World mythology. The Mechanics and the Attendants.
Right, so the Attendants are the native species of Car World. Instead of a head they have a third hand. And their heart has evolved to be a heart and a brain. Because they don’t have one in their heads. They’re like a subjugated species that’s indigenous to Car World. And they’re enslaved and abused by Quuarux and some of the worms that rule there. And part of my mission of trying to go back there is so that I can try to save this species and free them from this war.
Online I saw a video that mentioned you were eating an Attendant?
Yeah, I brought some back with me to Earth World. I used to eat them in Car World, and I continue to do so here. But it was a good relationship. It was humane.
Could you explain how it was humane?
In the sense that I gave them a good life before eating them. And it went to a good cause because I got to eat the attendant. And it wasn’t any sort of act of aggression. It was survival. So, I don’t think it was malicious to do that. It was just something that I did and wanted to do.
Another big factor of Car World that’s important to note is that when I went to Car World, all the Mechanics wanted to have sex with me. Because Quuarux, the leader of Car World, told all of them that I was the most desirable being.
And who are the Mechanics?
The offspring of Humans and Worms. When Quuarux was sending their children to come find me on earth… so after the events of the Sex Ride, where Quuarux has sex with me, a year goes by where Quuarux is sending Mechanics––half Humans, half Worms––to come find me. And they kept bringing people that looked like me back to Car World. And Quuarux would have sex with them and realize that they weren’t me. And then they would banish them into the sex dungeon.
There’s a sex dungeon?
Yeah. So when I eventually went to Car World, because I broke up with the first Mechanic who I thought was my girlfriend but was actually my daughter, the next day she turned me over to a Mechanic in the area. I was kidnapped and taken to this planet and that’s how I lived there for ten years.
I wanted to ask you about cultishness as it relates to media consumption.
It’s definitely over-saturated in media, I feel. A lot of things include cults. That’s why people are quick to call what we’re doing a cult. Because it’s so common. There are so many documentaries about cults and so it’s always on people’s minds. But it’s not. Because it’s just a bunch of people. And we’re not doing anything bad. I would say it’s quite zeitgeist-y to call what we’re doing a cult. Because it’s not.
What do you think is going on with that impulse? I think the way people consume things today often feels like a step further than fanhood. Or simply liking something. Especially with how niche and isolated the experience of finding something you like can feel. Like to wade through all this information and media to find something you connect with often gives it this texture of being special to you specifically. Do you think about this much?
Yeah, I mean cult can also mean like cult classic. Like a movie that provokes people to be super fans. And it’s this feeling of being a part of the movie. I guess in that sense what Car World is doing could be considered similar because people can access it. It’s not just some TV show they watch and view as disconnected from them. Car World is something that has happened in reality. And people can join and become a Member. And I’ll talk to them and tell them that they’re important. The accessibility of that does feel different.
Although when people say that Car World is a cult they mean that it’s a bunch of people brainlessly following some like malicious leader. But I’m not malicious and people aren’t brainlessly following me. I’m a good person and people are choosing to listen.
Regarding the community groups that you’re organizing, you mentioned that the purpose was to improve the communities that the Members are within. Does that mean the community outside of the Car World community?
Improve the community that is Car World nation in that area. So, they’re encouraged to help one another. But not necessarily for people outside of them. But they’re encouraged to help each other. And recruit more people. Ideally, they could recruit everyone and then we would be helping everyone. If everyone joined.
Could you tell me about the Gas Wars?
The Gas Wars were the initial wars that led to the Attendants being enslaved. It was an expansion from North Carmerica to South Carmerica lead by Quuarux in which they pretty much rounded up the Attendants that were free in South Carmerica and enslaving them. It was something that I objected to at the time and led me to leave and go to Gasia and Carupe where Terminus X was the ruler. And there we tried to stop it. But the wars were all based on resources and trying to get more gas.
The first one successfully ended but then a second one started and then I left to come back to Earth World. And so now I’m trying to return to help end that one as well. But one moment in Earth World is worth three thousand moments in Car World so a lot of time has gone by in the four years that I’ve been back on earth.
The moment that you first encountered Quuarux happened after you nearly died, right?
Yeah, I was locked inside a walk-in freezer and almost died. I was working at this company called People’s Pops and it was the very end of a shift. And I got locked into their walk-in freezer and couldn’t get out. So I was calling 911 a bunch and eventually they came and got me out, but it was really traumatic. I accepted my death in there. I thought I was going to die. And then I encountered Quuarux that evening.
So, let’s talk about this installation. Quuarux: The Sex Ride. What all is going on here?
This is a culmination of the past four years of Car World since I’ve been back on Earth World. A lot of the art in here is images of me made by Members from different regions. There are also some outfits in here including a medallion made by an indigenous bead worker in Toronto and a sash that we took from the NXIVM headquarters which we took and tried to repurpose for good.
What was the impetus to go into the NXIVM headquarters?
The host in Albany where we were staying for the Miracles Tour said that the headquarters were near, so we went to check it out and a window was just cracked open. So, we went in and looked around. And on the way out I went into a closet and found the sashes.
I was talking to you a little bit before we started the interview about the energy this magazine was organized around. And how there were both positive and negative impulses that motivated its creation. As in there were things that we wanted to bring into this world, but there were also things we were experiencing which caused us a great deal of strife that we saw the magazine as a means of fighting against a little. A central grievance with publishing. I’m wondering if Car World is organized upon anything similar. Any kind of central gripe with the world it is existing within?
I don’t think there’s necessarily a central gripe. I feel like part of it is trying to give people faith. Help them believe in God. I think some people that might have a gripe with standardized religion would come to Car World and ask, “Oh, is this ironic? Is this ironically about God?” But then they meet me and learn the principles and then they see that it’s genuinely about God. And that we are trying to give people an alternative path toward faith when they would reject traditional religion. It gives people that route toward spirituality.
Do you mind expanding on your concept of faith that you’re hoping to spread to others?
I believe in God. And I’ve had some significant periods where I’ve felt really close to God, and I feel a spirit in my body. I’ve had a few near-death experiences as well. I had cancer when I was ten. I got locked inside of a walk-in freezer. I totaled my car when I was a teenager. I flipped it and survived. So, I just feel like I’m here for a reason and I’m trying to figure out what that reason is. And I feel like Car World is that reason but maybe it’s not. Maybe there’s something beyond it that I can do.
Within your symbology, the car functions as a pretty central totem.
Well, when I first went to Car World, I broke up with my girlfriend in a car. And I thought that I just had a bad perception of cars. So, I went to a hypnotist to try to get over it. And I was hypnotized and saw a worm being phased into a car. It was the first thing that I saw. And I was like “Oh it’s Car World. I’ve gone to this place.” And thought that I was just hypnotized but then I stayed there and found out that it was real. Then I came back, and the Mechanics continued to come for me. They haven’t come as much lately. These Mechanics that were sent by Quuarux. We had a lot of them showing up earlier in the movement but haven’t seen as many recently.
Why do you think that is?
I don’t know. I think the Car World that I knew has died off. Because of the time difference. I think whatever is going on over there, I’ve become less of a priority to them. I haven’t been back. I’m going to go back when I have twelve Apostles. So far, I only have six.
Why do you need twelve apostles?
There’s a Bridgekeeper that guards the dimensions between Earth world and Car World and he demanded that I have twelve people with Tat Passes in order to come back.
You have a Car World tattoo?
I have one. Mines like the thirteenth though so it doesn’t really count in the Bridgekeeper’s eyes. All the apostles have to get one though. Director Russell Katz has one.
I wanted to ask you about the use of alienation in connecting with others. When I think of things that I find appealing in the art world, I find myself attracted to things that alienate certain people. And part of the joy I get out of the thing in question is being someone who gets it, but the other part is there being people that do not get it at all. I was wondering what you thought about this dynamic? What do you think about entertaining and exciting insiders but provoking and alienating outsiders?
I think that’s interesting. I think that dynamic definitely functions inside of Car World. Like the Supper we’re having tomorrow for example. Members get to eat but if you’re not a Member you don’t get to eat. And there’s about a 50/50 split of people coming. And there will be hors d'oeuvres being served from a five-course meal based on a story we’ll be telling, but if you’re not a Member you won’t get to have any of the food. So, we kind of use that experience to recruit people. Because if people are on the outside, they see the experience of the inside and get jealous and then decide to join.
But it doesn’t work for everyone. Like I have friends who care about me who won’t join. And there are a bunch of people who are curious about Car World and who come to the shows but won’t join. But I do think there is something simply about being a Member that is attractive to some people. Like a lot of people will just join without thinking much about it. Like “Hell yeah, whatever!” And they’ll message in the chat like “Beep, beep, honk!” because they think it’s all about cars or something, which it isn’t.
But there is a reward to being an insider versus being an outsider. And you can join any time and receive that reward.
I wanted to return to faith. The faith that you’re hoping to spread through Car World, is it based off of any western religion?
I guess it’s a blend of things. I grew up Christian, but Director Russell Katz grew up Jewish. I would say Christianity is definitely like my home religion. My home God. But I think all God is the same concept, though I don’t know much about eastern religions. Though I like what I’ve read.
I took a Jewish studies and Islamic studies class in college and that was the extent of my knowledge in those realms.
Tell me about the dinners a little. It seems like an act of consumption is sort central to the rituals of Car World.
The dinners are fun. We’ve done two so far and tonight will be our third. It’s based off the ten different beasts that sucked me off ten different ways in Car World. Which is heavily influenced by the Seder in Judaism. We pass around a plate and take turns telling stories of these different beasts from this day that I woke up in Car World and decided that I wanted to get sucked off ten different ways by different beasts. So, people read the stories and eat the meals and there are a few activities.
I wanted to ask about sexuality and sexual pleasure as it ties to the ideas of faith and the general teachings of Car World. It appears to be a very sex positive group and much of the lore is tied up in sex.
Right, like this is a sex ride that’s occurring here. I would say that there is an element of sexuality to Car World because the desire of Quuarux and how the Mechanics were sent for me. But overall, it’s just something that’s part of human nature so it just comes out in Car World and in the group.
So it’s not really thought about too much?
I mean pleasure is at the forefront of anything we do. Sexuality, eating, whatever. Devotion and love too. But it’s not the number one thing about Car World. It’s just a thing about Car World. And our focus changes often. Each event is different from the last. It’s a lot of fun to constantly reinvent what the experience is.
Tell me a little more about Quuarux: The Sex Ride.
So Quuarux: The Sex Ride gives riders the experience of me on October 14th, 2018. So they get locked in the freezer in the morning and then wake up in a car. And they begin driving the car and then a giant worm emerges and begins wrapping around the car. And they see that it’s this giant Quuarux alien. Then the worm goes around the corner and Actor Caroline Yost appears and talks to the driver, while people in black morph suits are in and outside of the car, moving it around. And I’m in the back seat with another person, also in black morph suits, and we’re using fans or smells or throwing inflatable things in their laps when Quuarux phases into the car. And then I begin touching them as they touch Quuarux. And there’s a vibrating seat and I have a vibrator in my morph suit that I use depending on if they sign up for The Love Ride or The Sex Ride.
What’s the difference between the love ride and the sex ride?
The Love Ride is no genitals and The Sex Ride includes genitals.
As in you’re touching their genitals?
Yeah, but over the clothes.
And how far is that going?
I mean pretty much all the way. Some people are really into it. People are acting like they’re cumming though no one has actually. But people are really feeling the magic of it. It’s been a lot of fun and we’re only halfway done. There’s twenty-four more people and we’ll see what their experience is.
Anything else that has you excited right now?
The biggest thing I’m excited about with Car World is the movement and people becoming Members. Once you join you are making an agreement that you are going to know me for the rest of my life and your life. Becoming a Member is a lifelong commitment to each other and our organization. Which I think is quite unique. I don’t think much else offers that kind of permanence.
What happens if someone wants to leave after joining?
We don’t let them. Or I’ve introduced a new thing where you can pay $300 as a processing fee to leave but no one will pay it. So people just leave the chat and I put them back in. And then they leave again and I put them back in. Then start complaining saying fuck Car World or something. And then the other Members will start to chime in and tell them not to say that. And they’ll begin supporting me in charging them $300. And then they’ll go “I donated $1 a year ago. Why am I in this fucking group chat?” And I just have to tell them that they chose Car World. Why would they want to leave?
Since we’re not turning a profit, and are running really low on money, I thought that having people leave for $300 would ultimately be good for us. But no one’s paid that amount as of yet.
Is impermanence something that you fear?
Yes. I definitely like security and permanence gives me comfort. So, in that sense, Car World is something that can give me comfort. Because I have all these people that I know to varying degrees. Some I don’t know well but some I’ve developed a kind of friendship with because I’ve met some of them in real life.
But often there is this issue of intimacy even with those people. Do they love me or do they love Car World?
Is there a difference?
They’re synonymous but also different. What I’m asking is do they love me for me? Or for Car World? And even though I am Car World, I want them to love me for me. Beyond it.
Photos by Malik Chatman