Desktop Diary #6
some things I saved to my desktop (exhibition edition)
˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ Summer is here!𖦹 ⁺｡° My current wardrobe is a steady rotation of soffe shorts and bikini tops. Love Island (sexy jail, girl sports) is ambiently playing in the background (US is surprisingly better than UK this year). I refuse to buy an AC unit and instead sleep with a fan pointed at my bed, which is very European of me. I put sparkling water in my espresso yesterday. Every afternoon begets a Diet Coke, or nap, or both.
With each new season comes a new Desktop Diary. For the uninitiated, the Desktop Diary coincides with my ongoing Desktop Dumps series, a practice where I upload all of the contents of my desktop to a webpage before decluttering and sending my files off to their new homes (folders).
Today’s Desktop Diary is a little different in that it’s sort of fake. Or rather, it comes from an entirely constructed Desktop Dump as opposed to an organic one. *Galaxy brain begins to expand* Are any of them truly “organic?”
I’ve been performing for my desktop for four years now with the knowledge that its contents are going to end up online in some shape or form. Back in May, I exhibited my first physically embodied Desktop Dump at the MMMAD festival in Madrid. The files in this Desktop Dump, collected specifically with the exhibition in mind, were printed out and layered on top of each other: vinyls, transparencies, regular prints, and little mobile devices playing video. Instead of approaching this particular Desktop Dump as a time capsule or diary of what I’ve been thinking about, aspiring to, working on, etc., think about it more as a selection of stuff I wanted to show some people in Spain who may not be familiar with my work.
Last summer I went to visit my boyfriend’s parents in Wisconsin. Neither of us drive, so we spent a day walking along the side of the road taking in the strip malls, corn fields, and scenic lakefront views. We stopped at a Dairy Queen for lunch and each got a chili cheese dog. It’s too bad we weren’t visiting my parents in Indiana so I could make a John Mellencamp joke. This particular chili cheese dog was one of the best hot dogs I’ve ever had. I can only hope to approximate the experience of eating that hot dog again one day. I took a selfie in front of the Dairy Queen that reminded me of the “Disaster Girl” meme so I pulled it up, screenshotted it, and uploaded the photo to my Instagram stories.
I took this screenshot of a “Rare Chipotle Portable Charger” while compiling images for my “What’s In My Bag” video from earlier this year. The charger didn’t make it into the final piece, but I wanted to remember it. I’m trying to come up with the scenario in which these would have been produced and handed out. Perhaps at some sort of Chipotle corporate event? I’d like to watch a documentary that tracks its life cycle, from its creation to its current resting place: a Japanese e-commerce website. Besides, what’s going on with Chipotle right now? TikTokers are filming employees making their orders because they are skimping on the protein? I think everyone might be in the wrong here. I actually have a lot of Chipotle related anecdotes to share but you’ll have to upgrade to paid to get the real details. Love is free, guac is extra.
A few months ago, I felt like acting out on the Internet because I was sad and filmed a video of myself mouthing along to Camera Obscura’s “My Maudlin Career.” I’m pretty sure I’ve uploaded a video of myself singing to that exact same song before. It’s sort of a go-to when I’m spiraling. Anyway, I enjoyed this comment by Sam Eash. He’s right. I am quirky and we are too old for this. He’s since been the first to comment on my last two videos to remind me that he is still engaged.
My online friend Blondita sent me this shirt that reads “Girls <3 My Swag.” I love it because it is true and because it is long sleeved and sort of blends in with my skin tone. I took some pictures of myself wearing the shirt for her and have since been sprinkling them into various things I make. I thought it was important I include the bag of kitty litter pellets in the images to add some dissonance or perhaps, simply, as Sam put it earlier, I am quirky. A friend recently tweeted that the current state of photography is girls crawling on the floor and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Speaking of girls on the floor, I recently read a LindyMan tweet that claimed that “women are really drawn to the ground sometimes.” This screenshot comes from a morning routine video. I took it a few years ago, back when I was obsessively thinking about the aestheticization of chores and maintenance rituals online in conjunction with the pandemic. I wrote about it a bit for the are.na annual 2023. I find this YouTube still particularly compelling because not only does it seem like she’s scrolling on her laptop while working out, but she’s doing it in an empty suburban room. I’d love to be in a room like that right now, crouched in the corner over a fresh box of Crumbl cookies, taking little bites out of each one.
I saw a picture on Tumblr of a woman wearing a burgundy dress chugging a bottle of wine that was spilling down her neck and the front of her clothes. She was covered in red wine. For some reason, I felt compelled to recreate it. I don’t drink, so instead of using wine I used a bottle of pomegranate juice I had purchased for a pot roast recipe a few weeks prior. It may have been expired. I recorded multiple videos of myself chugging/spilling the juice down my flesh-toned American Apparel unitard on my webcam, but never ended up doing anything with them. Sometimes, you have to see an idea through, even if it is really stupid. There are still splash stains of pomegranate juice on my wall.
you make me think of reading Elizabeth Bishop’s letters - toward the end of the book, you notice her letters to people becoming more stylised, as if she knows they’re gonna make a book out of them in the future.
same could be said for other writers, i just haven’t read their letters as intensely.