Desktop Diary #8

some things I saved to my desktop

On Friday, March 7 I’ll be showing work in Cable Knit, a three person group show featuring myself, Alex Bag, and Christopher Gambino at Pop Gun. The opening is from 6-8pm at 64 Fulton St, New York, NY.

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Welcome back to another Desktop Diary, the series where I discuss a handful of files I’ve recently saved to my desktop. At the moment, I have four Desktop Dumps to respond to, but because I make the rules around here, I’ll be focusing on the December 2024 and January 2025 dumps.

Last spring, I became obsessed with a now-defunct eBay account called kathysstuff1. The webstore dealt in found photographs, predominantly of women, listing over 45,000 snapshots taken by friends, lovers, and family members. Each image followed a similar naming convention: FOUND COLOR PHOTO X_6081 PRETTY WOMAN POSED BY WINDOWS; FOUND COLOR PHOTO U+5228 PRETTY WOMAN SINGING INTO MICROPHONE; FOUND COLOR PHOTO X_3134 PRETTY WOMAN FROM SIDE LEANED OVER LIFTING WEIGHT. I started saving the watermarked images to my computer, and eventually bought a handful of them. I never figured out who “Kathy” is—the return address on the package I received had a man’s name—and the account mysteriously vanished from the platform not long after my purchase. Luckily, I’m the proud owner of the image above: FOUND COLOR PHOTO U+9974 PRETTY WOMAN IN DRESS POSED BY OTHERS ON FLOOR. I wrote a bit about these snapshots and my own relationship to being a COLOR PHOTO X_XXXX PRETTY WOMAN POSING for the Zentrum für Netzkunst publication From Net, City, World to Cloud, Market, Sea, out now on Distanz.

A YouTube comment on my 2012 piece, Inbox Full, a 10-hour durational performance where I read all of my Tumblr messages out loud in front of my webcam. I recently rewatched the entire thing for the first time since filming it.

“I can’t tell if some of your posts, all of them, or none are satirical or serious or if you’re just very stoned.”

“It’s kind of scary that people are obsessed with you.”

“How do I make you love me?”

“OMG. You were so gorgeous two years ago. Why couldn’t you stay the same?”

“I had a dream about you last night and I felt really embarrassed when I woke up.”

“Hello, can you tell me how to get more followers? Please don’t be mean. Thank you.”

You just had to be there…

Twee is back. Polka dots are in style, acoustic versions of rap songs are doing numbers on TikTok, the Laura Owens show at Matthew Marks is getting rave reviews, Rilo Kiley has reunited, and I’m one freak out away from posting a ukulele cover to YouTube. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with Zoeey Deschanel, the closest thing Americans will get to a Godard girl (it’s what we deserve). I spent so much time denying my fondness for her, especially when I was trying to shed my twee past in my early 20s, watching New Girl in secret. I’ve since come around. I saved this picture in the hopes of dragging myself to Coney Island to recreate it.

Speaking of recreating something, I stand firm in my belief that copying is good. It’s an essential part of identity formation. Every copy has a tiny failure inside of it. Only in your inability to accurately rip something off do you figure out who you are. You copy, you self-actualize!

As tech platforms become more and more unusable, Reddit begins to fill the void. Everything I search for ends in “Reddit.” Conflict with a friend? Stomach problems? Hooking up a CRT TV to a laptop? Try Reddit. If you’re not looking for anything in particular, I recommend a look through r/depressionmeals.

I’ve come to embrace the watermark as an aesthetic motif. I’ve written about my love for the Photobucket watermark and the recent resurgence of stock imagery amongst the visually savvy. In the case of this “Cherry Hottie” image, it acts as an archival aid. Because I knew this came from a website called sexigraphics.com, I was able to pull it up on the Wayback Machine and find more treasures: Dark Gothic, Good Night, Sparkle Words, Cute Stuff.

I impulsively purchased this shirt on Depop after searching for Pretty Little Liars merch. This article of clothing is unrelated to the popular TV show (PLL did however do a collaboration with Aeropostale). It’s surprising that American Eagle, a preppy mall store specializing in distressed faux-vintage apparel (not unlike Hollister and Abercrombie), would make something so ominous. I’ve only worn it once, though I do toss it on while getting dressed every once in a while, only to place it back into my dresser drawer. There may or not be a dark energy attached to it.