Desktop Diary #9
some things I saved to my desktop
This summer, I return to SFPC to teach my 10-week course, Imperfect Pictures. I’ll be joined by my superstar assistant teachers Will Allstetter and Kayla Drzewicki. In this class, we will discuss and make screen images: badly performing social photographs, memes, spam, screenshots, facetuned selfies, .gifs, stock photos, and more. The good, the bad, and the boring. Applications close on April 27.
That’s right. I’m still “at it!” It's time for another Desktop Diary. Let’s look at some of the things I saved to my desktop last month. See the full dump here.
Remember when everyone was wearing and making art with bows? Feel old yet? I think the kiss mark is next. Actually, I read somewhere (a 20-year-old’s blog on Tumblr) that it’s polka dots, but polka dots have been a staple of my wardrobe since I began making fashion choices. Unlike polka dots, kiss marks can cross over into multiple aesthetics. Perhaps it's less about them showing up in clothing and more showing up everywhere else: art, creative direction, design. Mwah!
I love the thought of a suburban new-build home being haunted. In this video, the YouTuber Morgan Adams discusses her relationship with Angie, one of the ghosts haunting her residence. A major piece of evidence lies in her Snapchat app—the face filters often detect a second face that isn’t physically present. She lets us know that the house, which she lives in with her parents, was less than twenty years old at the time of filming. “Our house was built on some sort of railroad burial grounds.” For more on paranormal vlogging, I recommend Sofya Aleynikova’s 2019 essay, Why YouTubers See Ghosts.
Last month, I began to embark on the insurmountable task of watching every video on UbuWeb. I didn’t want to start by watching work by artists I was already familiar with or go in alphabetical order. Instead, I pasted every single artist name into a randomizer and began to make my way down the list. Early on, I stumbled upon the work of photographer John Pilson. In the early 2000s, Pilson made a series of absurdist videos set in corporate Manhattan office buildings. The protagonists often engage in gestures that feel out of place with their surroundings: a businessman helplessly tries to gather stacks of papers before a big meeting; children sing while hiding in potted plants; bouncy balls flood hallways; a woman plays the accordion in an empty bathroom. My favorite piece is St. Denis, which takes place in a former Greenwich hotel turned office space. I wonder what the building is used for now, 20 years later; the video makes me reflect on the lives of these spaces, especially considering our recent turn to working from home.
I love group photos. They feel both inconsequential and loaded. Lately, I’ve been busy constructing them in my studio. I love their formations, their failures, and how confrontational they are. Something is always going wrong, a participant is caught mid-blink, another is turned away. My mind plays out mini dramas amongst the smiling faces. The tension is palpable.
I recently found out there are special devices that let you print images onto latte art. If you could put anything onto a frothy beverage, what would it be? I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it. These machines run about two to three thousand dollars minimum, so I’ll need to find a coffee shop that already possesses this technology. If I lived in Europe, I’d be working this into a grant application.
The inside of my refrigerator: red miso, my favorite butter, avocado, Churu, a can of Friskies cat food, Trader Joe’s vegan pesto, whole milk, dates, extra firm tofu, soy chorizo, manchego.
The other night, I was thinking about how my YouTube is a respite to all of the other social media platforms I participate in. There’s no growth, no mutuals, just a place to dump a webcam video and be on my way. It’s safe to say my time to front a band or be on stage in any real capacity has been usurped by other creative pursuits, but I can still do karaoke for a handful of strangers online.
So glad I now know ubuweb exists.