ceo of glitching

tech support hates her

[zoomhater222]

art as care

This semester, the overarching theme of care has gone into everything I’ve created. For my final project, I made energy-charged cyanotypes that say “Yes, this is real”. They are made with the intention to be grounding materials, signs one can look to in times of distress. After the unexpected passing of my best friend, this feels even more important. Art can heal. Can art be a sign, and reminder, to stay strong?

This project was collaborative. I made 33 cyanotypes and meditated with each one, and wrote on the back of each one what I was meditating on. They are each 1/1, but only for the viewer, as they will likely be hung on a wall with the message hidden. In order to receive a print, the viewer had to mail me a haiku in response to the prompt “what gives you hope?” I now have 8 haikus from all over the US, each revealing a bit of the identity of who participated. I want this to be a rolling project, and have it on my website as something people can always engage with. I didn’t receive as many as I expected, but the ones I did receive are so special.

[zoomhater222]

just writing to say i love you all. thank you for being. i am so grateful for all of you. this class is my saving grace.

my earth has been shattered in the last week after my best friend took her life. i’m left asking questions with a broken heart. today is the first day i feel even slightly normal and even that just feels wrong. but after teaching my first students ever for the last time, i was overwhelmed with the realization of the importance of what we do. art matters. art can give you a purpose when everything else feels wrong. photographs of good times become memorials and memories of the times you’ve shared with the ones you love. it hurts, but i will never stop taking them. i will never stop sharing them. i want to save someone through art. art is therapy, how can we aid in people receiving it?

life is different now. last full moon we were together and now she is gone, but her memory will live in everything i touch, experience, and see forever.

it’s 5:55 as i finish this, hi louise❤️🍒

[zoomhater222]

vibes

[zoomhater222]

i cannot dream tonight,

my mind is preoccupied.

i check and i check and i check

i double check and i double check

my list is still the same.

i need to rest, but i think about tomorrow

nothings wrong but everything

my body clock ticks loudly

everything but nothings wrong

inner voice gets rowdy

i’m sorry that i’m always sorry

it’s scary when all it takes

is a smell to start

panicking.

this hurts now but it won’t last forever

in a week from now it won’t feel like this.

[zoomhater222]

i have wings and so do you

i saw them last night

when we crashed through the light

you and me,

my younger self and me now.

we were not scared to soar,

but grateful for the opportunity

to be a light.

to see clearly.

to illuminate the path for others.

i had to push, but it was worth it.

i wonder where my soul was last night,

it definitely wasn’t earth.

[zoomhater222]

I have a question for you, special feather:

what was it like to soar through the air, completely alone and free?

did it feel like home in the sky?

did you feel alone

or lonely?

sometimes I feel like the sum of two odd numbers

does that make sense?

anxiously anticipating whats next,

but you,

you just glide on the body you’re on,

carefree and whimsical,

and when you are ready,

you let go.

you fall.

you become something else and you’re ok with that.

you are fluid.

and someone with a keen eye will spot you,

will see value in you, perhaps.

pick you up and take you home, and declare you are something special,

and your existence will remind them of the freedom they have within themselves.

video from a daily dance practice I did in quarantine during times of heartache, unrest, and anxiety.

[zoomhater222]

them.

cyanotype, black tea-toned cyanotype, red wine-toned cyanotype, invisible ink, UV light, marker.

[zoomhater222]

them.

Toning -> tone down: phrasal verb with tone verb. us/toʊn/ to make something less forceful or offensive.

Now as an adult that is out of the closet as gay, I find myself often feeling the need to tone myself down in various ways in order to create a feeling of safety. Whether that be putting on a wig for my classic mother who has a very binary way of thinking, or trying to be as ambiguous as possible on the street to avoid looks, it can be intimidating and depressing to recognize that who you feel you truly are is not commonly appreciated or accepted by society.

She/they has become a safety net: it protects me in times where “they” will not be understood, and softens the blow when I am referred to as “she”. I am morphing for everyone else around me’s comfort, never my own. If it were up to me, I would just be considered a human. A person. THEM. Fluid and ever-changing. It feels like a big secret, one that I don’t yet feel comfortable fully asserting. So it lives in secret places, poems and songs and pieces of art that I make to express how exhausted it feels to perform for the approval of others. It is invisible to a degree, while also being carved into my brain, rent free. No one would ever guess how much time I spend stressing over something as simple as a pronoun.

I often wonder, “what's the worst that could happen?” and then remember my childhood, filled with emotional abuse and conditioning of what I, as the coveted “only daughter” and “only niece” and “only granddaughter”, was expected to do and enjoy and be. It’s hard to go against the conditioning you were told since you were young, which is why it took me so long to come out to begin with. Perhaps my family will never understand my identity.

It’s a shame they will never know me.

(link to video documentation, though i wish more than anything you all could hold it in your hands :( : https://youtu.be/sijsqBLsO70

[zoomhater222]

van dyke

a van WHAT did you just call me!!!??!?!?!?!?

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha they got jokes

[zoomhater222]

delirious dysania and jaunty jokes

how exhausting it is too morph constantly.

mind-numbing internal mayhem 

meets

the illusion of safety 

through performing what you want to see.

what you want to see.

what a collab.

I receive adulation,

but when the curtain closes, I am with me,

 and I stare.

ineffable imagination

dreaming of a world where your projections don’t make me want to run.

[zoomhater222]

starting off with a tester by using a negative from our last project and my dead plant emulsion. it’s cool to me that people will walk by and see this in the window and probably not know it’s creating an image. i want to find a way that i can continually add objects over time while still keeping it in the window, going to experiment over this week and will post updates :) thank you sun for shining so beautifully this week!

[zoomhater222]

anthotype fun with @naturaldeoderant ! this process seems so magical i am in love with it already! the whole time we were preparing the emulsion, we kept wondering HOW this is going to make a photo! we’re trying out raspberries and dead houseplant matter and seeing what happens 👀already interested in how sustainable this alt process option is, and the idea that it builds over long times. it’s always capturing what’s around it, and requires time as a material. thinking about ways I can lean into that aspect of the process.

[zoomhater222]

What does it look like to release our binary ways of thinking in terms of good/bad in order to collectively grow?

I’ve been waiting for this one.....TURN IT UP!

F*** THE BINARY! I am so done with the idea of good and bad. There only Is. We try so hard as humans to put everything into boxes in order to create meaning, but what if it just isn’t that deep? Why can’t we just make things just because it feels good? Why can’t we make mistakes when mistakes are what teach you the most? I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve learned WAY more about myself and my work through “bad” critiques than “good” critiques. We need to release the idea that good=success and bad=failure. While I understand that mode of thinking was what helped people survive up to this point in their own ways, we no longer need or benefit from these ideas. People should be encouraged to make mistakes and be vocal about them and learn from them! Shame culture is mad lame and prohibits growth.

I think we will all grow as a society when we stop the toxic positivity and reveal our mistakes and our wins. If everyone did this, I just feel like we would all be happier. Social media has become an unrealistic highlight reel. 

[zoomhater222]

Stuck

Radical vulnerability coming at ya...Lately I’ve felt so stuck in my practice. Everyday I carve aside time to work on my art and everyday I find myself paralyzed, unable to actually do anything, which starts a whole spiral. I began reflecting yesterday on why I feel so stuck. I realized a few things:

1: My work is highly collaborative. I work with other people to get to my final product, and not having that ability right now straight up has me PERPLEXED! Things I want to make require me to be with others, and finding ways to do that in other ways is straight up DEPRESSING CHIEF! Like I know it’s the reality right now, and I’ve been trying to look at it as an exciting challenge which it is, but at the same time like.......I just don’t want to ! This sucks! I feel like I haven’t been honest with myself enough about that. It goes against my character to lean into the negative side of the situation, but like I need to acknowledge it, it’s not healthy not to.

2: I’m trying to force myself to make photographs because my focus area is photography, but that isn’t what’s calling to me right now. I’m more interested in composing spaces in photographic ways, not exactly making photographs. I have a limiting belief that I can’t do this. Why? Partly because of the structure of academia, and partly because I think I lowkey have a fear that if I do something outside of my focus area and fail, I will be a failure. It scares me the idea that the program accepted me based on the work they’ve seen, and what if I start making entirely different work? But I’m realizing that that’s a self-inflicted fear, and that the whole point of grad school is to try everything.

3: The ever-growing global stress now paired with the election coming up and the seasons changing has me feeling down in general. I don’t have motivation and keep having existential crisis daily. It’s hard to make when it doesn’t feel fun. Trying to find different ways to take and make care during these times is challenging. I miss my friends and my hometown, just being close to others in general. The zoom burnout is real.

All this to say, if you’re experiencing similar things, I see you and I feel you. It’s really hard right now for so many reasons. I think this time is going to make us all more adaptable and strong people and artists, but it’s getting through it right now that is the difficulty. I hope all of you find ways to take care of yourself this week <3

[zoomhater222]

first van dyke since undergrad ! i was very intimidated by the process at first because i remembered it being difficult, but was surprised that it’s actually much more simple than i remembered! the only thing that keeps tripping me up is the purpose: why van dyke? given the toxicity of the process, i feel as though i have to have a strong point to using it, and i don’t feel drawn to what it does to my images neither conceptually nor aesthetically.

through making this print, i remembered how important the environmental aspect of my practice is to me. going to experiment with anthrotypes next as i think it’s one of the more eco-friendly alt process options. excited to see what happens! excited to make things with my hands.

[zoomhater222]

The moon! AHHHHHH

Feeling the full moon energy hard today! It’s funny how the full and new moons keep falling on days we have this class. This full moon in Aries is a call to reflect on ways we have abandoned ourselves, and an encouraging force to return to home within ourselves. I think a major theme for me in 2020 has been trust, especially of myself. I often doubt and get hung-up on my own ideas and then cause myself to be paralyzed with anxiety. I beat myself up for being a human being! I feel so stressed sometimes that I forget that I GET to be here, doing this. This is an extremely incredible blessing, and while it isn’t always easy, I would much rather be stressing over my art than stressing over getting to work at Trader Giottos at 4 in the morning. These challenges we face now as a collective have the opportunity to teach us more about ourselves and the world, and can exist as our self-perceived worst flaw, but the world perceives it as a strength. 

One of my self perceived worst flaws is my sensitivity; I have to be very careful who I spend time with, where I go, and what/how much media I consume because I am very sensitive to energy of others. I can be chillin one minute and scroll on Tik Tok and be in tears 5 seconds later. When I call my mom, I feel it in my throat. However, my sensitivity is also my strength. It allows me to make the work I do, and connect with others the way I do. It gives others permission to show up and be vulnerable as well, therefore leading to more genuine and loving relationships of all kinds. It taught me to read people and know how to show up for them when they need it. I think the same idea can be applied to art making. We all have things about our practice that we perceive as negative, like for me I can be SO hard on myself and I’m like ummmm why. What is your biggest “flaw” in your practice and how is it actually a strength? How can we be more tender with ourselves, and appreciate all sides of our multi-faceted selves with love and care?

[zoomhater222]

This last week in my practice I’ve been thinking a lot about the language of theatre and its relation to photography as well as gender and identity. Monologues are used in theatre to express mental thoughts of characters out loud, and aid in characterization and context. Given I’ve needed to find ways to provide context to the research in my work, I’m excited to try out monologues as a tool to do that while also connecting back to the idea of theatre and spectacle. Thinking a lot about the goal of the monologue, who the character is, the circumstances that led up to the monologue, and what kind it will be. Going to try out a few different things this week. I grew up as a theatre/dance kid so it feels really nice to re-connect with that love through my current practice.