Halloween 2014

Artist Statement via 500 Letters

This is awesome. Artist statement generator via 500 Letters:

-nfdu (United States) makes conceptual artworks, photos, performances and media art. By taking daily life as subject matter while commenting on the everyday aesthetic of middle class values, -nfdu formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random works. The thought processes, which are supposedly private, highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds, are frequently revealed as assemblages.

His conceptual artworks are characterised by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, he often creates work using creative game tactics, but these are never permissive. Play is a serious matter: during the game, different rules apply than in everyday life and even everyday objects undergo transubstantiation.

His works feature coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections which make it possible to revise art history and, even better, to complement it. Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, he makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing.

His works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image. -nfdu currently lives and works in San Francisco.

Castro Street Fair 2014

An Art School BBQ

Folsom Street Fair 2014

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It's kinda like this scene from Donnie Darko.

A few months ago, I started writing a piece about the awkwardness of group texting with my siblings. It was somewhat humorous, completely spot-on, and full of realizations about how I process information and context in relation to my other family members. I had written about the entire episode, complete with a little dose of family dynamics and history. After some thinking, I decided to delete it instead of publishing it on this blog. It was a moment of realization that my siblings might not find (over)sharing with the world as cathartic as I do.

In retrospect, I kinda regret deleting it. I haven't been publishing a lot of things on the blog this past year. Well, written things, anyway – plenty of photos, though. Anymore, when I write, I read over it and think, “Holy Hemingway, this sounds like shit, Batman!”

When I had stronger opinions, I found writing to be a lot easier. In a conversation with one of my brothers awhile back, I was telling him how living in Australia had changed me. During the time there, I was hyperengaged with American politics and I couldn't wait to move back, so I could become super active, possibly even volunteering for candidates, etc. However, after getting settled back in my old life, the desire went null and void. I'm not apathetic, I just couldn't care less about the incessant blah, blah, blah of left vs right discourse. Now, I avoid political discussions like the plague. Perhaps it's a factor of getting older, perhaps it's a factor of all of the social network app overkill, perhaps it's a factor of being an ex-expat. Most likely, it’s a combination of all three. It’s kinda like this scene from Donnie Darko:

Las Vegas for the Mr Rose Show