“Our intention is to affirm this life…”

“Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.” - John Cage

How could I add more to what is already succinctly said: let yourself be as you already are in this very moment.

How do you dislodge yourself from…yourself?

It’s a paradox. So long as you feel stuck or lodged within yourself, you will never be able to dislodge from yourself because you’re chasing your own tail. There’s no self to dislodge from, it’s all just concepts in your head. But that doesn’t make the experience less real for the experiencer. You just have to sit with your thoughts and watch them, until distance between you and the thoughts naturally emerges, and then you will be free. You are not the thinker, you are the watcher.

Just because you can touch it doesn’t mean it’s real..

Just because you can touch it doesn’t mean it’s real;
Just because it’s immaterial doesn’t mean it’s a mirage.

This is just as true for feelings, emotions and our own consciousness as it is for NFT’s and other forms of digital art. The NFT and human consciousness are running along a parallel experience. Think about the power of memories, of plans you have for the future, they hold a gravity to them and yet they only exist inside our own heads. As the wise words of Dumbledore to Harry goes:

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

(― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

What You Think You Know Never Lasts For Long, available for purchase as an NFT (https://hicetnunc.art/objkt/644978)

The GIF as a Fine Art Medium

We know what a photograph has been, but what fascinates me more is in what ways it will continue to evolve and expand. There is something special about a tangible photographic object and there is also something magical about a photograph existing in the ether of non-materiality.

The digital sphere is a space for the borders between mediums to blur or in some cases dissolve altogether. With this in mind, I am interested in pursuing and exploring the purely non-material, ephemeral nature that the digital sphere offers for photography. Below is an example of such an exploration. GIF’s are a common digital file format, a format that has provided some of the finest, most hilarious memes I’ve ever seen. While I enjoy my fair share of good memes, I believe the GIF is also capable of serving as a magnificent force for the evolution of digital photography. It allows the concrete photograph to loosen, allowing it to move and breathe with other images. It is a mode of movement that is familiar (think of flip books) yet in a digital form it does something different. It is a format that is fairly easy to create with and even easier to share.

Ultimately, what draws me towards the digital sphere is its ephemerality, its inherently ungraspable nature. I feel more at home in the qualities of ephemerality and ineffability than a do in our traditional reality of form and logic. It was the near death experience that happened when I was 21 that radically transformed my life forever, yet no words could ever explain it in full. The light that came to me when I was in the void felt like home itself, and I was ready to be embraced by it. But instead of embracing me, it brought me back to life. Now, my core focus for the remainder of my life is to honor that light, to remember it, to share it. It is a light not only seen with the eyes but felt with the heart. While my art practice is seen as photographic in nature, it is more so a way of being.

Recreating the Light that Came Through Darkness When I was at Peace with Death

Luminous Autonomy

Life is made of daily deaths.

Each moment we become 

Different versions of our yesterday self. 

Sometimes these changes move slowly,

Sliding under the radar of our awareness. 

Some waver back and forth as if undecided, 

While others glide gently forward.

Sometimes we shift by a flash of white light, 

who leaves no room for reversal. 

Sometimes the ones we love leave us

Space to find our own luminous autonomy.

The black fans spin violently..

Image by Anna Thorne via Instagram

The black fans spin violently across the ceiling,

their blades turning into shrieking bats.

For a moment the obsidian envelops me

and Penn Station is a flourescent hallucination.

No longer was I waiting for a train to arrive,

But for nothingness to return.

NYC

This city is a carnival of thoughts

They never seem to cease 

The city is a carnivore of the heart 

There never seems time to be 

Journal Entry 11/10/21

I think mental darkness holds a kind of alchemical magic. I was at an all time low, the deepest of depths where I could not sink deeper. It doesn’t matter what brought me there, all that matters is that I was there. Eventually, I came out of it. And these past few days since have been filled with extreme awareness, and not that analytical kind of awareness, I mean genuine, heartfelt awareness for the most seemingly insignificant parts of life. I feel extremely alive, possibly the most I’ve ever felt. The deeper the darkness the brighter the light. The deeper the desire is to not exist, the deeper the heart can feel alive in all of existence.

It's Nearly Midnight

From the series Traces of Being

It’s nearly midnight 

I’m standing at the train station 

There’s a slight drizzle and a decent chill

I walked briskly enough to make it feel like a summer evening

I’ve had countless dreams involving the scalloped leather boots I’m wearing

I rushed to make the 11:38 with time to spare 

For once it’s right on time 

But as I am Eternally

I knew something had changed 

Jinx on me for thinking it was my overthinking 

I only wish I could wander back into the woods 

Into a place where no one knew who I was 

I dissolve into nothingness

For a brief moment I am nothingness

I was neither born nor died 

I am, was and forever will be, 

Not as I appear to be 

But as I am eternally