Video (2020, ongoing)
Eternally, Dasein is an experimental art film in progress conceived and written during voluntary COVID-19 self-isolation. In the Western world, our overbearing desire for normalcy and perpetual safeguarding of our individual freedoms makes us complacent about the changes that need to happen on a political or economic level. A record of alienation, the short film explores the passing of time during the health pandemic and touches upon existing themes of surveillance, privilege, and how the state of being is manipulated by technology. The sequences reveal an inherent dependence, naiveté, and ignorance toward acting global forces and neoliberalist ideas of normalcy. It depicts an almost somnambulistic state that has become the condition of the Information Age and the poetic narration seeks to expose the entitlement of contemplating such things from the comfort of one’s home.
The film expands on what Hito Steyerl describes as a state of Planetary Civil War and how our quasi-admittance of growing inequality, combined with our desensitization through digital alienation, put a halt to any effort for systematic change and further encourage the current order and distribution of power.
Eternally, Dasein exhibits how the desire for normalcy and comfort stifle the outcry for a just system—one in which policy-makers make decisions and launch relief programs as a way to ensure the survival of those in need, not in a bid to desperately preserve the flow of capital in a time of chaos.
It is inspired through a playful and humorous presentation of life in self-isolation with my roommates that you can see below:
Art Direction, Concept Development (2020, ongoing)
a video; work in progress ...
Sculpture, Proposal (2019)
"Living Environments" is an interactive multi-sensory installation that fuses architecture, sculpture, poetry, and music. With an interdisciplinary approach, the immersive pseudo-environment builds on the ideology of social warmth and fosters self-awareness, strengthens peer-to-peer relationships, and celebrates human origin.
A square arch tunnel is covered in a light-diffusing material. The interior is slat-lined with PVC piping, filled with growing plants. A speaker will be playing a music composition that mixes industrial and natural sounds.
“Living Environments” has strong roots in the notion of ecological sustainability and agency. It is based on an experimental poem that assumes the voices of Capitalism, Nature, and the Individual. The verse will be available on-site.
The artwork will unite people, based on communal origin and physical connection. Two individuals interact with the structure at a time — one blindfolded and one guiding. They switch roles and double back. The experience will stimulate agents to reflect and engage in instances of comradery. The mere linking of arms and guidance promotes social warmth and sends the message that in times of turmoil, we should be able to find refuge in nature and support in each other.
Albeit the idea of social warmth is a utopian concept in longevity, the beauty and value lie within brief moments of awareness — in nature, in one another and in ourselves.
Poetry (2018)
Fascinated by the linear aesthetic of Secondary Orality, I strive to disrupt the mediums of communication in order to engage in critical thought and challenge the passivity of readership.
In the 20th century, modernist author James Joyce was one of the pioneers of "stream of consciousness" and he shocked the public with the narrative structure of novels such as Ulysses and Dubliners. Inspired by this venture in literary prose, I seek to deconstruct poetics in a way that transcends the traditional model of writing, welcoming various interpretations and engagement on different cognitive levels. This new type of verse architecture affirms that thoughts, feelings, memories, and sensations exist outside of the primary consciousness and often appear to one as a flow.