andreas serrano is a liar

This photo was taken in an abandoned building by the French Broad River...

This is my response to Serrano and his golden lies...

I was all ways, there

Medium: Digital photograph, Canon Rebel XS

Taken from a moving car.

I was always, there

MacBook's Photo Booth, Android phone camera, Vignette Demo app, small mirror, mah face.

andreas serrano is a liar

andreas serrano is a liar by weaklies

acoustic guitar, singing, talking, effects. garageband. ableton.

moments slip away

you say goodbye to everyone.
you tell your best friend
you're going on ahead.
'i'm going on ahead.'
you're not there for the screams

I Was All Ways, There

digital photos, field recording

andreas serrano is a liar

those of us who explore creative outlets must often ask ourselves why we endeavor to do so. creating is a really hard, sometimes torturous avenue down which to travel. the obstacles, self-imposed or otherwise, are painful and challenging, oftentimes leading us to question why it is that we must pursue such an outlet. is art supposed to be easy? is it supposed to be hurtful? can it, should it, will it ultimately destroy those who create it?

so what if we torture ourselves preemptively? can we skip the rough part and get directly to the goods, the core ideas?

in the next thirty minutes i'm going to drink a 40 oz. king cobra and reflect on these ideas. i'm going to live-blog this experience and type out a stream-of-consciousness monologue. by drowning myself, torturing myself for the sake of an idea, perhaps i will find an answer to these questions. perhaps not. here goes.

11:05 pm - unopened king cobra.

(my first thought is that this stuff doesn't taste nearly as bad as i thought.)

i've never been sure of how to define why artistic curiosity. my main creative avenue is that of songwriter and producer, but i've always tried to express myself in "creative" ways. essentially, i've always wanted to wrangle the images/phrases/ideas buzzing around my head and present them to others in some tangible or understandable form.

i think i fell upon music because i

well, i don't really know. i've never been able to finish that sentence, i suppose. i think music just spoke to me in a way that drawing or painting didn't. i remember getting lost in sounds at an early age; i curled up and hid behind the couch in absolute terror the first time i heard the ascending synth line of kool and the gang's "summer madness."

i also really enjoyed writing - that is to say, i really enjoyed being alone and thinking, so i guess i thought that getting lost in sound and writing could be kind of cool when combined.

11:15 - 1/3 of the way done

there's a specific memory that came back to me as i was in the gas station buying the 40. i had gotten off of work at my bartending job in chapel hill and was heading home to try and finish writing a song i'd been working on for weeks. the next day was friday, and i was due in the studio to lay down all the vocals. i had written several drafts of the first verse (this was back when i was rapping), but none of them seemed to work. i didn't want to disappoint my bandmates, so i was determined to stay up late, latch onto some form of inspiration, and knock down a couple pages of lyrics.

however, i was really, really stressed about not finishing the song in time. i hadn't been able to get very far before, so it didn't seem all that likely that i'd write the entire thing in one night. in order to get myself away from myself, i stopped at the gas station and bought a budweiser 40, thinking that if i got kind of fucked up, i'd be able to ignore the stress and sit and write. it'd worked before, why wouldn't it work now?

it didn't work at all.

i played the beat on loop and chugged this 40, trying to goad myself into finding some sort of jumping off point. i didn't even have the first line of the song written down, and there was nothing coming to me from the ether or the alcohol, or whatever. my stress got worse.

(i've started to realize that i'm running out of time to finish this 40 according to my self-imposed time limit.)

11:27 pm - 2/3 done

i basically broke down. i fell to the ground and cried. i couldn't write this stupid fucking song. i was a disappointment to myself and my bandmates. i was wasting everyone's time. i didn't understand how to write, what to write, why to write. i was finished. what was i doing? why did i think i had the authority to write songs or make art? if i couldn't just sit down and do it, why was i even trying?

(i have two minutes left. i'm 3/4 done.)

the next morning i woke up and wrote three verses for the song in 30 minutes, drove to raleigh, and recorded the song in about 2 hours. i have never played anyone this song, and the version that exists is only two verses long. it's called "mustard gas" and is about choking to death.

(ok, i'm one minute past my 30 minute time limit and i'm 4/5 done. i lose [?].)

so, what conclusion can i come to? art is pain? there can't be something that pretentious and ugly at the core of why we do what we do, can there? can truth be construed as pretentious and ugly? should we even care if it is?

i've only raised more questions for myself. i'm uncomfortably drunk, but i feel as though i have conquered something. they say that when you drown, you feel an immense, enveloping warmth.

(it's 11:37 and i just finished the king cobra. 32 minutes.)

Andreas Serrano is a liar

Baby's first video edit.



music: Ashcan "Orchestra" -- Ceilings or ++Sonata for Live audience

stacks

Digital Photograph taken with Canon Rebel XS

Andreas Serrano is a liar

King Cobra, hedonistic slugs, tragically curious ants, couple of super flies

Stacks

collage, print outs of googled images, gelly roll metallic pen

Stacks

(Canon Powershot sx110)

stacks

canon powershot sx110, chairs, bike, back porch

stacks

Stacks by weaklies

stacks, chair, bird, key.

dream big

your consciousness:
it's intellect, and property,
and so many unknown things.

your content.

shaping the monochrome void
into something interesting.

invisible hands behind our hands,
strings of nucleotides
stretched out and waiting for meaning,
given breath
and a stake in the world
that most of us agree is there.

Stacks

Dream Big

(collage, pen, paper)

dream big

curtains - dream big

just some thoughts.

Dream Big

An older piece from December 2010. Medium used: Chalk, colored pencil, drawing paper.

Victory and Apotheosis