The Image Is neither Here nor There
Hardcover perfect-bound book, color pages throughout, 220 pages, 6" x 9" | Text: 2018-2021 | First printing: May 2022, edition of 25 hand-numbered & signed | Second printing: May 2022, edition of 25 hand-numbered & signed
Exploring whether an image requires any objecthood in order to exist, or: are images real?
In grief there is legacy, and legacy is always some Thing, and some Thing must have objecthood. Or can it not?
The Image uses, as a primary lens, my father’s unexpected death in 2018 and the left-behind archive of 6,000+ printed images and 75+ hours of video footage that I have been gathering and digitizing single-handedly, as well as my personal notes-to-self, recorded dreams, and photographs of my work process from the same time. There are 182 full quotations from 277 bibliography entries, including, but not limited to: poetry, films, video art, children’s books, comics, critical theory (art, photography, moving image, performance, visual studies, the afterlife), spellbooks, religious histories, stage plays, lyrics, science writing, philosophy, novels, and many Merriam-Webster entries.
This book’s content was written in a text editor, but the printed book’s layout was designed using over a thousand screenshots of the full manuscript in the text editor. Therefore this is a book of images only.
Book number 01 of 25 (Second Edition) housed for non-circulating viewing at the Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design.
The Image Is neither Here nor There: Part One and Part Two
Staple-bound booklets, color pages throughout, 28 pages each, 6” x 9” | Edition of 100 each, hand-numbered & signed | Text: 2018 - 2021 | First printing: April 2022
These booklets are the first pages of the above hardcover book, The Image Is neither Here nor There, broken into two parts for those hesitant or not interested in embarking on the full 220 pages of The Image. Each booklet is only 28 pages and Part Two picks up right where Part One ends.
Diary Reference Dictionary, Volume 1
Softcover perfect-bound book, black and white interior, 52 pages, 5” x 7” | Edition of 75, hand-numbered & signed | Text: 2020-2022 | First printing: May 2022
Using the pocket dictionary as medium, Diary Reference Dictionary collects poetic non-fiction micro-essays and autobiographical prose entries written over the course of 2020-2022, relating to my personal, professional, and graduate life during this period. The entries have been organized alphabetically (rather than chronologically) with at least one entry for every letter. Entries in Volume 1 include “Apply,” “Forthcoming,” “Non-Dominant Hand,” “Stagnant,” and “XO,” among others.
Diary Reference Dictionary is an ongoing publication. While Volume 2 is not yet written, nor has a publication date, when it is ready it will contain new, original entries that were written after the printing of DRD Volume 1 (May 2022).
A Field Guide to Remembering How I Saw RISD’s Graduate Thesis Exhibition 2022
Hand-folded 20lb-paper zine, black and white, 8 pages, 2.75” x 4.75” | Edition of 935 | May 2022
These Field Guide zines fit into the palm of your hand and were meant for visitors to the RISD Grad Thesis Exhibition to take one for free in order to help prompt them to record their own experiences of the show.
Due to COVID-19, the zines were available only for the last two days of the show; originally 1,300 zines were printed.
Constant Death: Immortalizing the Archive
Staple-bound booklet, full-bleed color interior, 16 pages, 5.5” x 8.5” | Edition of 100, hand-numbered & signed | Text & images: 2019-2020 | First printing: May 2022
Weaving between the history of discovering, naming, and demoting the planet Pluto; the scientific decision to standardize the kilogram as a constant number; and examining how the death of a person annihilates their entire performance catalogue known as “life,” Constant Death asks what is or can be proven as true when change is ultimately the only constant: in history, in science, in life. To illustrate this, I use my late father’s archive of photographs and videos, which I’ve digitized in an attempt at reincarnating his image, only to be thwarted by the limits of digital representation.
This essay originally appeared online via Volume 1 in Fall 2020, and then in V1’s print issue in Spring 2021.
How the Message Haunts the Medium: On the Recursive Performance of Psychic Mediums and Computers
Staple-bound booklet, full-bleed color interior, 16 pages, 5.5” x 8.5” | Edition of 100, hand-numbered & signed | Text: 2020 | First printing: May 2022
An essay in four parts that looks at the similarities and metaphorical parallels between being a sitter for a psychic medium, and being a computer user sitting at a terminal. Both situations entail performances of interaction and immersion. Both situations require expectations of the anticipated outcome of the experience, which is either fulfilled, unfulfilled, or altered. Both situations require a level of conscious presence, participation, performance, and belief in what is being done — by sitter, by psychic, by computer, by the unseen information (as deceased speaker or as bytes of data).
Anonymous Untitled Self-Portrait Photo Zine
Hand-folded 24lb-paper zine, untitled, unsigned, undated, drawn-over color 600 film Polaroids scanned, drawn-over black and white 600 film Polaroids scanned, 8 pages, 2.75” x 4.75” | Edition of 20 | Photos: 2019-2022 | Drawings: March 2022 | First Printing: March 2022
These untitled and “anonymous” zines present 8 Polaroids with effects, text, and details drawn over the original material photographic images prior to being scanned digitally. The figure in each Polaroid is me, but I am skewed by the drawings to take on a different persona in different contexts in each image. There is no title or author to the zine in order to amplify the non-person who is the subject.
A Polaroid is generally considered an unaltered instant fact, but this zine is a tongue-in-cheek challenge to that assumption by presenting Polaroids that have been altered by hand on the material original objects (3.5” x 4.25”), prior to being digitally replicated.
Exhibited in the Ultra Space Symposium at the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media at Yale University (New Haven, CT), Apr 2023.
No Subject
Staple-bound booklet, black-and-white, 40 pages, 5” x 7” | Edition of 50, hand-numbered & signed | Text & illustrations: January - March 2022 | First printing: March 2022
A graphic memoir drawn and written by hand, with 25 illustrated pages.
Original pages made with mechanical HB #2 pencil, Faber-Castell eraser, Super Black India ink, Deleter Saji nib, ruler, 3/8” angular brush, and 5.5”x 8.5” 270gsm Bristol vellum. Printed on 50lb uncoated paper.
Inheritage Inc.
Staple-bound booklet, black-and-white interior, color illustration, 16 pages, 5.5” x 8.5” | Edition of 100, hand-numbered & signed | Text & illustration: April 2021 | First printing: March 2022
A short fiction story involving pharmaceutical giants, seductive consumerism, techno-utopian fertility options, selfish parenting, and the fine print that most of us ignore when taking a risk on our health. Gender-ambiguous in an unnamed city during a time reminiscent of the not-so-distant past, this story grew out of research I had been doing with training AI chatbots, creating holographic memories of the deceased, and seeking ontological proof: what does it mean to be alive, to be sentient, to be?
Thou’ve Got Mail: An Essay on Postcards From a Bardo
Staple-bound booklet, full-bleed color interior, low-res text graphics, 12 pages, 5.5” x 8.5” | Edition of 100, hand-numbered & signed | Text: January 2022 | First printing: March 2022
An appendix to the installation Postcards From a Bardo (2021), Thou’ve Got Mail uses the traditional fairy tale as a starting point to employ a Medieval vocabulary, Greek mythology, Buddhism, and Heideggerian philosophy to question presence, metaphor, and communication. Between dense, archaic syntax and out-of-focus text inserts, Thou’ve Got Mail forces readers to acknowledge when they are following the path of the essay and when they have lost their way.
Exhibited in the Ultra Space Symposium at the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media at Yale University (New Haven, CT), Apr 2023, and in the group show Residual Hauntings at Gelman Gallery (Providence, RI), May-Jun 2022.
Research Reader
Softcover book, full-bleed color interior, 444 pages, 8” x 10” | Edition of 1 | First printing: May 2021
A printed documentary archive of my practice, research, and completed artworks from spring 2020 through May 2021, including published and unpublished writing, sketchbook notes and calculations, and in-progress documentation of both digital and analogue processes.
Storyfile (2016 - 2018)
Managing Editor (Issues 2 & 3) | 100 spiral-bound copies per issue
A biannual journal of art & literature.
Issue 1 (Summer 2016) debuted at New York Art Book Fair, launched at Sunview Luncheonette (Brooklyn, NY).
Issue 2 (Winter 2017) debuted at Los Angeles Art Book Fair, launched at Sunview Luncheonette.
Issue 3 (Fall 2017) launched at Sunview Luncheonette.
Issues 1 & 2 invited to contribute to closing night of the 2017 group show Published by the Artist at IPCNY. Curated by artists Angela Conant and Grayson Cox.
Images 1-3 by Nicholas Alguire (Founder, Designer, and Co-Editor of Storyfile).