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Life Within the Simulacrum is a featured column focusing on technology & social media, travel & literature.

BY DALLAS ATHENT

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(I Want To Make Something Huge by Camille Yvert, 2018)

The use of text and technology in art, though two varied subjects, share a similar issue–both of these themes are accessible in a way that almost any artist can produce fairly decent work using them. Anyone can make a painting that says something, and because it says something, it impacts you on the surface. Same with technology–it’s current, and since we live our lives with technology in the modern world and we are used to such objects, art utilizing this subject can be easily familiar to us on a personal level.

But it’s not often work in either of these mediums hits home in a way that you deeply internalize it, which was exactly what was so shocking about a recent show I saw in London, rightfully titled HTTPS:// curated by IKO at Sluice gallery. Upon entry, a large purple wall reads “Disappointingly Territorial” in dripping petroleum jelly–a work by Matilda Moors. Like a new-wave horror story, it blatantly depicted my own reflection as a young woman, navigating a need to create work out of crisis–a plea to be self-aware, honest and demonstrate talent for consumption all at once. These are common themes that transcend time for artists of all disciplines. However, they’re especially relevant during a technological revolution when the quest for love can so easily exist in the simulacra where we connect with others through web-based interfaces. Is this what the artist intended with this piece? I’m not sure, but it was a welcoming entryway to the other works in the show which equally addressed this particular sort of existential angst.

(View of HTTPS:// including work by Matilda Moors, Sam Blackwood & others)

Additionally in HTTPS:// Sam Blackwood created a piece titled Green Bottles, which consisted of bottles of wine with personal branding and flowers stuck in placed in clusters around the gallery. I visited the show weeks after it originally opened and the flowers had wilted. The progress in time was a morbid representation of what happens to the artists’ spirit as we succumb to self-promotion through the web. But maybe that’s just me projecting my personal issues. If you think this is the point of the exhibit in its entirety, however, keep reading. There’s a bit of a plot twist.

(Green Bottles by Sam Blackwood, 2018)

HTTPS:// had many other attributes that were carefully crafted, creating depth to what seemed so simple at a glance. There was a hard-drive that you could upload to your computer full of art by Chris Alton, a custom-made bench with plug-ins to charge your phone and IKO even provided free WiFi so attendees could freely find the artists online without draining their data usage. As I said, I initially gathered pieces of the exhibit were about both the pressure, longing and anxiety of having to self-promote as an artist, but after sharing this sentiment with Oly Durcan of IKO, he in turn, asked me a question. “What’s the purpose of an artwork in an exhibition that someone’s traveled to? We’re not telling people what the answer is. It’s an entry point.” I told him I felt like we were in the simulacrum (which literally 100% of people who have ever met me are probably sick of hearing by now, but hey, you’re here reading this review in my column just on that subject, so maybe you haven’t spent enough time with me yet–just wait!). More explicitly, I explained that when social media came out, it seemed a new way for artists to promote themselves while avoiding commercial influence, whereas now it’s the opposite. People now seem to make music, or paint or write in order to gain a larger following online. The validation through attention on the web has almost overcome the validation of someone buying your work. In the end, isn’t the point of making art to express your ego, or achieve love? Does social media not replace this purpose? I didn’t ask these last couple of questions in fear of seeming vain, but I thought it.

(Custom bench made by IKO for “HTTPS://, including “Live and Direct” By Dani Smith, 2018)

But Oly said something comforting. He said, “I think it’s a little like that, but it’s kind of–” and then did a motion with his hands like the scales were going back and forth. He was right. I was just being pessimistic 🙁 Upon further thought I realized the exhibition isn’t a critique of social media use in an artist’s life, instead, it’s about where does the experience of an artist start and finish.

I left the gallery wondering the same thing. I myself, have just moved to London and this was the very first review I’ve done of a show here. Where in the simulacrum do my relationships with those whose work I review begin and end? Life is art and art is life. We know this. In an attempt to make sense of it all, I went home that evening and made an Instagram post about my experience at the show, hoping it was somehow getting so meta and I could connect with my readers and the artists whose work I just admired. That was what HTTPS:// hoped to achieve, and dammit, I was going to try it out. I tagged Matilda in a selfie I took earlier that day in front of her work, as her’s was the one that stuck out to me when I first attended the opening–and then I got a notification hours later, that she followed me back.

IT’S KIND OF HARD TO EXPLAIN (IKO) is an artist and curatorial collective based in London that has been operating since 2017. HTTPS:// was on view from September 14th, 2018-October 6th, 2018 at Sluice Gallery in London

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Dallas Athent is a writer and artist. She is the author of THEIA MANIA, a book of poems with art by Maria Pavlovska. Her work, both literary and artistic has been published or profiled in BUST Magazine, Buzzfeed Community, VIDA Reports From The Field, At Large Magazine, PACKET Bi-Weekly, YES Poetry!, Luna Luna Magazine, Bedford + Bowery, Gothamist, Brooklyn Based, and more. She’s a board member of Nomadic Press. She lives in The Bronx with her adopted pets.

Life Within the Simulacrum is a featured column focusing on technology & social media, travel & literature.

BY DALLAS ATHENT

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It was 2:43 which meant in 17 minutes I’d have to call my Uber to get out of Paris and to the airport. The light poured in through the balcony, causing our sausage sandwiches and olives to glow. We had just picked them up from the local market full of people screaming at us in French about sausage links and cutting cheese by the kilo. Reminiscing, my friend Malik reminded me of a Four Loko party we went to long ago on a rooftop in Bushwick.

“Yo that shit was lit.”

“Kids don’t party like that nowadays,” I said.

“Ha! Kids!” he remarked, as if we were so old.

I reluctantly look at my watch again and said abruptly and with purpose, “I have to call my Uber.” He said he’d accompany me downstairs. “Ugghh,” I began, “I don’t want to say goodbye.”

“C’mon Dallas. Don’t get nostalgic, get your stuff and go.”

He was right. Malik is wise and knows how to deal with things like sentiments. I, on the other hand, do not.

In the past two years I’ve been to Switzerland, England, France, Scotland, Iceland, Italy, Canada, The Caribbean and more, often multiple times and various cities. Within the U.S. I’ve visited Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, San Diego, New Orleans, Santa Fe, D.C., Boston and Ft. Lauderdale. I have two jobs. I work onboarding project teams into construction software, so I get to visit the construction companies and their projects wherever they happen to be building them. I’m also a writer, which means I’ve made friends with other writers who then work in a community around the world. I’m on a plane every other week visiting clients for work, and often, people in publishing and my colleagues in literature.

Of course, it’s hard to see so many places and not document it. I take a photo each day I’m traveling and usually share it with those in my network. It’s a way for me to communicate my experiences. Most people see someone who is having the time of their life trying new foods (sheep’s brain) and meeting new people (like the owners of a small Chateau in Thiers).

The truth is, each time I leave a place I have to fight off an existential crisis. I can see myself living just about anywhere. I connect with landscapes, be they be the vast abyss of the sea or laced with mountains. I look at the art, like the impressionist paintings with their shapes and pastels in Paris or the totem poles in Vancouver.

But something even stranger happens when you get to know people. You get attached. On a trip I took to Europe this year I started my stay in Edinburgh on the floor of my best friend’s dorm room. Edinburgh is a stunning city, full of crooked alleys and looming stone buildings you can get lost in. You see ghosts and drink in pubs with plaid walls, which provides a certain comfort, but doesn’t necessarily inspire most people who visit to go back for a second week in a year. For me it did, because my best friend Daniel was there, and I missed him.

Our moments together were wonderful and fleeting. We discussed poetry and literature, but every night I laid my head down I knew it was temporary, as this friend of mine was someone I once met with every weekend in New York coffee shops to write and on rooftops to party. Someone, who, in my 20s would bike past me each morning on his way to work as I stood at a bus stop for my commute, and would wave. In those days I thought we’d be best friends forever and we still are, but our relationship is based on sparse visits where we get together and reminisce, and know that time will ultimately bring us apart again. In our new relationship, we’re aware that time is something intangible and mortality will eventually put a halt on the amount of times we see each other.

While in Edinburgh we hung out with his roommates from Romania who were getting their Bachelor’s. They were maybe twenty. As we went out for drinks one of them told me about how he wanted to work in HR on progressive subjects. He was also highly interested in the #metoo movement. He seemed wise beyond his years. As we spoke over pints together in a pub that had live banjos playing and velvet walls, I wondered if the conversation mattered, because I would likely never see him again.

I have so many interactions like this. I make the most of my time in a place, doing my best to be fully invested and not take my luxury of travel for granted. I ask people about their lives, their days. I ask not what the most recommended restaurant is, but which one gives the best feeling. I always offer people to stay at mine if they ever come to New York since so many people do come to visit my city. It feels like a good way to keep the door open. So far, nobody other than those I’ve known for over seven years has taken me up on it.

When I got to Luzern after Edinburgh I met up with my friend Boni Joi, a poet I admire and someone I became friends with a few years ago while she was living in New York. She moved there with her husband, who’s Swiss. Her neighbor, who Boni’s very close with, offered up her apartment since she was away the week I was staying. I had a penthouse all to myself, overlooking the mountains and a small church, but most importantly, the woman left notes for me, saying she was happy I could stay there and to help myself to coffee and beer. The woman had her drawings and fashion designs up on the wall. She had little trinkets from her travels, and stunning kimonos hung in the bathroom. I knew so much about her but she knew nothing about me. I wondered if I’d ever even meet her.

The next day, Boni brought me up the mountains in a gondola, the fog allowing us no vision, which we passed through with time only to arrive on top of the clouds with a spanning view of the alps. The experienced was a reminder of separation, and how many microcosms exist within this one world.

At the top of the mountain we got some drinks in the one building that exists there — a little hotel with a restaurant attached. As we laughed, the sun began to set and we knew it was time – one hour closer to the handful of nights we may have together again.

The more and more I get on a plane, the more and more I fall in love. With cities, but mostly with people. There’s nothing like travel to remind you that you can never be everywhere in this life, but especially that we’re all essentially alone. The existential dread can sometimes be turned into a positive, (like not taking anything for granted, and learning to really listen to people), but it can also become overbearing. I go from airport to airport all by myself. I’ve been dealing with the fact that no matter how close I feel to people, I’ll always have to say goodbye.

When I got to Paris, my friend Daniel flew in from Edinburgh to meet me. We walked around the museums of Impressionists and I saw how they all loved. Many of them had short lives. I wondered if they counted their moments with a lover. If they put a clock against their experiences the way we do today.

My last day in Paris I went the a local market with Daniel and Malik. I was grabbing sausages while my two old friends were across two rolls of stalls, picking out gratin. Malik, now a local, was pointing at what Daniel should pick out. I saw Daniel laugh. I was an outsider, looking in, and yet I was there. I wondered what Malik’s arm pointing looked like from Daniel’s perspective, and if what Malik said that made Daniel laugh was something that would stick with him forever, or was just a moment we were once again sharing. It was a simulacrum I created in my mind–but it was also a real thing happening to two people. I was there, and yet not there. Time pressed down to us having to get back to the apartment so I could call my Uber. A melancholy washed over me once more, and I learned to swallow it, because if I didn’t, I could miss the moment.

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