It's the In Between We're Concerned With: Finding Hypertopia in David Herbert's Hand-Me-Down

Article for SPEAK SPEAK at Grizzly Grizzly, 2023. This article critically examines David Herbert's Hand Me Down exhibited May 5 - June 18, 2023.

EXCERPT: Can you feel the barrier between You and the infinite Universe that is not You? If you could feel that barrier, could you cross it? Or would that ‘crossing’ merely push the borders of You into the infinite Universe? Since ‘crossing’ is only pushing You further into the infinite Universe (and if we agree the infinite Universe is very much not You), then space is either You, the infinite Universe, or both. If space represents the absence of You in the infinite Universal whole, then there is no space between where You are and where you are. This pedantic exercise is meaningless in the face of experiencing a physical world where You are no more you than the infinite Universal whole you are a part of.

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The Feeling of Being in a Room with a Television:An Essay on Tear It Up, Tear It Down

Article for SPEAK SPEAK at Grizzly Grizzly, 2017. This article reviews and examines David Herbert's Hand Me Down exhibited May 5 - June 18, 2023.

EXCERPT: I spent forty-five minutes asking Google if there existed a word for the feeling of being in a room with a television. After many variations, iterations, and irritations of the inquiry, I gave up. Since there is no single word out there for the feeling one gets while in a room with a television, I will use a portmanteau: telechor.

Counterpoint is the musical term that describes when two separate and independent melodies are played simultaneously to create a new melody. It is difficult to effectively produce, yet easy to understand when listening: each melody offers unique parts of a story and only when they come together can one see the whole for its parts. I entered the dissonant, fidgeting realm of Tear It Up, Tear It Down which was curated with counterpoint at its paramount by Amy Hicks.

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Humble Dispatch

DISCLAIMER: While this article is part of my writing history, there are ideas, sentiments, and accepted narratives that I no longer believe or uphold. Please keep this in mind while reading.

Article for Creators Vice, a subset of the Vice Media company, initiated "50 States Of Art" to address artists working in each state of the Union. I was contacted by one of their representatives to discuss my practice as a Delaware-based artist. My article discusses the project I was working on while writing for Creators, Let's Write A Bill! (2017), in which my character Senator Kip Tunamelt helps the people of Philadelphia to write a bill, all on their own, for his political gain. Read more Read the article

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Creating Digital Exhibitions: A Guide

A forthcoming book edited by Zida Wang & Morgan Joseph Hamilton to by published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2025

OPEN CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS: What makes this book unique is its multi-vocal approach to developing digital exhibitions. This book intends to pair theoretical frameworks of digital and virtual environments with the practical implications of producing exhibits with national and international applications. These examples include contemporary case studies focusing on inclusivity and accessibility in digital/virtual exhibitions that go beyond static pages of high-resolution object reproductions and into interactive and responsive digital engagement. This book will be the first of its kind to focus on small- to mid-sized museums whose limited budgets and staff often control their ability to expand into the digital landscape. That focus will allow us to identify projects that are scalable, which will benefit museums of all sizes.

We invite museum experts, practitioners, and scholars to contribute to this upcoming book project that illuminates the pathways for creating impactful virtual exhibitions for small to mid-sized museums. All museum specialties are accepted, including but not limited to: Art museums, contemporary art & non-collecting spaces, history & science museums, State and Local historic sites, and others. As museums around the world keep discovering virtual exhibitions, this guide will provide a platform for sharing innovative practices, theoretical frameworks, and in-depth case studies that highlight the digital transformation of exhibitions.

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Dimensions of Curation

Chapter 30: "Toward an Interactive Model of Competing Values: From Visualization to Toolkit", 2023, Roman & Littlefield

EXCERPT: It can be tricky, if not challenging, to develop a visualization of an abstract idea that clearly illustrates its theoretical value and practical application. Visualizations can compromise conceptual nuance for labeled definition for the sake of simplicity and readability. In my time as a doctoral student, the phrase I heard again and again was “think of this model as a continuum, not a binary.” Before I learned to appreciate the ambiguity of some theories, concepts, and models, I often mumbled to myself “but if it’s a continuum, why do theorists draw a binary?” I learned that every line of even the simplest binary is made up of infinite points of variation between each pole. And in a quadrant model, you multiply each point by another dimension; the binary and quadrant models do not look so rigid anymore. They are representative of myriad nuanced positions, or directions, in which its user may go. The theoretical argument becomes a practical roadmap for museum professionals through the Dimensions of Curation Competing Values Exhibition Model.

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The Nastroism

Spiritual text and basis for Nastroism, a future religion based on NASA's history. Published by The Church of Our Humyn of the Ascension.

EXCERPT:
ASCENSION

1 THERE was no beginning as there will be no end. The Universe is a mobius strip of energy; when it reaches an implosion, verily an end, it will be ejected to the other side, verily a beginning, in what was once naively called a bigbang.

2 WHEN the current Universe came through the implosion of a previous one, it expanded and has not stopped. It has increased in size and speed. The transfer of movement and energy was sufficient enough to pool in gravity wells, enough of these pools converged to form superclusters; galaxies within them, stars within them, solar systems within them. The Sol system formed on an outer arm of a spiral galaxy known to humyns as Via Lactea.

3 SOL is the single most important star in Via Lactea, and very possibly the Universe. It started a collection of planets, each of which would play important roles in fostering humynity on Sol's third planet, Earth. Earth is the single most important planet in the system, and very possibly Via Lactea. Earth created life, and life created humyns. Humyns are the sole species whose great responsibility it is to impregnate celestial bodies with life, and to care for and nurture life on their planet.

4 HUMYNS observed the anatomical advancements of other species for inspiration of improvement upon their own. They learned to cultivate the earth and its fauna. They learned to cultivate each other as well. They worked and traded flesh, both animal and humyn, until their wealth of coin was equal to their poverty of soul. Capitalism was the faith of some and the fate of all. The social systems had delivered chaos to an immature species.

5 LIKE the spiral of Via Lactea demonstrates, revolution never stops. Humyns through time overthrew the wrong, and wave by wave, wore away the stubborn coast of injustice. Utopia was created in the Late Era by The National Aeronautics and Space Administration until it was taken away by Hurricane Magda in The Shepard's Year Two One Eight Eight.

6 IT is Humyn responsibility to leave Earth and join its brethren in the celestial vault, eighty and four tenths kilometers zenith at ocean's edge.