The Struggle for Authenticity in Art I want to speak today about authenticity . And about what we quietly give up to be accepted. We’re told that contemporary political art values autonomy . That artists are free. That inquiry sits at the centre of practice. But autonomy, in reality, is often something we *perform*— not something we’re allowed to exercise. Freedom is celebrated rhetorically, while legitimacy is granted only when work conforms to approved languages , approved theories , approved causes . Autonomy isn’t denied outright. It’s curated. This system doesn’t fail artists by accident. It functions mechanically. It rewards work that aligns with predetermined frameworks and filters out work that doesn’t speak the sanctioned dialect . Many voices are excluded not because they lack skill or meaning, but because they refuse to translate their experience into institutionally legible language. I’m not saying all excluded work is good. I am saying much of it is never heard. An...
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Gotta Assassinate Dungeon
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The Room is a Dungeon
I woke up to the punishment of cramping cold. My bed is dirty, and I have been feasted on by pests and rodents. Realizing my nakedness and no blanket to cover up, I feel vulnerable. My immediate thought is: who has captured me?
I quickly scan the room. No window. No dunny. No nothing. Just a solitary light, behind its wire cage, simultaneously emitting and trapping a spectrum of transformative light.
I try to account for my lost time. Without any means of measurement, I must endure until an opportunity presents itself. This is a temporal experience.
I focus on apprehending my fears as a single event in time. I must trust my perceptions to escape.
The roof and walls are cold. I experience the architect’s subliminal message. I know his place. It is I who dwell inside of his fear. What shall be done must be done. This revolving state cannot withstand my driving force.
When my rotation is complete, four lives will enter into my cell of death. The medieval studded door is the weakness of this fortress. This door will open. I will my escape.
This Fortress
This Door
This Weakness
My mind is somewhere between fight and flight, as I search into the horizon for my future self.
I’m standing within a grid, a translucence matrix of blood-red that alters with every iteration of thought. Each stain tells a story of pain and torture. I know I must fight then flee, and my darkness within is the path I must take.
Transverse Fight then Flight
I am contained within this inverted panopticon. My consciousness is hidden behind a societal parable. For centuries I have been receptively owned. Now casted into an actual person I must respond. I am not the sacrifice. I am the weapon. The architect has left subliminal messages. They are imprinted into the wall. They are ineligible to the literal. I just know. My only knowledge is to fight then flight and call on the darkness of within to escape this gridlock.
Transverse Fight then Flight video
Transverse Wakes up in a Cage
Wake up in a cage Apprehend your fear Unshackle your memory
The Situation - Red Alert JB , a middle-aged mail spaceship pilot . Starship piloting JB is held not by ropes, but by the cryo-unit's nanoweave swaddle —a tight, absolute embrace mimicking paranoiac wrappings. This material presses against him, preventing his shivering flesh from flying apart under the centrifugal force of his panic. He feels a cold burn and constant helplessness sinking in. His anxiety is a crimson klaxon , a "relentless tempest" of warring thoughts. He is mentally back in the cockpit, but the instruments scream in an alien language; every light and warning signifies impending failure. His pure instinct screams ABORT , yet there is no escape route. Confrontation Rising JB is shown the war of impulses tearing him apart—the "lunge and the retreat". His existence is reduced to the strained gasp: "I live for fucks sake, I don't know.” Full Assault a Violet Firestorm JB responds with explosive, automatic violence, his lungs burning from ...
Situation - The Tempest’s Reflection JB, a spaceship pilot, has been placed into a cryo cocoon to revive and transform his life essence. Inside the cocoon, he experiences his mind as a "relentless tempest of clashing thoughts, swirling and churning, mirroring the furious chaos outside of the machine." JB also sees his older self trapped in the same transitory state. The Storm in my Looking Glass A cinematic close-up of JB’s face behind the curved glass of the cryo-cocoon. The glass reflects not the room but a "relentless tempest" of swirling dark clouds and lightning , symbolising his churning thoughts. In the storm's reflection, a ghostly older version of JB is visible, trapped and silent, mirroring the pilot's current state. Cryogenic Rejuvenation Chamber - Night This trapped specter is the true mirror of our pilot's current, suspended state: a mind caught between two ages, the man he was refusing to be silenced, terrified of the man he is about to be...
The hand that holds the glamour Between the flick of a lighter and the curl of smoke lies a story told in two parts: the hand that holds the glamor, Between the flick of a lighter and the curl of smoke lies a story told in two parts: the hand that holds the glamor, and the eye that chooses to believe it. The art of the obscure and meaningless In the realm of modernist art , exemplified by Eddie's deliberate embrace of abstraction and mystery , artists have increasingly surrendered their authoritative power of intent to a veil of meaningless vagueness, compelling viewers to co-create meaning from fragmented suggestions rather than receiving a clear, directive vision. Her scalpel-wielded dissections—such as her perforated self-portraits or obscured war images—eschew explicit communication in favour of elusive hints, as she professed a desire to remain "mysterious" and avoid revelation, thereby shifting the burden of interpretation onto the audience in a pseudo-spiritual a...
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