MOUSE
The Immersive Future
video camera held up to blue sky
03.30.2023 | Non-fiction

Environmental Video Art: Futile, Sublime and Ridiculous

Interrogating our climate crises, slow, steady video art offers viewers new ways to consider the scale of a landscape and the scale of their anxieties. Tracing the history of the medium and examining three contemporary examples, this essay is an...

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03.16.2023 | Poetry

two poems from a rind

These poems are the beginning of a book-length manuscript that explores the natural world as a recorder of lost history and lineage. Clicking on each poem below will pull up a PDF of the full text of the poem. Photo...

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02.23.2023 | Visual Arts

Climate Patinations

This series of three bronze pieces displays a range of coloration created by different climates throughout the US. Bronze is unique for its durable and documentative qualities. It has the ability to carry information into the future, which is why...

Uncommon Sense

Girl Forgive Yourself

(four attempts) 1 These days, I am away from home. They call it “house-sitting” because houses are like babies: they need care, they absorb what happens around them, they can burden. I am trying to construct a theory of homespace....

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chain link fence with plant growing on it
01.26.2023 | Poetry

Daybook

This is a serial poem in short parts, a skinny slow intense work documenting a period of personal and national catastrophe, grief, and loss. First month: Finn and I share a desk: home means propped windows, tax papers, old notebooks...

The Immersive Future
01.12.2023 | Non-fiction

Connecting Through Technological Immersion

“As the melodies suffused her mind they intermingled”— Marc Stiegler, “The Gentle Seduction” Sitting alone on the riverside, my neighbor is immersed in viewing our familiar corner of Taipei through the perspective of the drone he’s piloting. Looking down through...

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11.10.2022 | Visual Arts

Hues of Origin

The idea behind the triptych “Hues of Origin” was born when I considered the concept of reincarnation. This is a fascinating but complex subject, and it is a bedrock of many unanswered questions. In these pieces, I seek to portray...

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11.03.2022 | Poetry

Selections from ‘Godsnack’

These poems exist within a larger manuscript called Godsnack, in which I explore the intersection of feminism, godliness, and pop culture. Godsnack is indebted to many female pop culture icons of recent decades—from Siouxsie Sioux and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, to Fiona...

Uncommon Sense

Two Howling Poems

I know / what I don’t know. I know / my lack of knowing is its own kind / of camouflage Irrelevant Animals for crisi lee When they get together, the sky turnsmatchbook, green & blue with mad- ness. Random...

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10.13.2022 | Vídeo

Levain

A soil with a beating heart. A leaven that is a seed of Earth. The Earth that is the beginning. Impression in clay that shows the energy of the Earth. Thoughts from artist Zuzanna Michalska on her piece Levain How...

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10.06.2022 | Fiction

Puncture

An actor is forced to confront his sexuality after being cast in a short film which blurs the lines between fiction and reality. “He’s not really alive, is he?” You’re thirty-two and work the front desk at a ritzy spa...

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09.15.2022 | Non-fiction

Okaerinasai: Finding my Identity in the Months of May

The Zen master and poet Eihei Dogen wrote an essay called Uji, Being-Time, which is essentially, about the non-separation between being and time. They are one in the same. Being, as in action, is time, and time, being. The totality...

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09.08.2022 | Poetry

Insomnia, Four Voices

Insomnia works off a simple set of rules. I pick up a random book, open to a random page and select a snippet; repeat until finished. It’s interesting to me how the voices arise out of such a process, also how...

The Immersive Future
09.01.2022 | Non-fiction

Soft Systems

A message on my phone from a friend across the globe breaks the narrative that the digital is toxic. Soft Systems explores technology’s plus side, its place in art, and grants access through the plate glass screens and into that...

Uncommon Sense

Good Grief

Grief and joy are born of the same materials. The one needs the same stuff as the other. I open my journal to a new page. Today is my mother’s birthday. Today I learn additional details about my dear friend’s...

The Immersive Future
08.09.2022 | Non-fiction

(In)finity, Intimacy and Interactive Fiction

Interactive fiction is an innately intimate form of storytelling, in both aesthetics and narrative style. But what does this mean for the reader? What could this mean for the future of independent publishing? This text examines the ways in which...

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08.02.2022 | Poetry

‘Desire-Production’ and ‘Object / Image’

Desire-Production and Object / Image are a thematic mix, engaging with intersections of literature, technology, and environment. Desire-Production Within what terms do you imaginethe church in your hometown, assuminga small town, assuming a churchtown. Something rough that could touch you...

Uncommon Sense
lighthouse against green sky

13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A POEM

1. Some things can only be achieved through failure. This requires a reconceptualization of what it means to succeed: being comfortable with the presence of the one, and with the absence of the other one. 1.1 Sometimes it’s the words...

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07.19.2022 | Visual Arts

Drawings by Emanuela Iorga

In my drawings, I interweave real-world environments with fantastical, imaginary spaces. It’s not a conscious attempt—at least not in the beginning—but I arrive there gradually, following one shape, then another. My sister, who’s also a painter, tells me I’m creating...

The Ten Percent
Hand holding a decorative ceramic bowl

Present Imperfect: A case for the not-so-great novel, like 1Q84

As noted in my previous and first entry, Real Combat, I’m interested in what Amalfitano, in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, calls “great, imperfect, torrential works.” It was therefore only natural that I were to eventually crack open the used, single-volume edition...

The Immersive Future
07.12.2022 | Non-fiction

Augmenting Empathy: Can VR Enhance Social Impact?

In 2015, the United Nations released its first 360-degree virtual reality film, Clouds Over Sidra. While the film went on to help raise millions of dollars for Syrian refugees, what assumptions underlie the film, how might they be harmful, and...

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red sunset cloud
07.07.2022 | Poetry

Ruth Again

This poem is part of a ‘resurrections’ project to summon ancient and mythical women into present day, in the hopes that inhabiting their feelings, fury, and patience will bring new understanding. I bleed out of every memory of you. You...

Recommendations

Books About Love that Haunts and Transcends Time

My girlhood in Vietnam consists of many ordinary fangirling activities—collecting pirated CDs, worshipping Vietnamese pop singers, but most of all I remember watching with my older sister hundreds, if not thousands-episode-long Chinese dramas. Probably because of the sheer length of...

The Immersive Future
06.28.2022 | Non-fiction

Immersive Technology Makes Modern Art More Accessible

While modern art can exist to challenge the viewer, it can also fail to engage or draw the viewer in. Immersive art presents an opportunity for a different experience, where art combined with technology can engage the viewer’s curiosity and...

Uncommon Sense

Three Poems

Girls are / after all / relational. Clicking on each poem below will pull up a PDF of the full text of the poem Digital art “Girl in Snow” by Ali Battey

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06.21.2022 | Fiction

Everything Is Impossibly Annoying

Everything is Impossibly Annoying is an experimental piece inspired by Anna Karenina, Grief is the Thing With Feathers, and Vine compilations on YouTube. Told in three parts, it follows a boy, then a young man, who seeks friendship from an...

The Immersive Future
06.14.2022 | Non-fiction

Activism and Awareness Through Technology and Art

Creating Awareness on Climate Action With The Power of Creative Storytelling Combining Art & Technology The combination of art and technology is a dynamic process that utilizes the emotional power of art intertwined with creative engineering tools to create awareness...

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06.07.2022 | Visual Arts

Travelling Inward 5

Monoprint on paper. This piece comes from the continuous search for my Inner Self. The more art I create the more I feel that different aspects of my personality are amalgamating for a higher purpose. Thoughts from artist Cristina Iorga...

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Photograph of a pyramid in Mexico
06.01.2022 | Poetry

“Ovid” and “Teotihuacan and Us”

At the center of my forthcoming book The Leniad is a sprawling epic about a fictive character’s exploits in sex, travel, and the daily world of capital. On either side of this epic are short, intense poems that shape-shift. “Ovid”...

Uncommon Sense
gas mask

ATTENTION, MADNESS

When a receiving public does not value nuance or context, a person’s complexity can be boiled down to their most readily visible, most extreme, and most obvious parts. The “limit” of you becomes the all of you…we fail to consider...

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photograph of a path into the sea at sunrise or sunset
05.24.2022 | Fiction

Subterranean

A short story about a couple spending a weekend in a seaside town, where their future will be decided. It was too cloudy for much of a sunset, but the forecast was hopeful. They walked from the station along the...

The Immersive Future
05.17.2022 | Non-fiction

Can 58,800+ small lights help us see what’s right in front of us?

Light has the power to illuminate more than just the physical environment around us: it can transform a landscape, teach us more about the natural world, and connect us in ways that linger long after the lights turn off. After...

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photograph of a pile of crushed aluminum cans
05.10.2022 | Poetry

New World Recycling

New World Recycling is part of a larger series of poems that examine / explore the decay and danger within a rural, often forgotten landscape; the harm within the intimate (here, of queer intimacy); and the haunting presence and aftershocks...

The Immersive Future
05.03.2022 | Non-fiction

Shopping in the Metamarket

“Shopping in the Metamarket” examines how virtual reality is being used to build on techniques of behavioural economics in shopping, examines the rules we are taught about how to behave when shopping, and asks what further behaviour we will need...

Uncommon Sense

Introducing: Uncommon Sense

A column that celebrates intuition, emotion, and sensitivity as important forms of knowledge. When I first sat down to write an introduction to my column, “Uncommon Sense,” I became immediately nervous. Why? Maybe I was worried about accidentally placing limitations...

The Ten Percent

Real Combat: Late capitalism through the lens of Bolaño

I’ve always been attracted to what Amalfitano, in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, calls the “great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze the path into the unknown.” Like Amalfitano, a professor of philosophy on the verge—like most, perhaps—of madness, I’m interested in...

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Visual Album "Exquisite Pain" by Convict Julie
04.19.2022 | Audio

Exquisite Pain: The Visual Album

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, artist-turned-activist Convict Julie is an interdisciplinary, all-encompassing artist. As a songwriter, producer, and performing artist, Convict Julie shares her lived experiences through her music, creating empathetic connections with her audience through themes of mental health, Blackness,...

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04.12.2022 | Visual Arts

abstract zeitgeist

Akim is above all else about visually perceiving and visually expressing himself. With his works he explores the interplay of analog and digital technologies through intuitive abstract visualizations of his experience of the world. This playground, free of form and...

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cropped frame from "Hope" by Popquiz Gods
04.05.2022 | Visual Arts

Hope

The fourth work from the Ecxtasy collection. “Hope” is about putting your trust back into the universe. It gives one the ability to see who is trustworthy and who is not for a short period of time. About Ecxtasy Collection...

The Ten Percent
gold sparkles on a dark background

Introducing The Ten Percent

Perhaps it’s a myth, but it’s compelling regardless, that we only use 10% of our brain. Similarly, for those of us who don’t have a photographic memory or any other supernatural abilities to save us some time, allow us to...

The Immersive Future
Image of the intro to backslide
03.22.2022 | Non-fiction

Backslide: an Immersive Platform For Playwriting

Backslide is a virtual reality experience for playwrights based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its floating GIFs, semi-cryptic text, and witty play with classical and pop culture, invite the player to break linear thought. Backslide is a simulation and stimulation of the...

Uncommon Sense
close up photograph of a bee on a flower

Two Bug Poems

Ways in which I am unlike a bug I do not breed rapidly. At the end of the day, I still haven’t learned to fly: neither truly, nor directly. I have no prehistoric emergency parachute to speak of. Try as...

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image of a cave filled with stalactites
02.28.2022 | Non-fiction

Stalactites

This essay explores seeing and being seen. The essay uses a trip to a water cave to look at my own ability to adapt to a new environment and my inability to fully see the place I was living.

Uncommon Sense

July 26-28

Poems from Planets and Other Circumstances, a manuscript in progress.

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Collection of masks
02.14.2022 | Non-fiction

Opera Intensives: A Three Act Essay

"Opera Intensives: A Three Act Essay" is a braided memoiristic essay that explores my experiences with singing, a failed potential relationship, and critically examining the Western European classical music canon.

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The Jesus Delusion

The tragic event of Miami’s Surfside condo collapse (June 25, 2021) symbolized an ongoing change contested by pundits for years, the sort of tectonic change that can only be properly acknowledged in retrospect, once a critical mass of expert and...

Uncommon Sense

Everything Can’t Be An Essay

Language is the same thing as paint. Sometimes you use it to communicate an easy message, easily. You don’t even need to describe what you’ve done because it’s right there in the picture, in the sentence. And sometimes you must...