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Servers
Server.
You walk through the threshold. Confused, overwhelmed. You are confronted. Many senses are bombarded all at once there’s no one thing to fixate on. The space begins to consume you within seconds of entering. You don’t know whether to look up or down, whether to listen or to watch. Kendrick Lamar echoes through space.
“...Tell me somethin'
You mothafuckas can't tell me nothin'
I'd rather die than to listen to you
My DNA not for imitation ...”
Server serves as a space where identity, culture, and self-actualization can occupy a current can occupy a current sliver of time, all at once. Server, exists as an origin story that encompasses a visual bibliography to my art practice. Server is a mixed media installation that incorporates, collage, photographs, audio, moving image, objects, and relics. When brought together, the installation becomes a life-sized view of this bibliography in the real, and not hosted in virtual.
From objects to relics to images to audio to video I have collected most of materials throughout my lifetime, and they exist in my immediate surroundings. The process of gathering imagery starts from an inventory of data collection that I have been accumulating over the last twelve years via the internet. I have been saving most of these images from Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. With these images, I created thirteen posters that were a tiny sample of the data I was collecting. The audio manifested itself from a youtube visual playlist that I started compiling over the last few years. The specific mixtapes were created through a collaboration with a local DJ. The video playing on loop is a recording of me scrolling through the last year of my Tumblr feed for twenty- six mins showing how this data exists in the interwebs.
“Nothing without intention, do nothing without intention…” Specific decisions were made about what I wanted to allow to happen in that space. Server, needed to just exist, and it needed to be a whole damn room. With the installation being a full room, I choose to stage myself, others, and objects in this space to inform the viewer of my visual bibliography. Server is a roadmap to understanding the vital influences in my practice.
Sever : A Streamed Revolution
Nasher Sculpture Center
Dallas,TX
July 31 – August 11, 2020
“Over the last few months, I have been accumulating items from all over the internet to make an edition of Server that reflected what was going on in my world today—from the dire stress of being black in a pandemic, to the current revolution of Black people in America today. Since early March I have been hoarding digital information from these two events. They are the two things that are directly affecting my day to day life.”
Server 3.0
Ro2 Gallery
Dallas, TX
DEC 12 - JAN 30, 2021
Server 3.0 serves as a space where identity, culture, and self-actualization can occupy a current sliver of time, all at once. Server exists as an origin story that encompasses a visual bibliography to my art practice. Server is a mixed media installation that incorporates: collage, photographs, audio, moving image, objects, and relics. When brought together, the installation becomes a life-sized view of this bibliography in the real, a space not hosted virtually but physically.
My inspiration for Server is the need to save and archive data that embodies Black culture. I have always been a hoarder; a miner for Black images. Over time and through my studies I realized that there were few people curating and cataloging these images and films in general. Most of the people who did just had it saved locally on their desktop or on a hosted site that was made for blogging or mass sharing of images. It was very important for me to take this data out and physically ‘like’ and share these images by plastering them all over in an installation. The process of gathering imagery starts from an assortment of archive data that I have been accumulating over the last decade. The images have been saved from Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. With these images, I create various sized posters and prints as a sample of the data I have collected. The audio manifests itself from a youtube visual playlist that I have been compiling over the last few years. The video is also an integral part of the installation. The video mimics the rhythm of scrolling through one's feed, showing how this data exists in the interwebs.
Server : Love Ta Love Ta, Love Ya
The Mac, Dallas, TX
OCT 2021 - JAN 2022
Server: Love Ta, Love Ta LoveYa
...Run back the tape in the VCR…
1997. Miami. MTV. Gold Earrings. The Park. Music. Images.
My brain records images and moments. I play them back. I save them. I recreate them. I am them. I have been saving data my entire life and I wasn’t even noticing.
Now obsessed with recorded moments, I invoke the ones I
cherish most.
Everything has existed before, I just chose to display its beauty. Server: Love Ta, Love Ta Love Ya, references a single from 1997 Luv 2 luv U by Timbland. I love these things, the relics, the memories, the prayers. I run them back, replay the moments. They are the moments that have shaped me. Embedded in my DNA, these are the things that make me me. Server: Love Ta, Love Ta LoveYa, a solo exhibition, gives spaces for all these moments to breathe.
Server serves as a space where identity, culture, and self-actualization can occupy a current sliver of time, all at once. Server, exists as an origin story that encompasses a visual bibliography to my art practice. Server is a mixed media installation that incorporates collage, photographs, audio, moving image, objects, and relics.When brought together, the installation becomes a life-sized view of this bibliography in the real, a physical space and not hosted in virtual.
Server : Checks on The Block
New Stories: New Futures
Pioneer Tower
Ft worth TX,
August 20–21 2021
Server: Checks on the Block
A fresh pair of all whites. FOB’s. So fresh and So clean clean, You can lick the bottom.
Nike Air force 1’s are a cultural symbol. The look and the image has been appropriated over the last few decades. There is a nostalgia that happens when it’s late April and you pick up the season's first pair of all whites, summer is near and you need to be fresh. Nike Air Force 1’s have held weight in what happens in Black culture. Iconography that symbolizes community and unspoken bonds.
Server: Checks on the Block, takes a deep dive look at where Nike Air Force 1’s exist in present day culture. The replica wall of all white boxes and piles of used, worn, dirty, and fresh pairs of Forces provide a space for a celebration of culture to happen. Server: Checks on the Block, takes up space and is a visual bibliography of the impact of Blackness in the world of art and streetwear.