Planet is the Pod

When this series started, I wanted it to be about a combination of virtual reality pixels and intelligent alien octopuses. The aliens would land in the ocean off the coast of Jamaica. During storms they would come on shore, wrap their tentacles around people’s heads to completely cover their eyes. Then they would communicate using an organic pixel display built into their skin by millions of years of evlolution.

The process did not allow that story to remain as the focus of the work. It is a process that requires dropping ink on an alcohol soaked page and separating it using a grid. I came to realize that the amount of alcohol, the amount of time I left it alone, the amount of pressure, so many variables, affected the outcome.

 I began thinking of each section as a pod. I was making art during the pandemic, and spending a bunch of time doing anything brought about that line of thinking eventually. It seemed both futile yet necessary to separate everything into clean, clear boxes. Sometimes it worked, but often the different pods became inseparable despite their undeniable existence.

I imagined roommates having coworkers, coworkers having families and families going shopping. I settled into the thought that the planet is the pod