On Satisfaction

Hi, I hope your weeks and days have been full of rich thoughts and curious observations.

No pictures, just words for this piece.

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I grew up with a bedroom full of posters.

Cutouts from magazines covering every wall. I was always comparing. Always reaching for another version of something I craved. Something I might afford one day.

I rearranged that room constantly. Changed the posters around, I even made a bed head out of a sheet of MDF wood, and varnished a whole collage of images to it. It was my version of rolling everything in glitter, as the saying goes. As a household, we didn’t have much, but we were full of life. And I had this—my walls, my taste, my curation. It let me be expressive. Find what I liked.

It felt freeing.

The internet now. Particularly Instagram. The algorithmic version of it. It’s not enough for me. Maybe I’m holding onto a utopian idea of what the internet was. Early Tumblr. Flickr. Blogs. When it felt more like my bedroom wall. When you could stumble into someone’s world and it looked nothing like yours.

I crave exhibitions. Books. Printed material. These have always been part of my life. The fabric of my creativity. But now, more than ever, they feel potent. Important. A website could be that. Substack, potentially? Barely.

I hate uniformity. Everyone having the same looking things. The same grid. I hated my school uniform too. I pushed the boundaries of what I could wear.

What am I saying?

I’m dissatisfied. I look at what I share online like putting posters up on a wall. A bedroom come gallery space. But now it’s a house of mirrors. My curation reflected back at me a thousand times. Flattened. Homogenous. The same walls everyone else has.

So what’s next?

I’m learning to walk in another direction. Changing how I use these platforms. The ratios. The purpose. Tool-like, not world-like. Not places to explore and consume endlessly.

I’m reclaiming my relationship with the internet and with art. If I don’t, I’ll drift into passivity. Just floating. What made sharing my work publicly and online, as an artist—was and is always my nuances. The particularities. The specificity of how I see things. But right now, I don’t have a choice. AI and algorithms are everywhere. Every platform. Permeating everything. My nuances commandeered for quick gain. Simulations of simulations. Hyper reality that arrived thick and fast.

Being an artist—commercial or not—has always meant working with intent. With purpose. Full expression. Not just the loud kind. Whatever makes sense to you.

Like rearranging your bedroom at on a Saturday morning.

Like putting up posters on your wall.

Do you feel it too?

Thank you for reading.

BC

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