DM

Pomona is a short story about a couple finds themselves in a strange cooler situation. It's the accidental gift that won't stop giving.

A fun (unrelated) fact: there are thousands of Yeti coolers floating in the ocean.

This story was published in The Paris Review in March 2022.

Excerpt

We found it on Craigslist. Squat and cylindrical with portholes circling beneath a steel dome, misleading us to believe a wide-eyed alien might pop its darling head out any minute. It sat proudly in the center of the driveway of Adam77’s two-story stucco house in Bay Ridge. Its orange paint had rusted to mustard. Adam77 had taken care to mention this in their emails to us, along with strict pick-up instructions. We approached it cautiously, the sunlight cutting our charred feet into oblique shapes. Cracks around the edges revealed an aluminum base. A relic of some other universe, it promised to “keep everything cold and fresh for months!!!”

36 Days On Stage is a series of 2D/3D posters. Within them are details of fictional plays and events, each poster centered around a letter and its corresponding story devoid of that letter. This was a part of 36 Days of Type 2023.

Technology & Tools: Cinema4D, After Effects, Illustrator
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Sample Tiles

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The Semiotics of a Movement: A Visual Exploration of Reproductive Rights is a series of articles on the political branding of the anti-abortion and abortion rights movement.

Excerpt

I have a folder on my computer named Fetal Imagery. Never in my life did I think I would write those words, but with the help of technology and a few ambitious photographers, I don’t have to cut open a body to find out what the beginning of humankind might look like. That’s not to say the familiar visual of a floating fetus only arrived with improvements in imaging technology. Such depictions have been around since stories of Buddha in Tibetan verses and [something]. But unlike the photographs we see today, the older renditions were products of the imagination. They were symbolic in nature, conjuring something more mythical than the cold, hard and ostensibly representative image from an ultrasound. A photograph contains the illusion of reality.  

Intangible Cultural Heritage is a website archiving items from UNESCO's list of endangered intangible cultural heritage elements since 2008. Borrowing from Derrida's Archive Fever, it questions whether it's possible to archive "culture" and the knotty questions around what we choose to save versus discard as the designated online archiver. Try to save culture to bag with the click of a button. Scroll through baguettes, ancient scripting, and ask yourself: is something better than nothing?

Tools: Python, HTML/CSS/JS, Glitch

Sample Views

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Topics in Media Art: Visual Vocabulary is an NYU undergraduate-level Interactive Media Arts course I teach along with motion designer and illustrator Shira Seri Levi. Part-theory part-practice, it surveys visuals and texts in different fields. It takes students from ideation to execution with a strong bias toward placing one's work in context.

Course Description and Sample Assignments

Once representing well-being in ancient Egypt, the eye now calls to mind surveillance and big tech. How do visual symbols evolve overtime? The coat hanger serves as a reminder of a time when women were compelled to seek out illegal abortions. Is it still effective, despite the reality that pills are used today? Should symbols reflect reality? How do we choose effective metaphors?

This class combines theory and practice. We will examine the visual lexicon of media – its importance, motifs, constructions, and disparate meanings – and invite students to reimagine (or re-image) social and political issues, given the ethical considerations that surround it. This will provide a deeper understanding of how their work will continue to live on in the world.

Read: Excavating AI, The Secret Lives of Color, Chromophobia, Funny Face, Challenging the Literal
View: Counternarratives (Alexandra Bell), Feels Good Man, Alissa Ekhart, Text-to-Image, Emoji Exhibition
Practice‍

Oozing Out of Office: The Surrealist Aesthetics of Slow Burn Rebellion is an article on film & tv goo.

This article was commissioned by and published in The Dirt. It was inspired by everyone's favorite Severance character, Irving.


Excerpt

Yes, Pastor is a short story about a weekend wedding trip to South Carolina gone awry.

This story was published in BOMB Magazine in April 2023.

Excerpt

The face of an English Bulldog and caramel syrup dribbling down a stubby white chin was the last memory I had of Ben Crawford. He’d just spilled a popsicle all over my new parka. You little shit,I muttered and stormed off on my tricycle with my righteous tapered chin in the air.
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The little shit was getting hitched.
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“Someone named Marla Marbles,” I said into the phone, reading the invitation.

“Sounds made-up,” Alia replied. Her raspy voice filtered through in pieces as she moved to her balcony, the only place in her rental where she got decent signal. If I had to guess, she was wearing one of her two outfits: the black dress or the black vest. Hair tossed into thin strands of bleached firecrackers; long limbs pressed against the wrought-iron railing.

“Marbles is real. There’s a photo.” On the back of the invitation, two overjoyed faces peered at each other, as if in awe of the other’s existence. One of them was Ben: still stubby, but in a handsome gruff sort of way. He’d grown into himself, a phrase I now understood. The smiles were forced.

“Maybe you like thinking that.”

“I just don’t like lies,” I said, bringing the picture closer for a second round of scrutiny. “Ben Crawford’s still a little shit.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Listen to this: wild roses and champagne are our love language. Find us underneath the stars at midnight.”

“Don’t be bitter, Fran.”

“Alia, will you join me under the stars at midnight?”

“Only if you bring me wild roses.” At this, she laughed, interrupted by a hawker outside, with whom she started haggling over lychees in her broken Urdu and left the phone.  

al*chemy is your answer to wellness. An all-in-one formula so you never have to look elsewhere again.

Tools: Cinema4D, After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Photogrammetry


Branding

Adjacent: The Online Journal of Emerging Media is a journal published by ITP/IMA at NYU. I was Managing Editor ('21-'22) and Resident Advisor ('22-'23). Prior to these roles, I was an editor at the journal.

Sample Issues & Zines

Aesopica is a 3D virtual and physical installation of black comedy bedtime stories "for grownups", inspired by Alexander Calder's mobiles, Aesop Fables, and adulthood.

Tools: Cinema4D, Unreal Engine, 3D Printing, Fabrication

Sample Images

Simran Is Idle is a movement-based multi-media experience.

Tools: Daz3D, Cinema4D, Stable Diffusion, Unreal Engine, After Effects, iPhone, My Very Human Imagination

Sample Tiles