Digital Dark Age

My social media was hacked and deleted.

I always imagined it would happen. But I had no idea it would be so soon, or in a way that was so isolated to me.

It was the strangest feeling to wake up and find my Facebook and Instagram profiles just gone. Deleted. I had been hacked… or reviewed and deemed to be operating “against community guidelines.” I know my values are pretty far left, but I’m not a radical on the internet by any means. It’s more likely I was hacked, but nonetheless, I accept my fate in truly never knowing the why.

It happened in an instant, and against my personal digital agency. Wiped, no appeal granted. Connections cut in one fell swoop. I realize now it wasn’t all doom-scrolling, news feeds, and stupid memes. It was a collection of people and connectionsI had met and followed for years of my life, how I tell my friends on a daily basis that I love them through stupid ingenious memes. There was this massive file running all the time, collecting data and reminding and updating me about people I know and love—or once loved. An algorithm, carefully built. A thing, a place… an entity I interacted with a lot.

Now, I can feel it when I reach for something that is no longer there.

I will admit to having a true moment of, “Do I even exist?”

Hanging out with a group of friends last night, we got into a conversation about how this age we are living in is—and will be—a historical blackout through the lens of analog archive. Everything is digital now. There is, and will be, a drastic decrease in printed photographs, handwritten letters, journals, first-hand accounts of what it’s like to live day-to-day in these times. Inevitably, like the floppy disk, VHS, and CD, our technology will advance beyond the methods we use today. Everything—even this that you are reading right now—will become inaccessible. Likely, sooner than later.

This is a striking truth. As someone whose life’s work is stored on a hard drive—a diligent, devoted archive of 20 years, every person I have ever photographed—it all could be lost in an instant. And it will ultimately become obsolete unless I bring it into physical form. I do have plans for a book, but that takes money and resources that are beyond me… at this moment.

As a dancer, living in the ephemeral is no new concept. In fact, I light up in spaces that are impossible to translate beyond that living moment. My choreographic work caters to living on only in human recollection and in the body’s felt sense—a constant counterpoint to my photographic practice and web development as a way to make a living.

I feel now that it is all truly fleeting—not that my ongoing existential dismay needed any more fuel to the fire. It can all be gone in an instant. And when it is, it requires some real neural repatterning. Like quitting smoking, but if all cigarettes just evaporated off the planet.

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Marketing in a personal Digital Black Out

This is now my main channel of communication. I promise not to spam you. In the case that you do not want to hear from me—potentially more frequently, I offer the reminder —you can always lovingly unsubscribe.

Websites

My business is developing. I love the work of building websites. I have some work samples and recent sites up on my website now so you can get a sense of what I build. If you know someone who has been complaining about needing a website, send them to me.

Photography

Digital to Analog. With an invigorated desire to contribute to the documentation of life in the times we are living, my books are open for portrait sessions and prints. I want to make the photographs you look back on. True life documentation. I want to do this for individuals, families, artists, etc.

It is worth the investment to document important and mundane moments in this life in a tangible way.

If you want help in bringing some of your current iphone archive into the physical form this is also something I can help you with.

My books are open.