UNTIL THE SKY FALLS DOWN ON ME

Until The Sky Falls Down on Me is a computationally generated video and text-based work. Using Bas Jan Ader’s 1971 film I’m Too Sad To Tell You as a starting point, I used a machine learning software to create a video “deepfake”. Over the course of several videos, my likeness gradually replaces that of the artist.

The videos abstractly document the process of creating the work and the interstitial text provides historical context and frames the digital merging of myself and the artist.

1971:

Somewhere in southern California, Dutch expat and artist and Bas Jan Ader cries [on camera]. This document of [performed] pain will enter the archive as a recording on consumer-grade celluloid.

1975:

Bas Jan Ader disappears without a trace while attempting to sail a 13-foot boat across the North Atlantic, solo. He is last seen rounding the horizon sometime on July 9, 1975.

excerpt from Bas Jan Ader's "I'm Too Sad To Tell You"

2020:

It is winter in Seattle.

The rain and the virus keep me inside.

I barely move anymore.

I barely feel as though I feel.

I watch I’m Too Sad To Tell You over and over and over, impassive.

The contours of the Dutchman’s [performed] grieving fascinate me.

I’ve been here watching for so long that my laptop knows my face.

aligned, debugged

Imagine what it would be like cry like that.

To sob.

To weep.

To bawl.

To keen.

(And after)

To feel productively emptied.

mistakes happen

forty-thousand iterations/forty-thousand potential ghosts

Two networks shape my mask to his grieving.

Every iteration makes a grotesque twisting of my face more plausible.

With every iteration, my catharsis becomes more convincing.

Even as he becomes more redundant.

a variety of masks

What would it feel like to fill the ocean with tears, only to be swallowed by it?

Did his eyes burn from the salt as he performed for the camera back in 1971?

Did they burn again [and for the last time] in ‘75?

Lachrymation, then oblivion.

1970s sunshine.