Year Seven (Belated)

November 15th marked this blogs’ 7th Anniversary.

Truth told: I completely forgot about it because I spent most of the 15th in airports and on planes.

I didn’t remember yesterday because I’m coming off two 90 hour weeks in a row and my brain has been thoroughly ransacked by exhaustion that is as abject as it is completely enfolding.

The following week should only be 24 hours of work. I’ve got a fair bit of homework but the hope is to put together a minimum of 3 posts a day so that I have a small buffer going into finals for my first semester of grad school. (At this point I have straight As for the first time in my life but I have one more major project that keeps imploding that I have to resolve double quick if I want to keep things that way.)

But enough about me: thanks to all my followers. I realize a large portion of y’all are porn bots but it does my heart good when I see folks following that self-identify as “queer feminists”. I’d to this project whether anyone followed or not; but the fact that folks do show up does make it a lot more fun.

Thanks so much for your support and be well,

-e

Year Six

I started this blog on November 15, 2012.

The “why?” of it was simple: I was spending approximately five hours a week perusing a handful of Tumblrs. The way it seemed to me was if I was going to be on here anyway, I might as well figure out how to be an active participant in the community.

I’ve never been fond of the ontology of self-definition as substitute for self-knowing that social media tends to preference, i.e. what I post reflects my personal aesthetic which in a digital, curated space indicates something about me as a person–sort of like how you can tell certain things about people you’ve never met by walking through their house. (Or, in terms of tl:dr–self-definition is like trying to bite your own teeth.)

I wasn’t making any sort of work at that time. Thus, it wasn’t like I could just unload a bunch of my creative efforts on Tumblr. Further, I was suffering from the most intense bout of writer’s block I’ve ever had. Starting a Tumblr felt like a way that I could kill two stones with one bird. But what would it be about? It seemed obvious–the age old cliche about writing about what you know. So I began reblogging work I found on Tumblr that I liked and forcing myself to explain why I liked it.

Six years later: I’m still struggling with the same writer’s block. It may be difficult to believe–given that for the last 3 years, I’ve averaged a post a day–but writing is a challenge for me. It’s one thing to yammer on and on about why I like something, or more often why I dislike something. But fiction and poetry remain obstructed channels for me. I’m not sure how to remedy that. (In fairness, it does–knock on wood–seem to be improving by minute increments over extended periods of time.)

Had someone told me that six years later, I’d have several thousands followers and several true blue friends I became acquainted with as a direct result of this project–I would have called you a liar.

But here I am–facing down the start of a sixth year.

As for what that sixth year entails?–I honestly have no goddamn clue.

I’ve wanted to push this project in new directions for several years. Last year, I vowed to bring on a guest curator every other month. Unfortunately, between me being very picky and insistent about preference femme and queer folks and the fact that literally no one seems to return messages any more… that didn’t happen.

I also had the idea of making a series of videos focused on the process of artists who I consider to be vital, emerging talents. Again, I reached out to four different folks last year–not a single response.

Additionally, I would like to start asking artists for permission to feature their work. I’ve wanted to do this for ages. It is–straight up–not something which is feasible given the current shape of thing, sadly.

The truth is: the work that goes into the average post-a-day pace equates to a minimum of 25 hours of work each week. (This year I’ve been averaging 32 hours a week–which means I have, effectively, 2 full-time jobs.) This. Is. Not. Sustainable. Long. Term.

I’ll never make this a paid endeavor. To do so would be enormously unethical. At the same time, if you do get something out of what I do here, it’s a boon when folks support this project via Patreon.

The next year is going to be crazy for me. I’m facing a big move–and a lot of uncertainty with my employment as a result of that move. I’m applying to several MFA programs, also.

Perhaps it’s naive but I had hoped that at a certain point this project could get to a point where I use it to supplement my income so that I can dedicate more time to this as well as more personal and creative endeavors.

I don’t to make promises I’m not sure that I can actually keep but in the next year, if things don’t shift in the next three months–there is going to have to be a decrease in the number of posts. Hopefully, that will mean fewer posts but the posts that appear will include more rigorous analysis and commentary.

I have actually begun work on that Hans Bellmer/Ana Mendieta joint retrospective I’ve mentioned a few times. The notion being that I will feature that for 15 to 20 posts sometime in the spring. (It may take longer–all the extant scholarly work on Bellmer is so imbued with Freudian horseshit, that it’s proving to be more of a slog than I anticipated. Further, the scholarship on Mendieta is unbelievably lacking.)

I’m also putting together a curriculum for an online seminar on photographic praxis with an emphasis on photography in an art historical context.

Anyway, thank you so much for following. Seriously. I’d be screaming in the wilderness, either way. But it’s really nice to know that this seems to matter to folks.

Be well,

-e

Year: Four

Acetylene Eyes began on November 15th, 2012.

The initial motivation was one part I-already-spend-several-hours-a-week-browsing-Tumblr-so-why-the-hell-not-participate mixed with two parts each generalized existential frustration and creative stagnation.

There’s no way I could have imagined all the ways things would shift, morph and evolve over time; but, I’m reasonably proud of what I’ve bumblingly stumbled onto here. It’s a fucking metric shit ton of work to but it’s generally gratifying.

The past year featured 351 posts–five shy of a post a day. Granted, my schedule being what it is I primarily post on weekends. Going forward, my hope is to be able to reinstate a queue.

Also, I would really like to follow more blogs but at present I spend approximately two hours a day just keeping up with my dash. This has hampered my ability to branch out as I’d like to keep showcasing images that aren’t already in circulation among my follower base.

There are two ways to potentially rectify this: if we’re mutuals and you know a great blog, definitely pass it along. Also, I started a Patreon–if you like Acetylene Eyes, please consider supporting this project.

Lastly, I would like to thank several mutuals who have encouraged me, provided exceptionally well-curated/accurately sourced material on their blogs and who have advocated for me to the broader Tumblr-verse. I’m thinking specifically of @wyyoh, @sporeprint, @mrchill, @tanyadakin, @thebodyasconduit, @lisakimberly, @marissalynnla, @reverendbobbyanger and @msjanssen.

Year: Two

Acetylene Eyes was born a year ago today.

To begin, I want to thank my followers. I’d be doing this even without you, but it is far more rewarding with you here: thank you.

Motivations & Hindsight

When asked why they do what they do Godspeed You! Black Emperor gave the following explanation:

“We play for the kids in the front row because we used to be the kids in the front row.”

This sentiment eviscerates all the pretense, all the art for arts sake bullshit & fixes the whole strum und drang to a noble, perhaps naive economy of gratitude: the overwhelming desire to give back some of the beauty that’s sustained you through the shit & piss & horror, horror, horror.

It’s the self-same sentiment that inspired Acetylene Eyes. Well, that and the fact that from a very early age I’ve been both exceedingly visual & insatiably curious about sexuality making a collision with explicit imagery inevitable.

My first encounter with porn was exquisite. & if it hadn’t been so unique, I probably would’ve washed my hands of the whole thing.

But you play it as it lays. It was already under my skin. I’d seek out explicit images hoping they might hold some of the same light as those illicit Polaroids. Without fail I’d find myself reduced to a warm, wet quivering mess by the staggeringly beautiful sexual capacity of the body while at the same time feeling repulsed by what I can only think to call a lack of appropriate reverence for the proceedings. I’d cover my eyes with my hands but no matter how much I wanted not to look or how much what I had already seen made me feel alienated from my body, I always peaked out from between my fingers.

For both good & ill this desire to look in spite of the consequences has played arguably the biggest role in defining who I am today.

A year ago, I was beginning my yearly descent into the hell of seasonal depression. Creatively, I was stagnant: I hadn’t made a photograph in months & my case writer’s block felt terminal.

After four hours of staring at a blank Word document, I’d end up trawling the internet. Despite not having an account, I unofficially followed a half-dozen Tumblr sex blogs.

What I saw surprised me.

Not all the images, not even most, but some of the smut put me off less.

I really didn’t set out with any misplaced vanity that I could do the whole sex blog thing better; I merely knew I could do it different.

For example: I had zero interest in perpetuating another carefully curated record of consumption in an effort to ‘self-define’ by projecting preference and taste. (Read: fuck if I was gonna be another lame-ass mass re-blogger.)

The second thing was the realization that I had fuck all to offer in the way of original content. After all participation is not equal to contribution. & I wanted to make something, to give back. Not just to the blogs that gave me glimpses of what I had been waiting for but although I didn’t see it at the time, it presented a way to give something back, if not to my actual fourteen year-old self, then to some other confused, very alone fourteen year-old. (Note: if you are not 18+, you can’t legally view this blog. & yes, only saying that to cover my ass. No, I won’t know if you are looking anyway.)

But as someone much wiser than me once advised me: the great end in life is not having your questions answered, it’s learning to ask better questions.

Moving Forward

I’d love to be able to promise a post a day in year two. Honestly, it’s not that easy. As terse and still unfocused as some of my writing is, it sometimes takes me six hours to put together 250 words of commentary. Words are slippery stubborn things & there almost always exists a vast rift between what I want to convey and what I manage.

That said, my goal is 250 posts this year.

Toward this end, I am hoping to have at least six (6) guest curators. (Year One’s only guest curator, azura09, did a wonderful job. Plus, guests curation encourages a plurality of perspectives–something I feel to be of vital importance.)

There are several other things I have in the works. But they aren’t quite solid enough to share yet & I’d rather not jinx them.

Lastly, with a few notable exceptions, I have kept this project a secret from my friends. I’ll be outing myself today. I’ll likely lose a few people. But if they are offended by this, they weren’t really doing me much good were they?

Stats

At present, I follow 60 blogs. To put that in practical terms, I scan an average of 600 images almost every morning. Weekends: it’s closer to 1000.

A fair ballpark estimate would be that I’ve scanned 200,000 something images over the last year.

Of those 200,000 images, I’ve marked 1350 ‘likes’, or: 6.75% of all the images I scanned this year.

Content is culled from liked posts. As it stands–just shy of 200 posts to date (roughly a post every day-and-a-half)–15% of likes become posts.

Thus, approximately 0.1% of the total images scanned this year became posts. (In reality, it’s probably closer to 0.05% once you figure in text posts and original content.)