Charls Nixon

This project initially started as an experiment with Facebook in which I asked the question “can I be friends with everyone?”. I quickly found that 5000 was the limit, then determined that I needed to curate the friends list. Given the increasingly political nature of social media during the span of the project, this internet identity, Charls Nixon, represented a variety of different viewpoints which often contradicted each other. This came to fruition in my graduation artwork, an installation room embodying the 4 political viewpoints which had emerged at the time, Populist left, right and Establishment Left and right.

Entrance

The formation of the ideas behind the political viewpoints of Charls Nixon were merely reflections of the diverse community of 5000 people and their reactions. The algorithm probably limited my newsfeed to the reactions of 1000 of these friends as possibilities, but this served as a large enough base to gain a variety of perspectives.  Additionally with the “news” feature, articles were being pushed with varying agendas. It felt clear that the consensus of my friends were supporters of Bernie Sanders and typically eschewed many of his values. This is why upon entrance, the portrait of Bernie Sanders was done in a kind of untrained style, with warnings about the cameras and a print out of a post calling Facebook a dead medium. Issues of privacy from the NSA revelations were still fresh, as well as the ideas behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Forward

Upon entering the exhibition we got, who we really were. The portrait of Trump depicted in a way which was honest. The hyper realism of a photographic copy is one way to think of honesty in our age, but merely we find this to be a beautified version of ourselves. The paint takes on the properties of skin, espousing a kind of dishonesty. Although one might speak of Trump as a kind of person who spits this kind of beautification of a lie, the viewers, or at least the attendees of the exhibition were quite unlikely to buy into such fallacies. I find this to be the unpopular truth to deal with, that the viewers always think they’re smarter than the object, that they are not the same as that which they deem despicable.Thus, in the time I found although we might want this man who we though would serve the greater good, who eschewed the favorable characteristics that we want to espouse to the world, someone who was okay to like, that your friends could say, you’re a good person for liking this guy, this candidate, this Bernie Sanders. The reality is that we were not offered four candidate saviors, but four horsemen of the apocalypse. In an internal way the piece dealt with hubris. This is certainly found in abundance among artists, people who value something they touch as worthy for others to admire. As though making art were serving a social good, or preventing a social ill. Social media personalities are often operating in the exact same mindset, that they are a poet, with words of such value.

Right

The formation of the faceless conglomerate, those mysterious people with assorted business interests which all convene. These are the witches of modern society, to be hunted by the current populous.  At their call they have these masses of willing supporters who hold on to a kind of tradition, in their own American dream. These groups are resistant to change, and revile in nostalgia and patriotism. The ways their own brains work is a thing of mystery and even paranoia. No less than their left counterparts do they consume mind altering substances, just more often with a doctor’s recommendation.In this sense are many of these people truly evil? I would like to believe that they are not. The concerns they have are also not being met, their arguments are equally valid to them, and their priorities lie in their own survival.

Left

Who then, should we force ourselves to be? Embattled and confronting our own past wrongs, all those times we crossed the line, to those moral superiors? Certainly that is a path to righteousness, within your own head perhaps, and by those friends and others who believe you. For those people who have to work with you, and say, “well we all make mistakes”. Those repeated words which moral justifications seem to make the only thing to say, I am deeply and regrettably sorry for insert action here.

Exit

The exhibition was held in April of 2016 at a kind of intermediate point in time. The primaries were still divided between insider and outside politicians and the American people had a certain degree of uncertainty. The space served as a kind of divinatory prediction upon my thoughts of the outcome. There is a sort of abstract and nondescript logic to the process which could be felt by the viewer. Regardless of their opinions, I felt that this was a kind of indisputable outcome, that voicing ones opinions on Facebook would not actively have an outcome on the election. Some of the links featured on my page would later be deemed "Russian Propaganda", but they were framed in such a way and provided to an audience who was largely opposed their insinuations. The powers in play would do what they would with or without our vocal opposition. The mixture of artworks, Facebook posts and exposed electrical and ethernet input created a sort of crystalizing moment of offline reflection on the online presence. The room itself also became hot after prolonged exposure to the lights and multiple inside with a partially blocked entrance. In leaving, I felt that the viewer would probably not change their minds about, my persona or their political stance. Although everyone is their own judge, there is no power behind their gavel.