JAI STREET
ISSUE 02
LILY RAND
The internet, through its vastness, resists description or catalog. With its never ending production and distribution of clips, shots, bites and graphics, the digital realm offers little in the way of archivation or preservation. It serves our hunger for timeliness and relevance, nowness and newness. Content begets content and so graphics engorge. The digital realm holds its arms wider as it bears an increasingly larger load of the New.
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Lily Jane Rand, a painter splitting her time between Tacoma, WA and Brooklyn, NY, draws on her obsession with history to preserve and archive symbols from the depths of the internet. Digging into dossiers downloaded from alt-right chat groups, or screenshotting live videos from the Citizen App, Rand seeks to portray the ambient violence of living, to imbue internet ephemera with aura, to give soul to the unflinching blue-screen glare of our online existence.
Rand met with me over Zoom from Tacoma Washington, where she was finishing her Bachelor's degree at the University of Puget Sound. Her work eschews Pacific Northwest pastorals for the symbols and markers of another place entirely: The Internet.
I'm so intrigued about your interest in aura, and the way it manifests in your work. There's this essay by Walter Benjamin that I've been really obsessed with over the last few years called The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. It's a critique of the role of art post-industrial revolution, and how the ability to reproduce art through photography and recording changes its meaning. A good but not super nuanced analogy would be the idea that taking a photo of someone steals a little bit of their soul, and when you reproduce a work of art, it loses some of its meaning. So I became really interested in essentially trying to do the opposite, like taking an image, taking a reproduction of not even a work of art, but just like, any old photograph, and trying to give it some sort of aura, trying to really draw out any soul or essence it could have and play with how that gets altered or degraded—or enhanced.
I have a couple of different categories of images that I paint from. I like to do paintings of images my mom sends me and I think that practice is trying to draw on some sort of love or soul that I know exists between us as people. And then I've done a lot of paintings of stills from movies, especially because movies have so much cultural and popular appeal and recognizability. Then my favorite, the kind of reference material I've been really focused on recently, is digital ephemera. I'm very drawn to violent or conspiratorial images or stories. I think that maybe trying to find some soul in them is also an attempt to neutralize their evil.
What specific filmmakers or films do you draw inspiration from? Oh, man. Aesthetically and biography-wise, one of my favorites is Andrei Tarkovsky. There's a lot of horror directors I like. I still love Brian De Palma's movies. There's this director, Michael Haneke. He directed The Piano Teacher, Funny Games, and a bunch of other movies. The movies are perverse and brutal, but also very beautiful. I feel like there’s something about movies in particular that makes me describe them as really brutal, or violent, or evil, but also very beautiful. So I feel like I associate them with really good depictions of fascism. I think a large aspect of fascism is aesthetics, that's just a huge part of its ability to seduce people. Beauty that necessitates violence and evil. I think movies are a really excellent vehicle for depicting that. Have you heard of the movie Salo?
Ha! Yes I’ve heard of it. I think that one is a very classic, all-encompassing example of fascism as a concept, and I think it exemplifies why movies are so suitable to portray it. It's impossible to describe exactly the feeling or experience of watching it. And it's also so confusing, because it’s the most depraved shit you could ever imagine and yet the movie is kind of beautiful. There's a dissonance between the beautiful images in the movie and what is happening. There’s something symbolic and visual that can't quite be captured in words, but as part of a narrative that's being built. And I think that also is like getting back to the idea of aura or visual art. There's this internal dissonance, like when you see something beautiful but you know it's representative of something evil.
You’ve also mentioned practicing in a lineage of history painters… I took this amazing class on Mexican and Mesoamerican art history and like to spend a lot of time thinking about the art that comes out of revolutionary or even post revolutionary countries and nations. I mean, this is very aspirational, but something that is so key to a lot of post-colonial or revolutionary nations or people is developing nationalism, or a national identity. It's surprising how big of a role art plays in that and even sometimes, you could say, propaganda. I say propaganda in a neutral way, just like the production of visuals or symbols or media at large that has a political message to it. And so I think that's the point. I think painting at large can contribute to reconfiguring history or culture and help influence its evolution, and I would love to contribute to that.
How does a historical past influence you to create images so rooted in the digital world? There’s that cliche phrase, what is it… “the victors write the history?” A lot of the history I’m interested in is so horrifying and unjust, it’s pretty brutal and I wonder what was lost through that. With the internet, the way we create or document history has changed. Maybe it’s a little reactionary, but the old ways of recording history were awful and record a very un-nuanced and small portion of history. But I think now the internet enables this degree of censorship. There’s an idea that the internet is forever, but I actually think it’s the opposite. A lot of stuff gets lost. Social media and the internet are undoubtedly bad for us in ways that have been proven, a lot of our world does exist inside it now, and a lot of it gets lost. And unfortunately that’s where a lot of our news and discourse goes on and it can be erased in a way that probably messes with our heads.
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So painting becomes a way to preserve things that could get lost through the internet? Yeah. Right now I think it’s the best way I have to do it. I like how disparate the mediums are. And in an honest and selfish way, it’s just what I’m best at doing. I have a romantic idea of its past. My last few paintings have gotten more austere. It’s partly the restrictions I set for myself through realism. I have a very distinct sense of literalism.
Are you ever tempted to reimagine or rework the digital images when you translate them to the canvas? I have a very neurotic need to stick completely to the photo; I have to recreate it to a T. When I do paintings like that I think there's something really eerie. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction or you just see really fantastical things. So staying true to that, whether people recognize that or not, is important to me and drives that need to be true to the source material. I think in part because I like to think that I'm playing some kind of role in archiving or collecting history and experience, and I guess traditionally it's the duty of people recording those things or archiving them to be true to it. Which gets so complicated because are you really being true to it or is there any way to be? I don't know.
During the Lunar New Year, people gather with their family and stay for long-lasting dinners and Mahjong competitions. One day, we left QiongLai to visit Jiong’s great aunt in the mountains. During lunch, in between conversations in Chinese with her relatives, Jiong chuckled to us: “Everything is organic.” We savored dishes like spicy chicken, pig ear salad, fried fish with chili sauce, boiled vegetable roots, chicken feet, all prepared in large iron woks over a wood fire, drinking gut-burning Chinese liquor poured from a plastic container. The atmosphere of the house and its surroundings were characterized by an eclectic mix of objects spread across the terrain of this traditional Chinese mountain dwelling. This was a place where Jiong spent considerable time as a child. Many farmers' houses in Sichuan have been destroyed since then. Between 2014 and 2020, the Chinese government undertook the staggeringly complex operation of moving 100 millions of its farming citizens from the countryside to rapidly-built towns. This process often resulted in the forced displacement of farmers like Jiong’s family, destroying their homes, or at least partly, as it happened to the house of her father – which sits a four hour walk away perched up in the mountain forest. Even though half of her father’s house is still standing today, Jiong’s father was part of the citizens asked to relocate. “It then becomes easier to control this more secluded part of the population," Jiong assumes.
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This passage to QiongLai offered a glimpse into the reality of the lives of farmers in rural China. Another part of the series focuses on China’s blossoming techno scene which has been solidified in Chengdu by a group of promoters and DJs that have been opening clubs all over the country. The Chengdu’s ”OGs”, as Jiong calls them, are portrayed in the series, offering an image of China’s nightlife far different from the usual scenes of KTV (karaoke) and flashy bars. Among the dynamic nightlife that has made Chengdu beloved by locals and travelers alike stands a community of ravers with whom Jiong grew up when she moved to the city, centered around a techno club called .TAG. Each Lunar New Year, .TAG founder Ellen Hakka organizes an eight day marathon in her club perched atop the 25th floor of a building complex overlooking Chengdu’s skyline. “Friends from all across China gather for this event. Techno, hip hop, ambient, live performances, massages — and a legendary hot pot on the final day — are served to the ravers who usually come from family dinners straight to the club,” Ellen says.
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As Tell was offered to shoot freely within the club, in spite of its no photo policy, we see ravers, international DJs, and Jiong, partying till dawn. “One evening, one of the ravers at .TAG asked what I thought of China. As I was - and am still - discovering this complex country, I candidly replied ‘love it’. But societal pressure is hard on Chinese citizens, he explained, especially for ravers and queer people, namely, the crowd at .TAG. Threats of closure are constant as the police can raid down clubs and bars at any time, most of the time looking for drugs.”
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China’s recent economic boom has been carried out by intense work, known as the ‘996’: working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week. However, in recent years, sociologists and China experts are witnessing how the generation that followed the 90s economic boom seem to be less keen on partaking in this model of life. Movements like the Tang Ping on social media – the act of taking a picture of someone lying on the floor as a way to reject the societal pressures to overwork and overachieve – show a rebellious side of the Chinese youth. The club culture, as it exists in Chengdu, revolves around a longing for freedom and the choice of designing one’s life outside of the government’s expectations. “This community of friends around Jiong essentially witnessed and fostered the emergence of the techno scene there,” Tell recounts. “In a way, they offer very different images of what China is known for, or pictured as in Western minds.”
Retracing the life of subjects like his friends or own family has been a study that Julien Tell has been practicing throughout the years. The photographer grew up in Oakland, raised by his Japanese mother and around a community of second-generation immigrant kids like himself. “Somehow, looking at Jiong’s community back home and seeing their tight-knit friendship evoked memories of my own experience growing up in California. I have always been interested in the stories of people who migrated from a country to another, and the relationship one has with their home country.”
Julien's upbringing in Oakland took place in a city standing in stark contrast to the ever-expanding, increasingly dystopian tech haven of San Francisco. His first time handling a camera was during his high-school years, capturing times with his childhood friends. "I started by documenting everything. From moments at school to parties at friends' places to the lives of our parents. I wanted to take an image of everything. Despite the differences in our parents’ lifestyles, sharing this connection with my friends made me understand my own heritage as a second-generation immigrant.”
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In this era, dominated by Facebook circa the 2010s, wielding a camera and sharing images on social media bestowed upon him a certain hype among classmates. Following high school, he went to Napa for a residency program for young artists, which ultimately led him to New York University. “I guess my first serious project was at the end of my final year at NYU. It was a project that focused on the journey of my mother, where we would see her in the places of her routine in the Japan she left, and in America where she resides. It depicted the limbo state that somehow defined the life of my mother in the US following her migration from Japan, where the cultural pressure of her rural town and family were too heavy on her.” This series, 家,ホーム, HOME, shows his mother in the two countries where she had lived, and presented through a highly sensitive lens the odd similarities that one individual experiences from a country to another, although in diametrically opposite places in the world.
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Today, Julien Tell works in Berlin where he relocated from New York in 2018. Since his move, Tell has been working for various clients in Europe - fashion brands and artists commissioning him for portraits. His recent work focuses on the portrayal of the Asian global diaspora residing in Berlin. In it, the photographer gravitates towards communities of artists and producers like Why Be, Lawrence Lee, Nene H, D.Dan and Cora. “What inspires me most is seeing different types of Asian people thriving in their lives and respective industries. Berlin is home to many musicians and artists, and in the city you get to meet a diverse community of talents coming from all parts of the world. I mostly come from a documentary-style approach to photography so I like to portray people in a real and delicate manner, without an overload of effects that I can find sometimes superfluous in contemporary photography.” Julien waits for the moment to happen without triggering it, documenting everything from the casual to the spectacular. ​​
