Summer 2023

Zoetrope: All-Story’s incorporation of part of my image archive has resulted in an array of cyborgian-themed metaphors that capture individual identity through surveillance technologies.

When inverted, multiplied, or reframed, these same images (or algorithms) have produced unanticipated, nuanced, and occasionally humorous results.

Many of the new images would not have been possible without the opportunity to design . . .

1950
One night in late summer, two of Lucy’s brothers take her to the park to show her what men and women do together. Their cousin comes, too. Lucy is eight and has never before been invited to leave the house with her brothers after dark. She’s frightened, but that’s not unusual; she’s often frightened. The park is brighter than she expected it to be, perhaps because the moon is almost full. The boys, who are all older—brothers Peter and Danny, cousin Colin—lead her to the . . .

Awapuni Camp, Palmerston N
21 August 1914

My dearest—

Seven a.m., and a quarter of an hour to myself. We have been completing the equipment and organization of the Regiment, and the Brigadier has remarked that the boys are improving astonishingly. Some at initial muster looked as though they’d first donned a uniform that morning: leggings awry, . . .

I.
It comes down to production delays. Say you start filming and your lead actor falls in love with an American woman. Now he’s an enemy of the people; your footage goes kaput. Maybe you replace the lead, reshoot the scenes, but then the censorship committee questions the script, and the film is archived for years. Meanwhile, stagnation becomes thaw, thaw becomes perestroika, love runs its course, and one day your former lead is no longer married to the American, therefore no longer an . . .

Chung is the owner and head chef of Happy Dragon, which sits on well-trafficked Broadway, a few blocks north of the 96th Street stop of the 1, 2, and 3 lines. It’s the flagship business of its prewar building, and counts among its many faithful patrons Columbia students and professors, cable-news talking heads, staffers for the New York Times and the New Yorker, many young gay couples, and improbably, a half-dozen rabbis whose synagogues lie within a ten-block radius. Best of all for Chung, his landlord, Mr. Nikos, is among his most ardent fans. Happy Dragon . . .