A small 6 page book consisting of three pictures of my friends on the same couch, with Virginia Lottery logos stretched across the images. I made this during a time period where my method for creating work was:

1. Take tons of pictures as I went about my daily life
2. Sift through these pictures looking for images that resembled other topics I was interested in at the time.

The main things I was looking/thinking about at the time were:

• Memento Mori: (wiki link): Essentially artistic representations that are meant to serve as reminders of death. I was thinking/making a lot about death at the time. It is an absurd and frightening topic, and one I still think about a lot today. I have no real insights on death, it's really just something I puzzle over. I was thinking about work(ing) at the time as well which in my mind is essentially a direct parallel to death. Something that basically sucks for most people, and is an unavoidable aspect of life. Its like that quote "nothing is certain, except death and taxes" really implies that nothing is certain, except having to work and then die. I think also in parallel to this is my own personal frustrations with work: low pay, unfulfilling jobs, feeling I dont have enough time to pursue my personal interests. I think the topics of dying and leading a long life of unfulfilling work are so dark that I find them kind of funny. Anywho the main take away here is:

  • historical reminders of death => jobs don't align with my personal interests => reminders of the futility of work
• The Lottery: (wiki link) A brilliant segue from my thoughts on work - what about the chance of never having to work again? What could be better. This also fits right in with death because winning the lottery (like really winning big) is about as improbable as death is probable. Probablity for one of these events is 1 and the other basically rounds to 0. But there is still that tempting chance. If work was fun the lottery would not exist. The lottery is state run proof that work sucks for 99% of people. A truly cruel joke.
• The Amabassadors painting (wiki link): Basically an old painting of some guys with a warped skull stretched across the bottom. The connection here of the skull as a Memento Mori is pretty clear. Stretching it across the bottom is fairly hilarious. Having to work shit jobs until you die is also fairly hilarious. I was already going through a short phase of thinking about treating casual photographs as highly crafted art objects so from here the book practically writes itself.
  1. Reminders of Death in Art History
  2. Jobs that Dont Align with my Personal Interests, and then Having to Die
  3. Reminders of the Futility of Labor in Art
  4. The Ambassadors Memento Mori slapped across the bottom of a painting
  5. Treating Casual Photographs As Important Works of Art
  6. The Lotter as a Cruel Reminder of the Futility of Labor
  7. The Lottery as Cruel Reminder of the Futility of Labor in Art "TLaCRotFoLiA"
  8. TLaCRotFoLiA as a tool to Treat Casual Photographs As Important Works of Art

So at this point all that is really left is to sort through my harddrive for images which had poses that reminded me of classical paintings. I thought using all images of the same couch was a nice touch. All of these pictures were taken with on-camera flash so I repainted highlights and shadows because this was a technique I wanted to experiment with anyways. (you can see it most visiblly on folds/creases in fabrics). This "repainting" in photoshop also helped me experience a "deep connection" with hundreds of years of painting. The final step was to slap some tlacrotfolia on each image and call it a day.

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