Friendo?

by Pauline Pokoradi

Artist Statement

Pauline Pokoradi is a NY based-photo assistant and post-production tech. Though most of her time is spent retouching images, she finds the most joy running between light stands and props on photography sets. She does not consider herself an artist nor a creator, rather a speculator. Oftentimes, I begin with “what if.” What if she overexposes the subject’s silhouette? What if she changes the chemical times by a little bit? Though she may always start with rigid plans, she often finds that both my life’s path and my art have a mind of their own. Writing and photography have always been her favorite forms of expression, and she constantly pushes beyond and experiments with a combination of analogue and digital manipulations. My focus has been on manipulating analogue mediums, such as souping 35mm film in salt and detergent and playing with colored light effects in black and white film. Her obsession of remixing every possible medium has only begun.

Project Statement

“Friendo?” Uncomfortable. Unwarranted. Unrelenting. These are all words I would use to describe anxiety. When handling such feelings, often escapist fantasies blend together with bubbles of quirky confusing thoughts. The images in Friendo each play with the idea of intrusive thoughts and anxieties being the personification of the “elephant in the room”, except the elephant in the room is an angry, distorted character in a video game I was obsessed with three years ago. Using a combination of databending, photo manipulation and 3D models to illustrate this idea of unsettling yet seemingly silly imagery, I spin narratives emphasizing how often the “monsters” that lurk in our minds are just cognitive distortions.