semi-abstract, low-poly, graphic design, not picasso, not cubism, matisse-esque, not photography, what’s the point? why? Eric Kim needs to stop diverting from street photography. Eric Kim is addicted to drugs.

METADATA

IMAGE

Graphic design

Photoshop

Layers

Vector

App

Algorithm

Computer generated design

Artificial Intelligence

What is human?

Photography

Black and white

Abstract

Eric Kim

Portrait

Selfie

Mixed media

Conceptual portraiture

Postmodernist Picasso

Post-post Picassso

Post-post process

Experimental

Drugs

Artist Statement
“MISSFIT” dances between glass boundaries: poetry and film, feminine beauty and power, Vietnamese and not.

I wrote this poem and made the film as a transgression against classification. Written and filmed in Saigon, “MISSFIT” performs the contradictions between expectation and reality, simplicity and nuance through the instruments of body and poetic voice. I am Vietnamese, but also a child of war, refugees and escape. Doctrines of Confucianism, American individualism, feminism, and Catholic guilt begrudgingly coexist within my Vietnamese female body.

The character Miss Fit is a tired misfit–
* tired of treading softly in fears of disrupting the quiet calm of what is considered ‘appropriate’
* tired of listening obediently to the voices of Reason, the Future, and Others saying “Be more! Be less!”
* tired of looking into the mirror and only seeing others.

“MISSFIT” celebrates the chaotic sublime of self.
Letter to all the Misfits on publishing art and ‘professionalism.’

“The fit is not flattering”
She mouths their murmurs
to the reflection before her.
Eyes scan a faintly familiar figure.
Of crossed legs, brushed hair, slouched shoulders.
It is her, it is she, it is me.
A miss-fit.

Clean contours of plastic perfection
Support, mould the reformed body,
an ivory bust
an empire waistline awaits its ruler.
The patchwork of metal and fabric croak.
It is her, it is she, it is me.
A miss-fit.

She inches towards the mirror
Inhales the clinical scent of new merchandise
Examines the blurry fingerprints of those before her
Smeared across the reflection of her body.
A palimpsest of hourglass dreams.
It is her, it is she, it is me.
A miss-fit.

Mascara lashes fall softly
Lacquered lips press against the cold glass.
Farewell distorted distant stranger.
And hello nice to see you again old friend.
Miss Fists crushes the glass apparition
In a splendid reckoning of femme fury.
It is her, it is she, it is me.
A miss-fit.

‘MISS FIT’ Filmpoetry Credits

Directed, Produced, Edited, Artistic Concept, Poem Written by Cindy Nguyen
Cinematography by Eric Kim
Beats by Bass N Instrumental Instrumental of ‘Feeling Myself – Nicki Minaj ft Beyonce’
Inspired by a lifetime of looking into the mirror and never seeing myself.

Artist Statement
As a scientist, this both is and isn’t my first foray into art. We perform our own kind of art in science, but tend to stay within the confines of that kind and as with anything you’ve done too much, it gets stale. So I want to break down the barriers between art and science, so we can see the art in science and the science in art. Regardless of what you do or what profession you come from, join me and do the same.

An instructional on species

 

step one: definition

Figure 1: An individual

what is a species?
do you know?
Can you look up the definition?
Go ahead. Do it now.
i’ll wait here.

Figure 2: A lineage

…
…
…
have it? Read it out loud
And clear,
for both of us to hear.
Awesome.

Figure 3: Two descendants, one ancestor

now, things get fun.
imagine the definition in your mind,
like on a piece of paper.
Take it, tear it up,
And toss it into the wind.
make a mess.

Figure 4: A mess

 

step Two: mess

The truth is, a species is messy.
it’s messy just like the scattered paper
That now makes up our definition.
you may have looked at animals and thought,
“This duck is different than a cat,
which is different than a deer or a bat.
All different species.”

Figure 5: Shared ancestry

And you’re right.
we can tell very different things apart.
but what about this bat and that?
This lizard and that?

The closer the two animals get together,
The harder to say they’re a different species.

Figure 6: Species complex, wherein ring species interbreed

we biologists like to say if animals don’t breed,
meaning they can’t make offspring together,
They’re different species. Separate.
but there are species of lizards that blend,
from one place to another.
Able to breed with neighbors,
And neighbors-neighbors,
but not neighbors-neighbors-neighbors,
And more distant.
so where does one species start,
And another end?

hard to say.

Figure 7: Interbreeding fails at ring edges

 

step Three: mix

or look at bacteria,
That make offspring only by dividing.
how do you decide a species
in a thing that does not mate for offspring?
who is to say bacteria A is a species itself,
isolated and separate from bacteria B?

Figure 8: Asexual reproduction

well, we tell ourselves that it’s in the DNA,
The genetic information that makes all life.
we look at two bacteria,
And if the DNA is different enough,
(we say 1%, but where does that come from?)
we say Bacteria A and B are different species.

but it gets even messier in the bacterial world,
like the pieces of our definition swirling in the wind.
because bacteria can mate,
They just don’t make offspring.
They mate across species,
Across close relatives and distant friends
not to make more of themselves,
but to swap DNA,
The very basis of our definition!

Figure 9: Horizontal gene transfer

They share DNA in mating,
Copying and swapping like teenage pirates,
a gene here, sequence there.
Copy, cut, share, paste, repeat.
each action blurring lines:
is the new cell, now carrying a bit of species A
still species B, or something new?
who’s to say.

Figure 10: Which species, none, or both?

 

step four: matrimony

And then there’s you.
The collection of cells you think you know
All descended from a first.
but beside your human cells are the others,
A collection of millions by millions of bacteria,
on your skin, in your gut,
on every open inch of body.
The unseen multitudes of multitudes,
different between each person.
They make you, become you,
Are you.
so you are what?

Figure 11: Human and microbiome

And where do you come from?
who are your ancestors,
your mother’s mother’s mothers
stretching back into unconscious unmemory.
A secret, hidden in you
Thousands by millions of years ago.

Chance cast her lot,
As one cell engulfed another.
A normal act of eat to live,
but this time the infinitely unlikely,
Completely unguessable happened.

The devourer did not kill to sate its hunger
And embraced instead the cell within it
As a host would a guest in their home.
The guest, sealed and safe from the surrounding world,
gave energy for life in return.

if you seek within your cells,
you find these once-guests still today.
making, providing, trading
Their energy for a home.
The two working together,
Creating life from mice to men.
That is the strangest thing about you,
descendent of that accidental chance.
you are a marriage of not one form of life,
but two.

Figure 12: Endosymbiotic theory

 

step five: reality

As you can see, the definition of a species
diverges between flat paper and life.
our paperbound sentence is just convenient shorthand
hiding a stout, immovable truth.
for it’s impossible to encompass the chaos of life
of even for an individual in a word.
A name, a handle, a term,
falls short.

And life’s lineage stretches long.

Figure 13: The lineage of life