feeeels attempts to explore this moment indirectly through the lens of this perceptual bait-and-switch. We find ourselves at a distinct point in human history - an epoch where what we believe and what we refuse to believe are often trading places - where our reality can be as difficult to accept as anything our imaginations could dream up. Our new narrative is being written by people who don’t know exactly where the line is drawn, and, frankly, aren’t interested in finding it.
Reality has become a moving target - always obscured and just out of reach. The fringes of reality, meaning the space between possibility and certainty, now encapsulate the entire human experience. His imagination is so limitless that we cannot fathom it, in turn forcing us to question everything we know. His worldview is just warped enough to fend off reality-based rebuttal. Just look at our commander-in-chief, a master manipulator of crafting his own narrative and inserting it directly into the conversation in short but chaotic bursts. Rough-edged fringes take center stage in a world where the easiest way to be noticed might be through provocation, be it physical violence or digital insidiousness. Armed with this interpretation, can our particular political moment be designated as anything other than fuzzy? The dynamic borders that typify fuzziness might accurately describe our constantly shifting understanding of the world around us. To describe fuzziness is to describe a fraying at the edges, a lack of definition, where details become either so small as to be individually imperceptible or so outsized as to become illegible. The very descriptor that can comfort with its pacifying feel-to-the-touch can also conjure something dangerously out of reach, imperceptible to the senses, difficult to discern, and therefore potentially hazardous or harmful: the unknown. On the other end, equally as viscerally felt, might be the violent blast of an overdriven guitar amplifier, the sharp, harsh edges of a digital image that’s been copied too many times, the furry mold growing on food left in the refrigerator for too long, or the frustratingly low-resolution security footage of an anonymous assailant you’re desperately trying to identify. On one hand, we might think of the endearing muppets of Jim Henson’s imagined universe, the itchy warmth of Santa Claus’ beard at the local mall, or the gentle touch of a childhood teddy bear you couldn’t fall asleep without. To meditate on the word’s meaning presents some immediate conflicts of interest. Just look at the definition of the word itself.įuzzy, a descriptor that simultaneously conjures both the adorable and a sort of unsettling disruption, is the type of linguistic contradiction that widens the more time you spend with it.
And moving past this playful, deliberate misalignment of language and intention, many more fully-rendered and relevant concepts begin to brush against the surface. Why did we decide to focus the first issue of feeeels on a word like “fuzzy?” For one, it sounds like the sort of provocatively unexpected topic an art publication might land on - seemingly innocuous, yet ripe with biting criticism and underlying surprises.
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