iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

I haven’t posted in a long time… but I started reading this. It lays out how artists are exploring the dark side of technology, through geospatial, critical theory, and poetics.

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Reposted by Jake Lahah

Hari Kunzru @harikunzru.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

*please repost or forward* Here’s a sheet where arts orgs can record information about their NEA grant termination. Annie Dorsen is collecting this info as a first step towards coordinating a response docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

docs.google.com

NEA GRANT TERMINATION TRACKER

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Reposted by Jake Lahah

Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

If you are a visual artist whose NEA grant was terminated today, I want to talk to you for ARTnews. You can contact me on Signal at karenkho.45. I can grant anonymity if necessary.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

She’s dense but I’m learning so much about data visualization.

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Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 28/03/2025

In 2003, a group of artists secretly moved into a 750-square-foot space in a large mall in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. They didn’t expect to stay more than a day, a week at most. But they stayed for four years.

hyperallergic.com

A Group of Friends Walks Into a Mall, and Stays for Four Years

Was it a crime? A prank? A work of art? A new documentary unveils the full story of an artist collective’s secret mall apartment, and other ephemeral actions.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

It was incredible to be showing work alongside peers in the Tactical Communications portfolio, that will be exhibited this year at SGCI Puerto Rico.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

This research I’m doing with the Philadelphia AIDS Library Archives is really showing how much information is weaponized in climate and sustainability focused initiatives. The world is wild man!

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

The hardest part of archive researching, is the mental toll it takes to spend four hours reading articles and looking at images of people who have died from the aids crisis. I feel like I need a beer after each research session this week.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Research say with the Philly AIDS Library archive at temple university.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

I leave for Philly tomorrow to do a big pate de verre casting at my alma mater tyler. I’ve been researching the crisis hickory nut gorge green salamanders are facing from silica mining in Appalachia. This image will be screen printed with glass powders and fused in the casting

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

How are artists centering pleasure in their practice? What are the ways that love and joy in the studio become pivotal to the work you make?

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

I swear, I will never understand how to work with the algorithm on photo socials like Instagram

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

I wish Cy Twombly was still alive 💕

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Something I always struggle with with my studio practice, is boredom. And in turn, I start 12 bodies of work at once

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

I’m doing new work on the archives of Our Own Press, a community LGBTQ+ newspaper, by printing and drawing on trashed signage material. I can’t wait to share this work with the world and to continue dumpster diving for more materials.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Educators: what are some of the ways you are introducing discourse on scale and size to your students? I’m finding it challenging to get students to do things larger, so I’m curious what sorts of readings or exercises you do to have them conceptually consider size with their work?

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

I read Gregg Bordowitz text in General Idea’s “Imagevirus” the iconic design that has been used in countless iterations. This text was fantastic, and brought a new lens for considering how poetry, and art history informed this work.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

This was so good. I will never look at Olive Garden the same way again!

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

How do you manage the unreasonable expectation of participating in 5+ group shows a year when you have an impending solo exhibition that requires tons of research and energy?

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Most weeks are great, but this is one of those teaching weeks where things are just not coming together in line - students aren’t reading project sheets or coming to class prepared. This is so hard in the foundation level courses because there is so much to cover!

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Reposted by Jake Lahah

Van Wendigo @vanweezer.myatproto.social · 10/02/2025

I'm saying Go Birds because there's a chance their victory riot turns into a general strike

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

The inescapable pleasure of drawing (that isn’t about the Declaration of Independence)

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Reposted by Jake Lahah

Paul Soulellis @soulellis.com · 08/02/2025

New compliance doc for NEA recipients www.arts.gov/grants/legal...

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I had the plan of editing my friend Elliot and Henry’s essay. Please read before the game. Sports are always political, and this Super Bowl is quite literally a parallel to the political condition today.

elliotengles.substack.com

Football and Fascism - Politics in Sports from Rome to Kansas City

What it means to support a team and how politics plays a role in Super Bowl LIX, by Elliot Engles and Henry David Rosenberg, edited by Jake Lahah

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I’m reading a book of interviews with Hand Ulrich Obrist. This is pretty painful to get through with the odd strike through editing and name dropping, but will update you if anything interesting happens.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

I’ve decided I like bluesky, but I feel that artists use it in a way that’s in this purgatory between Instagram and x. Like it offers new types of posting but not unhinged enough for twitter and not curated enough for Instagram

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

A lesson I learned teaching foundations this academic year, is that students often see work by examples by big name artists who have tons of resources to make things happen. This leaves student often confused on where or what their work should look like during their education experience.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

I just finished “Burning Blue” by Print artist Cara Benedetto. This was so smutty in the best way possible. Considering her larger research in romance novels, I’m thinking so much about how fiction blurs mimetic experience and socio-political language. Very captivating read.

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Reposted by Jake Lahah

Mitch Goldstein @mgoldst.com · 03/02/2025

a helpful diagram. #art #design

a venn diagram: one cirsl says "f*ck around" , the other says "find out", and the intersectuon says "creative practice."

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

I disclosed in office hours today that I’m a major Fall Out Boy fan and my student thought they were a 90’s band :/

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

I have so many incredible publication ideas, but am hesitate to jump start each one for the stress of corroborating so many people

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Being a printmaker is like being from Philadelphia. I can talk so much shit about the discipline all I want, but as soon as someone who doesn’t makes prints says anything, WE ARE FIGHTING!

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I’m always looking for that moment when I choose to break the blueprint, where improvisation takes forward and I say fuck it

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I don’t want curated content in 2025

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Reposted by Jake Lahah

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Hi that was a coup last night in case no one mentioned that to you. The executive branch seized the power of the purse the Constitution gave to Congress, which is a pretty authoritarian / illegal consolidation of powers move. Time to go yell at your reps, the media, etc.

Hey friends! We're seeing a lot of terrible things. We're not able to cover all of them, but we felt this latest one is a really big deal and needs much more awareness.

Our summary is this: It's an administrative coup. Trump has ordered tens of billions (maybe up to $3 trillion) of budget halted indefinitely in a blatantly illegal move. He's claiming power to halt and potentially redirect funding that's already been authorized by Congress — a classic authoritarian move.

Here's what we know. And we're doing our best to catch up with this story, because it's moving fast.

There's a memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget. (That's the same government entity who set-up the DEI "snitch" line, that's now been spammed by tens of thousands of our fellow residents.)

In typical Trump-style, the memo gets its facts wrong. It claims in FY2024 the US government spent $10 trillion (actually it was $6.8 trillion). It says money should be used for the administration's priorities — "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve." (Again, it's very fact deficient.)

The memo says a pause will begin at 5pm on January 28th where, "Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."

Anyone promised federal grants might have their money at risk, even states. This is Congressional directed spending and Trump is ordering people to not do it. This funding includes universities for education and research programs, nonprofits, local and tribal governments, disaster relief aid, e…

So what can we do?

It's been a lot. And the shock approach of this administration is to overwhelm us with nonsense and a state of paralysis. We continue to believe the best thing is to stay grounded and keep yourself sane amidst insanity.

At this juncture, three actions we suggest that make sense to us:

1) Urge media to cover this story properly

This is not "possibly illegal" — it's "patently illegal." You can read notes on that here.

It's not "temporary" — it's "indefinite." There's no timetable for ending it.

It's not just a memo — it's an administrative coup.

2) Urge your Representatives to act like this is a big deal

If you know us, this isn't a knee-jerk action we suggest. We think this is a strategic because it's Congress that's being violated — their power is being directly undermined.

3) Continue to support ACLU and Democracy Forward

These groups have been preparing litigation for some time. Unless Trump revokes this, this will certainly make its way through the courts. Our read is even the biased courts will have trouble swallowing this — so it may end up being shut down.

Keep breathing. “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again," Nelson Mandela.

Warmly,

- Choose Democracy

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Current happenings in my studio rn.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Last an final thoughts on Amy Sillman’s “Faux Pas.” I really love the language Sillman uses when talking about Laura Owens’ work, in that it parallels printmaking’s unique syntax. Overall, I really enjoyed this book (4.5/5). I learned so much about painting and drawing in ways I never thought before

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I have to say, as a newcomer to John Chamberlain’s work, Sillman offers such a unique perspective on his work. I love her mentioning of Chamberlains’ self description of being a “lazy artist”. But also, the part of this essay about him being a hair stylist and his formal aesthetic appearance is…

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

I’m currently reading Amy Sillman’s “Faux Pas”. I absolutely love her, and she’s kinda pretentious, but in a gay but serious painter way. Her essay that compares AbEx and formalism to the aesthetics of queer folx is kinda eye opening. Will continue to thread with more thoughts on this.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

A recent drawings I’ve been working on. I’m realizing how much this app probably isn’t fit for artists, but I’ll try to occasionally post what I’ve been working on in my studio.

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Jake Lahah @jakelahah.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Making the jump here because meta sucks, you’ll mostly find art bs, memes and other things

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