the vincent zeng repository

about | photo | writing | interactive | miscellaneous

summer 2017 | in progress | reverse postcards | cyanotype workshop | patreon

work in progress

some roughs from the field, updated when i feel like touching a computer

cyanotype experiments
(prints made with objects around the park)

mobigraphs
(aka, shots i grabbed with my phone)

drawings
(sometimes i can't bring myself to photograph something)

writing
(snippets from my notes, mostly)

  • i had some thoughts on the mountain, but i can't recover them now. i wonder if they got stuck in the clouds. maybe it's not important.
  •  
  • fireflies buzz my window at night.
  •  
  • i've been five out of five for getting rained on. today, i marinated in yesterday's damp clothing, but i didn't really get drenched; i almost got creamed by someone on the highway, though. i'm not sure that's a fair trade, but it's certainly a steady reminder of all the things i can't control.
  •  
  • i stay still and the world pivots and rushes around me; there is no way to know, other than faith, that anything beyond the edge of my skin matters.
  •  
  • we are all a walking set of imperfect sensibilities.
  •  
  • i dropped into a dreamless sleep in a blink. i had a brief moment of clarity when i felt the moon peering through the gaps overhead at me, as if checking to make sure i was truly asleep. i nodded to it, and sank back into darkness. at the next blink, the sky glowed lemony and the earliest bees sniffed me through the mesh. i was not yet ready to parlay with them, and nodded off again to the feeling of gentle wings buzzing past my face.
  •  
  • on my hikes with others, theoretical bear encounters are a frequent topic of inquiry for trail conversations. is it better to run or to stand your ground? what if you throw a jar of peanut butter like a grenade and flee? how unlikely is it that a bear will gnaw through the rope keeping our food off the ground? my mother's earnest advice, from adolescent years spent near the mongolian steppes, was to run with the direction of the wind. this would push the bear's shaggy fur over its eyes, and it would occasionally stop to paw its face to clear their vision, like a model tousling their hair expertly for a camera. these pauses would give you enough time to get away. all these past discussions filled the social space when i hiked alone.
  •  
  • my watch doesn't ask a central server to confirm its idea of the current date and time, and sometimes it loses track; leap year confuses it, so i need to know to remind it of an extra day. daylight savings eludes it entirely. but i don't have to charge it every night, and it will never bother me with someone's attempts to get in touch with me.
  •  
  • this radio is full of clunky old moving parts and coils and interprets electronic waves projected from nearby towers. it responds to gentle taps and shakes and the presence of my hands. it makes pops and snaps and distorts human voices, the sounds that horror movies replicate as a sure sign of oncoming disaster. do people who grew up with streaming digital music only recognize that noise as the soundscape of approaching monsters, like how they associate the dark night with unspecific and certain danger?
  •  
  • "you know, you look like an artist," he said to me just before i put in my earplugs.
  •  
  • "well, i certainly don't look like i work in an office."
  •  
  • humans cannot resist the urge to control fire---all fire. it is the thing we feel as if it is ours to own, thus we cannot accept instances that we did not authorize.