I saw the The History of Concrete by John Wilson the other day. I watched his show years ago and loved it, if anyone inspires me its John Wilson. I was very excited to see this and any mention of it made me insanely jealous of anyone who had seen it before me. John Wilson's work has taught me how to collect media. My collage work is inspired by his way of focusing on objects of interest without thesis, and even if he presents a metaphor, the joke is partially that his examples are absurd. I don't think my focus is like that, but his method makes me want to get looking. The Found Objects Issue was my version of How To.
The Found Objects Issue is over a year old (June, 2025) and was made by clicking links, searching phrases, getting curious on the corners of the internet that were once relevant and now seem outdated and blind to the real uses of the web. The way you feel when you see a teenager as an adult. I'm making my own John Hughs type film where I present you an idealized time of the internet as I find it, John + John to make a cataloug of what I see in my mind when I get off of the typical corporate sites and into the man-made bazzaar.
The History of Concrete was very good, but it is better as your introduction to Wilson instead of as the movie at the end of the show. I never watch the movies to accompany shows, it feels too much of a gamble. I'd love to say this is a response to being burned by either Sex and the City movie, but I've always felt this way, at least since I started watching my own shows. Even though it is very literally a sequel to the show, the process of making something after making something successful, I think I wanted something more natural, like the show. But the movie was great, you move back and forth from being certain and uncertain that this is funny, and Wilson's own narration and style of interviewing make him a part of the joke, until its not a joke.
I want to try to recreate that balence, I think humans are beautiful. I am an anthropologist and I think every choice a person can make cames with as much consideration and firing nerve ends as mine do, which is fact, but I try to keep this in mind more, than I assume, the average person. I don't believe that anthropolgy puts me above anyone for knowing more, I just think of my practice of anthropology as a form of meditation. It is a practice of asking why before you react to your initial emotion. You're as much the subject as anything else.
I've been drawing again. I've been wanting to go back to the art that I used to make but I know I have been changed, right down to my core. Sometimes, with art, it is weird to see the success you had at one point and then have to keep living. Every success cannot be my peak, but my life has splintered into so many paths I don't have the time for that kind of focus, I don't have the setting. Now I feel like Wilson showing off his Time Square billboard, though to a much less visible extent. I need to make something great once more.
This is how The History of Conocrete serves as my personal reflection. This is what the movie meant to me at this time in this moment. Maybe I will see it again and like it more, maybe I will see it and think it is beyond cheesy. Whatever that next interpretation is it will become my truth and it will be a signifier of growth. It'll be the line on my closet doorframe with how tall I am now.
