Girlfriend / Muse Applications with Tomi Faison
Harry talks to artist and filmmaker Tomi Faison about her new doc
HK: Oh you wanted a little essay on if demure is hang-out coded? You wanted us to figure out where prospect park hinge dates fall in the fuck / doesn’t fuck / has sex / doesn’t have sex nexus? Sorry dog!!! Maybe next week!
No, today we’re going big brain esoteric crazy style mode. We’re running an interview with artist-filmmaker and meme page admin (the devil's multihyphenate) Tomi Faison.
Tomi caught my eye for two main reasons, the first was her association with
(more on this in sec) and the second was the intriguing name of her new documentary “APPLICATION TO BE LARS VON TRIER’S “FEMALE GIRLFRIEND/MUSE.”
I’m like…thats kinda how i’m coming on hinge……
But let me make the case for why you should read this interview, and why it falls within the Good Hang Psyop Beat.
Tomi is one of the founders of Do Not Research. In their words DNR is “a platform for writing, visual art, internet culture research and beyond focusing on “memetic tactics and emergent political trends.” I’ve also heard it described as a “Decentralized MFA program.” My personal experience with DNR is via the occasional
interview or via passively perusing the extended DNR digital universe. Just about everything I see in this extended loose DNR universe is extremely fire and thoughtful and intellectual. My only critique honestly is sometimes it's too big-brained for me and I short-circuit a bit. If you happen to be looking for an inroad to what DNR is about I suggest this Art Angle podcast interview with Citarella.Tomi in her own right has put out some very interesting art. You can read this thorough profile if you’d like more info on her work but here are a few things that spoke to your boy:
I should also that Tomi sent me a screener of the doc and I found it very moving. I watched it twice and thought a lot about home videos and my family and Being Yourself.
Lastly, this quote – cmon…this is like if our Good Hang handlers actually let us take the Thelian Limitless pill to make our brains big.
HK: So with all of that being said, here is my interview with Tomi, condensed and cleaned up for clarity.
ON DNR and DIGITAL SPACES
HK: One of the things that drew me to your work is the connection to DNR and the super digital space. When I see a really digital online space, I'm usually skeptical. I often think, “Why aren’t these people hanging out in real life?” But I’ve seen a lot of humanity and cool stuff coming out of DNR and that corner of the internet. Can you tell me how you got involved with DNR?
Tomi: That project formed out of a reading group with a bunch of artists, MFA dropouts, and people who had very earnest questions about art and politics. We started hanging out every Sunday, reading books, and discussing them. A lot of people involved in that group have since moved to New York, and there’s even a couple who got engaged. My best friend Margo, who’s in the film, moved to Baltimore after we met online. These spaces can be a conduit to in-person connections.
HK: Sometimes I’ve met people online and later connected with them in real life, and sometimes it works out, but other times it doesn’t. What’s your experience with that? Is it worth it?
Tomi: I think one difference with the DNR reading group is that we were on Zoom video chats for four or five hours weekly. You actually get a sense of the vibe of these people. It’s sort of self-selecting to people who get along well. The secret sauce for that group was that we were all into the same niche art and politics. They’re politically minded, so they’re usually a bit cooler and less stuck up than most art world people. We all met through our friend Josh Citarella’s project. Josh does a lot of research about memes, so everyone also has a sense of humor. It’s rare to find people deep into politics or art who also have a good sense of humor. That was the secret sauce.
The flip side is that in the early days, when we were doing these first in-person events, we had a crowd of the most socially dysfunctional 19-year-old guys you’ve ever met. They’d come up to you and say, “Oh, are you Discord user Dogma? Wow, I’m LoreMaxxing GoblinPill. Nice to meet you!” It can be hit or miss, but I’ve been doing this for a long time. Now, when I travel for art stuff or work, I almost always meet up with some weird anonymous meme page I’ve been making stuff with for years. I always make sure I have a backup plan for the night, but it’s fun. It’s hit or miss, though.
HK: It’s interesting to hear that even within the online community, you guys aren’t necessarily trying to hang out with those people.
Tomi: Yeah, well, there are just some people who are better at posting than they are at hanging out.
ON HER NEW DOC AND ITS MAIN SUBJECT HER NEIGHBOR ROSE
HK: That transitions well into talking about Rose and your new documentary “APPLICATION TO BE LARS VON TRIER’S ‘FEMALE GIRLFRIEND/MUSE.’” It’s funny how you’re part of these decentralized online communities, but on the other hand, you’re hanging out with your neighbor. How did you meet Rose, and how did you become friends?
Tomi: I'll answer this honestly. It’s maybe a bit sappier than I usually share, but I moved next to Rose about four years ago, which was pretty early in my transition. I was in a phase we call "boy-moding." I was on hormones and all that, but I wasn’t fully presenting yet. One day, I was getting ready to go to New York, where I felt more comfortable, and Rose caught me looking a bit more feminine. She started talking to me, and I was like, “Yeah, Rose, you’ve heard about the transsexuals on TV.” We started talking about that, and she timidly came out to me as a lesbian. It was a sweet moment.
A few weeks later, it was Thanksgiving, and things were rough with my family. Rose was a bit distant from her family, too, being the only single one in a large Irish Catholic family. So, Margo and I had Thanksgiving with her because we realized she was home alone. Ever since then, we’ve been good friends. Rose is sort of an icon in our neighborhood, Charles Village. She knows everyone, is incredibly nosy, and even goes through people’s trash to ask questions about it. I see her all the time walking around. Nowadays, our relationship is mostly about drinking Coors Light and Benedictine Brandy, which is this weird sweet dessert liquor she pours in insane amounts. We do that, watch Orioles games, and I help her with stuff on the computer.
HK: That’s awesome. If there is a mission statement of a good hang, it’s that there’s something really beautiful about that style of doing nothing and just hanging out. Why do you think you spend so much time doing that with her?
Tomi: At this point, we’re just good friends. When we first met, my life was messy and confusing, especially early in my transition. I was drawn to Rose as this assertive, gruff, unapologetically herself person. She was someone I could see myself as when I’m older. Now that I know myself and Rose more, there are other options for me besides chugging Benedictine Brandy every night, but we just get each other in a funny way. Even though she’s older, there’s a vitality to her that makes hanging out with her not too different from hanging out with someone my age.
ON MUSES
HK: I want to talk about Muses, which is a big part of the doc. I hadn’t thought about muses in a long time. It occurred to me that there isn’t much mainstream conversation about muses anymore. Maybe this has fallen out of favor in modern art discourse Do you think it’s good that muses are falling out of favor?
Tomi: A couple of things. I think you’re right that it’s not discussed in those specific terms as much anymore, but there are still conversations in nonfiction doc cinema about the filmmaker’s relationship to the subject. On the extreme end, some people say the subject must be elevated to the position of collaborator to avoid exploitation. On the opposite end, there’s content like man-on-the-street stuff where the goal is to trick the subject into saying something silly. I highly recommend a piece by filmmaker Brett Story called Story and the Property Form where they unpacks how, especially in commercial documentaries, the filmmaker imposes a narrative onto the subject to sell their film in the marketplace. That feels like the contemporary conversation.
The historic one is more gendered, particularly in figurative painting, where the male artist traditionally uses the female muse. Where I land is that in documentary cinema, yes, there’s always some exploitative element, but I don’t get hung up on that. In the case of this film about Rose, I hope it comes through that we earnestly care about each other. Our relationship transcends the dynamic of filmmaker-subject or artist-muse. It’s a two-way street.
PLUGS
Tomi: The film will be in Chicago on September 13th at the Chicago Underground Film Fest. There’s also a screening at Exposures Film Fest in Montreal right after that. Toward the end of the year, I’ll make it public on my Vimeo. If anyone wants to keep track of the film or what I’m doing, they can follow me on whatever social media platform they’re into.
Follow Tomi on IG Here!!