Work in Progress is an interview series with independent curator, writer and cultural worker Alyssa Alexander, that spotlights an emerging or mid career artist, allowing them to explore facets of their individual practices, share works in progress, and connect with overarching contemporary themes. Each iteration will have artists answer questions tailored to their work, but culminate with the same five questions. 

LaJuné McMillan is a new media artist and creative technologist living and working in New York. Their works merge performance, ritual, and virtual reality - investigating our current modes of communication, and problematizing the foundations on which digital work is created. Antidote, McMillan’s recent performance and video work, centers black bodies in a state of healing, reflection, and in conversation with the land. Here, we discuss cultivating nurturing spaces both digitally and IRL, the analogies of blackness, and how a light-hearted Korean drama is a great form of self care.

 

LaJuné McMillan: So, I told my mom “I’m just going to be making video games and integrating my other passions into this” and she was just like “Oh, I guess.” [laughs]

 Alyssa Alexander: [laughs] I mean that’s great though at least she wasn’t like “No, we sent you to school to be an engineer, I don’t know what this gaming business is” so I mean that’s a blessing.

LaJuné: Yeah, listen all I know is I took these classes and my whole world was flipped upside down mainly, because I had gone to school thinking you learn one thing, and you get good at that one thing, and you get a job. But no, this experience was you learn how to learn various technologies and tools, and learn how to bring your ideas to those technologies. You learn how to take that story and tell it through these various mediums, and so now just reflecting and learning how to tell your story, and discover what your story is, when you’ve never done that before or asked to do that before. It’s great to open the doors to that, it can also open floodgates to all these other things.

 So, I think that happened mixed in with just college stuff, you know, you’re not at home anymore and you don’t have that support of home, and now you just have these various things happening to you, and you are just like “what do I do with all of this?”

 Alyssa: As an educator I can’t imagine you haven’t taken all this into consideration in the ways you approach, not just educating for the knowledge like you were discussing, but how you can implore them to utilize those tools to tell their stories in various ways.

 LaJuné: Of course, and as an educator I want to make sure I am cultivating spaces that say “hey, I actually care that you actually know this, and if you don’t know I care about you as a person as a student of mine. I want to make sure you are learning at your own pace.” In my classes I do throw a lot of information at people and I’m like “There’s all these technologies but also you need to have conversations about these technologies and the histories of these technologies. We need to have conversations around decolonizing these technologies, we need to have conversations about how we bring our own biases and problematic ways to anything that we make to the art community.”

 Alyssa: Especially in the higher-education space, where like you were saying, you’re cultivating the space for these things to happen, because at that level of education and maturity, it is incumbent on the people giving the information to make sure they are making those points. 

LaJuné: Yes, and I feel like that was something I felt was deeply missing from my education being given all these technologies, software, and tools but no one was telling me, “This is how this relates to you and your life, like this is how this affects you in your life.” Like these tools that you are using to tell your story are also tools that within themselves, how they are built,  also perpetuate these systems of harm.

 So, I’m walking around just feeling large amounts of trauma having no language for it, having no way to say “This is how I feel? This is why I feel this way?” And now I can go back, and for me as an educator, it’s also for me to sort of go back to a younger me and be like, “It’s okay.”

 Alyssa: That’s amazing, I think it’s important, it builds empathy that doesn’t happen a lot between educator and student. I hate that you had to go through a whole traumatic first semester to be able to revisit and maybe think about how you wanted to perpetuate something differently, but I mean that’s powerful and great work that you’re doing.

 Walk me through the tools and foundations that your work kind of relies upon, because I think New Media is something that gets thrown around a lot as this term or category of art work, and I don’t think a ton of people are really knowledgeable about what that means? So walk me through for you, what that category means.

LaJuné: I feel like art in general is pretty much like a birth, like giving birth to something and that something is the art work. Sometimes I can look back on something and say “oh this is about this? This is actually about that?” The art itself has a way of growing, changing, and transforming even though it is just what it is. What I hadn’t realized, is what it meant to defy myself as an artist. I realized also that my job as an artist is to live my life, and that was the first thing I realized that I needed to really live my life and take risks.

 I need to live my life to the fullest so that I can create this work that can have a life on its own. So, I’m 28 right now and I can tell you in my 20s I would say this all the time but now I’m just reflecting back on them and just really just proud, like wow I did so much and it was so messy.[laughs] I knew that even in the worst darkest, messiest, moments I needed to be doing what I was doing in that moment.

 Alyssa: It was a part of the process.

LaJuné: Yeah, I needed to go through so much to be able to see. I feel sometimes when you are going through something, it allows you to be able to see what is happening... but also to connect this to race…

Alyssa: Go for it, please.

LaJuné: I was talking to my friend about how I view blackness and what I feel blackness is, and honestly I just go through the definitions of blackness, like the synonyms of blackness. And yes, like blackness has this one sort of definition through race as this marker of not being worthy, of not being worthy of anything, like life. But then for me and my art practice, what I realized was I wanted to look at blackness as this sort of base level for everything. So, like synonyms for blackness are “clarity” and “transparent.”

 This reality of getting to the truth of things, and like how blackness connects itself through transparency to clarity, to this reality, the real reality that we live in and what does that mean? How can you sort of uncover that through art? That excites me to continue making, to uncover the truth in my work and how I uncover the blackness of my work. Those are things that I am really interested in.

Then just analogy wise, in Photoshop blackness is also tied to transparency, like in the gaming engines that I use, blackness is tied to transparency. The more opaque something becomes - you know these analogies to getting whiter, those are real analogies.

Alyssa: I love the way you are approaching blackness. This idea I think is so different to a lot of other Black contemporary artists’ approach. It's also grounded in the tools that you’re using, and seeing it from a completely different standpoint, one that is fantastic and powerful.

LaJuné Yeah, it’s empowering and makes me feel like I have the tools to be able to create. How does that connect to New Media Art? I feel like I approach this from many different ways. When I first started learning about these tools, I was excited that this existed that I could create these sort of magical life experiences with these tools and technologies.

 I think that how it’s grown over time is when I realized that any art can center the tools that you are using. I feel that my art does sometimes acknowledge the tools, who made those tools, and those histories, but then it acts as this agent of remixing, reworking, and redoing what those stories are.

 I feel that’s an important aspect and that is why I make them with technology. When I went on the journey of realizing that a lot of these tools maybe should be abolished or decolonized, like what does that mean? What does that make me? What does that make my role in all of this? What I hadn’t realized was I needed to dive deeper into these tools and these technologies, so that I can learn more about the world around me. 

Alyssa: In some ways you’re still facing the issues that you faced in that first semester of engineering school where everything is so confrontationally racist. Your attitude towards it I guess is really inspiring. I don’t know how one would work-in these processes and tools consistently and not be either completely jaded and over it or infuriated the entire time.

LaJuné: So, yeah, that’s the thing I don’t want to be infuriated, I don’t want to be mad or angry. I am not even going to lie. I feel like I just recently got to a stage where I’m not mad anymore. I feel even though all these technologies and tools exist and we live in a society that is racist and sexist, all these things that are embedded with all these ’isms reestablish my connection to myself and to my lineage, my story that has empowered me to know I can live the life I want to live. I can share that with other people, and bring other people along on that journey with me where they can do that for themselves.

 It sort of changes this world. This aspect is happening to you, and it transforms into “No, this is what I want to do. This is the world that I want to create.”

Alyssa: This is the world I want to create, yeah, it’s amazing. I met with this woman who is the Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits at the Rochester Museum & Science Center and all of her work is based in just trying to decolonize the institution from the ground up at this point, but it’s just so heavily embedded in there that she has to fight tooth and nail. 

 With more of that work and that kind of spirit yeah, we could all just wallow in the fact that it’s so prevalent and so pervasive, like “what are you going to do? What is the use?” But if more of us decided to really work at getting this out of here I think we might be able to make some incredible changes. Do you know what I’m saying? That kind of endurance and positivity is so needed, especially in the arts. It may be hopeless for other industries [laughs]  I’m not sure but I think there is a generation of arts workers and cultural producers and people like you who know this is easily changeable if you just think about it in a different way. That’s just very indicative of your practice, in every way you view blackness, and how  you are utilizing these tools against themselves almost, so this is great work. 

LaJuné: Of course, I’m an artist living in a capitalist society so I have to sell myself and my work to an extent. How am I doing that in a way that aligns with my values or as working towards my values if my values are XYZ. 

 Alyssa: But I want to talk about the actual work.

 LaJuné: Oh sure! Should I show you something or-?

 Alyssa: I guess maybe walk me through either, most recent or an overview of the type of trajectory your work has taken, because I’m familiar with a lot of the movement work but in general I think there is a force driving your work that I want you to talk about.

 LaJuné: Sure, I’ll talk about the last three things that I’ve worked on. I don’t know if you saw Antidote, like that was the last piece I worked on, it was a collaboration with Marguerite Hemming, Salome Asega, and Amber Starks, and Rena Anakwe, and it was just like badass black femmes! This process I think has really transformed my life, like I sort of reworked my process through this project. So, I will give a background of how it started. Salome had gotten me connected to Ali Rosa-Salas from Abrons Art Center and she was just like “You need to collaborate with Marguerite Hemming!” so she connected us.

 At first, we were just supposed to teach a workshop to five high school students and that was going to be great, but then the Pandemic happened so the workshop never happened. But Abrons was gracious enough and said, “We still want to support you in your work so take this money and do some research around what it is you want to teach, and learn more about each other, and then let’s premier it however it comes about in December.”

 So, we took that summer into fall to just sort of learn more about each other. and we began doing some movement work. So, Pioneer Works ended up sending a motion capture suit to Marguerite, I had a motion capture suit, and we began to just talk over Zoom about what we might want to make. 

 So, we began doing a lot of ritual work around like okay, “How do we bring our ancestors to this process? How do we bring this spirit into this process? How do we collaborate with our ancestors’ spirit and what does that look like? How can we use that collaboration in a way to connect to each other in a way that transcends these digital technologies?” And that opens a whole new portal.

 We started having a lot of conversations around that, and from there we were just sort of letting information channel through us to build out a script. The script is essentially like a ten-minute meditation and prayer bringing folks through this release of the lies of all these systemic injustices that were placed on us, right?

 At the end of the day, it’s like white supremacy is a lie that had real consequences, right?

 Alyssa: That’s a great way to put it.

 LaJuné: A lot of real consequences that were lies that were continuously embedded within us that sort of like stopped us from thinking that way.

 Alyssa: Connecting, in the ways you are discussing in this work, to ourselves, families, everything.

 LaJuné: I felt like while Marguerite and I were working with new media and technologies we were really focused and centered on working with our embodied ancestral technologies, and it was that that guided us to make that work. It wasn’t that we were working with motion capture, like we weren’t centering that, we were attacking that, using it as a tool to sort of revisualize that process between the both of us. We didn’t allow those technologies to take front and center and that’s something that I want to implement in all my work.

 I think that goes back to your earlier question about “What do new media artists do?” For me as a new media artist I am trying to change the power dynamics between our relationship with digital technologies. I feel like so many times even with social-media platforms it’s like “Oh, they’re taking all your information” and they’re like …

 Alyssa: When you said hacking the systems, I immediately thought of Legacy Russell’s book Glitch Feminism, right? I hadn’t considered the ways in which you can hack this in a way, and it is a useful tool and not something that is [just] a weird insidious force in our lives, like it gives the permission to do so.

LaJuné:  I feel like all the contracts that are invisible that we sign every day , it’s like wow, how do these tools reestablish our commitment to those contracts? What does it mean to no longer commit to those contracts, like this no longer feels well, this no longer fits with me? What would it mean to uncover other contracts that provide other contracts of seeing each other in different ways, re-humanizing ourselves in other ways?

Alyssa: Think differently, so that contracts don’t seem so predatory.

 LaJuné: Yes, period! So that’s something that I’m really interested in and I feel like Antidote provided that framework for me, because I feel one of the contracts that we sign in society is a dehumanizing one,  I feel like nobody gets to be human, nobody gets to be a human version of themselves. Well, what is that process of us creating systems where we're all just human, where we’re not more than human, we’re not less than human? We are human, you know? So, many people with different standpoints can connect to this because uncovering this lie in order to be even successful you have to exploit yourself.

Alyssa: Yea, as an artist you do literally have to sell, and in your case yourself, because it is a lot of you, and that is a hard pill to swallow, I guess. 

 LaJuné: Yeah, and it just hit me this year because I took a sort of a hiatus from social-media. I don’t post as much as I used to. I dramatically stopped posting mainly, because over the summer when all the protests happened, I felt so many people were looking for the black aspect thing or like the black activist thing.

 Alyssa: Well, especially for someone’s work that is so closely tied to their body, to then have folks turn to you like “You should be the one that leads the charge on discussing our bodies being literally taken and done whatever with, that seems like a job for you, you do this work for us please.”[laughs]

 LaJuné: Yeah, I got like a lot more Followers and I’m like oh no I’m not taking on this work!

 Alyssa: That’s also difficult to grapple with because being an artist on Instagram is so quantifiable in ways that dilute the process, but it’s also amazing to see a bunch of people responding to your work, not just passing by or seeing it somewhere, but they see it and want to keep seeing it.

LaJuné: I’m not against getting followers but I always want to make sure I’m getting followers for the work, for the process, and not for the performance of change or the performance of caring. I want to make sure that I’m cultivating spaces online and on social-media that are helping people undo, that sort of inner turmoil.

 Alyssa: The more we talk it seems reflection is rolled into your processes across the board. We need more reflection; people need to consider themselves on a daily basis.I’ve really considered your decisions and the way you communicate and all of that is really important, if we are not going to be completely f***ed because the outside forces that are working against you uphold everything, like they don’t want you to reflect essentially. It upholds this idea that you just have to go along with the status quo and everything will be fine, so continuously reflecting and looking inwardly is important if we’re going to survive essentially.

LaJuné: Yeah, and also realizing that process. I think one of my biggest realizations is realizing I’m human. I'm not perfect, and I could actually be like a really bad person sometimes, really not good. How do I make room for myself in those moments when I’m not a good person?

 Alyssa: When you aren’t the best version of yourself?

 LaJuné: Yeah, and I feel like I spend so much time raising that part of ourselves trying to throw a cover over it to hide it in the closet but it’s like no, bring them out, bring that person out!

 Alyssa: I do want to ask you five questions that I have to ask everyone, so let me know if you’re ready?

 LaJuné: Sure.

 Alyssa: Okay, so question one, which artists' work are you currently most drawn to? That can be any kind of artist.

 LaJuné: I guess someone who really inspires me is Stephanie Dinkins, like all of her work really inspires me, yeah.

 Alyssa: I’m just looking her up. Is she also a new media artist?

 LaJuné: Yes, she’s a new media Artist and she works a lot in intelligence. What really inspires me and draws me to her work, and how she has inspired my practice is how she brings in the community with the work that she makes.

 This idea that none of us can do this work on our own and we have to do this work with other people, and that’s something that really inspires me to keep engaging with other folks as I do my own work alongside of that.

 Alyssa: If you weren’t working as an artist what profession would you pursue that is not art related? Would you become a mechanical engineer again? [laughs]

 LaJuné: [laughs] Honestly, I think this is such a hard question to ask because I feel like I’m doing everything I wanted to do.

 Alyssa: Good for you!

 LaJuné: It’s so funny, because when I tell my story to people they are just like “Wow, you’re doing a lot” and I’m like yeah, I just do what I want to do. I wasn’t [ice] skating for such a long time, and now I’m skating again, just for fun just for me so I’m just going to keep skating. I make art, because I like making art. The other thing about these things for me is, I don’t like them all the time because they stress me out. [laughs]

 Alyssa: Yeah, it is a lot, being an artist is difficult, it’s you and no one is going to come help, you have to be present and make the work. I think it was Basil Kincaid who I think was talking about the fact that “Guys it’s hard and you don’t always like it. Some days I wake up and wonder why do I do this? Why did I choose this?” And like half an hour later it’s fine. [laughs]

 So, in your opinion what was the best moment for black and brown artists and their work? A moment in time or it can be a specific event.

 LaJuné: Honestly, I feel like right now is a great time for us, or at least for me as an artist,  it helped me become really clear about what it is I wanted to do.

We’re in the middle of a Pandemic with a government that doesn’t care about people, doesn’t care about anybody’s life and yeah, literally left us out to die. And to just see it so clearly, like before I was just so polite about it.

Alyssa: Yeah, I completely agree with you, it is a very transitional moment of “What am I going to put up with? What am I not going to put up with? What are the things that are not negotiable? How are you going to talk to me now? I’m no longer accepting that.”

LaJuné: Period, period.

Alyssa: We’re done.

LaJuné: Yes!

Alyssa: What is the last work that made you feel something, like moved to tears, angry as hell? What is something you saw recently that made you feel something?

LaJuné: What really moved me? So, this is actually going to sound really silly but on Netflix’s there is this show called Love Alarm, it’s literally like this silly … I think it’s Korean and it’s this show about this girl who … basically it’s like this society that has this app on their phones that has you ring people’s love alarms, like you come in contact with someone that you like.

Alyssa: Everyone is asking if there is going to be a season three. That’s like the top story when I Googled it. I feel like I have to watch now. 

LaJuné: It’s such a cute show!

Alyssa: Yes! Something light hearted is fine.

LaJuné: Oh, I love watching light hearted stuff.

Alyssa: Like everything sucks but I think being able to feel something light and positive is totally fine. The reason why I ask this question is because I watched that Arthur Jafa piece, Love is the message, the message is death. It’s like a compilation video of black people having a great time, and then also being murdered in the streets. But without fail, if I just hear or see a clip, I want to cry every single time. It’s not surface, like it’s just sad to watch, it’s just something about the way those images were compiled. I don’t know what it is about that piece but I’m crying every time. I need to get to the bottom of it, but I don’t want to watch it again because I keep crying.  

 That’s probably the last work I saw that I had a visceral reaction to. I see art all the time that hasn’t moved the needle enough for me to feel something, so I just wondered what it was like for other folks. But also light hearted is fine, I like what you’re watching and I’m going to give it a go, because this seems adorable.

LaJuné: [laughs] It’s so cute but what I love also about light hearted stuff is, it can also have some messages embedded in it and I’m just like oh my …

Alyssa: You are keeping it light but also, I saw what you did.

LaJuné: Yes, and the message was about love and about choice.

Alyssa: This one is a really good one for you, we’ve talked about it to some extent. How if at all is your art and practice transformed as you’ve moved forward into a digital based market? I mean I want to talk to you about NFT’s but I feel that we will be here forever, [laughs] so there’s got to be a part two! But your work is consumed digitally, that is the basis of your art practice, but now that everything is going digital, how if at all will it change?

LaJuné: Yeah, these are questions I have for myself and it’s so funny because during this pandemic I can say, like I was telling you earlier, this was problematic in the summertime when I started to actually get people interested in my work, because I have been working in this space before all of this.

 In some ways I felt like the way I talked about my work and with this happening, like I didn’t know it was about a pandemic. I didn’t know it was going to be how this all panned out, but I did know that if we didn’t address these problems to these types of technology, and address it in a way that not only talks about having access, but access to choose whether or not we want to use these tools. If we don’t have conversations around that, then we are going to be in a really shitty space, and now fast-forward we are here and we have kids that don’t have access to computers, and yet all of their schooling is online. We have a whole performance industry that is struggling to adapt to this space. We have older folks who have never had to engage with a lot of these technologies in this space now having to fill out forms to get shots.

Alyssa: I don’t think anybody was prepared for the extent to which folks would not be able to leave the house. But when you talk about accessibility, I remember commercial art galleries that were like “Just put the little disclaimer on the website that says where working on it but we'll get there, we'll get there.”

LaJuné: You need to be there!

Alyssa: Now everyone has a virtual viewing room and that means it was available. You just chose not to engage with it because it didn’t bring you profit; it was just for folks who couldn’t get out of the house and that’s really messed up. It’s like “Oh, we don’t have money to hire a software developer to do this.” But you turned that around pretty fast though because those paintings had to sell, didn’t they?

LaJuné: Yes, that part. Yes, it’s like priorities, but I used this time to ground myself and to see “What do I really want as an artist, educator, and someone that holds space for people? What do I want? How does that affect the way that I should be moving in and out of the spaces?

Alyssa:  I just wonder what it looks like in terms of the way your work is consumed. How much it is consumed, and the people who consume it.

LaJuné: Yeah, it’s very interesting and you know what else I also love this idea of art that has layers. I want to make art and continue making art that can appeal. I think it’s so funny and it does annoy me when people can see sort of the first layer of the art like “Oh, the representation of black folks in digital space” [laughs] you know? The black bodies are cool. But I love the layers in just making something. I have to make space for the folks who only stay at one, like that’s okay.

Alyssa: Exactly, if the elevator does not go all the way up then it’s not your job to fix it, it’s fine.