David Kessler, creator of 'Shadow World'

I met David at the opening of his showing of video and paintings from Shadow World, a series he’s doing in Philadelphia’s Kensington Neighborhood, beneath the elevated train.

Shadow World opened on April 16th at UPenn’s International House.

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TTWP: David, you’re an artist who’s getting some richly deserved attention in our city for different projects. An artist has to show a lot of personal initiative, especially to be in as many projects as you are. So, when I say the phrase: “evil dilution of my attention span,” what sorts of things do you think of? Trader Joe’s? Certain Web-sites? Seinfeld re-runs? Polka parties?

DK: These days anything that can distract me, i don’t typically find evil. I spend literally every day working on something. I like to take breaks and do other stuff but those things have to almost physically pull me away. With one exception, the damn Internet! Lately I’ve been nostalgic for the days when I had no computer and walked around with a sketchbook. Simpler times when I didn’t have to wear glasses all the time and i had no chronic back pain.

For years, I could honestly say that I didn’t like computers and I had no real use for them. I don’t know when that all changed but now I’m spending about 10 hours a day or more on one and a great deal of my art is made on it. Now that I have this “all in one - wonder box” in front of me, being distracted is only a click away. Every time a video track is rendering, I check my email - even if that render is under a minute, even if I checked my email a minute ago. That’s bad. That is evil.

The horrible part is that I don’t really like the Internet. Sure it’s useful and the idea of it is like living with Real Magic but very little of it enriches me in any way because I don’t really go out of my way when I am on it. if I can’t see it on my Google homepage, I probably won’t get to it. I pay the most attention to what i am putting into the internet not what it is giving back to me. In that way, it is a very expensive, evil magic mirror bent on my destruction.

It’s really been bothering me and I am working on it. I deleted my Myspace account. A good choice. I recommend everyone does this.

TTWP: This is a great way of putting it. I feel much the same on all points. One in particular: at my office I use Yahoo! Messenger because it tells me the very second that a new email arrives. Does that keep me from going to my email 6 times a day and hitting “Check mail”? No. It does not.

That said, I very well might not know that your work existed if not for the Internet. I found you because of “Under the El,” probably through artblog, but I’m not sure. The truth is, I’m more likely to keep track of an artist I discover online (and bookmark somehow) than I am to keep track of one I like at a gallery.

When did you decide to get serious about this whole Internet thing and enter the blogosphere? (or are you in the vlogosphere?) Did you hesitate? What sort of reservations did you have?

DK: There is no doubt of the power of the Internet. To be able to reach so many people and be found by anyone interested. The choice to go there was an easy one, but it wasn’t really like “I love what these video bloggers are doing, I want to do something like that.” And I can’t say that when i started posting Shadow World online that I thought very many people would see it. All through 2006, I was working on what turned into a feature length documentary, If You Break the Skin You Must Come In.

It was an insane project that had me directing and editing as well as being video and documentary instructor and it was being produced by two large institutions that each had very different ideas of what the film should be from each other and from myself. It was a great experience on many levels but also as great an experience as one could have under the conditions of being violently mad at one person or another everyday for a year can be and it was the last thing that i wanted to do again.

I started Shadow World almost at the completion of If You Break the Skin as a way to do something by myself and for myself. It was to remember why i liked filmmaking again and to make art without someone disagreeing with my intentions. And the Internet - to be able to get something out into the world in a day or so and not after a year of labor and hopes of screening and distribution. It really just made sense. I started a blogger account and just started putting them up. Since then, I’ve really started to embrace video blogging as a tool for my own work but only slightly as a community.

TTWP: I am so tempted to talk to you more about this whole Internet Community idea here, but that would be way too logical of a progression. So, you said earlier that you work just about all the time. Then you also said you did a brutal project where you were angry at someone every day. If that’s the case, you must have had some escape routes. Where do you go when you need to get away from your work? Or, you want to keep working, you just need a change of scenery. Where do you go, what are you looking for and what changes when you get there?

DK: that gets hard because my studio is my office. I do all my work whether it is for myself or for a client there and my studio is in Old City where there is just about no place that I enjoy minus a coffee shop. It definitely feels hard to escape sometimes and when i think about escaping, it’s usually far away. I can refocus on a different project or I will often try to find a movie to watch but I think my only real escape is to find good company and good conversation. I think really, as long as I have that in my life there is little else that i need. I’m fortunate to have moved into what is turning into a really great community of artists and people whom I deeply admire and think of as mentors. So now, for the first time in a long time, when i need to get away I can actually just go home. That, or the bar.

TTWP: OK, God just came down from Heaven and said: “David Kessler, you get to live you’re life over, but you can’t go to Art School because you’ve already done that and you know what that’s like and I’m letting you keep all your memories from your first go.” What do you decide to do with yourself? You’re allowed to cheat and worm your way back into Art, you just aren’t allowed to take the direct route.

DK: I’d probably skip art school anyway. It’s really fairly pointless and I have my memories in case I really need to draw upon any of that. I don’t know that given the same circumstances I would end up doing anything differently if I wanted to. If I had a choice in the matter, i would never have gone to public school, probably would not have grown up in America.

I would have learned several languages, could play an instrument and have found a way to be more comfortable in my own skin at an earlier age. I would have found more opportunities to fall in love, and I would have more interesting stories to tell. But i grew up in Northern New Jersey, so I listened to heavy metal and felt like an outcast for most of my youth. Was there ever any alternative?

NOTE FROM 2020: I still have the photos I took at this show but honestly they just aren’t very good.