MORE FOLLOWS

Lisette Murphy

Interview by L. Valena

First, can you describe what you responded to?

I got a jpeg of what looked like a piece of notebook paper rendered in paint, with a child's note that said "Do you like me?" and it had boxes for 'yes', 'no', 'maybe' and 'other'. It was painted over a collage of Instagram selfies.

And what was your first reaction to that?

My first reaction was that it seemed like an artifact of contemporary separation. That yearning that we have, you know? This very very basic human yearning to not be in separation, and to ask to ensure that we're connected. That we're liked and that we're part of the group. That was what hit me most readily about the piece.

What happened next? Where did you go from there?

I love going into that co-creative/improv/I-don't-know-what's-going-to-happen-next space, and that's one of the reasons that I'm so excited about this project. The whole idea of a creative Exquisite Corpse just really speaks to me. So I plugged that feeling and imagery into my mind, and decided to start where I often start with projects- with reference photos. I'm an animator as well as a multidisciplinary artist, but I wanted this to be an animation- it felt right. I just internalized that feeling of seeking some confirmation that I'm not separate, and took a series of photos. I got really loose and free with them, and waited to see if anything suggested something to me that wanted to be explored further. So I took a bunch of photos, and plugged them into the Procreate animation program. I started looking at them, just trying to figure out which one I might pick to get started. And at that point I didn't really have clear direction on this, so I took a break.

I put it aside, and was just kind of letting it percolate in the background, and my partner came home from the metaphysical library with a DVD of The Code by Carl Munck. It's this wackadoodle, fun video exploring archeocryptography- decoding messages from lost civilizations. Just such good stuff, and what was incredible about it was that the video had probably been made in the early 80's. It looked like it had probably been shot on the earliest of camcorders. And this guy had made, in ballpoint pen, his own transition cards and title cards.

I was absolutely just smitten with the the whole thing- it was like nothing that you see today, and his whole presentation was such a labor of love. He looks like this haggard, Popeye kind of character, talking about numerology and the pyramids of Giza. So we were kind of there. And there was this one transition card that came up, when he was going from one thought to the next, that was hand-written, but clearly with the use of an old-school lettering stencil, that just said ‘more follows’. And that was just one of those moments, where all the little percolating stuff in the back of my mind came flooding up to the forefront, and I was like, “Pause the dvd- I have to get a photo of this.” More follows! That's so profound!

I knew that that was the next tidbit I had been looking for as I was contemplating this state of pain of separation, searching for connection. There’s also the double entendre between seeking 'likes' and 'more follows' on Instagram. As an artist I constantly document portions of my creative process online for my creative community and for the community that purchases work from me. I'm really accustomed to making work specifically for consumption on Instagram. So I thought it was really fascinating. I really think that ‘More Follows’ is the title of this piece. I think this somehow plugs into this animation, and I'm not really sure how. I guess that what I'm riffing on here is a two-fold commentary on social media and the track that I am most touched by and enthused in my own creative work right now, which is creative death café work. Exploring the continuity of consciousness and life after death. So that was my switch.

I really want to dig into this idea of separation a little bit. Do you think that it explains why social media is such a powerful force in our lives? Does it scratch that separation itch that we all have, that is such a part of modern life?

There are so many ways that social media promotes, and contributes to separation and anxiety about separation. And then on the other side, there are these ways that it forms connectivity and cross-pollination, and gorgeous bonds that might not necessarily available in your geographic location. So it's a very interesting liminal space where a lot is possible, and alienation and other issues being at the forefront of the online conversation right now. So something like Instagram does this very sinister trick with you by making you feel that you're being seen constantly, but always making you feel that you can't quite be touched. There's a divide there even as we reach across and make these connections. There’s a whole concept of being able to stay connected to close friends and family at a distance via social media, yet there's a separation even within that closeness. We find out very important things for the first time from very close companions on social media- they've told everyone, not just you. And then we respond as part of this public posting, which has a very different emotional quality than offline, not for consumption, relating.

Do you want to talk more about death?

Yes. It pleases me to no end to be asked! I'm a late-stage cancer survivor. I received an advanced metastatic melanoma diagnosis in 2012. I had just turned 30, I had just fallen in love with someone brand new. My life changed through the course of many surgeries and intensive treatments. I would say that it kicked off my inkling that doing death work might be something important for me.

My journey since then has gotten quite deep. A few years after that I lost my father to cancer, and I was able to sit at his bedside. My father was also a visionary artist, and so I was able to receive these incredible communications from his death bed about paintings that he was seeing swirling in front of his eyes. This has been the most compelling inquiry/thread to pull on in my life.

Then two years ago, my husband and I had what is called an unanticipated mediumistic experience with the spirit of my father. It was an event that changed my life. It changed our relationship to one another and to the world. It sent us on an inquiry about the nature of consciousness that went beyond the kind of inquiries that we had been doing before (which was kind of, "let's take drugs and see what happens"). It was much bigger, with deeper reverberations throughout my body, and sent me on the most satisfying path of discovery of my life.

I'm hosting a creative death cafe now, with a visionary arts community, that serves multiple purposes. This is a community I wish that I had been able to be a part of before I thought I was going to die, before my father died, and before I had a ghost talk to me. I'm trying to live as a very curious, far-out example and space-holder for other people now. I'm talking to you eight years in remission from my own death sentence, and with abundant openness, curiosity, and magic in my heart surrounding the concept of death and the continuation of consciousness. More follows!

It was such an intuitive, remix piece of work that ended up being a little bit animation, mostly the process, and the feel through that went into it became the ultimate piece. The visual animation came together before I had any audio. I knew that this was no longer a piece about social media and that this had obviously become a Lisette piece about death and seeking what's beyond. I know that more follows. The soundtrack I created for this involved a clip from the digital recording that my husband and I happened to be making during the mediumistic experience.

WHAT?! That's fucking amazing!

Yeah. It's primary audio, and in fact, my husband and I hadn't listened to it until this weekend. I was like, "I think that part of the audio from that day is going to be a part of this work." We're working on a graphic novel about the experience, and we talk a lot about the experience, but we hadn't gone back and listened to the primary audio. We had been capturing this business idea that day- it was 2018, and we just set the digital recorder to go, because I was really on one thinking about some creative business ideas. And then you hear us very rapidly go into a different realm. So those were the first words I said to my father's spirit when he appeared before me: "thank you” and “I love you." I had known that having that audio source material was profound for me, but talking about this experience took me almost two years to be able to really tell the story. There's so much stigma surrounding death in the first place, let alone spirit communication. I'm someone who did not have any contact or mediumship or contemporary spiritualism, or anything of the sort prior to this. I like to say that I was far out in every way except the death work. I hadn't had that plugged in yet. I had to almost die first and see a ghost before I plugged that in.

That's how big that societal stuff looms!

Yeah! You're so right! Overcoming it is just ridiculous. But I realized that more follows. I knew that it was time to dip into the primary source material. So thank you for giving me an opportunity to find it's first place in a creative project.

Do you have any advice for someone else participating in this project?

I would say to be free and let the project be something that you can surprise yourself with. This really freed me up to do something that I had been meaning to do and didn't even know what the outlet was, but it opened up this other gate for me, and it's just because I stayed as open as you recommended. Keep it loose! You've got two weeks! It's so fantastic and I find it really liberating! Play is always my recommendation, and this is the perfect place to play.

Call Number: C38VA | C41FI.muM

Second-generation visionary artist and experimental animator Lisette Murphy makes art about the ineffable. Lisette hosts an on-going creative death cafe, The Art of Dying, and offers instruction in things like remix art, improv animation, and the role of the unconscious in the conscious creation of art. She is currently creating a psychedelic graphic novel based on the surprise mediumistic experience she shared with her husband & the spirit of her deceased father.