For the latest edition of Mint by Mint, DeltaSauce picks six of his favourite pieces from American Slumber. We asked him about each work, exploring the ideas, stories and details behind the pieces he connected with most.
very piece in American Slumber comes with a paragraph from DeltaSauce explaining a bit about the work and where it came from.
Here’s the one attached to the first work in the collection:
“A figure observes the luminous horizon of a city dominated by commercial signs through a computer screen. The work introduces the collection as a threshold: America is not encountered directly, but consumed from a distance as an image.”
DeltaSauce describes himself as an AI wordsmith, a digital artist and a curator of nostalgia, in that order. Writing is clearly a big part of how he approaches his work.
American Slumber is his newest body of work, but it feels more like a sequence than a collection of separate pieces. The works reference each other as you move through them. A figure watches a city through a screen, phones take the empty seats at a dinner table, someone ends up alone on a stage being asked to perform, and eventually the question becomes whether any of it was real. Put together, the pieces explore different parts of American life, from the perspective of a Texan who has spent the last four years showing his work in places like Paris, Milan, Rome, Lisbon and Marfa.
We asked him to pick six pieces from the collection and talk us through each one.
DeltaSauce, american consumerism. From american slumber.
"A figure observes the luminous horizon of a city dominated by commercial signs through a computer screen. The work introduces the collection as a threshold: America is not encountered directly, but consumed from a distance as an image."
You've said what you've lost is identity and the hyper-financialisation of attention. Do you think that's reversible, or is it just what America is now?
For me, I think that we are in a decline where a lot of people look to the hyper-financialization of hobbies (streaming, playing video games, card collecting) as a potential way out of the current financial struggles that they face. We are at a point where people are betting on the whether, trying to make a few extra dollars.
DeltaSauce, silent dinner. From american slumber.
"A set dinner table is surrounded by illuminated phones, arranged like new guests. The cold light of the devices replaces human faces and makes a contemporary silence visible: not an absence of communication, but its dispersal elsewhere."
You've said the third place is gone, and that screens took its place because they're cheaper and faster than real experience. What was yours?
My third place was always the mall, which is quite ironic. The mall was meant to represent the pinnacle of consumerism, yet now, like the coliseums of yesterday, many malls lie abandoned and in decay. It wasn't just the aspect of going in and shopping that made the mall into this third place, it was the times that I got to hang with friends and hit up the food court.
Now that malls have become a dying staple of American subculture, with the rise of online shopping, we have these massive structures just rotting away like corpses littering the American landscape.
DeltaSauce, and they want a show. From american slumber.
"Surveillance gives way to performance: being visible is no longer enough; one must entertain. Phones and flashes among the spectators transform experience into documentation. The individual becomes content before a crowd that continually demands something new."
A man with a gun to his head and an audience filming it. It reads like people feeling they have to go to the most extreme place possible just to be seen by a crowd that's otherwise asleep. What's your read on that?
I think often that so many artists, push ourselves to unhealthy extremes in order to put on a "show" for our audiences, to draw people's attention. Which in turn can lead to burnout, and creative death. The newer thing needs to be bigger, shinier, otherwise people get bored.
Attention is a short term and fast commodity, and we have all seen how the attention economy moves so quickly. The spotlight moves from one person to another in quick succession, only staying there for moments on end.
DeltaSauce, what is real?. From american slumber.
"A solitary figure confronts a luminous cloud suspended ahead. The title's question emerges after dissolution as a radical necessity. Once images, memory, and reality have merged, the subject must begin again not with answers, but with the capacity to doubt."
Your images feel real and invented at the same time. Between AI, false news and the internet, most of us are struggling with the same question the title asks. What still feels real to you?
I won't give the cop out answer that real is subjective like plenty of science fiction will state. I think what is real is individualistic to everyone's perceived experiences, how they value things.
For me, I want to say human connection has become the thing that feels real. The shared human experience, and the memories attached to those.
DeltaSauce, seeking healing. From american slumber.
"A figure approaches a small illuminated church dominated by the sign of the cross. This image does not declare a certain return to faith; it reveals the need to seek healing in a symbolic place. The distance between the subject and the building keeps open the question of what, if anything, can truly be recovered."
The cross here is symbolic of a place to seek healing. Is there somewhere you actually go to get out from under the slumber of consumerism you're describing?
In times of logical uncertainty, there is a tendency to turn to the spiritual and religious aspects. There are many ways to seek healing beyond just physical health, especially in situations where the financial burden and hardships can pile up so high.
Many are looking for answers, in various aspects of our own subconscious, some seek solitude, others seek out the community, whatever fills that soul. As society at times can be a large drain for so many.
DeltaSauce, i belong here. From american slumber.
"The composition preserves the solitude running throughout the collection, but the title alters its meaning. It is no longer simply exclusion, but a declaration of presence. Belonging does not coincide with a return to the crowd or a definitive answer, but with the possibility of consciously inhabiting one's condition."
This is a man alone in an empty room with a void a short distance away. A lot of people are either chasing something to fill that, or using the system to avoid looking at it. Where do you sit with that?
I look at this artwork, as a way to self insert people into a situation that they either find comfort in the solace or they have already removed themselves from that uncomfortable feeling. I've seen many people stick around in uncomfortable and often painful situations, and just accept that this is how things are meant to play out.
American Slumber launched on NINFA and all twenty-eight works sold within a day. You can see the full collection at americanslumber.ninfa.io and more of DeltaSauce's work at deltasauceart.com. Follow him at @deltasauce.
Go beyond the work and get to know the people making it.