Category: journal

personal drabbles, what would be my journal ?

Leaving San Francisco soon; let’s meet before!

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My partner and I are (very likely) leaving San Francisco for New York in July/August 2025. I moved to San Francisco around September 2022 and enjoyed my time here… I never dreamed of living in the US, let alone in this beautiful city. I’ll be endlessly grateful for how I’ve flourished as an artist, designer, person, field recordist, birder, sound experimentalist, etc. here; I’ll want to come back to live again here someday, and I know I’ll have many regrets about not making the “most” out of that city, in the infinite ways that could mean.

For now, I’d love to see you while I’m here, especially if we’ve only seen each other at passing group events or never had time 1:1 before.

Especially interested in: Art & technology (new media, whatever), the ”poetic web” and designing tools & spaces for a more intentional internet, design, faith as infrastructure, hypertext, experimental literature, indie games (playing/making), sound art, building new institutions for Southeast Asian tech & art ecosystems… I’m also thinking about tools for worlding, creativity, atmosphere-making as applied to creative tooling, games, and simulations 🙂

What we can do: Coffee or drinks, art event/opening or film + drinks, music events, tech events, organize an art/technology event together or dinner with a group of friends (especially if no one knows each other!). I’m generally around the east side of the city (Mission/Bernal Heights/Potrero/Dogpatch/Downtown) — but also happy to meet midway or explore other areas.

Adjacently, if you have recommendations for group events/scenes that you think I would be interested in, I would love to explore a bit…

How to reach me: [email protected] or DM me on Instagram (@hotemogf)

I turned 25

Reading Time: 2 minutes

On May 1st.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how my whole life has been about proving people wrong. I am not the type of person that people hold faith in, not since I was a child, nor in recent times. If there’s something that will mark 24 to me, it might be how mundane this casual cruelty has become to me: being completely unable to receive any type of sympathy, waking up with dread every single day, my hair falling out in clumps, proving myself in mundane tests, failing people who have been generous. Maybe this is the most crushing thing outside of the material cost of the world; I think it’s why I’ve grown particularly withdrawn, skeptical, and distrusting of people over the years. I don’t think my goal is to be that type of person (a subject worthy of belief)… but I’d like to be a believer. Not necessarily the type of belief that destroys the shell that I’ve rightfully drawn, but one that far deeper.

If there is anything I’d like to hold close this upcoming year, it is to be more faithful in all around me—perhaps so much so that it might be misconstrued as delusion. Yes—I’d like to be faithful.

24 felt like decades, but also strangely stagnant. I was thrusted into work with more agency, traveled more than I have in a long while (not truly for leisure–with the way my life is going, I don’t think I’ll have a real vacation until I’m 28), stretched my body with performances… defined more what I was walking towards. A few months ago, I was home again to show KAKAKOMPYUTER MO YAN at Art Fair, but I felt a bit sick coming back—like I had failed. It’s been strange and sinking ever since. At the same time, I’ve spent countless nights sick, delirious, loving the work, wanting to be excellent, believing in myself when no one else would… like this was knowing the world, and no one would take it away from me. Then, there were the few precious times also, where I could sit slowly with myself, and hear things pristinely, clearly; understand the smallness of my body but the wholeness of all I could have.

Less things matter; the few that do appear larger than life. I just had the biggest product release of my life (we launched Figma Sites, but still have much more to do)—I think it’s something I’ll look back at when I grow old, and see that I tried. I took a few days to breathe before throwing over a hundred sketches from the past year into a new work to screen at Tate on the 16th, and hope I get more time to build things that shape up to the thoughts and heart I have. Farther ahead? I’d like to get Developh to a meaningful place, start explorations for a potential company (!), continue developing my art practice with intensity & rigor to have a body of work, research, and thought to culminate in an exhibition (!!!!), be an excellent & sharp designer that knows what it takes to grow, handle some logistical woes with Visa/immigration status that have inhibited me for a few years, and continue with voracious, unfettered belief…

favorites from 2024

Reading Time: 2 minutes

favorite games (that i first played in 2024)

favorite films (that i first watched in 2024)

  • zone of interest
  • tetsuo: the iron man
  • cleo from 5 to 7
  • totally f***ed up
  • burden of dreams
  • perfect days
  • maggie lee’s mommy
  • anatomy of a fall
  • the pianist
  • isaac goes’ worlds
  • as i was movinv ahead, occasionally i saw brief glimpses of beauty

favorite albums (2024 releases)

  • endlessness, nala sinephro
  • nonage, LI YILEI
  • everything squared, see feel
  • romanticism, hana vu
  • here in the pitch, jessica pratt
  • cycle, h to o (h takahashi & kohei oyamada)

not as much intentional listening this year

favorite books i read

  • ducks, newburyport (still reading lol)
  • white noise

  • my mother was a computer, katherine hayles
  • computer libs/dream machines, ted nelson
  • the atmospherics of the city, ross chambers
  • the real world of technology, ursuma m franklin (lectures book)
  • the intuition of the instant, gaston bachelard
  • interface fantasy: a lacanian cyborg ontology
  • ways of being, james bridle
  • programmed vision, software and memory
  • assemblage theory, manuel delanda
  • on the existence of digital objects, yuk hui

purchases

  • nicole saldaña fabiana
  • midi fighter twister
  • fino hair mask
  • brunch brother toast laptop case
  • my hangyodon airpods case
  • sandy liang x subu pink slippers
  • sandy liang dragon egg necklace
  • eechaeroi vintage red heart bag
  • my first eye prescription update in 6 years
  • paloma wool brown cayetano bag
  • paloma wool x alessandro furchino capria paola scarf
  • vivienne westwood heart silver lighter
  • my several mac minis for installation purposes
  • a toolbox from japan
  • little chopstick holder guys from japan
  • ribbed glass mugs

shows i saw

  • air (playing all of moon safari) in sf
  • fall out boy in sacramento
  • cornelius in berkeley

food

  • gyukatsu motomura, shibuya
  • okaeri, san francisco
  • ernest, san francisco
  • lampara, poblacion
  • COTE, new york
  • butternut squash dumplings from leleka, san francisco
  • costco steak packs thank you god
  • corn latte from on fleek in hongdae

scent

  • Eau Triple TubĂ©reuse du Mexique Buly 1803