Welcome to Non-Faulty Phenomena

This newsletter started with a refrigerator manual

I’ve always taken an interest in systems of categorization: charts, lists, graphs, diagrams. It is exciting to me all of the tools we have to make sense of the strange expanse of our lives. I also have taken a great interest in the imaginary: the abstract, extrapolated, made up realities our minds have the power to access. And so, this newsletter is a space dedicated to the combination of these two interests: a meticulous exploration of the invisible.

On Logical Fallacy, 2024

While sometimes humorous, I would like it to be known that this systemization of thinking is not unserious. It is, in many ways, the way we have made sense of everything around us. There are no natural boundaries to the applications of logic. Nothing is small enough to evade a list, nothing is too abstract to be charted. In the attempt to make sense of chaos, we discover new truths. Gravity, music theory, laws of governance have become knowns through this same method of questioning. The truths that live at the end of due process are the landmarks we have to understand our reality. They are the touch points we can use to feel our expanse. They are in many ways the closest we can come to knowing anything at all.

Life Simulated, 2018

Systems of Consequence, 2024

Last week I bought a new refrigerator for my art studio. After setting it up, I decided to take a look at the manual, due to a compulsive need to double check for creative inspiration before throwing anything away (it is for this reason that I have a pile of doorstep advertisements, old grocery bags and straps of sorts growing in the corner). Unsurprisingly, I found a chart of interest.

My natural instinct was to extrapolate this system of logic past the bounds of refrigerator repair. The result delighted me, for though entirely un-useful for kitchen maintenance, it became a tool to categorize the mundane.

I love what Non-Faulty Phenomena represent: entirely ordinary but often confusing occurrences; the apple that fell from the tree, the changing of the seasons, the patterns of love and loss that shape our lives. This newsletter is a space to swim in the unknown. To question the expanse, to wrestle with the abyss, to throw rocks at the edges of our reality and use the few truths we have to uncover new ones.

I’m really excited you’re here. We’ve got lots to explore.