The idea for the Seven Eleven narrative popped out of some working collage at the Develop Studio in Bangkok. It was during the period when I was looking for ways to really push the equation of fiction into the visuals—the character is making this, not the artist sitting in the studio. Maybe a little ironic: the visual predicated the story, which required the visuals, maybe not, maybe redundant. In the back soi of my studio in Phra Khanong, the Seven Eleven on the corner was the hub for most everything neighborhood-public and necessary for the retail side of living. It was also air-conditioned, and it was also a great stoop to sit and watch the comings and goings—everybody knew who I was. I liked the idea of a t-shirt as both a serious work of art and a floating cultural media outlet. I was making t-shirts, so the characters were making t-shirts. The narrative conceit of the cash register motherboard as the digital tool, once they were trapped in there, necessitated the simple digital design work—cropping, spinning, and cutting up packaging graphics like Dorritos and Mountain Dew.

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The sci-fi narrative of the story needed imagery, ostensibly from some ether point, and it needed to be distorted and damaged as it came through the low-tech of the register. Other editorial imagery was necessary to give context to the communication—the sent and received. The main character needed to flaunt his design and fashion interests, hence the scarves. And there was also the idea of the makeshift, which translated into using the actual physical material inside the market, the smashed cans, and whatnot. This process might have been the first time I was making serious art that would never be displayed and only be offered as a visual, narrative subplot. Later, in Richmond, I smashed the cans and made the physical objects that had been sketched out in Bangkok. All of this work was photographed and manipulated.