Lost Inside: A Digital Inquiry
By Bilal Mohamed
"Lost Inside: A Digital Inquiry" is a COVID-era digital journal inspired by J.R Carpenter's "Entre Ville" that assumes depths of hypertext, intimate entries, and personal and visual perspectives that highlight a state of stasis due to the quietude and uncertainty of the outer world. The purpose of this work is to create an intimate space for rumination on the experience of life under quarantine and a pandemic. While it does not necessarily comment on politics and the status of the pandemic, except slightly, it mainly highlights the states/stages, metaphysically and emotionally speaking, which we as individuals tend to undergo due to the circumstances COVID has provided us. These stages, such as hopelessness, concern, distraction, connection, fantasy, reflection, and questioning, are expressed in the journal through images, text, drawings, audio, and video accumulated during the period itself. While it is mainly told through a perspective that is personal and from a character who is largely based on my person, or explicitly "me", the author, I believe the musings of this work are largely prolific and universal in the emotions and viewpoints they present. The journal is prone to updates and additions, as the theme is based on COVID, therefore as long as the virus persists, the digital journal will as well.
About the Author
Bilal Mohamed is a writer, conceptual artist, and curator based in San Diego, CA. In 2020, he received his BA in Comparative Literature from San Diego State University. Common themes present in his work stem from his personalized notion of a “withdrawn observance” – his acting as witness, with an attentiveness towards that which suspiciously, yet overtly lacks scrutiny. This concept translates especially in the case of his photography, where in lieu of assembling and lingering on his subjects, he engages with travel photography making provocative images that primarily focus on color, unconventional compositions, movement, and shadows as subject. He prompts feelings of intrigue towards the intricacies of external, forgotten realms of existence that at times, disorient what is concretely portrayed.