The Invention of Us is an exploration of defining ourselves in an absurd world through the documentation of two lives and how they exist intertwined. An emotive, metaphorical, and nonlinear narrative progresses from physical separation into multidimensional unity through digitally captured diptychs, triptychs, and single photographs.

How we exist in each other’s minds when we are not together, how we long for each other when there is a disconnect, and how we find each other through symbolic means, often experienced in synchronicities with the natural world, present themselves as abstractions in the foundations of this project.

A salient influence on The Invention of Us lies in the pleasure and impression of experiencing Dylan Henner’s ambient soundscapes You Will Always Be and The Invention of the Human. Multiple direct and inspired titles came from songs on those albums (Everyone I’ve Ever Loved Lives Here All Around Me, The World Moves Quicker Than I Had Ever Realized, Two Trains Came Through the Station at Once). The albums, as if reliving each expansion and contraction before I would come to know mortality, became a permanent resident of my malleable cognition. It’s as if the songs inherited consciousness, mastered autonomy, and commanded themselves toward a coordinated position in space and time when I needed them most.