As he sat down for the interview, the first thing that Dave revealed to me was that he was going on tour with his band, Zara, as soon as he wrapped up his thesis show. He is their drummer, and many of his works feature elements of his experience as so. In preparation for this interview, I was provided a short document that contained how each artist interprets their work in relation to the theme and was deeply impacted by Dave’s quote:
DB: An orifice, to me, is a doorway – a threshold – a portal – a transitional opening leading to a different thing. A person can be a doorway as can an experience or a happening. There is an orifice between life and death. Trauma is an orifice. A shift in consciousness will occur. There are so many before and after times in life – that moment when the shift occurs is the orifice. I was this, and then that happened, and now I am something new. Each moment is an orifice leading to the next – Time’s relentless maw. We stand always on the threshold - sometimes it feels as if we are moving in space, but the orifice moves with us – there is no escape.
Dave's art stands at the intersection of technology and mortality. It explores how digital spaces influence our perceptions of death and how technology can both aid and impede our journey through mortality. His perspective on death felt particularly meaningful to me as I recently lost a close person unexpectedly, and the discussions in this interview provided an unexpected avenue for me to grieve and mourn. The origin of Dave’s interest in these topics emerged from his own experiences with facing death unexpectedly.
DB: Death used to be an intimate experience, something that happened within the home and was directly witnessed by loved ones. Now, it's become much more detached, often occurring in hospitals or hospices, and increasingly mediated through screens and media.
My interest in this topic deepened last year when I was hospitalized with pneumonia. I have a six-year-old son and I'm married, and the experience made me realize how unprepared I was for the possibility of dying. Not just emotionally, but practically—I had no will, no plans in place, nothing organized. This prompted me to think about the legacy I would leave behind, both materially and emotionally.
During my hospital stay, I was also struck by how I was experiencing the deaths of friends through social media. One friend, in particular, had a profound impact on me. She seemed to have a perfect life on the surface. Her social media page is now memorialized, so all her posts and interactions remain. I keep seeing notifications and memories involving her continuing to pop up. It's as if her digital presence is haunting me. This situation made me contemplate the presence we project online and how it's often a curated, false image of ourselves. Now that she's gone, that false image is all that's left, immortalized on her social media page. It's a constant reminder of the disparity between how we present ourselves and the reality of our lives.
IK: Oh my goodness, that is heavy and so difficult. The uncertainty of your own hospitalization and reflecting on that at the same time.
DB: At that time, I didn't know if I'd even make it to this point. It's incredible to be here now, especially since I've finally been diagnosed and am receiving treatment for my illness. During this period, I started reflecting on the concept of haunting. I thought about how I want to be remembered, how I want to "haunt" in a sense—being proactive about the legacy I leave behind. It struck me that nowadays, much of what we pass on is digital—data and technological heirlooms. This idea intrigued me and became a central theme for me. This all tied back to an experience I had while trying to 3D print something I had sculpted virtually. Materiality has been a significant theme in my work for a long time. However, there was an issue with the mesh, making it impossible to print. When I investigated, I found an unexpected object within the mesh. I had no idea what it was or how it got there, but it looked interesting. This experience further fueled my thoughts on the intersection of the digital and the material, and how our digital creations and legacies persist and evolve.Our reliance on certain everyday technologies makes their failure quite disruptive. The idea for The Spectral Scepter: The Key (2024) emerged from a 3D printing mistake, leading Dave to believe that its creation was not accidental.
IK: What did this mishap look like? How did that become the origin of new creations for you?
DB: Well there was this object… It was inside of the 3D model, and it seemed too intentional to be a mistake, and I decided to start world-building around this object called The Spectral Scepter, and an entity named GRAWK ZOPYRA, who performs a spectral backup. For the other show in the Ceramics and Metal Arts Building, I'm creating a data backup ritual. I'm backing up all of my data onto a hard drive, and "scepter" will include a small USB drive, which I refer to as the "key." This USB drive contains all my usernames and passwords for my various accounts.
Another aspect of the show involves a game environment that will be projected. In this game, participants can navigate inside the model using the scepter. They will embark on a quest to find the pieces of the scepter within this virtual environment. This interactive element adds a unique layer to the ritual, blending the physical and digital worlds in a meaningful way.
IK: What's the reasoning behind gamifying this concept? Is it an aesthetic choice? How do you relate to visualizing this world? How do you translate your experiences with the finality of life into this data-adjacent context?
DB: It's something I've been interested in for a long time. Some of my other work involves embodying them, like how we swim. Yeah, I'm trying to express a lot of it as if it's a love letter to my son. There's a silliness, a goofiness, and a sense of our secret language in it. It's our unique way of connecting, only between us. He's really excited about the sci-fi and game elements, and the superhero vibe. It's like a way to express our love language to each other. I'm dedicated to him, especially because of my illness. I'm grieving over not being able to do the things we used to do together and be the kind of father I used to be and want to be. I do not know how he will feel about it in the future, right now he's really excited about it. He's spent his whole life being around artists and in this type of environment, so I want this to be for him. I also find it funny to imagine that if I die, someone—maybe an attorney or whoever—would have to put on the costume and walk in the center and give it to him. You know, things like that. The usual kind of death rituals and legal stuff is just really cold and sad, man. So I'm trying to do it my way and use that language that we have with each other. I'm also processing a lot. There are always layers to everything, and there are other things I'm really interested in, like psychology and religion. It's just weird how none of this stuff happened. I'm interested in how certain apocryphal things can turn into a belief system. Does that make sense?
IK: Absolutely. I feel like people who turn to religion later in their lives seem to be affected by some sort of large event that makes them reevaluate their beliefs. I think you are onto something.
DB: Some objects, like those made of natural materials such as wood or stone, or hand-crafted items made from clay, are considered sacred. However, certain industries make use of components of the spectral structure. As I was pondering this, I realized that the process of world-building and the capability of a 3D printer is reminiscent of an anointed printer of the scepter.
The print itself, produced by the 3D printer, is akin to the sacred printer of the scepter. For my CMA show, I plan to create a temple for it. The 3D printer has been incessantly producing these sacred items, and it's truly astonishing. It feels like it's just been relentlessly working day after day. If it were a religion, this would definitely be a part of it. It's something that appears unchangeable, a technological aspect that we tend to perceive as the opposite of sacred.
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