Conversations with Eron Rauch

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eron Rauch. 

Hi Eron, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I spent my teens in a place without much to entertain you, so boredom was just a synonym-feeling for DIY possibility. My recent late-night notebooks and coffee shop thoughts have swirled around this influence, which I call “productive boredom.” What I mean by productive boredom is something like Rebecca Solnit’s ideas about the skill of being lost in Field Guide to Getting Lost, but for the creative imagination: Learn to DJ so you can have your own dance party; Start an indie comics anthology; Learn to make web pages; Go drive around the weird, mostly vacant small towns. So much of my best art, and the most interesting experiences in life, have come from making the space and time to be bored, and then actually being able to feel what I want to try, what is actually out in the world that I never noticed while being busy. If “productive boredom” sounds uncomfortable, I wrote it another way on my studio wall as the first pandemic lockdown was easing: “Protect and value your attention.” 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I could go on and on about what parts of myself I’ve been told I have to choose between to be successful. Contemporary media and art worlds have a frustrating and counterproductive habit of seeing the things that I am as opposed: writer and visual artist; academic and fan; DIY and highly trained. This extends to cultural institutions and audiences having a habit of being very protective of their preferred formulation of culture, whether it’s the art world (aka the art market) ignoring video games or anime, or parts of media fandom deeply distrusting contemporary art, which quickly becomes cyclical. 

Marcia Tucker, the former curator of the New Museum, often highlighted in her lectures that the most interesting art is usually done at the margins of the art world, and I’d modify that to say that the most interesting things are being done in the yet-undefined interface zones between different ideas of arts. And it’s exactly those murky zones where I find my inspiration, make my work, and want to share with other people. I’ve gotten to be part of so many amazing projects because of my willingness to play in those interface zones, but it’s also really hurt my institutional success—always an exciting guest with stories of digital adventure and mystery, but always too weird to be seen as a resident. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At the most abstract level, what has defined my career is noticing unexpected places where the forces that will shape our lives are vibrant and exposed. To follow up with the previous question, one of the struggles I’ve had is trying to convince people that the curious, awesome, unexpected things I’m working with—the places where the future is coming into being—are actually important. 

The younger, somehow even scruffier me, making some of the earliest in-game/screenshot photography [https://www.eronrauch.com/a-land-to-die-in] or doing the first photodocumentary about early American cosplay [https://www.eronrauch.com/bridges-of-desire], was often-to-always combative with people who thought these weren’t worthwhile subjects for art.  I knew raids and masquerades were showing us something fascinating about our changing relationship with media culture and digital technology. But I wasn’t good at convincing either art viewers or fans to go on that complex, disorienting ride with me. 

I’ve been lucky (and extremely confused) that those projects are far better known 15 years later than they were in the first five, starting with academics who were using my works as sources. The weird journey of seeing something you made speak to more and more people, even though it was initially a failure, actually made me pretty upset at first. “Why couldn’t you see that it was brilliant then? Why didn’t anyone buy it? What’s the point?” etc. But I started to see that it was an amazing gift to make something that not only lasted but grew in value to others. It showed that I needed to trust myself—that my artistic intuitions are often right—and that my work could serve a special role in helping others understand and explore the data dump of the contemporary world. 

Seeing those projects grow in influence also led me to improve at finding ways to explain and share my excitement in a subject that the other person doesn’t even know they would find interesting. This impulse was really what drove me to relentlessly improve my craft as a writer. It’s only been in the last few years that it’s all come together, and I feel like I’ve been unleashed to make this kind of ambitious artwork and to directly build platforms to help create those bridges and paths through the places I explore! 

What’s next?
One of my biggest initiatives right now has been Video Games for the Arts [https://www.videogamesforthearts.com], which is a platform that creates entry points for arts institutions and educators to work with video games. The catalog is still growing but has hundreds of entries highlighting important video games, works of arts about games, related criticism, and even other knowledge platforms, along with suggestions for how they weave into the context of fine arts. It’s not going to help alleviate confusion about my role in the world, but video games are only going to be more and more part of our culture and I’m in a unique place to help improve understanding about their relationship to art, so I feel like I need to do it. 

Other than that, I mentioned that my trust in myself and my ambition has been growing. This has led to a project called Serfing the Internet, which is a series of labyrinthine, massive digital collages that are built from all the swirling, scintillating, pixelated pieces of the unconscious of the internet, including advertising, chat logs, and even vtubers. The project also incorporates some new ideas I have about “data-rich art” that my past work’s use in academic contexts has prompted. I don’t have a show set up for them yet, but they’re getting close to ready. Weirdly, learning to surf has helped with my confidence, and I recently published a short photo book called Caught Inside [https://www.eronrauch.com/caught-inside], which explores the ways we try, and usually fail, to know places we travel to. 

During a pause in writing this interview in my art studio, I was looking at my giant inspiration board that fills a whole corner. Sometimes, I struggle to believe in myself, especially as I’m getting into that art career wasteland of your 40s, no longer the hip new flavor, but not the respected elder either. Drinking a mostly cold cup of coffee and huddling in my hoodie, I had a thought: “This might be my favorite, most expansive, most challenging, most honest inspiration board that I’ve ever put together.” In 10 years, I still want to be open and inspired, still making work that grows over the long term to inspire more and more people to see the things that get overlooked. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.eronrauch.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eron_rauch/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/eronrauch
• Other: https://www.videogamesforthearts.com/

Image Credits
Eron Rauch