CURRENT MISSION

To explore, create/transform, experience, learn, teach, share, love, and laugh a lot.

ABOUT ME

I spent much of my life staring at the U.S.-Mexico border, traveling three hours each morning from my Mexican home to schools in the United States. On the Mexican side, the border has an almost constant physical and psychosocial presence, albeit a sociopolitical phantom in the States. Living in Tijuana showed me the importance of operating within a global perspective on varying scales, of producing comprehensively thought-through work—gesamtkunstwerk--and an art of social impact and intellectual stimulation. I live between countries, blurring borders with each crossing—a life of antinomies.

I work at the intersection of photography, social practice, and conceptual art. My goal: to innervate dialogues in contemporary art with social engagement and the advancement of critical theory as a conjoined practice. Along those lines, I started producing Cutouts through transnational exchanges in virtual marketplaces, using cryptocurrency and other methods to sustainably remit capital to self-employed individuals around the world without taxation, incurring no or minimal fees. These large-scale photographs subvert the curated image, exposing residual consequences by re-contextualizing iconic photographs through a process of obfuscation. As a Research Associate at the University of California Santa Cruz, I enjoy the physical resources to produce this work.

Personal interests include: philosophy of language, art theory, quantum mechanics, contemporaneity, humanitarianism, suprematism, environmentalism, logic and critical thinking, economics, gazing meditation, the internet, soviet futurism, and homemade pizza. Dmitri can often be found telling jokes on wednesday nights at a rotating art-bar he co-created in Santa Cruz, CA.

PHILOSOPHY

Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.
explore, live, learn, experience, love, laugh, teach, share, care, respect.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I surf and host.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Hosting for friends and acquaintances for many years at my place in Mexico. I have been surfing here and there for a couple of years and have had great to amazing experiences every time. Really happy to have enough space for a sofabed; our place is still very small but I am happy to host when possible.

Interests

contemporary art, music, engaging conversations, art exhibitions. I like staring at open landscapes for long periods of time, walking or riding up and down HWY 1, Watching documentaries or films by auteur directors such as Godard, Bergman, Varda, Kar-Wai, Tati, Morris. My interests are centered in exploration, reflection, creation/transformation, social and environmental problem solving.

• arts
• contemporary art
• photography
• documentaries
• meditation
• walking
• movies
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• surfing
• snorkeling
• economics
• logic

Music, Movies, and Books

Godard, Bergman, Varda, Kar-Wai, Tati, Morris, Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees, visual & performative art on the U.S./Mexico Border, Mayakovsky, futurist literature, the foundation pit, master and margarita, Hemingway, Joyce, portrait of an artist as a young man, steven hawking, richard dawkins, milo greene, alabama shakes, neutral milk hotel, coconut records, nick drake, porcelain raft.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Getting covered in humpback whale mucus while interacting with a couple of inquisitive whales in a dingy on the open water in Baja California, Mexico.

Meditating a hundred miles into the thick Mayan jungle above the canopy at the top of one of the oldest temples in the world.

Snorkeling in warm water with sea turtles in Tulum, Yucatan.

Taking the train across the United States in 78 hours.
Driving from San Diego to New York in an 18 wheeler.

Teach, Learn, Share

Metal and wood fabrication, casting and mold making, bronze casting, silkscreen, intaglio, and relief printmaking, digital and analog photography, photoshop, indesign, webdesign, guitar, semi-useless information, and contemporary art appreciation.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, Uruguay

Countries I’ve Lived In

Mexico, United States