My Summer Lair Chapter #41: When Was The Last Time You Made A Truly Deep Human Connection?
From his website: “Ivan Cash is an interactive creative/director whose conceptually-based, multidisciplinary work celebrates human connection.”
And there it is…human connection; let’s get into it. I’m an ambivert: a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features. Yeah that means I can have a good time at a party but I’m also happy chilling at home with a book and some Creamy Earl Grey tea. (Ivan is a green tea man; tea is one of the subjects that we don’t cover in this wide ranging session.)
That his artistic work sparks human connection is captivating. I’m horrified…you can hear it when we talk (you want me to talk to who now?!) and yet spellbound…I kinda wanna reach out. Isn’t the moral of The Breakfast Club that despite/in spite of our identities we still (desperately) long to be connected? To be understood? To be heard and see for who we truly are…
And that is the heart of Ivan’s work…he either provides the platform to connect us with projects like Snail Mail My Email or The Passenger Project or…you can see his work and be inspired to contemplate and execute your own (clumsy) attempt at establishing a human connection. Kinda like what I do with these sessions/interviews.
In this Chapter we start with the Ivan getting arrested over selling a Knicks t-shirt (poor Knicks! Ivan is fine…) and we smoothly evolve to Culture Jamming, to Banksy, Shepard Fairey to Jay-Z, Ben Stiller’s SNL work, to Chris Gethard, Wieden+Kennedy the agency synonymous with Nike…I know this all seems far-fetched. Yet this is the magical connection Ivan and I made at FITC.
(In Bill Flanagan’s seminal U2: At the End of the World Salman Rushdie mentions intelligent people have the rare ability to connect disparate objects. I can’t find the exact quote online, but dude is right!)
So…human connection…now what?
Ivan Recommends:
In & Of Itself now playing in NYC!
Ivan Cash @ W • T • F
Host & Photography Sammy Younan
Recorded: Sunday April 23, 2017 at 2:00 pm at FITC
Stress free pop culture tastefully harvested for your divine delight. Once a week a carefully curated edition of My Pal Sammy goes directly to your inbox. Sign up for my newsletter so we can have some fun…making a human connection!