Applied Alchemical Poetics by David Stanley Aponte (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member David Stanley Aponte (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA)

August 8, 2014 - David Stanley Aponte – Sub-Real Alchemy kindly sent me this great postcard he has been circulating in the Eternal Network this summer. I see this as a commentary on increasing police state militarization in The West as well as growing dissension among groups within the fabled 99 percent. David Stanley Aponte’s alchemical transmutation of the scene occurs especially with the inclusion of a video game icon. This can be viewed as a revelation of our imprisonment within Baudrillard’s notion of “The Simulacra” or Debord’s “Spectacle.” Possibilities for escape and subversion must necessarily begin with an awareness of the illusory nature of manufactured reality.

The Free Sub-Real College of Dallas stamp is great! Network veterans have noted parallels in Aponte’s work with Neoism, the Church of the Subgenius as well as pataphysics. (The post-punk character on the card even bears a resemblance to tENTATIVELY, a CONVENIENCE). A closer look, however, indicates David Stanley Aponte is refreshingly original and far from a vestige of Neoism. Sub-Real Alchemy is a subject well-worth investigating.

Many thanks to David Stanley Aponte for this wonderful mail-art!