Im Too Sad To Tell You

(after Bas Jan Ader)

Aaryn Belfer
Alana Davis
Aldridge Forbes Hoehn and Rebecca Crowley
Amanda Bendis
Amy Borell
Amy Palomar
Andriew Budiman
Antonio Bufi
Anzelina Okarmus
April Lee
Arion Ellis Potts
Brandy Lintz
Brenda Wong
Brittanie Pendleton
Brittany Gump
Caitlin Durlak
Camilla Henrikke Esp
Caryn Solly
Chris Gauthier
Chris McVeigh
Colin Ure
David Drennon
David Eagle
Dena Pourbazargan
Diana Potter
Edgar Pedroza
Eleonora Rossi
Elissa Sloan
Ella Bennett
Elle Velie
Emilie Bjrk
Emily Krugh
Emily M Glaser
Ewa Farrelly
Heidi Cregge
Helen Adelaide
Jenna Cooper
Jennie Filer
Jennifer Cox
Jennifer Wong
Jepa Levsvirta
Jessica Foussekis
Jessica Y Gonzalez
Jessica Williams
Jo Lin
Julie
Kat Miner
Katie Rimmele
Katy Hutchinson
Kimberly
Kimmy Fung
Lachlan Hardy
Lego Leah
Leslie Lindell
Lori Blair
Lucy Howard-Taylor
Luisa Smith
Luna
Magorzata Kozio
Marsha Amanova
Mary Amor
Maryanne Casasanta
Max De Leon
Megan Cox
Megan Foulke
Michelle C Blade
Mikaylah Bowman
Mylinh Trieu
Natalia Herrero
Natalie Sorenson
Nathan Hauenstein
Neil
Nicole Pawloski
Nina Coloso
Niv Tishbi
Noele Lusano
Patricia Ure
Patrick Phegley
Paula Prez i de Lanuza
Rachel Burgos
Rina Drescher
Sara A Tremblay
Sarah
Sarah Coyne
Sarah Reck
Sarah Louise Walker
Shannon Doubleday
Shannon Marie
Shannon Ward
Sharon Watt
Simon Vahala
Sofia Ander
Sofia Caesar
Sofia Sjholm
Stacey Fullwiler
Stephanie Dana
Steve Skafte
Tiffany Tong
Tim
Tim Dawson
Tim Ost
Timothy Petersen
Toby Tam
Torrie Lloyd-Masters
Victor Ballesteros
William Bennett Masse
Zach Genin
Zoe Leibowitz
Crying is a powerful act.

Taking a photograph of oneself crying and putting it on the Internet is another

matter entirely. It is a very specific cultural phenomenon and is in many ways
much like a performance. As such, the title of this project is borrowed from a
piece of the same name by the Dutch performance artist Bas Jan Ader in 1970.
His piece consists of a silent 16mm short black and white film of himself crying
uncontrollably with no explanation. Regardless of the authenticity of his tears, his
grief is overwhelmingly real. It is at once hard to watch, mesmerizing, and beau-
tiful.

On the Internet one can portray oneself any way he or she desires. Because
of this, the authenticity of anything on the Internet is automatically called into
question. However, like in Bas Jan Aders piece, images of an emotional nature
seem to similarly void the need for authenticity not necessarily because of their
mystery, but because of their immediacy. As such, Im Too Sad To Tell You (after
Bas Jan Ader) is an exploration of the specific act of crying and how it translates
online, i.e. how it is displayed for others.

An open call was put out in the spring of 2007 asking people to submit images
of crying to form an online collection. The initial goal of this collection was to
make a book and publish all of the pictures submitted. The website went online
a month later with over 100 self-portraits and grew steadily until the call was
closed.
A third of the original images on the site were found using the website Flickr.com
searching through the tags people attached to their images. A majority of the
people who independently submitted images had Flickr accounts as well. Thus,
the project also deals with the phenomenon of Flickr and other similarly struc-
tured websites stripping photographs of their inherent integrity as images and
turning them into a kind of social currency. On Flickr an image is no longer sim-
ply an image; it automatically becomes something else due to the communica-
tion-based framework of the community itself. This framework is often crowded
and muddled and denies the image the status of a singular entity. Everything on
such a website is always part of something else, it never stands alone.

One of the goals of the website, and now this book, was to remove these par-
ticular images from their original contexts, and bring them together into a clean,
non communication-based gallery format. The hope was that they would be able
to stand on their own, and perhaps regain some of their dignity as images.

Jessica Williams, October 2007

Thank you

Mom
James

Im Too Sad To Tell You (after Bas Jan Ader)

Compiled and edited by Jessica Williams
Cover image by Caitlin Durlak

More information: http://www.paperheart.org/imtoosad

All images in this book are 2007 their respective owners and may not be
reproduced without permission