bio & contact

the fact that my name is max, the fact that i use they/them and he/him pronouns, the fact that i grew up in tampa, florida, the fact that i went to college at vassar college in poughkeepsie, new york, the fact that i now live in a retrofitted van (really, really old cargo van, built by myself with the help of my dad) in berkeley, california (the bay area broadly), the fact that living in a van kinda sucks but so does paying rent, the fact that i've also lived in nyc, amsterdam, and lake tahoe, the fact that i disliked living in those 3 places but maybe because i was just really struggling with certain things during those times of my life, the fact that i've worked at a nature therapy camp for neurodivergent kids, the fact that i've worked as a program assistant at rikers island, the fact that i've worked as a ropes course guide and a cook, the fact thati love tie-dye but i don't really identify with a lot of new-age culture, the fact that i'm really astrology-averse, the fact that i think astrology is a really indirect, convoluted, immaterialist spirituality and vulnerability-workaround for talking about one's feelings, the fact that i also know that astrology is really popular in poc activist communities and i think i can simultaneously hold my respect for their practice, my aversion to the practice itself, as well as my association of astrology with white new-age escapism, the fact that i also dislike personality tests, Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office, Astrology in the Age of Uncertainty, Astrology Is Fake but It’s Probably Fine, The Astrologers Didn't Predict Coronavirus, Tarot cards: a tool of cold tricksters or wise therapists?, the fact that the best way to reach me is via instagram @yungleary, the fact that Emma Goldman said “if I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution,”

the fact that my academic and personal interests include:

affect theory, biopolitics, critical psychology & critical theory more broadly, psychoanalysis, spirituality,
critical education, dialectical studies, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” “nothing human is alien to me,” paradigm shifts, consciousness-raising
virtual realities, television, video games, media, simulacrum, Philip K. Dick,
the role of symbols and meaning versus the role of material realities in determining our subjectivities, our affective experience, our wellbeing
realism as rooted in material reality vs. rooted in our subjective experience of consciousness, the overlap and disconnects between the two, the articulation of human values that prioritizes subjective experience (humanistic, phenomenological) yet emphasizes our connection to the material world (environmental, embodied, spiritual, interconnectedness, biological materialism); material reality vs. subjective reality; as life has grown infinitely complex our subjective realities have become increasingly divorced from our material realities, yet they cannot ever fully distance themselves; this distancing defines our time – soylent, virtual realities, wanting to experience things without the discomfort of actually being there, like the adrenaline of war without the danger through video games, simulation games like stardew valley, mindfulness even, as teaching us the capacity to distance ourselves from our sensations which seek to inform us about the world, before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water, taking out the trash, The Floating Heads, “life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself”
drugs as an avenue to explore the connections and conversations between individual psychology, biological materialism (as truth behind ideology), and sociocultural + political forces; hedonism, pleasure activism, anthropology of human psychology
the mental health/affective dimensions and sociopolitical consequences (the “so what?”) of engaging with critical theory, how the affective experiences of critical theorists affect their work (depressive realism, mental health struggles are going to promote more dystopian views); mental health as related to the postmodern conceptualization of no truth/reality outside ideology (is there a truth/reality outside affect? can one believe in progress while depressed? can one be disillusioned with progress while 'happy'?), the (dis)embodiment and intellectualist bias of critical theory (meetings, classes, readings should start with check-ins, meditations, stretches just like track/rugby practice starts with such; reminders to eat, sleep, hydrate); the inaccessibility of critical theory: even if the inaccessibility of critical theory is justified on an epistemological level, how can it be justified on a realpolitikal level?
medical sociology: the social model of illness, medicalization, clinical gaze, politics of diagnosis, the social production of health disparities, neurobiological reductionism

the role of art in activism and as therapy
the tensions between therapy and activism
the depoliticization of mental health versus the capacity for mental health as a tool of solidarity and collective organizing; not the just the depoliticization of mental health but the reduction of mental health, the removal of in-depth affective experience from mental health, the sanitization of mental health through medical, clinical paradigms and language
the representation of mental health in the public sphere, particularly in music, art, media, academia (in academic journals and in different disciplines, educational institutions), politics, news coverage, and the mental health field (clinics, practitioners, non-profits, educational institutions)
public feelings
political depression
- “the sense that customary forms of political response, including direct action and critical analysis, are no longer working either to change the world or to make us feel better” (depression: a public feeling p. 1).
- “What has become obvious to me is that in our moment of cognitive capitalism in which the brain and mind are the new factories of the twenty-first century, forms of activism invented during industrial capitalism like refusal to work, absenteeism, and labor strikes are no longer up to the task” – Warren Neidich, 2017, Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art: A Berlin Intensive at the Juncture of Theory, Praxis, and Art, Acid Architecture: Trans-Thinking in the Age of Cognitive Capitalism
- not just disillusionment with politics and the capacity for activism to manifest social/political change, but also depression as resulting from political failures/inadequacies, like the mental health consequences of a failed political state, failed in the sense of securing human needs like housing, food, community, public space, public goods, transportation)
affective experience as a site of political struggle (The Spheres of Insurrection: Suggestions for Combating the Pimping of Life – Journal #86 November 2017 – e-flux)

socialist & utopian projects, particularly with a basis of essential needs & essential workers (Dirty Jobs, [Living, Not Just Surviving], affective experiences as a way to investigate, understand, and dismantle dystopia and to dream, envision, and create utopia
the psychosocial effects of our age of information, of content overwhelm and information overload
the psychological and psycho-developmental demands of our contemporary age, In Over Our Heads
abolitionist, feminist, critical race, queer, intersectional theory & praxis
environmental psychology, context-based psychology, community psychology
urban studies as they relate to human flourishing and suffering, public transportation, bike safety and culture,
individualism, atomization, loneliness, the limits of personal responsibility
countercultural movements, their limits and potentials; the limits of political ideology in their repeated envisioning only slightly better dystopias
the politics of community, pleasure, happiness, ecstasy, suffering, mental health, discontent, anxiety, depression, insomnia,
the effects of culture on our mental health (cultures that are certainly in large part influenced by hegemonic structures but are not limited to them, such as technology, social media, smartphones, hedonism, drugs)

substance use, suffering, coping, escape, relationships,
the spiritual bypassing of blaming political oppression for all of one's mental health struggles (these are the times that grow our souls)
the extremely limited capacity for (agency vs autonomy vs self determination) in our society (class mobility myth, American dream, Gloria Anzaldua, Peter Cohen)
community building, conflict resolution, communication skills & techniques, abolition as a daily, lived practice of social relations and internal thought
New age spirituality, cultural creatives, escapism
psychedelics
somatic psychology, Microsoft Word – Bai – Beyond Educated Mind.doc, embodiment vs. boredom
practices and structures of community, joy, ecstasy, pleasure; conflict resolution, introspection, and communication (strategies? techniques)
Buddhism – why Buddhism? offers tools for embodiment, for mental and physical awareness (micropolitical resistance, false consciousness), offers tools for community, love, and accountability with a framework of interconnectedness rather than individualism (which begets guilt culture)
spirituality as a tool/framework for “love with accountability,” agency within interconnectedness, abolitionist praxis
cancel culture, MeToo must avoid “carceral feminism” – Vox, Against Carceral Feminism, Reductress » How to Support Prison Abolition While Still Hoping Harvey Weinstein Rots in Prison for the Rest Of His Days, How Can We Reconcile Prison Abolition With MeToo? – Filter, the gray area. (CONTENT WARNING),

cultural studies, cultural theory, critical psychology, american studies, religious studies, interdisciplinary studies, critical theory, science technology and society studies, gender studies/women's studies/critical race theory/intersectional/queer studies, art theory, political science/activism theory, multidisciplinary vs. interdisciplinary vs. trans-disciplinary,
labor & work crises, anti-capitalism, anti-work, anti-consumption;
dystopia, societal collapse, dark futurologies,
critique of liberal notions of progress, Jameson, Fukuyama

the fact that through harm reduction efforts and drug policy studies I have explored:

drug use as an exploration of suffering, coping, escape, relationships, cultural movements
I look back upon my major as training in perspective, in sociological imagination and the (no bullshit of essential services) and the necessity of essential services.
drug policy as an exploration of power, and of resistance to the status quo, of pleasure activism, of the anthropology of a basic human drive to consume mind-altering substances (michael pollan, food, terence mckenna) (thereby a less biased look at human psychology); an anthropological and political inquiry into human psychology, the study of drug policy offered the perfect avenue for exploring these questions and conundrums.
hedonism, change, growth, responsibility, forgiveness
psychedelics as an exploration of spirituality, hope, disillusionment, with society, with hope itself
pleasure, drives, motivations
addiction as an exploration of dystopia, of the excesses and depravities of human existence, particularly in highly industrialized western societies (first world, whats the best term for this?)
exploration of suicide, free will, choice
exploration of the media apparatus that is the united states, the backstage or alleyways of our advertised image of progress
personal experience of privilege, of the desire to see connections and communities but not infringe upon places that aren't mine
the limitations of individualist based societal uplift, like the promotion of more women CEO's or politicians (breaking the glass ceiling vs. Margaret Thatcher)

the fact that my views/beliefs can be described as:

materialist, recognizing the world of semiotics and the social construction of reality, but resisting immaterialist notions like the existence of mystical planes separate from the physical world (see psychedelics & Michael Pollan) or the simulacrum (recognizing their cultural and social validity but affirming their lack of materialist realism; does ideology really determine our realities to the fullest extent? i think not, oddly enough this reminds me of the mysticality of New age/psychedelics/spirituality)
phenomenologist
humanist
affect theorist; things are experienced and first and foremost as and through emotions (where did i read this?)

the fact that my artist statement is a work in progress and here are some things left out of the polished version:

post conceptualism as post accessibility
collage as vision boarding; what do my desires/utopia look like? collage as a way of illustrating what 'the good life' would feel like, Socialism for Realists, Writing Hope: Politics and the Novel,
p. 210 of depression a public feeling, quoting Audre Lorde, sounds very much like collage
“There is a palpable poverty of intellect, a lack of imagination, and a banality of ideas pervading mainstream politics today,” How Do We Change America? | The New Yorker
“there’s more in heaven and earth than what’s dreamed of by normal politicians,” Opinion | The Meaning of Marianne Williamson – The New York Times
adrienne marie brown: “all organizing is sci-fi”
visual puns: Introduction to Linda Hutcheon, Module on Parody, parody, mimicry, satire
collage as addressing the paradox of choice through the physicality of the world
art as education, consciousness-raising, information gathering and distribution in a way that attends to aesthetic and affective experience
collage as a diagnostic process (could do a community-oriented political project of diagnosing community problems as well as vision boarding for a better community)

the fact that my portfolio bio is a work in progress and here are some things left out of the published version:

Throughout my life, my creative and intellectual pursuits have been guided by spiritual concerns of community and dialogue. Growing up in Tampa, Florida, my childhood was filled with discontent and disillusionment, as I resisted identification with the substanceless, bland urban sprawl of Tampa suburbia and the spiritual void of Florida. I resisted identification with the worlds of sociocultural capital and cachet of the coastal elite I encountered at Vassar as well as the crass xenophobia of Florida. Yet, as an extrovert I crave the social fabric of life, and these two warring tensions (of exclusion and engagement) have led to an embodied practice of paradox that has necessitated the development of conflict resolution skills and self-love.
I also co-founded Vassar's chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, an organization of student activists from around the world fighting for drug policy reform across all levels of government from local municipalities and institutions of higher learning to the United Nations. My engagement with Students for Sensible Drug Policy brought me to terms with my own positionality in the context of social justice activism, simultaneously an academic, privileged voyeur and one of the disadvantaged masses. The people and communities I met in the drug policy reform world taught me the practice of political love, of non-judgment in the face of intensely socialized and ingrained stigmatization. I look back upon my formal education in drug policy as a training in perspective, in the sociological imagination, the necessity and utmost value of essential services, and the sanctity of human life.
showing up as my full self vs. being professional

the fact that there are so many things i want to do with my life, my time, the fact that if I'm left alone for too long i usually just end up wasting time on Instagram

the fact that I want to be a DJ (@eliasagogo](https://www.instagram.com/eliasagogo/?hl=en), the fact that my DJ name would be dj mx max, the fact that I wanna party and be around people and dance and groove in my body and in space and being a DJ feels like the best way to do that
bike race
roller skating
teach (gather syllabi and pedagogy material
get a PhD? not really, something that allows me to practice/teach so yeah i guess so
life coach/therapist/social worker
bartender
commune/farmers market/hippie earthy bohemian berkeley co-op vibes
artist collective / art residencies
MFA?
drugs: ketamine and mdma mostly but also LSD, psilocybin, and 2cb,
write
teach harm reduction, communication and conflict resolution skills, anti-hierarchical workshops around these topics, encounter groups, consciousness-raising
making a 'video game'? some kind of interactive or highly immersive world-building

the fact that i think i should collect client testimonials from my time working in mental healthcare: – “Please let your supervisors know that you have been incredibly invaluable to me. You have handled a really difficult situation with such grace and care. You are one in 1 million and deserve to be recognized for all that you do. It is people like you who make people like me in the situations that I am in feel like they are being seen and heard.” – Leslie – “Just a really good way of writing to people. Professional and human.” – Mike