ARTWORK BY FUCHS AND GRAY

Statement

Hella More Funner is an art collective consisting of Sam Fuchs and Adam Gray. We have been working together over the Internet since 2007. Our process involves obsessively collecting thousands of images and icons from the Internet and collaging them. Glorified drug abuse, subcultures, fame, overproduction, waste, capitalism, politics, and hyped-up fads are the themes in these convoluted compositions. As we unwittingly developed a religious devotion to modern life’s input overload, the Internet has become our deity.

The work we made in 2007 and 2008 reflects our feelings about living in LA. It represents our squandered time, A.D.D., boredom, apathy, and outrage at the city for being so indifferent. We worshipped its sun, beaches, celebrities, its promise and our potential. We rallied against its smog, traffic, hipsters, and goldbrickers. We had a panoptic view of everything that was happening and yet we had no power to affect let alone understand the city’s currents and connections. Our cognitive abilities were in every way outmatched by our growing perceptual powers. When everything is within reach, nothing is special. We were increasingly connected but rarely touched. We were blessed with innumerable choices but floundered in our uncertainty.

After six years of living in Los Angeles I found that I understood it less. Sam has since moved to San Francisco and I to Rhode Island. LA as a place is no longer the source of our anxieties but the culture it manufactures persists all around us. It is in everything that promises happiness and youth, every product that promises the girl, every half naked body selling a cheeseburger.

Who are our influences? Turn on the TV and flip through 900 channels as fast as you can. Don’t blink. Ask us to name infomercial personalities and gangsta rappers and we’ll never stop talking. Which is why Hella More Funner is a cathartic project, a way of unburdening ourselves from the 25 years of garbage culture that is engorging our brains. We’ve become mentally obese and this is our ActivOn. “Apply directly to your forehead.”