I'm speaking with Eric McKenzie, who is a senior Critical Visual Studies major at Pratt. We talk about his "Dream Makers" series, the movie-going experience, the show Community, and writing.
This interview was conducted at WPIR's station on February 16, 2020. 
I: I’m here today with Eric McKenzie. Eric, we have known each other for –– 

E: Months. 

I: Years and months. So many months they’ve accumulated into years. We’re in an interesting position because I have been a guest on your radio show in the past, and now the roles have reversed, even though we’re seated in the same set-up. 

E: I was hoping to sit in the guest seat but you wouldn’t afford me that luxury. I’m actually very stressed. I feel like I have to make sure this goes well. 

I: Something about this dynamic, it feels like nothing has changed, in a positive way. There’s no pressure on me, because I’m not actually in the host’s seat. 

E: Yeah, I feel sick to my stomach for some reason. 

I: So we originally know each other from orientation staff, which is what really brings together people who aren’t actually in the same major to begin with.

E: The actual orientation, too. Orientation staff is like, “oh, I really didn’t do it right the first time, I better throw myself in the laundry again and see what sticks.”

I: Exactly. So you are a Critical Visual Studies major, can you please explain what that means for both me and anyone else listening?

E: I’m the worst person to explain it. I switched into the major after less than a week of knowing about it. I was really distraught with my previous major, which was 2D animation. And I was sick with the flu at the time I was hopped up on amphetamines, trying to medicate. 

I: So your transfer out was a blur?

E: Yeah. I remember being really wired and not wanting to sit in bed and wanting to be running around talking to people. Someone in my science and society class explained to me that it was like a choose-your-own-adventure. I was really fed up with getting assignments. I wanted to do my own work, I’m just stubborn about that stuff. So I was ready to drop school pretty much. And then I heard about this and wanted to give it a whirl. I had to submit a writing sample and then I was in. But I think the major has changed a bit since I joined in the sense that you can’t take whatever liberal arts or studios you want. You have required courses that are sort of based in cultural studies in philosophies and theories. That’s sort of detached from the “visual” side. The “critical” is curricular. It’s built in as you’re requirements, but they don’t restrict you from doing what you want, so I’m doing a bunch of minors. And no one really knows why I’m infiltrating all these different areas as I’m bouncing around to all the different schools. 

I: That’s interesting, because I definitely remember it being described to me as the "choose your own adventure" major when I was first looking at Pratt.

E: Yeah, I didn’t know about it until I was like “I’m sick of school” and someone was like "stop whining about it and go to Crit Vis."

I: You talked a little bit about curriculum, could you give an example about the types of stuff you’re currently doing?

E: Right now all I have left is my thesis writing class, where you speak with an advisor and submit intermittently, but there’s not a lot of advisement happening, so I’m sort of going at my own pace, which is to say not doing anything, but.... I submit my work in time but I’m not constantly chipping away at it, maybe that’s the idea, but that’s not really how I operate. I like deadlines. But leading up to this I took a class called moderation where you sit in a group and talk about what you want to work on, what you want to make. 

I: There’s a class dedicated to that? 

E: Yeah That was the first Crit Vis class I took, and it was very heartening, because what made me want to drop my previous major was not wanting to draw a thousand pictures all the time. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just not for me. So I was trying to calculate what it was I did want to do, what I want to make, which was shows with my friends, and I wrote a big ten page manifesto to my high school friends, I freaked them out

I: You wrote directly to them? 

E: Yeah, I was trying to figure out how we can make movies together and sort of profit from it and make it a sustainable business model so I wrote ten pages on it and I sent it to them, from by bed because I was sick and like... sweating...  

I: Is this pre- “Happy Birthday Eric?”

E: A year later. But it was my birthday. The next week I was in a class having that conversation with other students. Bouncing ideas. People who know more about the institute than I ever will were saying “you should take this person's class” or “you should at least talk to this person.” The class was meant to give direction because the idea is that it's self discipline but i think this was pushing back on that. Because people hear self discipline and they think they can take advantage. I was in a seminar the other day with someone who I think had that impression, I think they were in illustration — 

I: — honestly, not surprising. Illustration concentrations are fleeing ComD. Or they were, a year or two ago. 

E: This person took a semester off so they came back, and we were in a talk about sustainable fashion, and it was a lot of theory and research regarding environmental impact, and this person was very much so like “this is not what i chose to do.” SO there’s something that’s still being thrust upon you, these lessons, this subject matter. It’s a little give-take. Push and push back. But that was a forum called “moderation.” 

I: I guess that’s essentially what our thesis class is now. Pitching what it is we want and how we’ll make it happen. 

E: And that’s how we’re, in Crit Vis, conditioned to do work anyway. Pinpoint what you’re passionate about even if you weren’t being graded, basically your life’s work. 

I: You took this class sophomore year? 

E: Yeah, second semester sophomore year. 

I: I really wish that was in the ComD curriculum. Having a class where, right away, we’re identifying at least what’s interesting to us NOW, it may change. I guess having that in addition to the classes where we experiment with different forms, and the basics of how to communicate an idea. 

E: Most of my friends are in Communications Design, and from what i understand it seems as though if you’re in any class, not everybody is going to be postured to talk about their work in that way. In that sort of individual, self-guided way, it seems as though they need the extra structure. I guess that’s a boundary now that it comes to thesis, figuring out where you want to go. I think that should be an expectation but its not really there, definitely not when you first come to school but a couple years in. Those are the types of conversations I think would benefit people who are trying to find their own voice. 

I: So my first official question is: why are you doing this?

You explained why you turned to crit vis, but what was your interest in what it offered? You talked about making shows with your friends, what inspired that? Why do you want to do it, where did that come from? 

E: It’s one of those infinite regress deals, you know, because at a certain point it's like…. ok when did I fall in love with watching stuff on screens, stories specifically, there’s not really an answer. But I was not allowed to watch a lot of tv as a kid, so I sort of snuck my way in. My parents had a strict “one hour” rule but I have three sisters, so we strategically combined ours. But it was a lot of Anne of Green Gables… you know Anne of Green Gables? 

I: I know the book! 

E: This show I'm sure was longer than the book… if that’s even possible. 

I: It was some PBS thing? 

E: Something like that, yeah… I'm sure it was a lovely show.

I: Was it for kids?

E: I don’t think they had kids in mind when they determined the pacing of the show.

I: Is it like dry, live action…?

E: … It's like Little House on the Prairie kind of deal. My mom pushed it on my sisters and I just liked watching it because it was on a screen. I just wanted to watch fiction, stories, and I selfishly wanted to be involved in it, particularly comedy. I knew i could be funny with my friends sometimes, so I was wondering if there was a platform  — this is like, how I’m thinking as an eight year old — how do we integrate ourselves into this, my friends and I, so we got our hands on a Flip video camcorder –

I: — shoutout to Flip camcorders. Please sponsor me. This is the first time they’ve been mentioned in like, a decade, I'm sure. 

E: A few weeks ago my friend found his Flip camera in his house. 

I: Could you get into it and see all the videos:?

E: I did! It has like a USB attached to it, remember? It was a bunch of videos of him trying to sell sneakers, but he did a lot of takes. I thought it was kind of embarrassing. But that was basically it, I was like, "ok, I like watching funny stuff, how can I make it?" So we did sketches on YouTube and stuff, and it kind of never stopped. 

I: You haven’t mentioned it by name yet, but that ended up becoming Dream Makers, right? this short series that you do? 

E: Yeah, that’s the form it takes now. When I can get together with my friends from high school we have this serialized idea we can continue. It's a little more built in. If we had to start from scratch every time, we probably wouldn’t be able to write and develop and shoot everything. It wouldn’t come to fruition every time. But with Dream Makers I know the trajectory of it, and I can work on it on my own and by the time we get together we’re ready to shoot. so that’s why that show continues. but we’re wrapping it up. It started out as a high school project that we did instead of an internship. So we did a web series where we interviewed people from our graduating class and asked them what they wanted to do before they leave high school, like a fantasy — and a lot of people were like “I have no idea how to answer that question” 

I: But people were willing to participate? Or are they acting? or is it a mix? 

E: Weellll…. yeah, the people in the first season aren’t really acting. But as a prototype I used myself, knowing that I wanted to throw a party. So for my 18th birthday I asked my parents if they could leave for a night, so I could throw a party (I was very transparent, I had a lot of built up trust-points) — so that was my wish fulfillment, which ended up being the premise of the show. But the people in the first season were honest answers — like a promposal, and these people had the pretense that we were really silly people, but their reactions are genuine. There’s one episode in particular where you can really tell that they’re not in on it… our guest was talking about wanting to have an experience not tied to academics, because he was very into his studies. He wanted to do something extracurricular. But he gave us a 20 minute interview, it's like a minute in the show, he was very genuine, and in the show I'm wearing a fake mustache driving around in another car trying to get better angles. We lost half the footage, mysteriously. But the other half of the show is scripted, like the people who facilitate the dreams, they have their own drama that’s developed over the course of the show. 

I: If you were to do something in the future, say a dream project, what would that look like?

E: I'd love to do a feature film. I think that could happen soon. 

I: Do you have an idea of what that would be? 

E: I do. I have a couple ideas. One I came up with my friend Will from Dream Makers. It's about three friends, two of whom are dating, one is the third wheel, and they try to concoct a way to bring them in, and create an equilibrium, so they’re navigating the boundaries of their three-way relationship. 

I: Friendship or relationship? 

E: Well that’s the thing, those labels, the categorizing of people, they’re trying to even the playing field essentially. It's like a shifting dynamic that follows. But it's still coming together script-wise, a little more serious than something I’ve ever done. But still comedic. 

I: Do you have a timeline you can foresee for this project? Is there an urgency to make this happen? 

E: I was supposed to write it over the summer, but I ended up writing Dream Makers 3. I'm sure when I graduate I’ll force myself to write it so it doesn’t slip through the cracks. It’s hard to write with other people remotely. 

I: You’d be writing it with Will? 

E: Yeah, I don’t want to put him on blast, but he was sort of like “leave me alone, I’m working on school stuff” and I totally respect that. For me, school is around my 5th or 6th priority. 

I: What’s 1-4? 

E: If we’re prepping the show, I'm doing that. Then there’s Program Board, which I take seriously, and there’s my other job which allows me to live (that’s the weekend typically), and the radio show. If I'm more conscious, I'm working on the radio show. If I’m half asleep, I’ll do my homework. It’s more of a time management thing rather than a back burner. It’ll get done. 

I: Is there anything you’re working on now for school that you like doing? 

E: I’m doing ceramics, which at first was very nerve wracking because I was definitely a tourist, I still am, but it's that feeling you’re going to be bad at something and everyone knows more than you and you’re just sinking…. but once you get over that hurdle…. I’m not too worried about the work, I’m assuming it’s going to be poor by most people's standards. But it’s a nice change of pace from what my day used to be. I get to zone out and work with my hands, it’s a great opportunity that Pratt has. And it’s something I think everyone should exercise, like if you have a class where you feel uncomfortable, out of your depth, maybe that’s something we should do once a semester. 

I: Yeah, it’s refreshing. You say your work may be poor, but I don’t think anyone here is making poor work, unless you really just have no thoughts about it. 

E: Well, I forgot how to think more visually. Even with the show, there’s a certain threshold where you can get by and the show looks decent. Some areas stick out but other times you don’t really notice. But I’m not used to being in that world. 

I: Yeah. So my question is… on a scale of visual to critical: what’s your work in ceramics like? 

E: When I talk to people outside of Pratt I say I’m the least artistic person at art school. 

I: Ceramics is such a crazy world. The form can be anything, it can be baked blobs of clay and as long as there’s a concept behind it it becomes cool. 

E: The part of me that overthinks everything, I try to silence for those four hours. 

I: Let’s break things up with a segment. 

You’ll be swiping right or left on certain concepts. A right is an approval, a like, and a left is a rejection. And making this list was possibly the biggest struggle of my academic career so far, because what even is Crit Vis? Anyway. So this is tailored for you and what your interests are. 

[On film critics]
E: As a whole…. I hate generalizing. There’s a generative dichotomy when things are being checked and analyzed. But I also think there’s work recently that’s based in theory, finding patterns, based on a larger whole of what’s common vs. subversive and that’s a discussion that I think is interesting and almost essential. On one hand you can say, “well, why do you have to judge the art” but it’s also highly commercial, hundreds of jobs are going into it… and at the very bottom is the story that goes into it. A narrative film is someone’s idea. But built in on top of that is a whole industry of sounds and cameras and movie stars… But finding the underpinnings of it all is worth pointing out and deconstructing. 

E: That’s a superlike. Letterboxd is social media, but you’re blogging about movies you watch. You keep a diary about what you watch, you can write reviews, you can see what your friends are watching. It’s the only app I really use. 

E: I swipe left on Alamo Drafthouse. It’s a very personal thing. I’m very sensitive to the movie-going experience. They have these ads that say “If you talk, if you use your phone, you get kicked out, no refunds. We got a paddle, we’ll slap you in the bum.” But then during the movie someone orders food and they come over and [loudly whispers] “Did you want the dijon mustard, or the honey mustard for your mozzarella sticks” and like… that’s more distracting to me. I can only go there for second viewings. I’m a freak. 

I: You’re right. I was very pro-Alamo Drafthouse for a while, and then one day I walked in and that scent, that wave of fried food wafted over me… and I realized you can’t remove that from this movie theater. It’s a permanent installation. It just knocked me off my feet one day. Next is SNL. 

E: Swipe right. It’s put a lot of great people on the map. 

E: This really is tailored for me. I feel very strange. I go to all of these. I would marry IFC because you get a good mix of new releases and classics. So I’ll lock that up, I’ll wifey that. Maybe I kill BAM just because it’s a little more upscale, and I like the casual feeling of Williamsburg Cinemas. They also have cheaper prices and the theater reminds me of my neighborhood theater which closed recently. We had another death in the family. So I guess I’d kill BAM and it’s artsy fartsy-ness. Even though I do subscribe to it. 

[On masters degrees]
E: Sure. Right, if you want it. 

[Humanities courses at Pratt]
E: I think more of them should be required. 

I: That’s a legitimately hot take. 

E: People complain to me all the time about Pratt Integrative Courses. I think you should have to take way more, so you have something to talk about with your work. If you’re only learning formal techniques, you’re sculpting a hollow shell. I think more should be required for art and design. 

I: I agree. I think more quality PIC courses… 

E: The ones I’ve taken have been wonderful. The faculty has been really strong. The one I’m in now is called, “To Lose Cinema and Time” with Christopher Vitalli. He knows his stuff. It gets very abstract, you have to follow his lectures very closely. It’s interesting to talk about structures of time, and time as space. 

I: I would love to…. Of course now I’m hearing about this. 

E: And “Theory for the Artist” more general, with Emily Beale. It’s just a buch of different readings on Feminist’s Critique, technology… a good grazing of critical theory, and a nice entry level for people interested in discourse. 

I: One of my favorite classes I took at Pratt was a PIC course, “Art of Scent.” The thing about the PIC courses is that they’re really infamous for their course descriptions, and the titles, which I think are very sexy and draw you in…. What’s the “Void” one? Now I’m drawing a blank. One is like “Bestiary” one is “Death and Dying...” But what I’ve heard reported from people is that they do vary on how interesting they actually are. 

E: I think it's attitude on both sides. I think people should be more open-minded, but the material should back it up. 

I: Now possibly, this is the most important question of the night, for my own selfish purposes, anyway.

I want to know if there was one specific piece of work that had an impact on you, ideally between the ages of 0-18. 

Something you really loved and maybe even led to you realizing “this is what I want to do,” or looking back made you realize that. 

E: I know there’s one you think I’m going to say... ok I’ll say it. Community. I would say it has a lot to do with the time I discovered it. I started watching community in the early 2010s when it was on. I was leaving middle school. It has this irreverent ironic tone, it’s touted as this postmodern sitcom that is deconstructing the tropes of sitcoms. So on a base-level you’re getting what you want from a half-hour comedy. But there’s all these layers of meta narrative on top of it about film-making and TV. So as a kid who was starting to realize, “ok I’ve been interested in movies my whole life and it’s been 13-14 years now, this is probably sticking.” Having this show talk to me about filmmaking, and storytelling, and these broader concepts but exploring them in these close-up vignettes. Because they do very elaborate themed episodes on the show, one could be an action movie and the next could be a conspiracy thriller, a bottle episode. I think that was the reason it had an impact, as well as the sense of humor. It tickled so many sweet spots. And I don’t think it was a coincidence, like I already found certain things funny and then the show introduced me to new types of jokes. And the timing was perfect. I entered high school and was beginning to figure out what I liked doing and who I wanted to be. It’s also a show about people learning how to live with each other, and deal with each other. Accept each other’s faults. It’s a very genuine show. It has a heart, and I’m interested in doing work like that. Snarky, but not dismissive of anything sincere. I hope I embody that. 

I: Speaking as a third party, I would say you do. Thank you for coming on. 






a follow-up with Eric