Fed-Up Khan: You Should Have Let Me Sleep!

Artist Statement

In the making of Fed-up Khan, I sought to remix a representation of Khan from Star Trek: Into Darkness and remake him from a homicidal, slighted, murderous alien and transform him into someone more familiar, someone who I identify with. I took a film and remixed it into what the kids these days call a meme, which to fulfill the laws of meme-ness must have both a set-up and a punch line. I would like to emphasize that I have not merely made variations on a meme someone else has created, rather, I have created an entirely new meme of my own with an original premise. In the way Kalman makes iconic figures or pictures his by attaching new meaning, for a couple of moments I feel I have made these images mine.

This theme was born out of my frustration with a process I have heard termed “clickbaiting,” a tactic employed by many online media entities that intend to drive impulse web traffic to their websites via sensational headlines like “This 8-year Old Made A Gift for A Soldier Who Just Came Home. What He Gave Will Make You Cry;” or maybe “21 Things That Remind you of the 90s” or perhaps “What this Student Said Back to her Racist Teacher Will Blow You Away.”

Articles like this, and the websites that manufacture them, have become increasingly prolific in the past year or so. I initially found them amusing, then bothersome, and finally offensive: I feel these sorts of articles are aimed specifically at me and my generation: the people whose demographic dominates Facebook, the first to grow up with the internet (albeit not in its pervasive form.) We should be the most web-savvy adults out there, yet we are constantly pummeled by these articles that assert that we need not think, merely react. We don’t have to think how we feel about something, it’s been prescribed to us already: “Shocked!” “Angry!” “Blown Away!” “Awesome!” “Sad!”

Feeling patronized and indignant, I decided to create Fed-up Khan, who I consider an embodiment of my emotions. He is exposed to the same inane drivel as I am and is not happy about it. Khan is the dragon of Beowulf, awoken from a worthy slumber by the petulant meddling of the media peasants. Awoken, he intercepts takes each new intruding headline with a raised eyebrow and a sharp tongue, proclaiming to each new offender with a questioning blast of scorching finality: “Is that so? YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME SLEEP.”

(Rereading the assignment description on late Monday, to my chagrin I realized the text in question was supposed to be older than I was. I realize Star Trek: Into Darkness is certainly not 24 years old, but alas, this observance came far too late for me to be willing change my idea, and I accept the fate of a deviant with gravitas and a touch of resignation.)