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background

i knew I wanted to do a collaborative project for nuit early in 2026 but i ended up not getting accepted for a main project. a little while later and with a loose concept similar to that first project idea, i got accepted to do an independent project.

okay cool… just need to come up with a plan, where to do it, what to do… and yes, this was all easier said than done.

A month prior to the event, nuit brought forward an idea of glow paint/chalk on the street that they were going to do as a public participation piece and asked if this was something i wanted to lead to better direct the artwork.

and, well, i do love glow in the dark + neon artwork… I’m in.

WIth the theme being future, i tossed around a few different ideas of what to do for this project and since i had been writing more regularly for a storytelling group at art bar all summer, i realized I wanted to write a mini story and paint those words.

it wasn’t until a trip to san francisco a month prior to the event that those words hit me like a sack of bricks.

i took this photo in a mirror maze i found myself in near pier 39. the maze started out all fun and games until i realized i had no idea how to get out and all the ‘people’ i kept seeing around me were just all of my (many) reflections.

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the idea

i was riding my ebike rental up a hill alongside a waymo car. I had never seen or heard of these cars before and so, no, at first i didn’t know they were self-driving cars… but they were everywhere around downtown san francisco that weekend. when that car zoomed past me i looked over and felt a sudden feeling of uneasiness and aloneness when i saw nobody in the front seat driving it.

‘is anything real anymore?’ i wondered.

the story is centred around human connection. being open about feelings + emotions with one another is the only way we can connect and tech advancements, as good as they can be, is killing our ability to connect.

i also pulled the part about the islands from a mini story i wrote last year, inspired by bob dylan’s talkin’ wwIII blues.

Without knowing the any exact dimensions, i wrote and did many mock ups. the above was the final version leading to the event… and below in text form:

“i kept seeing all these robot cars & something about those empty cars in the streets made me feel so very alone. all the people in that neon mirror maze & the sudden aloneness that hit me when i realized the ‘people’ were just my reflections. “don’t overshare. keep it brief, curated, or to yourself…” but how can we connect if we never share? & now i know why i feel alone in a very ‘connected’ world of fast, convenient & automated everything & something tells me i’m not alone in feeling alone. it feels as if everyone is on their own deserted island but they weren’t meant to be deserted. these island need bridges, these islands were made to be found, seen & known & maybe this is the point of everything?

this visual portrays our ‘islands’ linked together as human-to-human connections because i think the more we share our stories, hearts, feelings & art projects the less we’ll want or need all these robots we never asked for that are only making us more & more disconnected from one another.”

Mal Cloke, 2026 (draft)

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as art goes, i quickly edited the words on the go to shorten it even further to fit within the very rough 12×10 ft (wxh) space I quickly measured out before starting. here’s to my visual layout + spatial awareness design skills…

this was the final version that was painted on the street: