I was disappointed in this year’s exhibition of MFA grads from UW, but two artists stood out, and Fred Muram is one of them.

Thing is, Muram’s three videos in the show are only half the story. They’re part of a performance series he does that’s like a mild satire on artist lectures and autobiographical documentaries.

In this one, which is, unfortunately, not on display at UW (he sent it to me after I requested it), he plays a regular guy playing an artist.

His low-key narration gives the distinct impression that, as an artist, he doesn’t know what to make. So he goes about it by trial and error, and all of his experiments, not just the successes, are shown. His character is sort of nervous, sort of a failure, and sort of lost, but determined and lovable and vulnerable, like someone out of Miranda July.

He sets things on fire (which his professor declares is dumb). He watches his remote-controlled airplane crash in his apartment living room and wonders whether shooting it in a studio instead would have improved the piece. He stages a friend keeping the song “Sabotage” alive through an electrical brownout.

It’s funny, and clever, and at times, touching and slightly intimate. And it’s unlike anything else being made in Seattle. I want to see more of this character.