Peripheral ARTeries Art Review - Special Edition, Winter 2017

Anniversary Edition

CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW December 2017 - Special Edition Installation • Painting • Mixed media • Drawing • Performance • Public Art • Drawing • Video art • Fine Art Photography

JEREMY JONES KATY DRESNER ELIS GJONI MICHAEL BETANCOURT ANATOLIY KHARKHURIN KRISTYNA AND MAREK MILDE TERESA WELLS GILI LAVY GRAHAM LISTER Void, 2016 a work by Gili Lavy

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Be that as it may, this catalog or any portion there of may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission from Peripheral ARTeries and featured artists.

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Live and work in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Francine LeClerque I Am Your Labyrinth, Installation

Lives and works in Savannah, GA, USA

Lives and works in the Midlands and in London, UK

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Lives and works in the London, UK

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Lives and works in Manchester, United Kingdom

Lives and works in Detroit, MI, USA

Shai Jossef Jungle

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Hila Lazovski, David Bowie, work in process Photo by Meital Zikri http://www.lazovski-art.com

Lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Lives and works in Minneapolis, MN, USA

Lives and works in Dubai and Berlin

Special thanks to: Isabel Becker, Julia Ăœberreiter, Deborah Esses, Xavier Blondeau, Margaret Noble, Nathalie Borowski, Marco Visch, Xavier Blondeau, J.D. Doria, Matthias Callay, Luiza Zimerman, Kristina Sereikaite, Scott D'Arcy, Kalli Kalde, Carla Forte, Mathieu Goussin, Dorothee Zombronner, Olga Karyakina, Robert Hamilton, Carrie Alter, Jessica Bingham, Fabian Freese, Elodie Abergel, Ellen van der Schaaf, Courtney Henderson, Ben Hollis, Riley Arthur, Ido Friedman, Nicole Ennemoser, Scott Vogel, Tal Regev, Sarah Hill, Olivia Punnet and Simon Raab

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Kristyna and Marek Live and work in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Our art practice is a continuous dialogue with people, places, and ourselves, in which we engage issues of contemporary culture investigating the alienation of culture and nature, loss of context and states of passivity in consumerism to reframe reality influenced by our predominantly interior based lifestyle. We engage a variety of narratives and forms of the modern life but see domesticity as the focal point to access the theme of the environment at large, as here the personal is tied together with the far-reaching contexts. We believe that the microcosm of the personal space is a great platform and laboratory to engage, as the home is the place people care about the most. We are interested exploring the concept of home in a relationship to nature and environment, engaging themes of identity developed through interaction with sites and places, everyday rituals, and traditions, studying their integral role in binding together the social, natural and cultural order.

Our methodology has crystallized into a research-based, socially engaged process, during which we are collecting data, and engaging with specific places while interacting socially and collaboratively. Many of our projects functions as metaphorical models, in which we use humor and irony as a tool to offer constructive but at the same time absurd and utopian solutions. They employ diverse forms, materials, and concepts specific to the individual theme, regularly engaging methods of homesteading such as furnishing, decorating, cleaning, dining, gardening, and food production. The projects are often based on reenactments of common situations derailing established cultural models to create interactive installations, in-situ interventions, and socially engaged actions. Our projects, for example, adopted forms of a public lounge, fully functional library, scientific laboratory, restaurant, red carpet VIP entrance, florist shop or a community garden, functioning as immersive environments for exploration and experience to address pressing contemporary issues and encouraging new perspectives.

Our work is informed by the experience of wilderness and nature at our frequent walks, hikes, and backpacking trips. These experiences represent our parallel practice providing us with resource and inspiration to engage themes of culture and nature and to reevaluate the limited perceptions of the interior based lifestyle. While we challenge the established comfort zones, confronting myths and cultural fantasies about the world and ourselves, we seek to recognize identity in the infinite extent of our relations in the immediate surrounding but also in the world at large. We are interested in seeding new memes, to bring awareness to the everyday context, fostering integrity of the self in the culture, environment, and nature

Milde

Cabinet of Smells, 2015, installation view, exhibition Double Vision at EFA Project Space, NYC, distillation equipment, laboratory glass and tools, perfume bottles, chemicals, collection of domestic objects such as old books, toys, food scraps, dry flowers, debris, old doormat, 8' x 8' x 5' Cabinet of Smells revisits the cultural concepts of smell both the natural and artificial exploring what is the real smell of a home by distilling scents from various household objects such as old books, socks or debris, etc. to produce a perfume that inclusively represents its origin and identity.

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Kristyna and Marek Milde Live and work in Brooklyn, New York, USA Kristyna and Marek Milde's work rejects any conventional classification regarding its style, to unveil for the lost still ubiquitus connections and our place in the world, to address the viewers to a multilayered visual experience. In their body of works that we’ll be discussing in the following pages they successfully attempts to trigger the spectatorship's perceptual parameters, with a deeper focus on a complementary dialogue between materiality, content and the encounter with the viewers.

One of the most impressive aspects of Kristyna and Marek Milde's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of establishing a direct line with our audiences shifting the traditional hierarchy of the artist-audience relationship into a productive and more open model of exchange: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to their stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

both are coming from and where we met as young art students in the mid-nineties. Here we received a solid traditional art education that was figurative in general. Kristyna later went to study painting in Basel, Switzerland and Marek Sculpture in Germany and Switzerland, where we focused on phenomenological studies featuring subjects such as Goethe Color theory and the methodology of organic forms inspired by the architecture of Rudolph Steiner. We spent almost 7 years, living in Basel, Switzerland and often traveled to New York City, our present home, which fascinating environment was for us a great inspiration drawing us to relocate. Here we did the MFA program at the Queens College CUNY, which has been a great introduction into a critical and discursive thinking.

We started to experiment with different media moving into more conceptual art practices and installations.

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Hello Kristyna and Marek, and welcome to this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your backgrounds? You have both solid formal training and you hold a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) that you both received from the Queens College: how did this experience along with your previous ones influence your evolution as artists?

In particular, how did your cultural background due to your Czech roots inform the way you currently relate yourself to art making?

Our creative approach is driven by curiosity and continuous interest in culture and its mechanisms.

In particular, we are drawn to the themes of consumerism and the alienation of culture and nature, examining its impact and side effects, which are happening on so many levels of our existence. Growing up in the totalitarian regime of the communist Czechoslovakia and experiencing the political transition after the Fall of the Berlin Wall gave us a valuable insight into the workings of the different systems of power and culture. From early on we both frequently traveled and later relocated to different countries, accessing various cultural models and perspectives. Our journey began in Prague, the Czech Republic where we

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The immigrant experience has been tough but rewarding for us, an active and constant search for the unknown context requiring to embrace new while leaving the familiar behind. On the way, we became sensitive to everyday things that other people may not see or simply take for given or granted. These experiences translate into our projects, in which we often reframe mundane situations and inquiry into the theme of home, which we had to recreate for many times ourselves.

We think that the idea of home and personal space matters in general; it is a subject that connects

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Kristyna and Marek Milde Photo credit: Eva Heyd

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Looking for a Home, 2011, catalogue, digital print on paper, unlimited edition, 10�x 8�

Front cover of the catalog documenting the site-specific installation that functions as a public lounge made with discarded furniture found by the artists in the NYC garbage over a period of one month, addressing the issue of the fast-paced cycle of consumerism, confronting the esthetic and advertisement strategies of home furnishing companies.

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challenge can be a productive force driving new ideas greatly advancing the work itself.

identity, culture, and environment, tying together so many important social, economic, and ecological issues. We see home as a process of creating a place that is not only physical but also psychological linking the personal microcosm to the world at large. Thus home serves us as a laboratory and testing ground to develop projects dealing with wide range of issues concerning domesticity and the dominant interior based culture.

We started to work as an artist duo in 2011 on the project Looking for a Home, inquiring into the theme of domesticity and home. We have been involved in each other’s art before, but we always maintained separate art practices. The project aiming at the culture of consumerism and the everyday environmental awareness was for us very personal, it has been inspired by our experience of furnishing our first New York apartment with objects and furniture found in the garbage on streets. Looking for a Home made for Queens College Library NY had a form of a fully functional public lounge furnished entirely with furniture and household objects we found in the New York City garbage stream over a period of one month. Looking for a Home functions as a survey into the city and its lifestyle cycles, in the process we examined how identity and personal integrity bound to personal space is influenced by displacement but also by larger estranging factors such as consumerism, and environmental alienation.

The project has been a test for us to exercise the partner’s dynamic as an art strategy to address larger issues and we collaborate ever since. Looking for a Home also set an algorithm for our future collaboration strategies based on collecting, archiving and reinterpretation of everyday narratives as essential building blocks of culture, in which we immerse audience in participation and active experience.

It's no doubt that multidisciplinary collaboration as the one you have established together are today ever growing forces in several fields of artistic production and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields meet and collaborate on a project. Could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, Peter Tabor once stated that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this?

Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between two artists?

In a functioning collaboration, the creative potential is multiplied, but it is not just a simple summary, you may really exponentiate the outcome to something you would not individually be able to achieve. And there is also a new third element coming out of the duality that may often come as a surprise like in the chemistry when two substances mix they don’t just combine, they react. Of course, the chemistry has to work just right, because you play with explosives in the arts. In our case collaboration expanded our practice in very productive way, naturally becoming an extension of our shared life, everyday things we do, and experiences we have. Our talks, discussions, and constant dialogues function as a ground for developing themes into projects. Once we have a direction we do lots of brainstorming going back and forth in the process, while inquiring into substance of the problems. The ability to listen is definitely crucial, but it is also important to always give each other honest critical feedback since only then things may develop further. As in life, this might be challenging at times, requiring openness in working with different perspectives, but the

Your works convey coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit your website www.mildeart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, are your works conceived and created gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes?

We think about our collaborative art practice as a form of visual philosophy, an extension of a continuous dialog we have with the world and

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ourselves. It reflects our shared life experience and interest in the shifting relationship between culture and the environment. We are interested in the context of the everyday life and keep talking and discussing these topics together, which eventually may evolve into a project. In our work, we approach a broad spectrum of themes, concerning environmental integrity encompassing various subjects and disciplines, that relate to each other, such as architecture and design, culture of dwelling and homesteading that includes things such as gardening, and food production.

Our process is both instinctive and conceptual. Many projects begin with a simple inspiration when a certain form or a situation draws our interest and sparks an idea, which we then analyze and conceptualize. On the other hand, we do research-based and process oriented projects, which evolve out of our long-term interest in a certain theme, where we initially don’t set a particular media or outcome. By engaging with the concept the work emerges gradually out of the process, eventually crystallizing into a form, which sometimes surprises our selves. We learned that imposing abstract schemes on a theme from the beginning doesn’t necessarily produce better results.

Oftentimes we investigate a story for a number of years, studying its structure and mechanisms before we formulate and articulate the visual solution.

Therefore we may tweak the modernist motto from “form follows function” into “form follows process”.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries, we have selected Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas, an interesting site-specific project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into the relationship between environment and humans is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Plantarium would you tell us your sources of inspiration? And what did address you to inquire into the themes of environmental alienation?

The project Plantarium, Garden for Weeds, Bees, and

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Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas, 2017, detail a developing site-specific project at Mildred’s Lane, PA

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Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas, 2017, a developing site-specific project at Mildred’s Lane, PA taking a fo open platform serving the plants, animals and humans alike while promoting an active experience of wild plants through

Situated at the Mildred’s Lane, a 95 acres artist run cultural center in rural Pennsylvania Plantarium, Garden for Weeds, Bees and Tees takes a form of a pollinating wild flower garden featuring a spectrum of uncultivated local plants we find and transplant from the wild. It is conceived as an open educative platform promoting an active experience of wild plants through use, consumption, and interpretation to enhance our relationship to environment. Plantarium is a dialog with the site and intersects with projects of

Teas evolves from our continuous interest in culturenature relationship and the connection of daily life to environmental context. It develops in series of focused walks, studies, and workshops, leading to establishing a wildflower garden reflecting the natural diversity of local environment and the seasonal changes. Plantarium aims to recall the significance of wildflowers and weeds overlooked in our culture and to explore its usefulness and role in daily rituals, traditions, and symbolism.

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rm of a wild flower meadow designed with an assortment of transplanted uncultivated local plants and weeds. It is an use, consumption, and interpretation to explore our relationship to the environment.

realized that the garden is in the middle of a natural bounty and everything is already there. All we need is to transplant and accumulate the local plants growing on the property and in the region into the garden.

Mildred’s Lane founders J. Morgan Puett’s Radical Apiary and a fragment of Mark Dion’s Library for the Birds, repurposed here as a protective bear barrier.

In the past, we already created several public art projects, where we combined urban gardening and installation but felt a garden for Mildred's Lane has to be different and in a true sense site-specific to complement the unique integrity of this rural site.

Once we started to conceive the project we

Surrounding the Mildred’s Lane bee yard the garden has a circular shape divided into 14 segments, each planted with different wild perennial plants that subsequently flower from spring to fall, as a type of a seasonal clock,

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PopCorn Rock, 2016, site-specific installation, Art in the Fields, New Jerusalem PA, petroglyphs carved in stone, 45″ x 100″

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providing food for bees, but also for making teas, flower bouquets, and remedies, while serving the plants, animals, and humans alike. The project reverses the idea of a conventional garden, based on growing crops as monocultures in isolation separated by a mulch, in the Plantarium plants are allowed to grow as in nature, connecting and interlocking with each other, creating a living mosaic. At the later stage, we will let the project transform into a wild meadow to blend with its surroundings, enriching the local biodiversity.

The project is inspired by our travels in the region of Upper Delaware Valley and the time we spend in nature, hiking, camping and foraging, activities we consider as our parallel art practice that provides us with resource and inspiration to engage the themes of culture and nature. We are fascinated by the world of plants and herbalism; we grow and harvest wild herbs for teas and infusions on regular bases.

In the project Plantarium, Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas we want to address the lost connection to wild plants and the vanishing access to natural resources, its mystification, and institutionalization, such as the restriction of harvesting wild plants on the public lands and criminalization of its medicinal use. In the past, wild plants were an inseparable part of our life and culture, a valuable resource crucial for survival used as food source, medicine and in various rituals. Today it seems we don’t need wild plants anymore, we have an abundance of imported cultivated plants available in flower shops all year round independently from the actual seasons. We don’t need to make remedies because we can buy pills in pharmacy and shop for seemingly endless supply of food in supermarkets. Through this collective amnesia of losing the connection and practical knowledge of wild plants, we have become depended on consumerist gods and changed our relationship to environment in general by alienating ourselves from the cycles and rhythms in nature. We think that in this process we have been disarmed of the basic skills of survival, which help us navigate and ultimately respect and

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relate to the environment. The idea of Plantarium tries to overcome this gap and bring awareness to the forgotten wisdom about the natural world around us.

We have appreciated the way Plantarium connects modern lifestyle with the wider context of nature addressing the viewers to subtle still insightful socio-political criticism about the disconnect between the idea of Nature and our ever-changing, unstable contemporary age. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your work could be considered political in a certain sense?

Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age?

Rather than political we prefer to describe our art practice as culturological because of our interest to work and deconstruct cultural models. We want to bring art and everyday reality together and realize the unique possibility art has to carve out free space for societal discourse. Culture and politics influence each other and in some sense, all can be framed politically but most importantly all can be seen and practiced as art today. However, we strongly prefer politics happening as a result of culture and not as a driving force of art.

While working on themes, which are contemporary, we are committed to more universal, long lasting perspectives and broader spectrum of interest beyond the given political horizon. Politics is notoriously known as a corrupting force, especially for culture. Most of the political art, as we see it, is polarizing in nature, has a set agenda and may submit to an ideology or dominant trends addressing issues relevant only to specific groups in the given time. These art forms tend to operate more like politics and less like a philosophy, which for art may be a slippery slope. On the other hand, we see the unique opportunity art has to transcend

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Homescape, 2014, view from the solo exhibition “Hills and Valleys of the Sofa Wilderness” at Wave Hill, NY, aluminum frame, metal wheels, insulation material, soil, moss, grass, ferns and stones, 29 1/2″ x 64″ x 32″ and 29 1/2 x 32″ x 32″ Homescape resembles sofa and chair, its upholstery, however, is made with living plants and moss, transplanted from the woods and set into the metal frames. The project addressing issues of environmental fragmentation invites audience to sit down as in the forest and explore the idea of the continuity of landscape and nature

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In-Tree-Net, 2012, installation view, solo exhibition at Karlin Studios, Prague, Czech Republic, tree trunks and branches, plumbing hardware, 45’ x 6’ x 10’.

Site-specific installation resembling pipes and engineering systems made with trees and branches representing the element of nature penetrating architecture and man-made borders pointing to our mechanical approach to nature and environmental dependency of the seemingly independent interior environment.

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things and a chance to access issues in an unconventional open way. In our projects, we are not taking sides but are interested to create platforms, which inspire awareness and bring people together to re-imagine culture.

Considering the role of the art today, we think we should be asking: What art can do that other disciplines can’t? we definitely are interested in exploring this question in our projects. In the recent history art dramatically changed its traditional role and took new forms responding to the rapidly changing world of the technological era. Art today crosses many disciplines and engages whole range of new themes and forms. Contemporary artists may paint and sculpt, but also do social practice and ecological activism; they may be cooking, gardening, or building houses the list can be endless. Perhaps one may think that artists talk into too many things outside of their area of expertise, however, we think that’s the point of art, the unique ability to access, connect and reinterpret reality creating space for more holistic perspectives and approaches. Today most segments of society are highly specialized and fragmented; the virtualization of our reality produces even more disconnection.

However, art has the power to activate engagement and experience, and at the same time, its narratives may function as connective points helping to cross everyday barriers and differences.

Plantarium evolves in series of walks, studies, and workshops: the power of visual arts in the contemporary age is enormous: at the same time, the role of the viewer's disposition and attitude is equally important. Both our minds and our bodies need to actively participate in the experience of contemplating a piece of art: it demands your total attention and a particular kind of effort—it’s almost a commitment. What do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested if you try to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations?

In the era of the technological age, we are used to browsing, scrolling and swipin through the virtual reality surfing mostly only on the surface of an

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In-Tree-Net, 2011, installation view from the group exhibition “Green” at Gallery Califia in Horazdovice, Czech Republic, tree trunks, plumbing hardware, 15’ x 3’ x 6”

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experience. In our projects we want to encourage an active role of the audience, immersing them through direct involvement into the narrative.

Each of our projects is a journey into a different land, where we guide the viewers with visual clues into the philosophy behind it, leaving multiple points of entry.

We often use reenactment of common situations or mundane objects as framework, which we alter or twist into new forms. Our pieces sometimes provide a functionality that leads the viewer into the narrative, while other utilize tools such as metaphor, irony, and humor that are working as a great doors openers for imagination leaving room for individual interpretation.

In our process we are focused on the way of the content delivery, the project’s message is usually not obvious at the first glance in order to allow the viewer to engage with the piece and to conceptualize it gradually. The narrative sometimes reveals itself in a sudden aha-moment, allowing participants to see and understands things and their position, which they may not have considered before. For example in the project Homescape (2014), which is a series of sculptural objects functioning as living furniture, sofa, and chair, upholstered with living moos, plants and natural materials, conveying the experience of sitting in the forest under the tree.

In addition, we developed series of other theme-based lounges, where we seat people into situations exploring variety of issues such as the sedentary culture, environmental alienation, and the rise of the "Homo Interius� a new type of species, spending most of the time indoor isolated from the outside environment.

Many of your projects use metaphors and are based on reenactments of common situations to encourage a new perspective, reframing reality influenced by our predominantly interior based lifestyle. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? Moreover, would you tell us something about the importance of metaphors in your practice and their relationship to memory?

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Home in a Home, 2016, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA), wallpaper – digital print on vinyl, molding, furniture, project's survey, 12'x 10'x 9'.

A site-specific installation exploring the identity and significance of collectible objects in creating the personal space - a home.

Taking a form of a lounge for visitors its walls are covered with diamond-patterned wallpaper designed entirely with texts telling stories about domestic treasures gathered through the project's survey from hundreds of responders from around the world.

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Home in a Home, 2016, installation view, Hudson Valley Contemporary Art Center (HVCCA), Peekskill, NY

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We agree and believe that concepts and symbolic strategies in order to be effective, need to be implemented physically while working with immaterial ideas we always strive to anchor them in a sensual experience, not only to test them but also to confront the detachment of our increasingly virtualized world.

The reality of human experience changed rapidly in the last decades, our touch both physical and visual, became increasingly bound to technology depriving us of direct encounter with the world. We create virtually unlimited connections but at the same time confine ourselves to screens, and keyboards causing epidemic of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection from environment.

As artists, we are interested in responding to states of deprivation and sensual impoverishment by engaging in more holistic methodologies. In our projects, in particular, we approach the media and materiality as carrier of the narratives, while working with themes of integrity of sites and spaces. For example, in our search for the “Universal Color of a Home� in the project Do-It-Your-Self (2011), we utilize the media of dust collected by a group of participants in their homes to create site-specific wall paint.

In our projects, we often employ metaphors to reframe everyday situations and objects rearranging known elements into new connections creating shortcuts of meanings. In example, our project In-TreeNet is a series of site-specific installations developed in response to the theme of environmental fragmentation produced by architecture. Made with trees and branches mounted on walls resembles pipes and engineering systems In-Tree-Net represents idea that nature penetrates artificial borders, has no beginning and end, as the architecture. In other projects metaphors stands for things different from them self to revise their ordinary meaning and typical context, such as in the Exchange Library (2013), participatory installation inspired by the garbage scavenger shopping cart turned into a mobile library.

These shifts alter the networks of memory and experience, which oftentimes are static templates and stereotypes. Thus metaphor can detonate given psychological mechanisms and affect our perspective on things that are culturally given and firmly set. In

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when it loses its ability to open horizons of the human mind, it loses its edge like dull old knife. One of the factors in the process is time, which is relative and runs at different speeds simultaneously, one for the artist another for the audience and different for the curators and art dealers etc. Most of the audience definitely takes slower pace oftentimes asking for the familiar, but an artist is a trailblazer, who needs to be up and running in the hills taking risks and expanding boundaries.

paradox, while creating unusual linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences metaphor may allow seeing things and situations more clearly for what they really are.

You are versatile artists and your practice is marked out with captivating multidisciplinary feature, ranging from social and community engage art practice, mixed media, installation, public art, and green space. What drew you to abandon your traditional painting and sculpture and move toward the interdisciplinary art practice? And in particular, when do you recognize that a technique or a material has exhausted its expressive potential?

Our work is not defined by unified formal style; we rather employ diverse forms, materials, and methods specific to the subject matter. The form of our art practice evolves from the continuous exchange we have and our curiosity in the world and its happenings. Plus we have explosive minds, which get accelerated by our collaboration that leads us to explore new and unpaved roads and do things we didn't anticipate before.

Our move from more traditional forms into interdisciplinary practice has been in part due to a sense of dissatisfaction with the detachment of art from reality. We both are interested in culture and environmental themes, which inevitably includes many disciplines and areas of life. This is why we look for forms that would be more present and directly immersed in the everyday life experience. These situations allow us to be a catalyst of events that can be experienced by the audience outside of the framework of art and work as a direct experience in the in the sense of relational aesthetics described by the Nicolas Bourriaud. In general, we seek the best way, how to express an idea or concept not necessarily thinking about a particular media from the start.

Some artists are very successful in developing a distinct style, but we think that there is also a danger there. Artists can get caught in a particular media or style and become comfortable and repetitive, and the aesthetic form can gradually become empty. In certain sense exhausting of an art form happens

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Our approach in certain sense can use an analogy of moving through a landscape, which can be taken quite literary. Our perspective is informed by the experience of wilderness and nature from our frequent walks, hikes, and backpacking trips that we consider our parallel practice providing us with resource and inspiration to engage themes of culture and nature. Similarly, our methodologies include exploration, collection, and interpretation, on the way we set camps at certain points. We don't necessarily move on the next story because we think one area of interest would be exhausted we enjoy returning to projects of which some are evolving over several years. But perhaps our method can be described as nomadic, always expanding with new discoveries we make on the way and while never settling, we strive to find integrity in connecting all the dots.

French anthropologist and sociologist Marc Augè once suggested the idea that modern age creates two separate poles: nature versus science and culture versus society. How would you consider the role of an artist in such dichotomies that affect our contemporary age?

We think as culture we are very much influenced by this polarization. The problem is that we too often tend to separate things from each other, which in reality belong together or function as parts of larger systems. This strategy works perfectly as a method in science allowing to dealing precisely with a specific detail. Similarly culture is divided into segments and narrowly specialized categories resulting in fragmentation of our lives and loss of basic connections both to our surroundings and to our

Cabinet of Smells, 2015, EFA Project Space, NYC, installation detail from a workshop, where artists distilled a perfume of a New York home from various domestic objects such as books, toys, newspapers, food etc. brought by the participants from New York apartments.

Exchange Library, 2016, installation view at Bruce High Quality Foundation University, NYC; books, garbage bins, shopping cart, household objects, bags, boxes, 5’ x 6’ x 9’.

Interactive mobile library inspired by the aesthetic and methods of organizations used by the garbage scavengers made with a supermarket-shopping cart and various containers attached to its main structure to store and organize books into collections and genres. The project is open to interaction and offers the participants to take or donate books to the library.

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selves. However, to approach society as whole we think we do need to see a bigger picture and use more universal approach allowing integrating things and disciplines together.

artist-audience relationship into a productive and more open model of exchange. As we work with different groups and sites, we continually explore the ideal form of engagement that is constantly changing and evolving with each piece. A visitor typically comes to a gallery or a museum for a particular experience framed as art; in our projects we attempt to reverse the direction and turn the focus to real life instead, which immediately creates a space to engage and include others, changing the role of passive viewer into an active one, in which spectator becomes user, the audience, participants.

In his writings Marc Augè proposed the idea of “nonplacesâ€?, which refers to transitory spaces like airports, highways, subway, hotel rooms, and supermarkets etc., which do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places", creating generic and interchangeable experiences. We think the idea of non-places is symptomatic for the notion of alienation and can be also applied to our social interactions. We live in virtualized non-places of the web, create and develop virtual-friendships, without really meeting each other.

Because our projects are often interactive and educational, the idea of audience is part of the creative process from the very beginning. The level of the audience commitment varies, ranging from simple tactile interactions, participation in workshops and assignments in individual and collective actions, to co-writing of the project narratives. In some projects, people provide a story like in a Home in a Home (2014 ongoing), in others like Cabinet of Smells (2015) by bringing an aromatic object of choice to distill the real perfume of home.

In our art practice, we are searching for the lost connections and our place in the world. We see this isolation as an arbitrary perspective because, in reality, we would not exist without each other, as we are part of interlocking systems of human relations and the environment. We keep working with this theme in many of our projects in which we seek context and integrity of the basic elements of our everyday life. In that sense, we think the role of the artist today may be in bridging these separations and making connections between the fragments creating places of integrity.

We also often work site-specifically either to the location or an issue, which makes it more relevant for the locals and easier to engage. We are less interested in art and more in life while developing works we ask questions, what's the matter? What is the issue of the particular place or community? In the process of looking for answers, we are able to reach out and connect with the audiences based on the shared experience. In this way, we found people are generally open and eager to engage.

Over the years you have exhibited internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions including at the MoMA Studio, Queens Museum, NURTURE art, EFA Project Space; Center for Contemporary Arts DOX, Meet Factory and many others. One of the hallmarks of your approach is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation, we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your artistic production with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Kristyna and Marek. Finally, would you like to tell us, readers, something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

We usually work on various projects in different stages of production at the same time; we just installed a site-specific piece at the Wave Hill Gallery In-Tree-Net, and have other projects, which are developing. Sometimes it takes years for a project to be finished. We are continuing working on the Plantarium, Garden for Bees, Weeds, and Teas for at

We are interested in establishing a direct line with our audiences shifting the traditional hierarchy of the

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least another 3 years, at this point we are in the first stage of planting, and have to wait till the flowers get more established. In the next stage, we will be focusing on various forms of utilization and interpretation and plan on organizing presentations and public workshops on the use and cultural significance of wild plants.

We also continue working on our long-term researchbased project Home in a Home, exploring the theme of identity and psychology of personal space examining how the perception of identity of home evolves in our changing time. We started Home in a Home in 2012 at MoMA Studio and developed it further in different forms with variety of audiences such as at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) this summer. While the project engages the idea of home and its substance, it is asking if it can be understood through the notion of keeping and collecting nonfunctional objects of personal significance, such as memorabilia, trophies, and art. We are interested in why we gather things we don't need and ultimately why we need art? In the future we would like to create a publication to capture the many layers and complexity of this project, reinterpreting narratives of personal objects and domestic integrity based on stories and drawings shared with us by more than 400 active project participants.

In general we interested in themes connecting culture and environment and would like to continue working on projects addressing these complex relationships.

We are open to exploring new situations and possibilities for site-specific engagement and collaborations and are committed to developing longterm relationship with people and places to foster the integrity of life in the infinite extent of our relations between culture, environment, and nature.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Exchange Library, 2016, installation view at Bruce High Quality Foundation University, books, garbage bins, shopping cart, household objects, shopping bags, cardboard boxes, and an umbrella, 5’ x 6’ x 9’

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Peripheral ARTeries meets

Michael Betancourt Lives and works in Savannah, GA, USA Going Somewhere is a postcinematic “serial” composed from episodes that can be shown individually or as a group.

Produced using glitches and abstraction to transform historical documentary, home movies, public domain monster movies and NASA footage, the serial presents a series of science fictional narratives to explore cinematic expository form by forcing the audience to “fill-in” gaps in the material, creating an awareness of how they are inventing the stories.

Our interpretations depend on how the computer processes these digital signals, the translation of a machine language whose code is easily alterable, dependent on a set of intangible electronic data that is inaccessible to humans.

My movies employ a large set of glitch techniques I have worked to develop since the 1990s that engage the data stream to generate a continuous flow of imagery functioning syntactically: the focus is not on the glitching itself, but on how these processes are instrumentalities that reflexively manipulate the digital material. Datamoshing reassembles the source materials to reveal a new way of structuring moving images by melting one into the next, replacing the narrative logic of cuts used in conventional cinema with a continuous transformation that eschews both montage and the long take—each shot develops seamlessly into the next, morphing from one image into another. This continuous flow of imagery in fragmented blocks is the fundamental “unit” of assembly throughout this series. By working with multiple “blocks” at different scales—some glitched, some not—allows me to explore the balance between indexical recognitions common to photography and found footage films, versus the graphic, geometric forms specific to digital graphics and imagery. This process depends on extracting a dataset from within a pre-existing work. It is analogous to the recognitions of earlier films common to found footage films, but how appropriated imagery functions in glitch videos evades established relationships of realism and quotation, making these movies post-digital. Digital compression and encoding forces a reconsideration of productive protocols and critical methodologies since the assumptions used by established cinematic frameworks are in question; it is not a rejection of earlier approaches, but the necessity for their re-interrogation that postcinema demonstrates. In watching these images, audiences become aware of them as digital products, the aura of the digital is rendered for them to see. This relationship is easy to conceptualize, but it is challenging to actually employ in a movie; arriving at both a set of protocols and working process to achieve this result has taken several years’ work—my production methods for Going Somewhere originate with this experience. I did not want to focus on the problems of how to make my imagery, so I would be able to focus instead on its meaning and development in each 7-minute episode/module.

The individual episodes are not parts of a singular narrative drama as in a commercial film. Instead of drama with characters and story, each episode is being designed to minimally evoke commercial narratives through symbolic montages synchronized with remixed public domain recordings of Holst’s symphony The Planets. Musical cues take the place of narrative exposition. I chose The Planets because the most recognized composer for contemporary sci-fi movies, John Williams, borrows heavily from themes and orchestration in Holst’s symphony. The results of this process of fragmentation and combination resembles visual music, rather than earlier media works that dialectically oppose the spectacles created by commercial media. Paralogy is the preferred method. This paranarrative subverts the spectacular aspects of commercial media by interrupting that illusion and drawing attention to its construction.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

University to study motion pictures, you received an MA in Film Studies at the University of Miami studying under film historian William Rothman.

You later nurtured your education with a Ph.D. from the University of Miami in Interdisciplinary Studies, focusing on Art History, Communications/Film Studies and History: how do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Hello Michael and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. We would like to start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training, and after having attended the Temple

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particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making?

Thank you for including me. This complex background reflects how my process and research are closely linked: I have been engaged in what is now called “creative research” since the 1980s, although I understand my role as “artist-theorist.”

That positioning reveals my interdisciplinary process, mutually supported by my work as a media historian and critical theorist, that rarely conforms to established expectations. Perhaps the strongest misconception my background creates is the supposition of a distinction between studiobased art and historiographic (or theoretical) writing: for me these are the same thing. Put simply, aesthetics are history. Critical analyses, such as my well-known publications on digital capitalism, are as much a result of my studio practice, as my studio practice is a reflection of theory: instead of being parallel or tangential parts of my work, these areas are essential to it. Issues of semiotics, human agency, equivalent labor, and reifications of value are theoretical concerns that play out in various ways, resulting in “art” of some type (which includes movies, static imagery, games and other less easily identified things), or is equally likely to produce critical or historical discussion.

These are aspects of the same engagement, so explaining my working process can become a bit confusing since these domains are usually considered mutually exclusive and utterly separate.

For a long time I was deeply uncomfortable with calling anything I made “art,” and to a degree I still am. Jasper John’s comment that “the artist is the elite of the servant class” has always struck me as a truism about relationships between art, artists, and their patrons that arises from the commercial domain that “art” mediates. I realized this when I started showing in galleries, and this recognition prompted a reconsideration of my role. To have a critical approach requires separation from these demands, sui generis, a spacing out or distance available only at the margins of commercial exhibition-promotion-sale. Academic teaching provides the financial ability to work, but

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

detachment from the market is challenging, especially in places such as the United States where limited public financial supports are often only given to artists showing in large, commercialoriented galleries that distort the capacity of artists to work critically since it is/has become almost the only recognized validation. Being able to make this choice (being marginal is rarely a choice for artists) is very much a privilege

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provided by not needing the market for basic survival. Thus, not being in those venues is a “freedom� tempered by the restrictions imposed by a lack of visibility and the costs of making work.

our readers that they visit your website http://www.michaelbetancourt.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work. While walking our readers through your process, can you tell them something about the evolution of your style? In particular, do you think that there's a central idea that connects all your works?

The results of your artistic inquiry convey a coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. We would suggest to

I am concerned with how the discrepancy

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

connected by a constant concern with interrogating perception (aesthetics) via past experience (semiotics). The established traditions of media-forms are always a constraint on their use; however, I have never really concerned myself with style—its emergence is a consequence of the procedures and dynamics of working with particular materials in specific ways—arising spontaneously. In this sense, my

between science and fantasy critiques our engagement with the world, but my process develops from theoretical concerns—for example, that glitch processes elide editing— observations that lead to a test or two, followed by some writing: the studio work is recursive, guided by concerns with semiotics that develop from the embodied encounter (perception) rather than from verbal language, but all my works are

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(hermeneutics)—establishes both lacunae and omissions in well-understood domains that are unacknowledged, difficult to conceptualize: academic pursuits provide instructive guidance in what the contemporary conditions of possibility are and how to use their significance critically.

These approaches take a variety of forms, some of which are movies, while others are not. My concerns remain relatively constant, even if their applications change: I have been working with both ‘windowing’ and the abstractions emergent from glitches since the 1990s to provide the critical engagement with fantasy (the iconic Moons) and use conventions derived from the visual music tradition—in movies by filmmakers such as Mary Ellen Bute or John Whitney, Sr.—as well as how digitality confuses abstraction as a merging of subjective and objective realisms.

Because digital works are rendered on-demand by computational processes, I make this procedurality a conscious factor in their creation, interpretation, and engagement. It appears as “style” exactly because our conventional engagement with motion pictures always generates a realist dynamic that only understands visuals within the range naturalism::stylization.

The alternatives my works demonstrate explicitly animate the paranarrative organization of movies such as Going Somewhere, The Dogs of Space, or the earlier she, my memory from 2002.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Going Somewhere, an extremely interesting video series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. When walking our readers through the genesis of Going Somewhere would you shed light your usual process and set up? In particular, what role does chance play in your creative process?

movies have ‘no style’ since their morphology and structure is what produces it, a reflection of the semiotics as much as the media.

Going Somewhere results from several years of smaller works, not in themselves tests, but which developed the set of specific procedures I’m using. This hybrid of hand-animation (single frame) and the transformations created by databending with a hexadecimal editor or the removal of I-frames from MPEG-compressed

“Progression” is a better term for my development, and this is what makes my work seem unclassifiable—my work as a critical theorist studying digital capitalism, and, simultaneously, my primary research and media historiography

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video (datamoshing) masks the importance of the selection and curatorial process of my materials. I create glitched materials and then use them as the ‘sources’ for editing and compositing. Glitch only looks like “chance” to a human audience, yet neither the machine nor the human alone is capable of producing my movies. Machines in general, and digital computers in particular, are completely and entirely determinate in their procedures and outcomes; what their human audience believes to be “chance,” or “glitch,” or other “errors,” are more commonly simply unanticipated—but entirely determinate—results of the machine’s operation: what appears to be atypical and random is not: manipulation of the digital files using a hexadecimal editor allows me to alter the encoded movie, with re-encoding using fault-tolerant software and/or screen capture to stabile the source materials from very different sources—NASA, public domain movies, etc. The technical parts are relatively simple and rely on recursive approaches, but there is no chance in my work at all: it requires multiple, successive phases of iteration and recombination to employ all this material together in the same work. The rest of the process would be familiar to anyone who worked with digital optical printing to edit, composite and merge footage. This technique requires an initial recomposition into a singular HD source file, and a mixture of compositing and frame-by-frame retouching.

What is difficult in producing each episode of Going Somewhere is the most obvious feature of these movies, their elimination of editing— traditional cutting in-between shots—constrains and directs how the paranarrative proceeds without the supports of montage familiar from the past century of motion pictures. To transcend the limits imposed by established pictorial and cinematic languages requires a reassessment of their traditions. While there are many techniques for cutting shots together, there are no established approaches for works of this type, forcing a rethink of the components.

As you have remarked, glitch processes make us aware our interpretation depends on digital

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

signals, translating easily alterable machine code that is dependent on intangible data inaccessible to humans. We like the way Going Somewhere draws from universal imagery, recontextualizing it and addressing the viewers to a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations: when

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discussing your process, would you tell us how important it is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings?

interest lies with the self-consciousness of engagement. Technical failure is a recurring metaphor for human failure in my work, reflecting this dynamic of machine function and human intervention: this dependency appears in my theoretical work implicitly. Our typical, everyday engagement works to resolve the ambiguity and ambivalence of these ranges into

Because my approach is semiotic, I always have the idea of a hypothetical model viewer in mind, but since personal engagements are inevitable, instead of trying to control or direct them, my

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

singularity defined by polarizations. My thinking tends to organize sets of ranges bounded by mutually exclusive extremes redolent of paradox, but containing a broad scope of intermediate potentials (my primary concern).

Eschewing resolution creates a conscious state of information only when we become aware of our always contingent interpretations in the artifice of perception—those elements

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productive of narrative, motion, and imagery. In Going Somewhere these alterior potentials arise to compete for recognition, resulting in works that constantly shift between being abstract and representational, narrative and anarrative— transitions that force us to confront our interpretation’s artificiality and contingency.

We have particularly appreciated the way Going

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the footage that you combined? In particular, what does appeal you of found footage?

My choices of footage are not really concerned with their sources, although the difference between scientific images and those of sci-fi fantasies is important to what I’m doing. What interests me are the images’ ability to become specifically iconic; their source in scientific or fantasy is simply part of the recognitions that inform our understanding of what we see. These selective decisions/recognitions inform the results: Going Somewhere is a paranarrative, which means it requires this identification of already-known imagery the audience will recognize (hence, iconic)—so the construction is not a matter of ontology, depending instead on enculturation and interpretive expertise. The formalist approach that is typical of Fried’s Modernism is an attempt to substitute ontology for epistemological issues of interpretation, a desire for repudiation and self-sufficiency that was fantasy at best, solipsism at worst. His Modernism masks the role that past experience and prior knowledge have in constraining interpretation: the claim that the materiality of a thing determines its significance, like an aroma that cannot be escaped or avoided, is simply not true, and to apply it to something digital doesn’t even make sense. In place of a singularity of meaning and form, I prefer to work with complex, ambivalent structures that don’t settle into prescribed “communications” of essence.

Sound plays a crucial role in Going Somewhere: according to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a 'sense bias' that affects Western societies favoring visual logic, a shift that occurred with the advent of modern alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and image?

Somewhere explores the expressive potential and the feelings associated with historical documentaries and home movies to trigger the viewers' perceptual and cultural parameters: Michael Fried once stated that 'materials do not represent, signify, or allude to anything; they are what they are and nothing more.' What were the properties that you searched for in

Questions of synchronization are recurring concerns with the hierarchy of reading::seeing::hearing, not just for my work, but for movies generally, especially once the narrative role common to “talkies” and recorded dialogue

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is acknowledged as merely one potential among many. Foundational to sound::image is its simultaneity. Only when viewers recognize image and sound as synchronized does a semiotic relationship emerge. Audience recognition is essential. I have organized Going Somewhere as a counterpoint of musical phrases and particular shots, using motifs from Holst’s symphony The Planets. This structure allows a complex dynamic of visual music and the syntactics of commercial film scores where particular motifs convey narrative information. I developed these ideas in my book, Synchronization and Title Sequences: Audio-Visual Synchronization in Motion Graphics, that offers a comprehensive discussion arising from my studio work (even though I don’t discuss it directly); title sequences are particularly fruitful for analysis since they allow a consideration of commercial and non-commercial approaches equally.

It's important to remark that in 1999 you created a "project" that invited artists to release their art using a license modeled after software licenses.

This project was a forerunner to the Creative Commons public licenses. How is in your opinion technology affecting the consumption of art?

My earlier approaches to technology’s relationship to art and culture developed into a critical theory superstructure concerned with digital capitalism, rather than remaining a project or “art object”; I realized the problem was not the framework to distribute works, but the understanding of what that means. To understand the present requires an understanding of how we got here. There was a time during the 1990s when the internet could have become a broad, general center for culture; this didn’t really happen.

Instead it became a marketplace for valorization, agnotology, and surveillance with the cultural materials it increasingly distributes being a source of unpaid value used to attract an audience who are the real commodity. There’s nothing really new in that observation—it’s become a commonplace since the dot.com crash in the early 2000s. In many ways my “Free Art Project” came

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too early: begun in 1998 as the first digital rights battles were getting started around Napster and file sharing, most artists online weren’t critically conscious enough to understand what was happening or at stake. Four years later that had changed, but by then the opportunity to build something alternative to what we now have was also past. Instead of emancipation, we’re moving towards a strictly controlled system that

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only a minimal place in all this, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t being made or seen—simply that things like “post-internet art” (including “glitch” and “new aesthetic”) have a narrower cultural significance and audience compared to “cat videos.”

looks like the start of the 1990s where people were contained in managed, “walled gardens” like AOL, now replicated by companies like Facebook and Reddit. Digital technology reifies social relationships to crystalize contemporary hierarchies and power in what become unquestionable systems; my critique of digital capitalism demonstrates this antipathy to human social and political structures. Art has

What concerns me is not the issue of technology (art has always had a narrow and mainly self-

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

selecting audience) but the structural illusions that render technology apparently “free” (as in without cost) and the particular results of that fantasy. Being critical is an expensive privilege, just as making art is—there are multiple layers of support required just to make work, and still more required to place those works in front of an audience. The internet has only lowered some of the costs of entry while making the

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established hierarchy’s role more obvious in the selection process.

As my understanding has developed with the critique, the issue is not really about consumption/distribution, but how it (art) is simply one token of exchange whose network effects are tied to the same traditional ideological supports and structures— gallery/museum display, and the critical or

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Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political. What could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age? Moreover, what role does play humour in your process?

Humor arises in deviations from expectations— the anticipated results do not match the actual result. I learned the rhetorical power of humor from the work of video artists Taka iimura and Peter Rose who are otherwise radically different in approach. Not everyone who encounters these works necessarily “gets” what’s happening or necessarily even recognizes the inherent challenge. That’s why humor is always political, always a revelation of artifice that offers potentials that are more commonly ignored a visibility they otherwise don’t have, providing a way to model and think about alterior potentials. The joke is really only funny if you are secure enough not to feel threatened by what it offers and the challenge it contains. All too often with serious works audiences don’t realize how funny they really are. “Comedy” is always critical.

You use sophisticated datamoshing and databending techniques to completely transform the materials you include in your works: we are sort of convinced that new media will bridge the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, and we dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate each other. What's your point about this apparently conflicted relationship?

historical text—that affirm and reinforce the existing hierarchies of culture; in effect, nothing changed except the speed and ease of promotion-communication. The role for art has remained precisely what it was before the arrival of internet/digital technologies.

I recognize the historical belief in a conflict between art and technology, but have never felt the need to worry about or engage it. For me there is no conflict. This tendency to think of art and technology as opposed forces is one of those perennial claims, always to be revived when a new technology comes along: painters

Your works are often pervaded with a combination between socio political criticism:

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said the same things about ‘paint in tubes’ (and photography) in the nineteenth century, but I doubt anyone today would even understand their objections as being more than a personal preference. The belief in an opposition between the two cultures is now so deep-rooted that it seems like it has always been that way, could not be otherwise, and yet it is an understanding that was born with Romantic poets such as William Blake rejecting industrialization (and all the varied horrors of its beginnings) that created this assumption that they are different. In rejecting the visionary claims of romanticism, these other beliefs about technology also disappear.

The theme of automation is a recurring theme in your inquiry into the relationship between digital technology and capitalism.

Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch once remarked "that works of art often continue to evolve after they have been realized, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been seen before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists. Do you think that the role of artists has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media?

Not really. The problem for critical art that necessitates its marginality remains constant, a reflection of privilege: Art is, and for the most part always has been, a pastime for the wealthy that acts to assert their position and authority.

That hasn’t changed with technology, even if the ease and costs of promotion have declined.

For questions like this one, I find it difficult not to think about these issues through the framework of sociology or anthropology, via a social function. There is not a thing called “Art” except to the extent that it is a product of these socio-economic market activities, its well-known commodity dimension demonstrates the

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

hierarchy that is art’s significance. I find this part of “art” to be of little critical interest, unable to sustain the long term engagement required since it is easily converts into the whims of fashion and marketing. Society really hasn’t changed much due to these technologies— quite the opposite, they have made the more juvenile and destructive aspects of human

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interaction—threats, bullying, intimidation—

shift to happen, otherwise it won’t. At best, art is a catalyst, but so are many things.

more visible (if not more common).

Transformations are personal, a result of

Over the years your works have been showcased in several occasions, including your recent participation to the 5th Syros International Film Festival, in Greece. One of the hallmarks of your work is its ability to

individual choices. Art can facilitate that for some people, some times, but it’s a mistake to believe that it’s the art doing it. The individual must be ready and willing for the (personal)

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A still from Going Somewhere, work in progress 7:00 minutes per episode

create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what

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type of language you use in a particular context?

This is a difficult question to answer coherently, not because the question’s especially complex, but because audiences are: it is difficult to anticipate what anyone will think when they encounter any work, even something utterly

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knowledgeable, experienced viewers whose personal biases prevent them from even considering works made with digital technology (not just glitch)—there is a definite fetish for celluloid film even though it is a dying, obsolete technology—while at the same time there are novice viewers who have no problem engaging and understanding the same work. It’s always a concern, but you don’t really have any control over that part, so my focus is on making them.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Michael. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Thanks, explaining what I do succinctly is always a challenge. Hopefully this all makes some kind of sense. What’s next is an outgrowth of what I am doing now: I have a variety of projects that are in preliminary stages, some are written history or theory, others are movies. Going Somewhere also has a variety of parts still to complete. A major piece is its expansion into paratexts—a poster, a game, a soundtrack LP, for example—that transform it from being just a movie into a larger network of related and linked elements where the movies are the central piece. On some level it’s the same set of issues that prompted my “Free Art Project” in the 1990s. What I’m interested in with this expansion is the larger cultural relationships surrounding media presentation and engagement. In earlier works, such as my iPhone app (2010) that functioned as a digital business card, I was asking similar questions about digital technology and distribution.

familiar and “conservative” in its organization.

You have to trust that your audience is capable of understanding. At the same time, the work does need to assume an ‘appropriate’ tone and organization. For the kinds of movies and statics I make, this issue is never really settled since the audience’s response depends on other factors than experience. There are highly

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Teresa Wells Lives and works in the Midlands and in London Inspired by a moral upbringing, I possess an ethical consciousness along with a fascination for the question, “How do Humans Behave?”

Through the medium of sculpture I explore the tenuous relationship between man and his society. Isolation, miscommunication, fragility, strength, passion, empathy and the powerful movement of the human form are most attractive.

There is a need for me to express this in ways that become both, voyeuristic and participatory.

I grew up as the eldest of six to catholic parents in Bradford, West Yorkshire. After giving up hope of producing a son, my engineer father began to encourage me to access his workshop and bought me tools as birthday presents. Aged 15 my father died suddenly, and later in life my 2 children were born with double disabilities, this has had a profound impact on the artistic outcome.

Returning to education later in life, I received a first class BA degree from Nottingham Trent University 1996 and undertook postgraduate studies at Loughborough University, where my tutors included John Atkin FRBS and Dan Archer MRBS. I am influenced by the ethnography's of participant anthropologists, in particular Mary Douglas, Nigel Barley and Desmond Morris.

I currently maintain a working practice at ‘Grid Studios’ Warwickshire where I am committed to a rigorous work schedule combining teaching with my practice.

After working on large scale installations / sculptures up to 4metres in length and at the more intimate scale, 50 cm cubed in mixed media, I am now focussed on reproducing athletic and dynamic forms in bronze, inspired by the human figure.

A member of The Royal British Society Sculptors, and The Free Painters and Sculptors, London, I was awarded best in show

by Richard Deacon CBE at Creekside in 2015.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

the liminal area in which perceptual reality and the realm of imagination find a consistent point of convergence. One of the most impressive aspects of Wells' work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of inquiring into the notions of fragility, empathy, isolation and miscommunication: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Artist Teresa Wells' work grounds in the process of exploring the tenuous relationship between man and his society, with a deeper focus on a complementary dialogue between materiality, content, the exhibition space, and the encounter with the viewer. Addressing the viewers to a multilayered visual experience, her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, successfully attempts to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters walking them through

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Hello Teresa and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid background and you hold a first class BA degree from

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Nottingham Trent University 1996 and you undertook postgraduate studies at Loughborough University: how did these experiences influence the way you currently conceive your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum add to your interest in anthropology informing the way you relate yourself to art making?

only the visual outcome changed as I explored the symbolic nature of forms, materials and colour in the early abstract works made in Nottingham.

My decision to complete post graduate studies at Loughborough was taken with the specific aim to situate my practice after ten years working as an interior designer. As a client led artist, a brief and budget directed my decisions about form, function, and materials. Aesthetics and fashion guided the artistic outcome.

Loughborough’s Art and Design MA seemed to be the solution to how I could combine the anthropological research from my BA with the work experience of design. Predominantly though the desire to engage again with the physicality of materials, and the practicalities of developing a professional practice influenced the direction of the MA (public and site specific art). As an anthropologist/artist and designer, I began to unravel ideas that my work should create a dialogue with a wider audience in the public realm. I revisited my fascination with the placement of objects and the space they inhabited to create feelings of isolation, intrusion, and reflection. However I also wanted to explore the politics of occupying space and place, and link this to identity, to reconnect people to place and space and evoke a sense of “Who and Where”.

The Fine Art degree at Nottingham Trent University allowed me to investigate what it meant to be a contemporary artist making art in a modern society. I was introduced early on, (in a lecture on ‘Sculpture and Figuration’) to the work of Anthony Gormley. The piece, ‘ Fathers, Sons, Monuments and Toys, Gods and Artists, 1984 -1986, had a profound effect on my understanding of the power of sculpture to create emotional responses from an audience, not just from the figures or objects but the physical space between objects, and the place where the objects are situated. I attended Nottingham Trent as a mature student who had recently supported her child through open heart surgery and had lost a parent at a young age. I had experienced some fragile human events, so the physical tension created by the placement and scale of the two figures in this piece resonated quite strongly with me.

I subsequently continued my journey with the question, “How do Humans Behave?” and I pursued an area of research into social anthropology. Inspired by books such as ‘Art as Culture, an Introduction to The Anthropology of Art’, by Evelyn Hatcher, I began to conceive work which explored the tenuous nature of why we produce things, organise our societies, use language and other symbolic forms; and interact. Specifically at that time I was fascinated by our ability to survive against the odds. I was inspired by the dichotomy between the fragile physicality of human beings and the strength to prevail. The fascination endured;

The complexity of the human condition has been the constant source of intrigue throughout; driven by a desire to unravel complicated personal scenarios and affected by the moral framework of Catholicism. There were many unanswered questions in my childhood and adolescence. At fifteen my father died accidentally, creating a deep sense of loss and isolation, yet the communication about these feelings remained unanswered until I was 32. I descend from a poor ‘working class’

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ancestry, with a history of makers, in particular carpenters. My father, who I presume wanted boys, ended up with 5 girls and a boy, therefore I received carpentry tools for birthday presents, and was given access to a workshop in the basement. As the eldest I have always had a responsible attitude to protecting and nurturing my family members, particularly after my father died. One of the biggest regrets was not continuing with my entry into ‘A’ level. I fostered the idea that it was my moral sense of responsibility to financially provide for my mother and five siblings. Although this decision delayed access to higher education, direction and sense of purpose with sculpture, it developed into an understanding of self, and channelled my intrigue with social anthropology.

Your practice is marked out with a captivating multidisciplinary feature, revealing that you are a versatile artist capable of crossing from sculpture to drawing. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.teresawells.co.uk in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you tell us what does draw you to such approach? What are the properties you are searching for in the materials that you include in your materials? And in particular, when do you recognise that one of the mediums has exhausted it’s expressive potential to self?

My approach to drawing is mainly cathartic, and also a practical one. The process facilitates emotional stability, but builds confidence and consolidates ideas. Foremost I consider myself a maker, with the drawing supporting the building, even though I initially trained as an illustrator. More importantly my sculpture is supported with sketches from direct observation; these are hastily scribbled down and are not shown. My sketchbook is filled with these, together with Images and articles from

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‘National Geographic’, newspapers and magazine cuttings. The sketches are developed into sculpture, and the sculptures evolve, as I experience other events and learn to work with the properties of the materials.

Using mixed media challenges my understanding and ability to work with various properties; toughness, malleability, hardness and ductility. However cost, aesthetics and material metaphors are a huge consideration.

One of my earliest influences was Cathy De Monchaux’s, ‘Once upon a Fuck’, 1992. Her combination of metal and leather conveyed touch, desire and denial. I wanted to use my materials to project a variety of emotions, for example, ‘A Safe Place’, 1992. There was a conscious decision to use galvanised steel and construct the form using nuts and bolts.

Galvanised steel is known for it’s ductility and strength, yet unlike mild steel the finish conveyed endurance, as it does not rust. In contrast I upholstered velveteen. Velveteen is known for it’s durability, yet the dense pile created a feeling of softness and comfort, with the colour red offering messages of life.

As far as any medium exhausting it’s expressive potential to self, there is no conscious decision to abandon any medium for another. With sculpture I believe I can convey much more though. As a mixed media sculptor combining materials enables engagement with a larger range of properties, creating a bigger challenge for me, physically.

Whereas in drawing one material is generally used and the expression is conveyed through mark making.

To summarise; the materials I use whether that be in the medium of drawing or sculpture, are researched in detail, and selected to assist in the dialogue with my audience.

Consideration to both material properties and

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the metaphorical language is essential, even with graphite.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected the Communication series, an interesting project that our readers have already started to got to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into the tenuous relationship between man and his society, is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of the Communication series would you tell us your sources of inspiration? And how did you select your subjects?

The Communication Series began in 2012. I had taken a year out from making after my son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in 2010. This diagnosis changed my life and the way I viewed human relationships. I had to relearn communication methods as I needed to understand how my son was processing language differently to those around him, including myself.

There is a triad of impairments used to define an individual as being on the autistic spectrum.

Social Interaction.

Communication.

Behaviour - Rigid or Literal Thinking.

Whilst in the process of learning how to communicate and educate my son and those around him, I was conscious of how this innate ability was taken for granted by those not on the spectrum.

I was observing how everyone around him was abusing the ability to communicate by immersing them selves in mobile technology.

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To me isolation and miscommunication were becoming issues for everyone. Observing people engaging with their mobile phones at a dinner in a restaurant, rather than interacting and spending quality time with one another, elicited resentment. Autistic Spectrum individuals, can be fearful of restaurants, the people around them, and the noise and lights.

Walking into a strange environment with unusual or different food, creates stress and anxiety. They are usually unable to immerse themselves in ‘small talk’ too, as dinner is for sustenance and not engaging socially. ‘Happy Anniversary’ 2015, was the resulting work.

There is a moral undertone, the pieces in The Communication Series are black and white, right or wrong. However, autistic individuals apply black and white decision making to the set of scenarios they are faced with; there is no middle ground. The piece ‘Happy Anniversary’ has been very successful, it resonates very strongly with the audience.

Everyone has experienced this scene. the isolation, the fragility of relationships when we do not participate with one another, yet we engage with mobile technology every day, and find it difficult to put down, or deny it’s intrusion.

The subjects I choose are from experience or observation, interpreted with irony. They reflect behavioural traits which are common, regardless of creed, nationality, sex, or colour.

We like the way House of Cards walks the viewers to interstitial point between perceptual reality and the abstract nature of symbols: German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And

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in particular how would you consider the role of symbols within your work as an artist?

I interpret, is that the majority of our mobile communication such as phones, smart phones, smart watches, and laptops are portable, and have become essential to us in our day to day living. It is a current behavioural trend.

The phrase ‘House of Cards’, is synonymous with political intrigue and morality. Originally the title was used in a British political thriller of 1990. However the themes of adultery, honesty, compulsion and desire to obtain power, are alleged to have been drawn from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Richard the Third.

In comparison the psychological messages are infused with the viewers interpretation, I use symbolic strategies because they connect immediately with the audience. Cultural metaphors from other art forms such as film, and material properties, strengthen the messages of my work.

Netflix and Kevin Spacey, re-worked the series recently, receiving many awards and nominations. It is entrenched within western popular culture and visits many of the moral dilemmas that encompass the human condition.

Therefore I would agree with Thomas Demand, art has to engage us psychologically.

To convey strong visual messages about our environment, our emotional state, engagement with one another, our existence.

It is a powerful tool, to make us stop and reflect on the commonality of our existence.

I used this title, to describe the fragile nature of communication behaviour, and suggested relationship breakdown and isolation. The figures within this piece are positioned with hunched postures and are turned with backs to one another. There is huge space between them symbolising disconnectedness.

Your works address the viewers to challenge their cultural parameters, as the interesting END, allowing an open reading, with a wide variety of associative possibilities. The power of visual arts in the contemporary age is enormous: at the same time, the role of the viewer’s disposition and attitude is equally important. What do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested if you try to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations?

Empathy with the human experience, feelings of neglect, loneliness, and vulnerability are common states. With an estimated 4.77 billion mobile phone users globally, encountering the sense of isolation is becoming universal.

Smart phones allow us to engage more, to access information when we want, to connect with more people than those immediately surrounding us. They ping and ring, and demand our attention. Social scientists and psychologists write about linking mobile technology use to anxiety, depression and addiction.

Art is communication. It’s language and the messages it delivers from the forms, colours and materials are learned before we obtain the ability to use the written word.

Communication is a two way process of speaking and listening. It is vital therefore that my work connects and creates a dialogue with it’s viewers.

I use narratives which are psychological because I am interested in what makes us human. Overuse of anything to the point of addiction is damaging to relationship, self, longevity and existence. The problem as far as

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If the work seems to operate in some kind of absurd surreality, that is a good thing for me.

The Communication Series draws inspiration from polarities in communication ability (mainly that between a neuro typical individual, and someone on the autistic spectrum). I want to illustrate that, with the increasing use of mobile technology a neuro typical individual abuses their innate ability to empathise. Therefore I employ pathos and irony in the narratives; they reflect what I see, that is, a lack of display in the appropriate emotional response and compassion. It is how I interpret current behavioural patterns with communication and interaction. To me this behaviour creates tenuous relationships, with our ability to survive it becoming increasingly fragile. I would like it be an aspect of an imagined world.

The explosion of social media into popular culture has changed how we interact and share life’s events. We have access through technology to a global deluge of information and images which often transmit a fake reality, one of complete happiness and success. We forget to believe that what we see is not in truth the whole story. Feelings of despair, isolation , inadequacy ensue as we socially compare. Increasingly social scientists, mental health organisations are criticising Facebook for the damaging effect on it’s users mental health. ’End’ is a response to this problem. It is a final statement, a reaction to the damaging effects on mental health well being, caused by social media.

I look forward to hearing the interpretation of my work from the audience, as they bring their own experiences to the pieces and create a personal conversation with it. The responses I get are usually positive but vary enormously.

For example, I have shown ‘Happy Anniversary’ at several events, yet there was one comment which I had not anticipated.

Someone enquired why the figures were so athletic when they couldn't get down from the dining table. The possibility for such comments in surprising me is why I love exhibiting the work, and believe that is has not fulfilled it’s purpose without showing it.

As I observe, document and comment on the absurdity of our ability to show empathy with humanity, the relationship between representation and abstraction begins. ’Hashtag Tragedy’ 2016, for instance began with representing a real life event using the image of the Syrian boy found dead on the beach in Turkey. I move into abstraction as I begin to analyse the unseen circumstances of the image’s construction. This would link in to the question that inspires me most; ’ How do Humans Behave’, and in particular my current interest with interaction and communication.

Inquiry begins with queries about who took the photograph? What was their motive? How did the image end up with so much media attention? How long did it take to transmit this globally? Was the audience detached from an innate emotional response? Was the photographer empathically detached when he took the photograph? Did anyone try and resuscitate the boy first or was that a secondary response to that of securing the image?

Despite of clear references to perceptual reality your visual vocabulary is marked out with such ambivalent quality. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works? How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice?

I like to play with both the real and the imagined, it creates enquiry and engagement.

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The surreality of the situation is played out within the viewer’s moral code, the work asks us to reflect on what would be the right thing to do. Would we respond differently in that situation if we did not have, at our disposal, the technological capability to capture images instantaneously and upload them to a global audience?

More significantly though, most of my stories are mainly told using the naked human form.

The figures are placed into scenarios where we would question the acceptability of nakedness.

On the beach for example, or as in ‘Just Another Level’, 2016, a parent admonishing a child.

The Syrian boy image resonated with a global audience, and created a moral dilemma for those living in a free and open society. It was an iconic image that remains embedded within our memory, therefore it would create enquiry about why the photographer, the assistant and the boy are naked. We cannot ascertain whether the event is real or imagined. This multilayering of meaning, the blur between what is real and not, have become conscious techniques of my practice since 2009.

Your exploration of the relationship between man and his society is focussed on the notions of fragility and empathy as well as of isolation and miscommunication. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in.

It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your work is political, in a certain sense? what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitise the viewers in our unstable contemporary age?

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the sensory experience rescinds as our expectations rise. In some ways less becomes more and the artist has to be aware of this, to maintain connection. Some knowledge of semantics, psychology, sociology, theology and anthropology all help the artist express what he or she wants to say, to connect with the audience, and can be applied to any art medium.

I do not consciously make work that is political. I have limited knowledge on this subject but I know it is a part of the anthropological enquiry.

I understand that our daily lives, the choices we make, are affected by political systems and the decisions made by politicians. I prefer to concentrate on making work that transmits messages about the moral dilemmas within social hierachies. Work that is not affected by any particular way of life, culture or political system but reaches out with the question about what it means to be human. My ‘Morality Series’, challenged the viewer to reflect on the moral codes of various religions; it documented these, yet also reported actual news events, which reflected on how we had broken these codes in acts of self gratification. To uphold respect for one another’s values, cherishing life, talking not fighting, interacting effectively to create empathy for one another, to love and remain close, may appear utopian, but every time you turn on the TV, radio, computer, or pick up a newspaper, there are stories of conflict, misunderstanding, unresolved resolutions to personal and political, situations, war and disagreement.

How much importance does spontaneity play in your work? In particular, do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces?

Spontaneity and instinct play a very large part in conceiving the work, though instinct should not be misconstrued as innate. I study people on a daily basis, inspiration comes from their actions and emotional condition. Selectively committing to memory, I take an event which triggers some psychological response in me, then translate this into sculpture. These feelings are committed into the work, using my comprehension of anthropology and art, to seek an empathic connection with my viewers.

Some element of elaboration does occur in development, but this is not methodical. The initial idea may develop into a story which has more than one layer of interpretation, like in ‘7th July 2012’, 2012. This piece began by examining separation and relationship, it is a domestic scene where the two figures sit apart.

Evidence of alcohol misuse was added as the piece evolved, (beer cans, and wine glasses are shown). Another line of questioning ensues. Is there a fight? Are they alcoholics? Was there a party? In addition, the suggestion of a spider infestation changes the line of enquiry again.

Are the spiders real? Are they imagined due to alcohol consumption?

The role of art in my opinion is to remain a powerful visual communication tool. It can transcend cultural barriers when it portrays the human figure, it can speak volumes without using the spoken or written word. The image of another human being, their body posturing, facial expressions and the spaces between figures, resonate with the human state, and unlike words are committed to memory.

We may live in an unstable age but the artist can document and support this by responding to their contemporary environment, with the messages in their art works. How art can sensitise the viewer today becomes more challenging with the technology that we have and the over saturation of available imagery,

The scene takes on a surreal element, the interpretation becomes unclear, there is now mystery and intrigue. I like that!

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Over the years your works have been exhibited in several occasions: one of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I do consider the issue of audience reception crucial in my decision making process, however I cannot predict all of the responses. As I correlate art with communication, to seek dialogue with my viewer is imperative. The interpretation is uniquely personal, as they contribute their physical and psychological experiences. It is a reciprocal encounter. I try and conduct the involvement and endeavour to predict the emotional participation, but I prefer not to overly script the work to attain a particular feeling, nor demand from my audience, an understanding of context. I prefer to create more enquiry, to allow my viewer to write his or her own screenplay.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Teresa. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

My masters degree focussed on public and site specific art, yet I have not made a large piece of open air sculpture, and I feel like I need to take on the challenge of this. ‘I Spirit’, is a wholly intuitive response to my emotional and personal circumstance. After many years of working at my practice part time, whilst parenting two children with double disabilities, I have felt restricted with the amount of commitment I could give to my practice. With both my children now almost independent, I want channel huge amounts of excess energy into larger scale pieces.

In addition I am working on a 3m x 3m x 3m installation, with several figures. It includes a plot which is developing and is unresolved, but it will be a moral tale told about communication and empathy. Currently there is no predetermination on it’s exact message or physical form.

Furthermore, I cannot predict how my work or practice will evolve, except that I want to explore scale, new techniques (3D scanning and CNC Milling), and explore different exhibiting opportunities.

Earlier this year, I began to experiment with casting my figures in bronze, for several reasons.

I wanted to utilise the skills of modelling the human form, and translate that into a material which is physically enduring. The engagement and exploration of materials has played a huge part in my practice. I enjoy process, and

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working with the properties and metaphorical language of them. Consequently I recently attended a bronze casting residency, which has developed into an ongoing collaboration with the foundry owner. This has culminated in the current project; a life sized bronze figure entitled ‘I Spirit’.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Peripheral ARTeries meets

Gili Lavy Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

My works are predominantly in the medium of installation art, taking the form of various executions such as large-scale projections and sculptural installation. My practice is predicated upon the investigation of social anthropology and collective histories, through belief structure analysis. I focus on the shifting borders between conventional faiths and my own constructed beliefs systems in order to shift perspectives, alter rituals, and question contemporary perception on classical structures.

My work is making a use of conventional assemblages, by their historical origins, and shifting it into its contemporary alternative. I construct faith systems and their accounts, reflected as sculptural shrines and projected rituals. Each constructed world conducted by its own belief system, is entirely inspired by existing faiths and sites, whose histories reveal and obstruct the present. It is the manipulated familiarity and yet indecipherable logic that drives my work beyond any particular place, time or identity.

Within journeys of fragments of time, silent sites, and unknown monuments, I attempt to reassemble an experience lived out of order. Floating through different states of mind, I focus on the after math, allowing the audience to sense an event since passed, witness the post incident and stimulate the empty void and quiet moments of each piece.

I create dystopian worlds which call into question the certainty of existential concepts. With each piece, I create a singular account, as a means upon reflecting a greater collective history and our own personal and cultural identities. My work looks at subverting our knowledge of truth and faith, through historical and contemporary study, to raise questions and reflect on each cultural and social identity.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

faiths and her own constructed beliefs systems in order to shift perspectives, alter rituals, and question contemporary perception on classical structures. In her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she trigger the spectatorship's perceptual parameters, with a deeper focus on a

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Inquiring into the themes of social anthropology and collective histories, through belief structure analysis, artist Gili Lavy's work focusses on the shifting borders between conventional

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complementary dialogue between materiality, the exhibition space and the encounter with the viewers. One of the most impressive aspects of Lavy's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of subverting our knowledge of truth and faith, through historical land contemporary study, to raise questions and reflect on each cultural and social identity: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Gili and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background and you hold a Master degree that you received from the prestigious Royal College of Art, London: how did this experience influence the way you currently conceive your works and produce your artworks? Moreover, how does the relationship between your Israeli cultural substratum and your current life in London inform your creativity?

Working in London within a hub of artists and a strong fine art industry is beneficial for my work. Being part of a strong professional community and network of artists, curators, researchers and collectors is essential for my practice. London as a metropolitan consisting of various nationalities, is an inspiring quality by itself. It encourages me to constantly reflect upon our own

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cultural identity, which is exactly what I am essentially doing in my art; Investigating different social structures 68

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

and their implication within a contemporary era.

My career in London is an outcome

following up my artistic practice in Israel.

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stones which brought me to this stage of my career. Being raised in Israel is indeed an essential feature in both my practice

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Your works convey coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.gililavy.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist?

Of course. There is a precise thread connecting each work to each other, allowing me to explore and question relevant concerns following the main theme of my practice: social anthropology. My work is a constant research of social and anthropological collectives and its values in a contemporary era. As mentioned above, I am exploring the certainty of faith, questioning the essence of being through constructed beliefs systems. My work evolves around conviction, and its implication in regard to existence.

Focusing in transitioning realities; altered lands and historical landscapes, I examine theological views and their contemporary alternative.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Autumn Clouds, an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this

world. It is quite interesting how eventually, everything connects back to each other.

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article. What has at once captured our attention of your artistic inquiry is the way you provided the visual results of

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My sources of inspiration within social anthropology include the study of human society and nations. Being

would you tell us your sources of inspiration? And how did you select your subjects?

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raised in a migrant nation with plenty multicultural influences has inclined my work intensely. I constantly question social structures, societies and the cultural, religious and political views that they engage with. Autumn Clouds is a one channel video piece that examines the idea of cultural identity and belonging, to a country or a social context, alongside its side effects and outcomes. Operation "Autumn Clouds" is the largest military operation undertaken by the Israeli military to stop Palestinian rocket attacks into southern Israel. The video piece in fact portrays a very cruel, yet gently presented operation, of conquering a lost identity by manipulating and programing a venerable individual, in this case adolescence, into herd.

How much importance does play spontaneity in your process? In particular, do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces?

It is a mixture of both elements. My intuitive part resonates and informed by my own history and nature however it evolves a process of research which I initiate and develop with each project. My references are heavily based on the study of Sociology and social anthropology yet I am strongly encouraged by visiting religious sites, monastery’s and world heritage institutes as well as viewing and

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participating in religious rituals and traditional sacraments.

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

pectrum of your artistic interests covers a whole range of topics rather than one single working style: what

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you include in your works? And in particular, when do you recognize that one of the mediums has exhausted it

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expressive potential to self?

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complex of sound, movement and photography and in order to explore it you should have knowledge in several of these forms. I see video as a painting, however it is not often used to be pondered by that. I treat my frames as if they are material rather than a photographic image and I tend to build the composition almost as in painting or stills photography. I am interested in staying on the boundary between the material and the immaterial. Video as a ray of light encourages me to materialize the immaterialised.

Your work explores the essential relationship between Belief, the depth of various conservative religions and their engagements with existential questions realm in a contemporary era: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". How do you consider the relationship between artists and society? Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age?

Indeed, I do believe that the artist role is to constantly reflect, comment and reveal ideas and views towards our reality or unreality and its position and reliability. Art may appear in different forms, a film which is actually a

to the medium of video and moving image is the fact it includes such a big range of practices within it. Video is a 77

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documented essay, a sound piece which is a speech or a painting which was actually meant to be a painting. I could agree with Gabriel Orozco however, there is also a risk in being constantly intellectually engaging. It then raises doubts regarding where the meaning if art lies. Is it more about the finalized work or is it rather becoming a tool to investigate relevant themes. I believe art is too subterranean, especially for this era, and that it’s where its power lies.

The ambience of your works, especially the ones of that stands as an important background in Tribe reminds us of the notion of non lieu elaborated by French anthropologist Marc AugĂŠ, communicating a sense of displacement: how would you consider the function of environment in relation to your work?

My works are a documentation of a setting situated in the aftermath. Each video piece with its own theme, setting and idea. The tensed atmosphere captured in each work raises deliberations regarding an event since passed or an event which is about to happen. I tend to stay on the border between the past, present and future, the absence and the presence, the material and the celestial as well as the pre or post incident. This is a crucial part of my work: remaining in a still, suspended moment, where I am in fact

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able to stretch time and unfold, or perhaps, define the fragile territory of the uncanny.

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Your body of work challenges the boundary between fiction and reality to address the viewers to a

multilayered visual experience, capable of triggering both their perceptual and cultural parameters: 79

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how do you view the relationship between concepts of the real and the imagined playing within your works?

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I am constantly inquiring the values of truth within different belief structures.

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furthermore, In the video piece Absence, I have collaborated with a linguist to create a whole new alphabetic language to my film. Highly influenced by existing faiths, my work investigates their classical structure and intervenes in it. My practice is in fact an outcome and a reaction to reality, whether it’s what we name reality or what exists in the mind and beyond. I believe my work suits within the genre of Absurdist fiction. A genre which come to Reflecting upon transitioning realities and their implication on our existence, we daresay that the way you provide the transient with sense of permanence allows you to create materiality of the immaterial. How do you consider the notion of memory playing out within your practice?

Exactly. creating materiality of the immaterial is in fact my search of the absence within the existence. Focusing on the aftermath, I aim to be in that void. Here, there are no consequential incidents nor answers. I tend to think perhaps that is where the truth lies. In the pause, floating through different states of mind, embracing the void and tenuous moments of a post, or possibly pre, trauma. I am using the means of film as a intangible substance itself, to articulate such void, and ultimately materialize the immaterial.

divine deities, I am questioning its significance by forming a constructed superimposed belief structure.

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My work looks at transitioning realities within two directions. Primarily, Once a reality shifts within cultures, institutions or lands. For example in the video piece Divine Mother I portrayed a monastery based in Jerusalem including, acknowledging its conversions during the centuries an orphanage, convent and a school for priests while based in a land, which in fact, shifted as well, from Palestine to Israel.

Secondly, I’d like to focus in transitioning realities in relation to an inner state of mind, While there are in fact several realities, several existences. I like to believe my video work portrays a certain reality however it evolves as well as comments on several realities, whether its parallel ones or the one we tend to know and live. This topic brings up a broader theme, the transcendent and the otherworldly. Which indeed relates strongly to my practice questioning whether a moment presented in the video is a moment of truth or a fabricated one, a moment of inner observation or an actual episode or whether it is a memory. These borders are allowing me to float throughout different states of mind, notions and different beings. The notion of memory is indeed another inexplicit purpose I work with as a depiction for the search and the quest after the values of truth.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Francine LeClercq Lives and works in New York City, USA

"There is no white picture. And there is no old picture. It is always a question of current experience and current perception." Often consisting of multiples works grouped around a specific theme, my work deals with the questions relating to the perception of art, the arrangement of the work in space, the elements of the work, whether concrete, sensory, intellectual and semantic, and the synchrony between the work, its context and the receiver.

The installation [3:2] consists of more than 800 cells measuring 3 x 2 inches in reference to the photographic 3:2 aspect ratio now adopted for the LCD screens of our digital devices such as cameras, i-phones and the likes. A coat of thermochromic ink is applied to the cells, causing a nuance such that they may be perceived as an opaque black monochrome, a blur or revealing the underlying image depending on temperature and location, the proximity of bodies and heat exchange. It is an experiment whereby art is the moment of a mutual dependency fermented by an active participation of the senses.

I Am Your Labyrinth, Installation

Graham Lister Lives and works in Manchester, United Kingdom

Graham Lister is a painter whose work is built around investigations into the materiality of contemporary everyday. In particular, his practice looks toward the surfaces and planes of the physical environment which often serve to organise, control and to direct movement within our daily lives. Using painting as a methodological tool, his work embraces processes of repetition, simplification and of abstraction to engage with selected materialities, forms and views.

Most recently, his paintings have showcased research interests in woven and interlinked surfaces and the potential of large scale paintings to be developed as new types of barrier materials in exhibition contexts.

In 2016, Lister successfully completed a practicebased PhD at the Glasgow School of Art after using personal painting strategies to respond to the contemporary era of networked interconnectedness and changing desires to represent / re-present reality. By considering mapping, ordering and engaging with experiences within the contemporary everyday, his work is aligned with a desire to better understand physical and virtual surfaces through painting processes.

He currently teaches in the Painting and Printmaking department at the Glasgow School of Art and is a Senior Lecturer on the Contemporary Art and Illustration Programme at the University of Huddersfield.

Prior to his period of PhD study at the Glasgow School of Art, he received an MFA (distinction) from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and an MA in Art History from the University of Glasgow. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2016).

Lister’s work has been exhibited across the UK, including at Art Lacuna with Material Conjectures in London (DDDD, 2017), with East Street Arts (Material Cover-Ups, 2017) and at numerous venues across Scotland, including Limousine Bull (2007), The Briggait (2014), and at The New Glasgow Society (2015).

B-Site Festival / Error 404 502 410 & “Dust”/ Manheim 2015 / Germany

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Peripheral ARTeries meets

Graham Lister Lives and works in Manchester, United Kingdom

Rejecting any conventional classification regarding its style, Graham Lister's work draws the viewers through the point of convergence between reality and abstraction, to inquire into the materiality of contemporary everyday. His body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages provides the viewers with such multilayered visual experience, capable of triggering their cultural and perceptual parameters: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to Lister's stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

Hi, thanks for sending through such wide-ranging questions. It’s an interesting and I guess a complex question to start off with. I have been immensely fortunate to have studied at really excellent institutions over the last 15 years, and my experiences have been really pretty varied. My initial period of study related to art history and through this I was able to gain some useful tools in terms of close reading and the analysis of works of art. This has very much helped stand me in good stead for the experience of discussing and explaining my work and my working methods.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Hello Graham and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid background an after having earned an MFA (distinction) from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and an MA in Art History from the University of Glasgow, you nurtured your education with a practice-based PhD at the Glasgow School of Art: how did these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making?

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At Gray’s School of Art I was able to push my abilities forward and I made work which gave me great confidence in using visual practice to ‘solve a problem’ or to investigate personal interests in 100

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when I developed work and writing which foregrounded my personal painting practice as a tool which could be used to reflect on contemporary physical and virtual experiences.

looking at the often mundane subject matter of the everyday with fresh eyes. I think that this certainly continued through the course of my successful PhD study at the Glasgow School of Art,

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elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.grahamlisterart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your usual process, would you tell us how much importance does play spontaneity in your work? In particular, do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces?

I’m not sure that spontaneity specifically plays a huge part in what I do. I mean I might move paint around on the surface of a work, pushing and pulling it quite instinctively, or make aggressive or rash marks when the feeling takes me, but most of my work is quite carefully thought out beforehand. I do sometimes make maquettes, and I sketch to test out some of the repetitive gestures I use. Often, I’ll have a fair idea in my head as to what I’ll want to ‘find out’ within the production of a work and I suppose there is a then a certain sense of quite free or ad hoc alterations, developments and changes that occur through the making process itself.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries and that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article has at once captured our attention for the way you have provided the visual results of your artistic inquiry into the

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materiality of contemporary everyday with such autonomous aesthetics: what did address you to focus on this theme?

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I don’t think that the aesthetic aspects of my work are really ‘autonomous’ in the way that you describe them. The aesthetic considerations I have are 104

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always closely linked to the material surfaces and textures within the physical everyday environment – my selected subject focus in recent times. From the

texture of a woven fabric, used to cover something up, to the rhythmic pattern on the hoardings of a building site, the things I choose to focus on are those 105

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elements of the built environment that appeal to me. They appeal to me because they are so often unnoticed; they are part of the ubiquitous fabric of our daily lives and I’m intrigued by what

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happens when I attempt to think about these materials using paint.

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processes of repetition, simplification and of abstraction to engage with selected materialities, forms and views: we have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces, that, as Corrugated Fence and Pink Net shows that intense tones are not indespensable to create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture?

colour choice stems from the source materials as I’ve mentioned. When it comes to the texture of my work, certainly for the paintings, I work with adding layers of thick paint, I scrape off material and really do look to work and re-work individual pieces, especially when the subject is that of a woven material, for example.

While marked out with such insightful combination between abstraction and rigorous sense of geometry, your work seems to speak of reality : how much does personal experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I’m not sure about this idea of ‘tension and dynamics’ being created specifically, but the colour choice in each work relates to the original colour of the subject matter. So, for Corrugated Fence, the deep red tones relate to the rust colours of the fence that the work takes as its starting point. Pink Net is of course quite different in that it is a work made from existing materials; literally a pink piece of netting, stretched over a frame. The shared reference point for these seemingly quite different pieces is that they focus on barriers; surfaces, to divide spaces or to separate one material from another in some way.

I think that a creative process can be detached from a distinct direct experience. I mean art works can be abstract, conceptual or speculative and everything in between, and can easily be generated from things which are not experienced by someone in a measurable way. For me though, my works are based on processes of seeing and visually engaging with the world around me. For some works, the first iteration might be produced in situ, painting en plein air. It is this direct engagement at the outset that forces me to try and ‘think through’ the subject using painting practice. From this point, I’d look to use these initial paintings to work from, producing the

You also ask about how my psychological make-up determines my tonal range, and the development of textures in my work. I don’t think that my psychological make-up has anything to do with the tonal ranges I use, as the 107

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next iterations in the process based on my own previous outcomes.

Your artworks, as the interesting Orange Protection Barrier and Zig Zag Weave convey such captivating abstract feeling: as a representational figure painter, how do you view the relationship between the concepts of the real and of the imagined playing within your works?

I’m afraid I’m not quite sure what you mean when you say ‘figure painter’. I rarely include human figures in my work and the things that I represent are aspects of the everyday environment.

Previously I have focused on images from virtual sources, but these too did not include figures and were still representing views of spaces and places that could be seen by other people, and so were not built within the realm of the imaginary.

I means there are always parts of works which reflect imaginative moments within the painterly process, but it is more the relationship between the image, the real and surface materialities that I feel that I concentrate on within my practice.

they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur".

Do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global

Your work is aligned with a desire to better understand physical and virtual surfaces through painting processes: British multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch onced stated "that works of arts often continue to evolve after

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communications and the new sensibility created by new media?

interested I how the seemingly finished work can be used. Recently, my works have been part of temporary architectural structures in gallery spaces, and this has definitely given the works new life and forced me to think about

I think that the what Bulloch notes here is pertinent to my own artistic production. Quite often, with works on paper or pieces on a large scale, I am 109

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the way I have been considering the paintings I’ve been making. I’m very much open to investigating different ways that pieces might be developed,

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altered or changed to enhance my own understanding of what the potential for a work might be.

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Your artworks address the viewers to an open reading, with a wide variety of associative possibilities. The power of visual arts is enormous: at the same

time, the role of the viewer’s disposition is equally crucial. What do you think about the role of the viewer?

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

try to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations?

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You are absolutely right, the role of the viewer is absolutely crucial. I have said I make work to find something out using art practice, but equally I am really 112

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aware that the work will likely be seen by other people. So, on that basis I am very interested in how a viewer might approach, interact with or connect to

the work and the ideas which I have.

Viewers activate the outcomes and I try to set up a scenario such that they consider the works as referencing the 113

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real world that they know, but maybe only after initially encountering them as abstracted visual pieces. I guess I aim for just enough recognition within the abstracted outcomes that means that

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the feeling that they are connected to things that they can recognize can follow for the viewer pretty quickly.

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beyond hanging flat against a wall, I think that the ways that the works are viewed certainly alters. The pieces have been employed as actual barriers in galleries and so the viewer then gets

confronted with the scenario that an abstracted barrier painting, created as an aesthetic outcome, is effectively repurposed, back toward its ‘real-world reference point’. For me, this makes for 115

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

a very complex potential relationship between the work and the viewer.

the United Kingdom, including shows at Art Lacuna with Material Conjectures in London and with East Street Arts: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a

Over the years you work has been exhibited in several occasions across

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direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

process of ‘trying out’ through visual practice, then I count that as being very successful.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Graham.

Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Thanks very much for posing such a variety of questions. I have been working hard, developing a new collection of works, almost akin to an archive of painterly and material tests for an exciting show at the Bowery in Leeds. It is going to take place in February 2018 and it’ll all be documented in due course on my website. There is also a short piece on my art practcie in FORGE. which is a quarterly art magazine based in New York City, and although the piece just a few pages long, it features some nice reproductions of my work amongst a huge range of different practitioners, which is very exciting indeed!

I think that I’ve referred to some aspects of this question in my previous answer, but I do think that the language used to describe or situate art works is very important. Art language can be very off-putting and it can equally do a disservice to visual practice if it is ‘dumbed down’ too much.

Striking a balance with the vocabulary used can mean that the best descriptions can act as launch points to better engage with the work in question. More and more though I do find that I avoid trying to describe concepts or underlying meanings, or at least being less interested in these.

What I find is that accounts of making, of testing processes and of trying out techniques are of much more interest.

The processes of creating and of trying out techniques, of using art to think about the world around us is what excites me. If I can find ways to transmit this excitement, or this

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Paula Blower Natural, pure and spontaneous. It is on this dimension that I propose my work's development. As a freedom and permission to multiply, separate, transform. I allow myself to be a book, to wear it. I wear the sea, I wear the repulsion, I wear the solitude, I wear myself as a child. I decide when I'm born. It's all about choices and the powerful machine that is our own mind. And this is my new childhood.

Literature inspires me and for freedom of expression I try to materialize it. Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.�.

I seek to explore impermanence, autonomously, using different languages, techniques, and unconventional materials most often ephemeral.

Through a search for the answer or just a reaction to the personal experiences I try to express them in a playful way as a conversation with the viewer. As a request for help or just the reflection of intense relationships of dialogue with our demons. Think of the body as something volatile and immaterial. A body in constructive transformation. This body that can be object, house, a feeling of longing, yellow, slurry. I'm just a correspondent. I try to stimulate the senses and different ways of thinking the inner and outer body.

The answer is in the verse, 2016 - Photographer Marcelo Hallit

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Katy Dresner Lives and works in Detroit, MI, USA

tabulaRasa (2014) is a two-sided video installation on a translucent handwoven tapestry.

The dialogue between the physical form and the video content change in relation to space.

From one vantage point a video containing one day's worth of the artist's cellphone activity is legible and in focus, however the figure is obscured. From the opposite side the human form is illuminated yet the content is abstracted into color and light.

Are we projections of the media we consume or are we enlightened by the media we create?

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Barbara Scott, curator

process but not necessarily feel super connected to them. I would then come home and make memes, adjust my blog layout, and create simple gif animations. This is when I would really feel connected to what I was making. These little online side projects often took precedence over my sketchbook. As I earned my BFA at the University of Michigan, I learned to incorporate the creative things I did in my free time into my formal artistic practice. Synthesizing my seemingly outside interests with critical thought was one of the most valuable skills I developed in art school.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Hello Katy and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries.

We would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background.

You have a solid formal training and you graduated with a BFA from the University of Michigan: how does this experience influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making?

To put it very simply, I’d say that my so called cultural substratum gives me the courage to legitimize my art making practice. Once I started having the confidence to assert that what I was doing was part of a legitimate process, even if it was just a quick Photoshop job of something that I would never even render out, I became more open to conceptual experimentation.

Being confident in my training and academic background helps relieve the expectation for what my art should be. I tend to be my hardest critic and

First and foremost, I was incredibly lucky to have been exposed to a wide range of art and to have been encouraged to pursue my creativity throughout my childhood. I was very fortunate to have gone to a high school with a robust fine art department where I first started to realize that art making could be a legitimate life path. In between high school and college, I would make these very formal sculptural works and enjoy the

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I often shelf projects prematurely because of this relentless self-editing. However, now with a BFA under my belt and my experience showing art in multiple places internationally and in the United States I feel like I have the appropriate knowledge to dive into work I didn’t feel comfortable making or even know how to conceive before my formal training and professional experience.

into full production mode. I like to work out as many kinks in my planning and development before I start making a presentable product, because I am often working with very time consuming methods and sometimes expensive electronics that I cannot afford to waste.

You are a versatile artist: the spectrum of techniques that you combine in your works include sound, textiles, and interactive installation as well as internet, to create nontraditional art experiences that encourage participation with and contemplation about our use of technology. What are the the properties that you search for in the materials and techniques that you combine? And what did you draw to such cross disciplinary approach?

The results of your artistic inquiry convey coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. We would suggest to our readers that they visit http://katydresner.com/ in order to get a synoptic view of your work.

While walking our readers through your process, can you tell them something about the evolution of your style? In particular, do you think that there's a central idea that connects all your works?

What generally confuses most people about my work, before they see it, is the connection between textiles and technology. Our humanity is very closely tied to textiles. Weaving cloth has been a part of human civilization for hundreds of centuries and developed independently all over the world yet still maintains a foundational similarity. We have fabricated textiles that are tactical and fabrics that are comforting, some to be used very heavily and others as pure ornamentation. I see the Internet as an extension of textile tradition. In form, content, and dissemination in global culture I find many parallels between weaving and the Internet. Even though it only around 60 years old, the Internet already feels like an invaluable component of human existence. Technically, as a textile artist and internet enthusiast, I love that the foundation for computational hardware was derived from the Jacquard loom. Weaving is often considered craft and “women’s work,” so upon learning that the foundation of computing was born from this textile tradition, I set out work in between these mediums and maybe reconnect them. It has driven me to do a lot of reaching on the matriarchal roots of computing that are often overlooked by history and by the art world.

The connective thread piecing much of my work together is an interest in the way the human condition is affected by technology. I think we’re living in a time that many people would identify as the future by contemporary narrative tropes.

What we now see as regular use of technology would seem straight out of sci-fi dystopia if we weren’t so enmeshed in it. My work attempts to get into the crevices smoothed over by the creeping sense of normalcy for hyper-connectivity.

The way that humans operate on a network, or as part of an ever expanding and flexible mesh is very interesting. I think that’s why I formally gravitate to using the Internet for source material and for compiling work out of many small pieces. I think there is still something beautiful in the handmade that a computer can’t quite replicate without feeling uncanny. As an artist I like exploring why that is the case and what is driving that awkward divide.

My process often feels like a hedge maze. I wander through it, hit some dead ends, back track, learn from my mistakes, take notes, take a break, return to it with some new perspective and eventually I arrive at my destination. Once I’ve settled on an idea I typically produce a lot of samples and material studies before I switch gears

As far as materials go, I tend to work with intentionally tactile objects in conjunction with

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virtual art. When we make something digital and take it out of the standard computer screen environment, it shifts phases. I like playing with the results of this translation from digital space to real world space. If I am not weaving or sewing a material from scratch I tend to assemble found fabrics. These include old crafts kits, faded crocheted blankets, used stuffed animals, or ripped tights. I usually look for well worn materials and then compile these items into larger installations that merge the digital with the physical.

I’m a serial hobbyist when it comes to learning new software. I’ve taught myself numerous coding languages, photo, video, and audio softwares, and DIY mechanics. The usual scenario is that I have small phrases of an idea or a little joke in mind, and when I go to make it I realize that I need to learn a new technique to fully realize the little sketch. I stumble my way through the software to produce the sketch I was thinking of and experiment further. I can become quite obsessive in this part of my practice and I often end up spiraling down these paths that are totally unrelated to whatever “serious” projects I am working on. That being said, I try to eschew the notion that being such a cross-disciplinary artist renders me a jack of all trades. I keep all of the technical skills I learn in my proverbial toolbox so that the next time I come up with a project idea, I can think “oh, this kind of sensor, with these types of monitors, programmed to work in this way will produce the experience I am envisioning.” If a painter has oil, acrylic, gouache, resin, wax, pencil, pen, marker, spray paint, pastel, water color, etc, I have a range of software, hardware, and textiles I typically work with.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected tabula_Rasa an extremely interesting video series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once impressed us of your insightful inquiry into the relationship between the physical form and the video content is the way you have provided the results of your

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artistic research with such autonomous aesthetics. When walking our readers through the genesis of tabula_Rasa would you shed light your usual process and set up?

dark time in my life. I found myself glued to my cellphone as a coping mechanism. I wanted to make a project about this but was unsure of the form it would take. Something snapped and I knew I had to dedicate myself to something that would be time-consuming and therapeutic. Thus, I

I began working on tabula_Rasa during a relatively

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tabula_Rasa dove into a 200 plus hour pile tapestry weaving. I chose the pile method — think shag carpeting — for its sculptural potential. By individually tying each knot you have total control of the surface texture. The time consuming monotony of this style of weaving helped me begin to clear my head

and gave me time to sort out a lot the things that had been troubling me. After many samples and material studies, I settled on hand pulled saran wrap as my weft (or knotting) yarn. I chose this material because it allowed me to create a semitranslucent tapestry that would hold a projection

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mapping one side and scatter light on the other.

The material was chosen specifically to inform the video content made to triumph over the feeling of being glued to my phone in isolation.

After preparing hundreds of yards of homemade plastic yarn, I dove into the tapestry’s construction. I was inspired by classical relief sculptures that took advantage of a flat surface to reveal complex sculptural forms. The reliefs I studied typically depicted religious, historical, and political allegories and were usually displayed publicly to remind people of their values, morals, and local histories. I set out to weave a relief-like sculpture that could articulate a more contemporary story in the age of smartphones and digital media. I believe that we experience epic journeys through our phones and our internet usage everyday but the frequency of these explorations is so great and the time it takes to complete is so condensed that we’re often disconnected from their brilliance. I imagined a simple humanoid relief made to be a blank slate for abstraction based on digital content projected through it. This is where the projection mapping entered my process.

I used a screen capturing service to record an entire day’s worth of my smartphone activity. I then condensed the footage very tightly into a looping glitchy mashup. I wanted the entire day’s worth of content visible in a just few short minutes. When tabula_Rasa is installed, it is meant to be experienced in 3D space. The projection is mapped onto the rear side of the tapestry which has a uniform texture. From the opposite vantage point the sculptural form floats above ground and is illuminated by abstracted color and lights pulsing through its body.

We like the way tabula_Rasa draws from universal imagery, recontextualizing it and addressing the viewers to a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations: when discussing about the role of randomness

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Telepresence

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Telepresence

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in your process, would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings?

Personal association is an incredibly important element of tabula_Rasa and of most of my work.

I don’t think that my usage of the internet is any more meaningful than anyone else’s. What I aim to do with my work is offer up my experiences as an example or a way into recontextualizing one’s own usage of these technologies. We don’t really know yet what the sum total effect of the current use of technology will be. It will be interesting to see the kinds of localized and global effects the Internet will have on our humanity. We are so tempted by the next great and exciting gadget or web tool that we rarely stop to process what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how it is affecting us (either negatively or positively). I hope that in making work like tabula_Rasa I challenge spectators to imagine a day’s worth of their own cellphone usage exposed and on display. tabula_Rasa raises a question in the viewers: are we projections of the media we consume or are we enlightened by the media we create? How is in your opinion technology affecting the consumption of art?

The central question I ask in my statement for tabula_Rasa is meant to challenge my audience to be more emotionally vulnerable and creatively open to their own digital activities. We spend more and more time on smart devices every day and as a result we often become rather dependent on them. My question is meant to scrutinize the notion that though we think we control our consumption of the internet, in many ways we are consumed in return. In my personal opinion I think there can be a beautiful symbiosis of these two states.

As far as my feelings about technology’s effect on the consumption of art, my opinions have traveled the whole gamut. As I said before, I used to use the internet as a creative outlet

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without much pretense or self-consciousness.

However, in the age of Instagram art and “influencers,” I find myself wishing for more precious and well thought out work. I see a lot of homogenization of thought and product lately that I find very boring if not outright alarming. I think the internet is a still a place for genuine creativity and creative exploration, however I’m starting to become pretty weary of the corporate interest and the commodification of art as a means for more Likes and for more ad sales. I see a lot of my contemporaries coaxed into molding their art for a brand, having their ideas ripped off, and receiving little to no compensation. I think there is still important work to be made online and to be seen online, however this is getting confounded with a culture in which the quantity of posts and likes is determining cultural and monetary value. A lot of people I know, are overly self-conscious about making their Instagram profiles perfectly cohesive, and whether they’re showing too much vulnerability (in a non-ironic way) in the things they say in captions or on Twitter, and I wish they felt okay to be more themselves online. I just want people to not fear that they have to conform to looking, speaking, and acting a certain way online, because this freedom to create absolutely anything is the beauty of the Internet.

Returning to my question from tabula_Rasa, the trends I’ve noticed seem to place a lot people’s art consumption on the side of being a mere projection of the content consumed. The whole process of consuming art lately seems more about taking a selfie with it than anything else. I think this is why the rise of so-called “Made for Instagram” pop-up museums are so popular right now. There’s a certain one-sided-ness that I think people are highly aware of, especially when they’re paying upwards of 40 dollars to basically be on an elaborate, immaculately curated selfie taking stage. However, there’s this pressure to present yourself online as being culturally relevant and curated. So this way of consuming an art like experience makes it easy to get a

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Subject: No Subject

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perfect sharable photo that says “Yes, I’m into art. I’m interesting and creative. Pay me?” but ultimately leaves you feeling a little empty and wanting something more. Fine art spaces should allow each guest to leave with their own personal, self-contextual interpretation beyond a simple photograph.

Your artistic researche, and in particular Telepresence, that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/132754864 is marked out with the successful attempt to trascend the boundaries that separate our digital and real-life worlds: we daresay that your work also explores the notion and the consequence of surrogate reality that affect our media driven societies: how do you view the relationship between the concepts of the real and the imagined playing within your works?

There seems to be a sort of cognitive dissonance between what we expect from a future reality (based on how it is portrayed in media) and what is actually our surrogate reality. We lead lives both in physical and virtual space so fluidly now I think our virtual selves are becoming harder and harder to separate from our real selves. We build these personas for ourselves online and have these experiences that functionally exist in an imagined state but seem more and more real.

Our eyes gloss over as we consume virtual content to the point where I would argue we can be blind to it. I once read that many young people living in major cities have never really experienced the wilderness but feel like they know it because they’ve seen it online. I think this example is fascinating because the imagined experience is dominating the real. In my work, I like to explore this chasm and try to understand how it operates. Additionally, there also so much more real world weight associated with our use of the Internet that now even the most imagined elements online start to infiltrate reality.

Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch once remarked "that works of art often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element

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When I get too concerned that another artist has done something remotely similar, it’s easy to throw in the towel. However, if I can be comfortable knowing that my work could be a part of a larger conversation or it could spark new conversations, then I believe i am truly acting as an artist.

of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been seen before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists. Do you think that the role of artists has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media?

Furthermore, I believe there are always new artistic sensibilities and that those sensibilities are just as susceptible to evolution. In the case of new media and the Internet, this sensibility has a more global reach and I would argue is democratizing when compared to other fields of fine art. I think there is a lot of creative potential when following the latest trends and adopting the new technologies, but one has to be careful to not just rely on the newness of something if they’re attempting to make work that will remain relevant and grow with age. These days, I think it’s difficult but important to look outside of the superficial urge to be the first person do something or be the one with the most followers and likes. Things like follower ratios and amount of post interactions are easily confounded with artistic sensibility. I think if you spend a little less time marketing yourself and a little more time being yourself, your artistic sensibilities really can shine.

I think the innovative and the unseen are born out of recontextualization. It is the artist’s job to be well informed and well versed. In this sense, I would argue that the artist’s role requires a keen understanding of both the historical and contemporary context in which the work they’re making resides. When you’re creating something, if you can figure out how your work relates to or reacts against the art world then you have established a legitimate intent.

Conversely, without doing the necessary foundational work I find that some new media art can quickly become subject to gimmick and cliche. I find Angela Bulloch’s statement especially relevant to this problem. When you’re working with digital data, not much is truly ephemeral, however the culture surrounding it is changing instantaneously and as a result so is its meaning. The virtual climate is so dynamic that it often seems to swallow up work before it has time to fully gestate. As an artist working with new media, my role is the same as anyone else’s, however I’m faced with a different set of challenges resulting from the fact that not only my work but the context in which it exists is evolving at light speed.

As revealed by the interesting subject: No Subject, that our readers can view at https://vimeo.com/78011637, Internet has tremendously influenced your artistic practice: we are sort of convinced that new media will bridge the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, and we dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate each other.

What's your point about this apparently conflictual relationship?

I find myself revisiting Micheal Naimark’s (the creator of what is now Google Street View, conceived originally as an art experiment to capture video in 360 degrees) essay “First Word Art / Last Word Art”. He discusses whether the artist’s job is to make work that is “groundbreaking and exploratory” (i.e. first word art) or work that “accepts the established form, and is judged by comparison”. I find that being comfortable with these two avenues of possibility allows one to create more freely.

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I think we often use technology as a crutch, which can be helpful but also debilitating. As part of the first generation to really grow up socializing on the Internet, I feel lucky to have had access to materials that helped me understand my sexuality, my gender identity, my

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Community Violation

hobbies, and my interests that I might not have discovered as freely without the Internet. Being online helped me learn so much about myself and shaped my insatiable thirst for self learning.

However, it’s hard to ignore the feeling that the Internet has caused me and many people I know to feel more introverted and socially anxious in a real world setting. The role of new media art, in

my opinion, is to explore the implications of technology rather than assimilate to it.

Sifting through the abundance of infinite possibilities available with the tap of the screen is either where art thrives or fades into relative obscurity. I don’t think that technology and art are always at odds, nor do I think they ever fully

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invited people to my studio and asked them to blindly interact with the work under the guise that I was getting it ready for a feminist group show. The work itself is a large pile of second hand, seemingly unique stuffed animals turned inside out to reveal their unexpectedly similar inner construction.

Inside of each doll, there is a pressure activated sound module which recites an online troll’s comment sourced from over a year’s worth of collecting screenshots of the terrible things people say online under the guise of anonymity. I debated censoring the comments but felt it would be disingenuous. I instead refocused my sensitivity to the audience’s experience as I combined the material, form, interaction, and accompanying artist statement to create an artwork that would be challenging but hopefully not isolate my audience or make them feel unsafe.

assimilate to each other. I think technology often poses as art and renders the art experience rather one dimensional. However, technology in my opinion is just a piece of the puzzle or a set of tools in the contemporary work belt. I also find that technology is more of a material element of new media work. When the right conditions occur and art and technology overlap, there can be something transformative and magical.

Your works has been showcased both in traditional galleries as well as in the several webplaces. One of the hallmarks of your work is its ability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language you use in a particular context?

To answer your question simply, I aim more to make experiences that will feel intuitive for the audience rather than specifically try to guide their reception of my work. Whenever I make something, I maintain my intentions but I try to present each work as an open dialog on which an audience can hopefully reflect their own opinions and experiences. I never want to leave my work up for interpretation and not provide any inklings of my motives.

However, it’s a tricky balance to strike because I also don’t want to simply direct my audience to my own conclusions. In the best case scenario, I am able to learn about other people’s perspectives through their reactions and comments. The most I hope for is that something I’ve created makes an audience ponder their relationship with technology.

I think about the audience for my work all the time, especially if I am making an explicitly interactive installation. In order to be successful in creating an interactive experience, one has to adopt the audience’s perspective and try to picture the experience from their vantage point. People are often afraid to interact with art, especially in a gallery setting, so because of this I spend a lot of time thinking about what I can do to naturally guide the audience and grant permission to interact.

As far as language and explicit content, I sometimes contemplate providing content/trigger warnings. For example, I just showed a new work in London which contained some pretty repugnant language at a feminist themed show. I was worried that because the language was so strong in many instances that it could cloud my entire intention and be misconstrued as being hostile to my presumed audience. To combat this, I frequently asked my peers for their critiques. I

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Barbara Scott, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Elis Gjoni Lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Video art and installation are the techniques that I have stopped and I am experimenting in different expressions, thoughts feelings and touching. Mechanic movements of objects throught electricity gives me an internal satisfaction, I feel the creation of the object from non existing into existing. The biography and the instinct are my most important columns inside me. I come from an expressive biography, full of events and features, I come back from time to time and I find old marks like in a canvas, I return them in the most minimalist way possible. Object with no value, are the ones are the ones that wake my instinct up through changing them into valuable ones, maby not exactly as they used to be but a new face of movements and concepts. Most of my work I have found in different situations, through working in building houses, through studies, travelling, shooting movies, meeting other people who poke you emotionally. A lot of this work contains naivity, courage, pression and you go into a new space like a double gravity. the aim of my concepts is to go exactly where it is thought there is nothing to discover.

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Peripheral ARTeries meets

Elis Gjoni Lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts, USA Elis Gjoni was born on 1988 in the city of Puka. From his childhood he moved to live in Tirana, where he finished his studies at Artistic Liceum “Jordan Misja”. After several challenges, in 2009 begins his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts (today University of the Arts), where he graduates in 2014 majoring in Atelierin e Multimedia-s. During his studies he has had several artistic experiences, participating in several exhibitions locally and internationally. He has also been an accomplice in the theater, in short films, workshops, documentaries and television. Elis Gjoni has developed a fairly authentic language video media and installation in particular, giving objects that he uses a character that transforms them into subjects that self-confess. He is one of those young artists that deserve attention, because his first steps are really qualitative. Currently he lives in the U.S.A.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator

Many times I have found myself in circumstances with questions about creation, maby not like yours because this is special for me . It seems very simple itself but if I have to question myself about my creativity and where it comes from, here would be exactly the questions.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Hello Elis and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. We would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training, and after havingattended the Artistic Liceum “Jordan Misja” you nurtured your education at the University of the Arts, where he graduated with a major in Atelierin e Multimedia-s: how do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does the relationship between your cultural substratum dued to the relationship between your Albanian roots and your current life in the United States inform the way you relate yourself to art making in general?

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I was born in a village called “Iballe” which lies in North Albania. If I had to compare it with any figurative example, it would be “The Starry Night” of Vicent Van Gogh.

I would define my childhood with the words they would be “impresses me”. my interest for art started very early since in my primary school, as I had a gift in writing, later in Music and at last I found myself interested in painting and drawing. To be honest, I was confused about what I really wanted to do. It was the professional high school “Jordan

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Misja” that gave me the right direction abot the history of Art and the picture. Colours like dark brown, white and yellow were the colours that gave me character when I used them in each canvas of that study time.

If I compare it to Albania this is the difference; there I created while here I am analyzing. But I feel good in this phase of my life. I feel like that child who I mentioned above “impresses me”

After the end of the school, I managed to receive an answer about the picture, the style, and the colours that I mentioned above.

And I found out that I liked the “Earth”

The results of your artistic inquiry convey coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. We would suggest to our readers to visit https://elisgjoni.wixsite.com/website in order to get a synoptic view of your work. While walking our readers through your process, can you tell them something about the evolution of your style? In particular, do you think that there's a central idea that connects all your works?

University of Arts was a real challenge to the “unknown”. It was the moment that I would find myself connected with the concept of “abstraction”. I had some mystical questions inside me about the image, the colour, the touching, feelings etc. I was so enthusiastic that I have created much more than I can create for the rest of my life. After a year of studies at the university, I lead myself to multimedia. During my different experiments I was more and more interested into video Art and installation.Video Art was the best spiritual poem that I could bring out of myself. In general, the ideas of my video art have come as a result of an inner concern, whereas the installation as an out concern.

Like every new artist during the university studies, I have been through some different experiences such as; participation in short film competitions, theatre and of course exhibitions.

The thing that connects my works with each other or let say the style is the illusion, the desire to turn the creation into a magical one, in order to astonish the others, to be unique in its kind.

In fact, I take care a lot for the esthetic view of the creation, why not I would call myself minimalist.

Concerns according to technology, different politics, what is right and what is not, restrictions etc are some factors that characterized many of my works and these factors have to reply in ironic and “naïve” way.

I like a lot your question about my move to the U.S.A. each move that I have done has shown its values later in time. This move to America makes me understand and think that it takes a lot of time to have a concrete analyze. It is the best laboratory where you reflect about your pas. Actually, I am spending my time analyzing and not creating.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Double Gravity, an extremely interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article.

What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the relationship

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between the attempt to escape from gravity and the impossibility of an absolute deliverance from it the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: When walking our readers through the genesis of Double Gravity would you shed light your usual process and set up?

Double Gravity came as a result of a work shop organised in Monodendri, Joannina Greece. It was one of the experiences that I couldn’t be missed for any reason. The Greek legends and philosophy were the first harasses and then the enchanted nature sent me to the” Double Gravity” performance.

In reality, there is another Gravity of above part, that in visual order of things it is represented by the sky. In this point of view comes the title of the video “Double Gravity” , a continuing state of livings in the world where we are constantly pulled down. Even in those cases when we want to go away, where we experience transe, each one in his way-the world is again behind pulling us down.

This withdrawal is so crucial as long as our “transe” are without transcendence.

My professor Edison Ceraj says for Double Gravity: attempts of the author like a character of his composition proves the escape from the gravity, but at the same time and the impossibility of an absolute delivirance from him.

You remarked once that the aim of my concepts is to go exactly where it is thought there is nothing to discover: how much importance have for you the notions of direct experience in everyday life and chance

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in relation to your creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

My intention has been and continues to be near experiences that are a bit difficult like the one I am experiencing now, working with long hours and not working in art but at a restaurant.

A choice like this sends me in many discoveries and I am exactly where I think there is nothing to “ discover “. Each working process in that place, for me, takes an artistic direction, from machineries to the characters inside the restaurant. Of course, there are moments I have to be focused to work, disconnected from art.

Referring that many of my works come as a product of these kind of experiences, a selfoffered cooperation with this everyday life, makes me think that in the future this experience will value in my compositions.

We have appreciated your idea around the creation of the object from non existing into existing: we daresay that a part of your work is about the experiment to make visible volatile phenomena: would you say that the way you provide the transient with sense of permanence allows you to create materiality of the immaterial?

If I would take an example in the evolution of social networks, the way how they act to catch as much attention as possible, or to be valued as an object or event, it comes exactly from non-existing to existing, reminds me Joseph Beuys who says: “every man is an artist”. We are living in a world that I think that everyone is creating and

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happens to hear it a lot: ahh if I knew it before‌

absolutely it is not a bad thing. Contrary, we are all going together toward feelings, culmination and toward the unknown. I

This is the moment of the instinctive research. I think that non-existing is around

would like to refer to a sentence that

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

us, we can feel it, touch it. If I say we can see of view. Rebuilding of an object with

with a setting in a new space. This gives me satisfaction and I would say that it is the climax of creativity and of a new concept.

another function, not as it used to be, but

We have particularly appreciated the way

it, I mean it has to be seen in another point

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So, the way that Elis sees their subjects, in fact, makes it an impossible concrete explanation from the author.

Timed explores the expressive potential and the feelings associated with uncanny atmospheres to trigger the viewers' perceptual and cultural parameters: Michael Fried once stated that 'materials do not represent, signify, or allude to anything; they are what they are and nothing more.'

What were the the properties that you search for the images you include in your works?

We like the way History draws from universal imagery, recontextualizing common obects and addressing the viewers to a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations: when discussing about the role of randomness in your process, would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings?

I take as an instinctive discovery images or objects. “Timed� has taken a lot of time as a disconnection inside me. The realization of this composition is almost spontaneous, in sense that I believe to give a sudden feeling to an instinctive moment, that becomes valuable because it starts to let traces.

History is one of my works that gave me the chance to be direct, different from other works. It is a moment inside you, that knows your artistic strength of formation and you are ready to share it with others like an argument, that, when I understood about the commercial at the same time I understood that I was concerned about how commercial is so present, selling, and so advertised. The irony leads me to a picture, as you have observed, which is very present everywhere especially in Albania, selling so much copies and so cheap because it is printed and it is just a dye to deceive others as a true one. The meter that measures the centimeters, during all the time is the clear indicator of the irony in front of the customization of the detailed treatment of the box and the seniority that are part of the style that all my works carry. The dialogue between the work and the viewers did not have many question-marks because like the title and the installation itself were

This is one of those cases where it is evidenced the feeling of an artist because he starts living with these traces like possible understanding and experiences to antological fulfillment. This means that the composition has not a start point and a concrete explanation like happens generally with postmodern and modern artists that are in full depended of the concept and the idea.

Again, I would like to quote what my professor Edison Ceraj says: A feature of Elis is that, different from what happens normally, where we do not value the smell and the touch of the moment, he chooses the contrary: keeps them for a long time working on them as possible art subjects and so they can take another status.

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very clear about the message, and we welcomed it as an appeal.

shorting time, so it is helping us, but at the same time is creating a bigger virtual world that we could predict. Today, we understand who dominates between art and technology. But, when they operate, this is the novation of everything and I personally work in this direction. Vane aims: Multiplication of virtual space predicts acts of forces causing the outside to be willing. It also introduces us to an atmosphere, where it has submitted utterly. In which causes telepathic spontaneous installation of the chimney flue. ironically the differences between the stock objects and the energy human beings give to life. A space improvised as an illusion though image and moving objects through electromotor.

Getting started from the history of the picture with its styles of painting that great artists inherited them to us in order to take them to other generations, it is exactly here where the concern of “copy right” and “multiplier” of artistic values starts and it is becoming a winning way in Art. We have been fascinated with the captivating way Vane poses questions about the dichotomy between the digital realm and perceptual reality : we are sort of convinced that new media will bridge the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, and we dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate each other. What's your point about this apparently conflictual relationship? In particular, how is in your opinion technology affecting the consumption of art?

Over the years you participated to several exhibitions locally and internationally. One of the hallmarks of your work is its ability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience.

Do you consider the issue of audience reception a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language you use in a particular context?

Media is used in reference to mass communications, where media are newspapers, radio, the internet and so on. It is also used in science, where medium usually means an intervening substance, through which something is transmitted.

Mediums is the plural when medium refers to a person who communicated with a dead.

Marshal McLuhan.

In most of my works, I try to have an interactive moment between viewers and the work itself. There are many cases where it is finalized in the moment it is shared with others. The field where I like to perform, allows me to try how a work can stay in the space of a gallery, I test the presence of that work in that space.

I have admired the way Mcluhan explains everything about media. His explanation helped me with the concept and the conflict I have with media. In case that the technology is speeding the information,

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My aim is to have attraction between the viewers and the composition, to astonish them. I cure it in that way to catch attention.

Each participation in different activities has helped me for the next project. I am working in having more viewers to share more with them. I strongly believe that I am in the right place, waiting for the right time.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Elis. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Thank you for questions and the opportunity to show an inner piece of myself as hadn’t any chance to express myself so far and thank you for selecting me.

Months ago, I was part of an exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts, where I am actually living, entitled “ The Uncertainty Principle” an exhibition about change, wonder and quantum mysteries by emerging new England artists curated by Renne Ricciardi.

It was an incentive that lately I am working about a personal exhibition entitled “Everything but tomato”.

The aim of this exhibition is to have ready made objects, installation, neglected objects but themselves they have life, time, history or for someone are very important.

Taking as a figurative example I come to a context that we want everything exept it “tomatoe” , but maybe that is exactly what we are looking for, referring to what we don’t know.

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Jeremy Jones Lives and works in Minneapolis, MN, USA My current body of work investigates the varied spaces of parenthood from the liminal and spiritual to the quirky, comical and unconditional. As a new Dad immersed in the trenches of helping to raise a preschooler, the fleeting transformations of a child’s growth and development are both magical and bittersweet. I create sculptures that utilize ceramics, found objects and mixed media as a conduit to physically and mentally preserve those moments that you can’t get back.

The weekday routine required for raising a preschooler stirs up a mixed bag of emotions in both adult/s and child. Fear, anxiety, boredom and joy are feelings that seem to intermingle most days. The shared experiences between adult/s and child include carefully orchestrated trips to the zoo, library and park.

However, the reality of raising a preschooler presents an opportunity to release inhibitions and relive one’s own childhood through a variety of scenarios. Homemade puppets, talking stuffed animals and make-believe-monsters are just a small sample of the silliness in our house.

I search for the epiphanies and teachable moments, however, the roles are often reversed and I’m continually re-taught patience and the skill of slowing down. A spontaneous screaming tantrum forces me to calmly consider my approach, while the unbridled curiosity and innocence of a small child forces me to look differently at our complex world.

My immersion in smart phone culture begets a capacity for endless and instant documentation of moments with my son/family. However, In contrast, the process of physically manipulating layers of space and time by hand permits for meditative moments to reflect on my developing role as a father, caregiver and artist.

An interview by Barbara Scott, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator

where reality and imagination find an unexpected still consistent point of convergence: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Jeremy and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid background and after having earned your BFA from the University of Wyoming, you nurtured your education with a MFA in Sculpture with a minor in Printmaking, that you received from the Wichita State University. How do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive your works? In particular, how did formal training help you to develop your unique style?

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Artist Jeremy Jones' work rejects any conventional classification regarding its style and could be considered an exploration of the survival of consciousness, to address the viewers to a multilayered visual experience. In his Portable Playground Dad, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he successfully attempts to trigger the spectatorship's perceptual parameters, with a deeper focus on the notion of parenthood. One of the most impressive aspects of Jones' work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of inquiring into the liminal area

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Henri's Hood Ornaments Materials: Cone six stoneware, glaze, stain, slip, hardware, paint and laser cut wheels Dimensions: Approximately 3.5’ H x 3.5’ W x 22” W Date: 2016

Binky Bling Materials: Cone 6 stoneware, oxides, sand-blasted glaze, welded steel paint and chain Dimensions: 12” H x 7” W x 9” D Date: 2014

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practice to spaces and equipment as they are made available. My motto is to make work that can be created with simple equipment, materials and tools.

I’m currently setting up a home studio that will have an electric kiln, welder and various small power tools.

Thank you for having me, it’s an honor to be here among an eclectic group of artists from around the world. I’m originally from Casper, Wyoming and because of that I consciously rebelled against pursuing the traditional western tropes of the region including landscapes, wildlife and realistic bronze. In hindsight, the nostalgic part of me has a saccharine fondness for this particular genre of work…especially after moving away.

My creative process involves multiple facets. I utilize a sketchbook to catalogue ideas, source imagery, sketches and writing all of which assist in later realizing a tangible work. Sometimes an idea will spark in my mind and I’ll work through the problem in my headspace during a run, driving or similar hypnotic activity. I’m mostly opposed to a blueprint mentality where an object has to come out to pre-determined specs. Rather, during the physical construction process of a sculpture I want the form to develop without a definitive expectation of the outcome. I also rely on intuition to let me know when a piece is finished, especially when working through a patina. I find working this way to be exciting and invigorating because little epiphanies can be made along the way.

Rollerblading culture was a major influence during my teenage years and throughout college. The repetitive physicality, DIY aesthetics and appropriation of public and personal space were attributes from rollerblading that I related to making and thinking about sculpture.

The liminal and suspended space that one resides in while sliding down a precarious handrail is a state of consciousness that informs my research.

My experiences in college were definitely formative. I began my collegiate studies at Casper College in Casper, WY. The training that I received at Casper College was very formal and provided the building blocks for me to later delve into more conceptual arenas. At the University of Wyoming I explored a combination of ceramics and sculpture classes. While earning my BFA I broke a lot of rules and was given the freedom to combine ceramics with different materials. Graduate school at Wichita State University was the typical intense experience that it’s supposed to be. It was a three-year program and the time went incredibly fast, it’s amazing how much work one can make when your energy is focused. The biggest thing I took away from earning my MFA was learning how to self edit and positively navigate criticism.

Play and spontaneity are definitely important to me. I work on multiple projects simultaneously and find myself working back and forth between serious and playful creations. For instance: if I’m working on a tight modeling in clay I have to balance it with a process that is more playful and experimental. My best work converges somewhere in the middle where tight parameters and play meet.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Portable Playground Dad, a captivating project that our readers have already started to got to know in the introductory pages of this article has at once captured our attention for the way your insightful inquiry into the notion of parenthood provides the visual results of your artistic inquiry with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Portable Playground Dad would you tell us your sources of inspiration and why did you choose to focus on the exploration of the notion of parenthood?

Your works convey coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://jeremyjonessculpture.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? How much importance does play spontaneity in your work? In particular, do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your works?

I started working on my body of work dealing with parenthood in 2013 before my son was born. Creating art in anticipation of Henri’s birth was a way for me to explore the various emotions anticipating his arrival; at the time I was both scared and elated about the responsibilities of becoming a parent.

I’m not a purist when it comes to materials or techniques. Over the years I have adapted my studio

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Ttrraaiinn!

Materials: 3-D prints obtained from original ceramic sculpture, laser-cut wheels, wood, paint and hardware.

Varied dimensions, approximately 8” H x 3.5’ W x 4” D Date: 2015

Portable Playground Dad, was realized at a time when I was a stay at home Dad. I had just left my post as a sculpture and ceramics technician at Vanderbilt University and teaching ceramics at Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN. My family had just moved to Minneapolis, MN for my wife’s job. Needless to say, my entire identity felt like a Dad and trips to the playground and other sources of education and entertainment were daily occurrences. The work is intended to be playful and approachable like a piece of playground equipment.

However, there’s a slightly ominous and humorous

Pre-child, my body of work dealt with the transient and transcendent nature of being in a body where the self would eventually succumb to a conscious existence. Post-child, parenthood requires total presence and also a partial loss of ones self for the benefit of ones kin. The weight of being in a body is exemplified when one is pressed for sleep while simultaneously nurturing the cutest, but also the most helpless person in the world. Ones home environment also changes with children whereby tiny furniture is introduced into the home and colorful toys infiltrate and clutter all of the spaces.

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tone emitted as the self-portrait with its tonguesticking-out, appears worn out much like a panting dog.

the properties that you search for in the materials that you combine? In particular, what does appeal you of found objects?

You are a versatile artist: the spectrum of your materials includes ceramics and mixed media: in particular, we have appreciated the way you explore expressive potential and the feelings associated with found objects. Art critic and historian Michael Fried once stated that 'materials do not represent, signify, or allude to anything; they are what they are and nothing more.' What are

I search for materials that are accessible and relatively inexpensive, but also easy to use. I’m not overly concerned about the archival qualities of a material, so if find something that has potential I usually experiment with it. Ideally, I want material/s to dictate a message about the work. For instance: clay is seductive because of its many alchemical properties. Clay is simple to manipulate and records

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

Stay at Home Dad

Fuzzy Friends (detail), 2015

Materials: Plaster, found objects, paint and mortar Dimensions: 27” H x 11” W x 10” D Date: 2016

Materials: Slip dipped stuffed animals, fired to cone 10 reduction with iron oxide and then re-fired to cone 6 oxidation with low-fire slip, Dimensions: 8” H x 5.5” W x 6” D

the minute detail of process, but is also capable of freezing time after it is fired into a permanent state.

The bright and colorful glazes that I employee are reminiscent of candy coatings, they evoke a “cheesiness” normally regulated to the polychromes seen in a toy store or amusement park, but they are only thin veneers intended to seduce the viewer in for a closer look.

offs derived from mass produced objects embody a sense of the past and reflect a by-gone era in which they were designed and utilized. I work from the built-in history of the object, but also seek to include my own vision whereby the synthesis of found object and my creation share a new relationship.

Because found objects are specimens of culture they provide the viewer with an entry point into the work.

Found objects are interesting components of my process because they represent a duality: beautiful artifact and cast-off consciousness of society. Cast-

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Your works are pervaded with reminders to reality, as parts of human body and toys: at the same time,

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Portable Playground Dad, 2016-17

Too Many Toys

Materials: Plaster, fiberglass, polyester resin, found objects and paint Dimensions: 35” H x 22”W x 22” D

Materials: Plaster, toy cars, dowels and paint.

Dimensions: 24” H x 12” W x 14” D Date: 2016-17

Portable Playground Dad conveys stimulating surreal feature: how does the relationship between the real and the abstract play within your work?

objects such as toys, multiple associations and realities collide in the newly combined forms.

As I mentioned earlier I realized the Portable Playground Dad when I was a stay at home dad. My sole responsibility at the time was to care for my energetic and rambunctious son. The sculpture is a casting of my face and it has been transformed into a spring rocker like one would encounter at a playground with perhaps a horse or motorcycle attached to it, however Portable Playground Dad is a hybrid dad/toy. The sculpture serves two

I utilize life-casting processes in my work because they represent physical manifestations of the “real” that has been removed from the original source.

Likewise, mold making can be compared to a 3-D negative from photography; a photograph is very removed from its original source, but dually is used as evidence of the real. Thus, when I combine castings from parts of the human body and found

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purposes: it can be escorted to the playground via its wheeled apparatus and become a specimen of the park environment while simultaneously supervising the child as a parental figure.

Your artworks provide with tactile feature the history embedded in objects and materials that you combine: e daresay that your inquiry into the varied spaces of parenthood allows you to unveil the elusive tension between the physical and the ephemeral. Would you say that the way you provide the transient with sense of permanence allows you to create materiality of the immaterial?

Yes, my works about parenthood are inspired from the seemingly insignificant moments that are forgotten or disappear unless they are documented in some fashion. In the work Minnie Went up to Kevin. I wanted to describe the intertwining relationships of innocence, the passing of childhood and death. When the family dog Minnie suddenly passed away my three-yearold son Henri casually remarked, “Minnie went up to Kevin”. Henri innocently misinterpreted heaven for Kevin, the main character from the movie Home Alone.

The toy-like sarcophagus was constructed to house a delicate plaster casting of Minnie’s body that was cast post-mortem. The materiality of plaster captures the pose and every detail of her last physical presence on earth, however the flat whiteness of the material is ghost-like and without color, this equally speaks of her absence. Lastly, the funerary repository is mounted on wheels with a pull rope whereby the possibility for movement speaks of the transience of childhood.

As you have remarked once, the body serves as a protective shell connected to the conscious, but dually resides as a social receptacle displaying the conscious of its society; we can't be selves unless there are others. How would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks?

I like that my sculptures exists outside of me and can resonate meaning without an awkward

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Minnie Went up to Kevin Materials: Carved pine, hardware, found objects, paint/stain and postmortem plaster casting of artist’s dog.

Dimensions: 2.5’ H x 4’ W x 3’ D Date: 2017

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Homunculus Materials” Baby fired in cone 6 oxidation and furniture in cone 3 oxidation. Welded steel, paint and modified fish-hooks.

Dimensions: 10” H x 12” W x 13” D Date: 2014

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explanation distilling ideas only into words. The physicality required for manipulating materials naturally imbeds a psychological charge into the form.

I use the figure in my work because it is universally relatable. I think of my figures as surrogates for real entities. The fabricated figure relies on the complex and abstract language of the body; humans have the capacity for empathy and unconsciously understand the physical presence and emotions of others. For instance the presence of wheeled figures in my work might question the viewer to think about different implications in their own life where they have felt like a vehicle or toy.

In your artist's statement you have mentioned both smart phone culture and the process of physical manipulation by hand: Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch once remarked "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". As an artist working with unconventional materials, do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media?

A lot has been covered on the topic of new technologies and art and I’m not sure if I have anything new to say. I think smartphones and the like are truly amazing, but are nothing more than tools. A teacher I had once referenced fancy equipment use within art making as “garbage ingarbage out”. In other words, a bad idea or image can’t be salvaged into a good work of art. Art works created by new media must transcend the medium in which they were created otherwise they run the risk of just being novelty or entertainment. With that said I think there are plenty of amazing works produced in new media. I think the most unique thing about new media is the ease for which material can be effortlessly distributed globally.

I use my smartphone to capture the endless moments from life simply because it is so effortless and accessible. Some of these images can be

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Unsupervised Playdate Materials: Cast paper pulp, enamel, glue and found objects.

Dimensions: 3’ H x 3’ W x 14” D (each) Date: 2017

considered art, some are mere documentation and some reside in an undetermined space. The smart phone definitely enhances my practice simply because it is so versatile. At one point I even used my device to generate the stl. file for 3-D printing using the app, 123D Catch.

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Using my hands to physically work with raw materials and simple tools provides a meditative focus in real space and time where I feel grounded and connected to my environment. In contrast, the multi-functions of a smart phone present an

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endless void of knowledge and information that leaves me feeling overwhelmed.

always change with time. In a not so recent past, viewing art was regulated to print material, television and real-time viewing. Today everyone can have a forum to broadcast their images and ideas to the masses‌artists included. In a culture

I think the role of the artist continues to be that of a critic/interloper of society and the materials and technologies they choose to interpret this with will

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Daycare, 2016

Totem, 2014

Materials: Cone 10 stoneware, re-fired in cone 6 oxidation, wood, steel and mixed media (small heads on cars generated from molding 3-D prints) Dimensions: 3.5’ H x 3’ W x 20” D

Materials: Mid-range stoneware, welded steel, paint, hardware, latex and rope.

Dimensions: 3’ H x 14” W x 12” D Date: 2014

more saturated than ever with images and access to public platforms anyone can become influential, but I think this depends a bit on luck, timing and of course good old fashion work.

your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do

Over the years you have exhibited your artworks in several occasions and one of the hallmarks of

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Fuzzy Friends, 2015 Materials: Slip dipped stuffed animals, fired to cone 10 reduction with iron oxide and then re-fired to cone 6 oxidation with colored slip Dimensions: Approximately 5’ H x 5’ W x 12” D when assembled

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Minnie Went up to Kevin (detail) Materials: Carved pine, hardware, found objects, paint/stain and postmortem plaster casting of artist’s dog.

Dimensions: 2.5’ H x 4’ W x 3’ D Date: 2017

you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

this is in relation to human form and perception.

My sculptures aren’t engineered to take abuse like a toy, but I definitely want to present the potential for play. When I recently exhibited Portable Playground Dad some gallery goers felt compelled

I think a lot about scale when I make a work and

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blame them as the object appeared extrapolated from a park.

In the work Unsupervised Playdate the grouping of colorful baby heads are part human/part toy.

Anyone that’s familiar with Fisher-Price’s iconic Corn Popper will have the association of a chaotic “bop-bop-bop” sound that’s created by the rapid fire of plastic marbles trapped in a hemisphere. In this work I could have projected the “bop-bopbop” sound through speakers, but I think the unique noise is best left to the imagination of the viewers.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jeremy. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects?

How do you see your work evolving?

I’m dedicated to continuing to explore themes of parenthood in my work. Having a young child as a muse provides all of the source material and an ever-changing well of inspiration. Since my son is now a preschooler I see some of my work involving him more directly either though the actual making process where he collaborates with the construction and patina or through the creation of objects that can move away from the pedestal and become interactive.

I’m currently working on a separate body of work that deals with the transient and transformative nature of being in a body. The work contains partial figures that navigate between the tangible and immaterial world through portal-like structures.

Lastly, I acquired a small FDM 3-D printer about a year ago and I’m just getting around to exploring its capabilities. I will continue to research and experiment with this tool and see how I can further integrate it into my work.

to bounce the figure’s springy head and even attempted to mount the object like a piece of playground equipment.

An interview by Barbara Scott, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator

This situation made me nervous, but who could

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Anatoliy Kharkhurin Lives and works in Dubai and Berlin I consider myself both an artist and a scholar. I cannot disentangle these two endeavors and I believe that my artistic and academic works complement and inspire each other. I am professor of psychology and researcher in psychology of creativity. Throughout my scientific practice, I have learned that instrumental capacities of contemporary psychology cannot provide an in-depth comprehension of people’s mental life and definitely cannot answer the questions about the nature of creativity. In contrast, art by means of its metaphorical language gives us an insight into these issues.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

education vita with M.A. in Philology and Cognitive Science. Moreover, you also hold a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology. How did these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? In particular, how do your studies in psychology inform the way you relate yourself to art making in general?

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Constantly looking for new means of creative expression, artist and poet Anatoliy Kharkhurin's work rejects any conventional classification and draws the viewers through a multilayered journey. In his Bipolar Project that we'll be discussing in the following pages he aims to raise awareness about people’s mental illnesses to trigger the viewers' perceptual and cultural parameters. One of the most impressive aspects of Kharkhurin's work is the way it invites the audience to investigate the influence of contemporary social values and norms on an individual’s personality. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

At the age of 16, I started writing poetry, which I considered at that time my ultimate vocation. As I was experimenting with poetic text, I got interested in the nature of creative expression. Where does creativity come from? Is it a gift that some exceptional human beings possess or a skill that can be nurtured? You know, poets are on a short term with the Muses.

I have entertained this outdated conception from the Romanticism era and perceived creative expression as limited to a certain class of gifted or specially talented people. Over time, I drifted toward the other end of this debate accepting the notion that everyone is capable of creative expression. Anyway, this kind of questions brought me into the field of philology and psycholinguistics, which were of particular

Hello Anatoliy and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. We would like to start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. After having earned your B. Sc. in Computer Science, you nurtured your

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significance, because my quest into the nature of creativity took place in the realm of verbal expression. Eventually, I ended up in psychology, and more specific, in the field of psychology of creativity.

However, after 20 years of scientific research, I have realized that this discipline fails to address the questions that brought me into science in first place.

I have learned that instrumental capacities of contemporary psychology cannot provide an indepth comprehension of people’s mental life and definitely cannot answer the questions about the nature of creativity. The reason is obvious: All scientific attempts to understand human creativity consider human cognition as a closed system and look for the source of creativity within this system.

However, it is entirely possible that the source of creativity lies beyond human consciousness. If this is the case, the method of constructing the system of knowledge assuming its source within the system while the source lies outside this system condemns this methodology to failure. It is paradoxical, but there is a long history of philosophical, mystical, and religious approaches, which take a perspective considering the transcendent and spiritual sources of human creativity. Moreover, a large majority of artists ascribe their creative capacity to inspiration, which supposedly finds its origin in supernatural source. Eminent creative people report an inspiration from a source, which appears beyond normative human capacities. At the same time, scientific community reveals a systematic neglect of transcendent influences on human creative capacities.

This reflects a more general tendency in scientific investigation to detach the mundane from the spiritual. In his account of the separation between science and religion, famous humanistic psychologist and a former president of American Psychological Association Abraham Maslow argued that in an attempt to become independent, encouraged by Darwinian discovery, scientists systematically liberated themselves from everything for which religion took the ownership. The spiritual

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values were traditionally considered as a prerogative of religion. Thus, science left the spirituality to religion and took an opposite direction. It focused on methods and techniques of acquisition of data and factual knowledge, thereby confining itself within the framework of observable reality. The focus on measurable and observable phenomena constitutes the principle of objectivity inherent to scientific method, which appears to ignore any aspect of the human psyche, which cannot be quantified and measured. At the same time, etymologically psychology means “study of the soul” (ψυχή, psukhē, meaning “breath,” “spirit”, or "soul"; and -λογος -logos, translated as “study of” or “research”). If at the onset, using transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber’s poetic words, “psychology was still on speaking terms with the ancient wisdom of the ages,” in the modern times it deals with the study of the mind and behavior. Moreover, the study of the mind seems to be reduced to the study of the brain and statistical analysis of obtained patterns. Since an individual’s spiritual experience falls beyond the technological and instrumental capacities of modern science, it became deliberately excluded from the horizon of contemporary scholarship. Religion on the other side devaluates the spirituality into the religious projection of the cult. Due to lack of methods of systematic knowledge acquisition, religion became dogmatic and therefore cannot provide a systematic account of spiritual experience. As a result, science lost touch with spiritual component of phenomenal reality, and religion was not able to acquire it.

As I was losing faith in scientific methods, I gradually learned that the answers that I am looking for could be obtained through artistic contemplation. Art by means of its metaphorical language gives us an insight into these issues. However, I did not abandon science altogether. I employed methods and techniques developed in Cognitive Psychology to explicitly cultivate aesthetic reactions to creative work by constructing multiple conceptual planes. This approach received a term Cognitive Poetry when it was applied to poetic text. An interested reader can refer to my academic publication discussing this genre (https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ctra.2016.3.issue1/ctra-2016-0005/ctra-2016-0005.xml). I use the same

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approach in visual art and call it Cognitive Artistry.

You are a versatile artist and your works invite the viewers to a multilayered visual experience that resists any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate on your artistic production, we would suggest to our readers to visit your site (http://www.artconnect.com/harhur/) in order to get a synoptic view of your work. In the meanwhile, would you like to tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, would you shed light on your usual process and set up?

My artistic vision constitutes an assumption that art begins with an act comprising an error. I assume that an artist’s inspiration comes from a transcendental source. There is ultimate knowledge beyond our conscious comprehension. An attempt to transfer this transcendental knowledge into an intelligible form creates an error. This error occurs when we use conscious means to express the unconscious. The error occurs when artists try to express the primordial knowledge using the limited tools available to them; when they try to frame the unframeable. The error occurs due to limited expressive capacities inherent to any given form of art.

Hence, I perceive art as a result of apprehension of this error and an ongoing attempt to reduce it. I claim that artists can overcome this error by complicating a conceptual space of an artwork with multiple psychic planes containing opposite conceptual forces. The contradictions between conflicting psychological aspects result in an ‘explosion’ of psychic energy and elicit cathartic experience. Parallel meanings arouse conjectures and divide attention. The cracks between the conflicting conceptual planes create the void in consciousness. These are the places of infiltration of the transcendental into the process of art production.

The method of integrating different, often opposite conceptual planes in art stipulates the core methodology of my work. I satiate my artworks with multiple meanings presented through multiple sensory modalities. In my cross-disciplinary practice, I

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developed a number of projects exploring the relationship between image and poetic text.

The theoretical considerations of your experimental work in Cognitive Poetry and Artistry are based on the assumption that one of the major purposes of creative work is to elicit aesthetical reaction in the recipient. Is it important for you to elicit a precise aesthetic sensation from your work in your audience?

How do you feel when people interpret your artwork inversely, or is there one primary thing you hope to have the viewer experience?

This assumption stems from Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s theory of aesthetical reaction. I believe that aesthetics plays a central role in creative endeavor. The aesthetic value of the work of art touches upon recipients’ emotions and elicits their aesthetical reaction. The aesthetical reaction is magnified by psychic energy consumption. Vygotsky said, “The greater the expenditure of nervous energy, the more intense is the effect produced by the work of art.” For him, “aesthetic response, above all, is a response that annihilates our nervous energy; it is an explosion.” It is the explosion! Forget about collateral damage!

I am perfectly aware of subjective perception of all and each. Imagine that we can do the following experiment (it is obviously not possible, but let’s imagine). We show a simple object, let’s say a tree to two individuals, and then open up their skulls and retrieve the mental images produced by this tree.

These images would never be identical, because they would reflect these people’s personality, previous experience, expectations and so on and so forth. We all see things differently, and our aesthetical reactions to the same artwork could be very different.

Therefore, I would never expect any specific reaction to my work. But I am happy if I see a reaction. Some works elicit this reaction evidently.

For example, I presented a video in Clayton Patterson’s Outlaw Art Museum in New York, in which I applied a priming technique from cognitive psychology to integrate two conceptually contradicting texts (https://vimeo.com/harhur/poorl). I

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used classical poetry by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin “To...” as a subliminal prime, which was presented in such a way that the reader could not read it, but registered it implicitly. The target text of the poem written by me followed the prime line by line. This text conceptually contradicted the Pushkin’s classics: the latter presented the theme of sublime love and was written using rapturous style; the former used explicitly vulgar language to describe the unfortunate life of a provincial girl from a troubled family. Due to subliminal presentation of Pushkin’s poem, the reader developed a romantic, highly positive frame of mind. The target poem destroyed this tranquility; the contradiction was especially dramatic considering polar valence of these pieces.

This contradiction was supposed to elicit cathartic experience and per Vygotsky to reinforce the aesthetical reaction. And this was evidently reflected in the faces of the gallery visitors, especially the Russian ones, because Pushkin’s poem appears to be very dear to a Russian reader.

It is not only that I give a spectator a full freedom of interpretation. I believe that the processes involved in art production are radically different from those involved in art perception. In my work, I explicitly cultivate the difference between the process of art production and it’s product. One way to do this is by encumbering the comprehension so that spectators cannot grasp the constituents of the process that led to the product that they see. My video Lazy Contemplation / Leise Kontemplation (https://vimeo.com/harhur/artfallacy) presented at Leize Jenius group exhibition in Berlin, invited audience to contemplate on an error inherent to art, the idea underlying my artistic vision discussed earlier. The core element of the video is a statement proclaiming fallacy of artistic expression. The sense of fallacy is achieved by juxtaposing visual and auditory presentations of the text in three languages.

The Russian and German texts have been produced from original English text by two independent translators ensuring subjective interpretation of the original concept. As a result, these texts appeared as a mere approximation of each other. All three

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versions of the statement are presented simultaneously to complicate its understanding and satiate it with multiple meanings. These per Vygotsky, lead to eliciting an aesthetical reaction and contemplation. The complication is further increased by mixing the Russian and German auditory channels.

completeness. The visitors are unable to read the poem because it is masked by their mirror reflection. Even when the glass breaks and they see that something is written underneath, they cannot comprehend it because the text is broken into pieces.

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries, we have selected Bipolar Project, an extremely interesting series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of your successful attempt to raise awareness about people’s mental illnesses through art is the way you have been capable of providing your artistic research with autonomous aesthetics. When walking our readers through the genesis of Bipolar Project would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea?

Sometimes I go into extreme and purposefully conceal the constituents of creative process. In poetry/art happening Broken Vessels (https://vimeo.com/harhur/brokenvessels) presented at The Big Picture group exhibition in Dubai, I made the gallery visitors destroy the poem (without reading it) that constituted the core element of this work. The theme of this work evolves around people’s egocentric behavior, which undermines their existentially sustainable development. Here, I state that people were granted sustainable virtues, which were intended to establish a path to existential completeness. People do not see these virtues, because they are occupied with their own reflection, their ego. This egocentric behavior masks these virtues thereby giving rise to existential void. What they see instead is the reflection of their own worries. Only in the moments characterized by psychologists as a state of flow, people see scattered pieces of these virtues. However, even in these moments they are not able to construct the full picture and therefore remain in confrontation with the givens of existence. In this work, each verse of the poem presents a sustainable virtue given to people. The poem is printed in white on black paper covered by thin glass to create a mirror reflection. The poem covers the floor of the room. The visitors walk in the room.

They see their own reflection masking the poem. This act presents inability of people to see the virtues because of their selfishness. By walking on the glass, the visitors break it.

Broken glass shards cut the paper on which the poem is printed thereby hampering reading of the poem. This act symbolizes people destroying the path to existential

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This series was commissioned by the SIKKA Art Fair in Dubai. This work initiated my exploration in mental disorders through art, a MentalArt initiative. We all have psychological issues haunting us in different stages of our life. Some of us were unfortunate to develop these issues into clinical cases. Some of these illnesses cannot be cured, but with proper treatment and care, people with psychological disorders can have a balanced life. These people need our attention, compassion, and help. As psychologist, I know about these disorders, but I also know that it is not psychology, but art that provides an in-depth comprehension and gives insights into people’s mental issues. In turn, it elicits our compassion and a need to help. I decided to start this initiative with bipolar disorder. This psychological disorder produces wild mood fluctuations that range from manic state to depressive state. Due to mood polarization, this disorder presented a great opportunity for interaction with spectators’ emotions. I tried to communicate the euphoria and suffering that a person with bipolar disorder experiences. I

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You stated earlier that you assume that an artist’s inspiration comes from a transcendental source. Your photographs sometimes seem to deviate from photorealism and we like the way your work enquires into the points of convergence between reality and imagination. Do you see a dichotomy between photography as a process of capturing real images and imagination as a process of creating such images?

wanted to make spectators feel like those people feel.

This series continued my experimental work in Cognitive Poetry and Artistry. In the best traditions of this genre, I combined visual and verbal elements, but it was the first time that I decided to use photography. The signature mood oscillations were conveyed through poetic text, which alternated the verses expressing fluctuating manic and depressive states, respectively. Each verse was incorporated within a photograph of a female figure enriching the poetic text with visual expressions. As you can see, the verbal and visual elements create different conceptual planes, which sometimes compliment and sometimes contradict each other.

What does photography really capture?

Recall Plato’s allegory of the cave. People live their life chained to the wall of a cave and watch shadows projected on the cave wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them. They call it objective reality, but in fact, this is just a reflection of phenomenal reality.

Photorealism captures objects around us, it’s focus is with objective reality of the shadows on the cave wall. Art in my opinion deals with phenomenal reality, the one behind our backs.

Not being able to capture it (unless we mount the camera to our back like Wenders’ fictitious film director did); that is, not being able to see it with our senses, we construct it. Yes, we construct reality! Not to the extent solipsists would do... We construct it in our imagination.

This is what I call artistic contemplation. We manipulate the objective reality to construct the phenomenal reality. I use photography to capture “real” images. I play with these images to reveal their phenomenal prototypes. Of course, it is all in my imagination. But what can be more true than my imagination?

In this work, I have also experimented with a cross-modality technique; that is, applying the elements of one modality to another. The application of this technique to poetry is well known in contemporary literature: Visual Poetry enriches poetic text with visual elements. In this project, I did the reverse and applied the key poetic methods to manipulate visual elements. In poetry, rhymes and meters link separate elements thereby constructing a specific rhythm of the poem that unites those elements in a coherent whole. I have applied this modus operandi to photographs in the present work. Thus, three pieces depicting depressive (D) state and three pieces depicting manic (M) state follow the structure of sestina (DMMDMD). The resemblance with this poetic form is reinforced by repeating the ending of each previous verse in the beginning of a new verse. Further, each pair of these states is linked by a visual ‘rhyme’ constructed through a photograph’s focal element (hands, clavicle, and rope). These poetic methods applied to visual elements combine independent pieces in a coherent whole. Due to this intrinsic connectedness, the order of presentation becomes irrelevant.

We have appreciated the way the hybrid feature of your works bring to a new level of significance photography as a media.

Provocatively, German photographer Thomas Ruff once stated, "Nowadays you don't have to paint to be an artist. You can use photography in a realistic way. You can even do abstract photographs". What is your opinion about the importance of photography in the contemporary art?

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The Lion of God (poetry film). 3'54". DVD PAL 16:9 stereo. 2012

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Photography seems to be a relief for artists without formal training in fine arts. It looks like just point the camera and shoot. But we have to deal with all kinds of equipment, gadgets, software, printers, scanners, etc. Not to mention various analog printing techniques such as cyanotype. The desktop of a photographer appears to be more complicated than the one of a painter. Although, I think that art photography does not need all this technical complexity. Simply take your camera and… construct the reality.

It is evident that all media available to artists are mere the tools of creative expression.

Contemporary art removes all boundaries stipulated by traditional genres and annihilates any technical restrictions. It gives artists freedom to use any means of self-expression (just recall Beuys’s Fettecke). What attracts me in contemporary art the most is it’s crossdisciplinary approach. In my practice, I combine psychology, poetry, and visual art, the latter being photography, video, installation and happening. On one hand, I cannot classify my artwork and put it in any conventional category (that’s why contemporary or conceptual art would be the most accurate description). On the other, this practice allows me to develop several facets of my creative personality. I am an artist, a poet, a scholar, and I’m looking forward to new developments.

I believe that it is important to change regularly your profession, lifestyle, and maybe even personality. The quintessence of artistic growth and development appears in cultivating a separation from outworn thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I learn to unlearn: to separate from internal mental objects, from internalized institutions, beliefs, and neuroses, from the restrictions of culture, social conformity and received wisdom. Once a safe frame is constructed, I step out of the frame of the prevailing ideology. The most creative artists (such as Rembrandt,

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Broken Vessels (poetry/art happening) Presented at the exhibition The Big Picture. Dubai 2015

Michelangelo, and Leonardo) knew how to separate even from their own greatest public successes, from earlier artistic incarnations of themselves. Their greatness consists precisely in this reaching out beyond themselves,

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beyond the ideology, which they have themselves fostered. And that’s what contemporary art is offering.

which has curated a number of exhibitions in

Besides your work as an artist, you are also a curator at the Leize Jenius collective in Berlin,

established are today ever growing forces in

various geographic locations. It's no doubt that collaborations as the one that you have Contemporary Art and that the most exciting

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What the brain! (video collage) Presented at the exhibition No Brain No Pain! Berlin 2017

things happen when creative minds from

"collaboration is working together with

different fields of practice meet and

another to create something as a synthesis of

collaborate on a project... Could you tell us

two practices, that alone one could not.�

something about this effective synergy? By

What's your point about this? Can you explain

the way, Peter Tabor once stated,

how your work demonstrates communication

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At the same time, an artist has a resilient tendency towards immortality, which he can only achieve by identifying himself with the collective will of his culture. On the one hand, we want to be unique, to stand out as something different and apart. On the other, we are impelled by a powerful desire to identify with the cosmic forces, to merge ourselves with the rest of nature. Together, an artist is driven by the will to separate and the will to unite. Rank explained this duality by opposite tendencies inherent to human nature.

The fear of living (Lebensangst) is triggered at birth by anxiety of entering the selfness, separation from nature, and acquiring individuality. It postulates an individual’s fear of separation and individuation. The fear of dying (Todesangst) is triggered by anxiety of death: of returning to non-selfness, union with nature, and losing individuality. It postulates an individual’s fear of union and merge. Secession from the system on one hand and collective effort on the other characterize creative act.

This duality emerges and flourishes in the fluctuating – ever-expanding and evercontracting – space between separation and union. This is the space of my curatorial aesthetics. I aim to acquire a maximum degree of individuation within a maximum degree of connectedness.

Collective efforts were always common in science and become more and more common in art. In my own practice, I successfully collaborated with video artist Zlatan Filipovic on a poetry film The Lion of God (https://vimeo.com/harhur/lionofgod), which we submitted to ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. Currently, in the framework of my MentalArt initiative, I work with a documentarist Matteo Rivoli on a project exploring Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I think that successful collaboration allows artists practicing different art forms expand their instrumental capacities and explore a theme from different perspectives inherent to

between several artists?

Again, I start with theoretical considerations alluding to psychologist Otto Rank’s writing on art and artists. It is evident that any artist has a strong desire for glorification of his own will.

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perspective of Vygotsky’s theory of aesthetical reaction mentioned earlier. Aesthetical reaction to an artwork can be intensified by introducing contradictory conceptual planes, which could be achieved by combining different art forms. Each art form (visual, verbal, musical, kinetic) has it’s spectrum of expressive tools, which establish certain boundaries. To overcome the boundaries, we combine their respective expressive arsenals; that is, engage in multimedia practice.

Therefore, my shift toward the visual art was not because traditional poetics exhausted its expressive potential; rather, I was striving to expand the boundaries of my creative expression.

their respective genres. Our own collective incudes painters, poets, musicians, performance and multimedia artists.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you shifted the focus of your work from traditional poetics to alternative utilization of poetic text. What did encourage you to move this way? And when did you recognize that traditional poetics exhausted its expressive potential?

First of all, I would like to clarify that I don’t think that traditional poetics lost its expressive power. On the contrary, I am highly enchanted with poetry, especially traditional poetry, and I still draw inspiration from reading poetry. I regularly attend poetry readings and poetry slams in Berlin. My homage to poetry is revealed in almost every work I produce. I use a poetic text as a benchmark of virtually every project.

Over the years your works have been internationally showcased in several occasions, including your recent solo Bipolar project at SIKKA Art Fair, in Dubai, that our readers can view at https://vimeo.com/harhur/bipolarreport. One of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. Therefore, before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

My personal quest for new forms of creative expression made me drift away from poetry in the direction of visual art. However, I did not move from the verbal art form to the visual one. Rather, I placed myself at the borderline between poetry and visual art. Recall that in my artistic vision presented earlier, I claimed that the fallacy in art could be rectified by cultivating the cracks between the conflicting conceptual planes. The merge of two qualitatively different forms of art makes those cracks. They are the places of highest form of energy, of explosion, the Earth’s crust faults erupting lava. Actually, my comfort zones correspond to the meeting points of incompatible planes. In my scholarship, I did the same by combining two seemingly incompatible fields of study: bilingualism and creativity.

A strong verbal component of my work engages the audience in participatory production. Visual art keeps a distance between a spectator and an artwork. The spectator appears to be a rather passive perceiver. Written poetry on the other hand, does not exist without reader’s participation, without the process of reading. The spectator becomes an active co-producer. Multiplicity of meanings in my art is achieved by combining the visual and verbal components, which

My interest in combing visual and verbal elements was triggered during my master’s study of Visual Poetry at the University of Amsterdam. I explored this genre from a

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Broken Vessels (poetry/art happening) Presented at the exhibition The Big Picture. Dubai 2015

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What the brain! (video collage) Presented at the exhibition No Brain No Pain! Berlin 2017

together create several semantic layers: literal reading of a text (we are all literate), metaphorical language of a poetic text, the visuals, and the interaction between the verbal and the visual. Moreover, additional layers are established through multilingual presentations. I carefully construct these layers keeping in mind my target audience. I play with these layers to reveal, to conceal, and to complicate.

that this very act together with trampling on the texts adopted from the secret scripture reenacts breaking of the vessels containing the infinite light (as the concluding verse goes: “but the people // in its vain search for permanence // tramples on the revealed”). Kabbalistic symbolism of the broken vessels implies that the world as experienced by humankind is flawed and needs to be rectified.

For example, in the poetry/art happening Broken Vessels, the poetic text was constructed in the form of the Tree of Life, which in Kabbalistic tradition most closely represents the structure of the Universe. The tree is composed of ten Sefirot representing emanations of divine manifestation as well as archetypes of states of consciousness. In my project, they represented virtues given to man by God. The text of each verse alluded to Zohar’s description of each Sefira. Actually, the text used very accurate descriptions of Sefirot, but due to highly metaphorical language adopted from Zohar, their meanings were concealed. The project was received well by exhibition visitors who enjoyed breaking the glass. What they did not realize is

Thus, the audience does play an important role in my work. However, I have concerns with mental projection of the prospective audience into creative processes that lead to art production. Imagine a continuum spanning from a producer (creative person) to a recipient (creative ‘consumer’). A creative product assumes an intermediate state. Art occurs in the space between the creative product and the recipient. It relies on a sociocultural context and preparedness of the latter. The space between the creative producer and the creative product is a territory of an artist’s self-contemplation.

Creative process taking place in this space ensures an authenticity of creative work. In comparison with this process, the perception of

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the accent from the process of artistic contemplation to the social value of the artwork. Indeed, contemporary art reveals expediting social and political tendencies.

Creative impulse inherent to artistic expression yields to social interest. An individual’s intrinsic motivation to create is replaced by extrinsic drives that cultivate values and norms of society. The nature of the creative process is highly individualistic, whereas art becomes a social phenomenon. Individualist is antagonized and ostracized from the art scene.

It is common practice in contemporary art to produce site-specific works. Many AiRs, fellowships, and galleries require an artist to take sociocultural context in consideration. On the one hand, this limits artist’s freedom of expression. On the other, those very limitations might boost artist’s creativity like in von Trier and Leth’s The Five Obstructions.

the product by the recipient becomes irrelevant. The product just signifies the end of the creative process. Thus, if the artist is true to himself, his concern is not with an object to be exhibited, but with the process of creation. An authentic creative act enables artists to explore their own nature and imparts meaning to their existence. In words of great Confucian master Mencius: “There is no greater joy for me than to find, on self-examination, that I am true to myself. […] For a man to give full realization to his heart is for him to understand his own nature.” Comprehension of the self in turn, endows an individual with the knowledge of ultimate truth, the ultimate principles of existence. Hence, with just a little exaggeration, we can conclude that art and creative process that leads to art are two entities of radically different nature. If the former is social and cultural (if not consumable and marketable), the latter is spiritual. How many artworks surrounding us do truly reflect the authentic creative process?

The utility attribute of the creativity construct that I have elaborated in my academic work, implies that an artwork represents an important landmark in spiritual, cultural, social, and/or political environment

Hence, a propensity to impart significance to the role of the audience in art production shifts

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Orpheus & Orpheus (videopoem) Presented at the solo exhibition poARTree. Berlin 2012

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and addresses moral issues. Great artists of all times assumed a didactic role and strived to influence existing worldviews. They raised important moral and ethical questions and secured moral values of the society. For example, Leonardo da Vinci assumed moral leadership in bringing the world from the Dark Ages to the new age, the Renaissance.

Hence, a true creative endeavor must address the social tendency and engage prospective audience in creative process.

between the text and the image.

Recently, I have learned a cyanotype technique, almost two hundred years old analog printing process, which produces a cyan-blue print. You coat the watercolor paper with a solution composed of Potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate, place a negative over it, and expose to sun.

This process would benefit from my location in Dubai, where the expose time is much shorter than in many other places. In my opinion, these shades of blue nicely correspond to the moods and emotional states underlying many psychological disorders. Therefore, I intend to produce at least several photopoem series using this technique. The first attempt using this technique entitled Melancholia was produced for a group exhibition Blue Bleu Blau Blu in Vienna. I used the first verse of the Bipolar project, which in my opinion perfectly reflects the contemplative state of an artist.

As you can see, I am ambivalent about the interactions of an artist with the society in the process of art production.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Anatoliy. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I also would like to thank you for this interview. Your thoughtfully constructed questions allowed me to express my ideas about creativity and art, which I was prevented from in academic writing.

Further, I continue the MentalArt initiative.

The next project in this framework elaborates on narcissistic personality disorder. However, this time I want to combine poetry with documentary film. I intend to do research into social, cultural, and personal aspects of this mental condition. It is evident that narcissistic attitudes prevail in contemporary Western society, which emphasizes exceptional individual abilities and high individual achievements and performance. Under the pressure of these social expectations, people become disconnected from their inner self, which in turn results in development of various mental illnesses. I aim to investigate the influence of contemporary social values and norms on an individual’s personality within the framework of the narcissistic personality disorder.

The first item on my agenda is to elaborate on a technique combining verbal and visual elements. Working on the Bipolar project, I faced a problem of integrating a text into an image. Introduction of the text was intended to establish a conceptual plane different from the one established by the image. At the same time, they had to play together to create the necessary tension. I resolved this problem by means of a composition: the text became a part of the visual composition. However, I feel that something needs to be done to make the interplay between the text and the image more cohesive. I’m thinking about a technique presenting images through letters (somewhat similar to Pointillism, but instead of dots I use letters). This technique I believe, would increase an interplay

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An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Melancholia (photopoem) 58x50cm Cyanotype photogram on watercolor paper.

Presented at the exhibition Blue Bleu Blau Blu. Wien 2017

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Shai Jossef