creates their own software, it is inescapable — as far as I see it — so it should be embraced.
Working this way seems like a natural extension of my own inclinations. At university, I originally planned to study mathematics and chemistry but ended up studying music and philosophy. Quite the about-face!
What is the role of technique in your practice? In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating?
Technique tends to be very important in my work. Good technique is very valuable in that with good technique it is easier for one to get where they are going and to get the results they are after. The drawback with this approach is that one always gets what they are after and I have found that this, for the most part, does not work for me. I am essentially stuck in my own process and will never find a way out. It is therefore vital that I disrupt my process or technique while working; you might even call this another technique itself. This gives new information that can be integrated, built upon, or ignored. The important thing, though, is that the ship is also moved by the current in addition to myself at the helm.
That being said, the only rule for myself is experimentation. That is, working anew with anything and everything, though not necessarily at the same time. I want to create something new, something interesting, to discover something new and exciting. For me, artwork is adventure. It is casting off into the unknown, except the stakes are not nearly as high as in some other ventures which is all the more reason to push harder. If you fail in making a particular artwork, nothing happens. You learn and other people think you have no idea what you are doing (which is probably true). If you fail climbing a mountain, the price could be your life. My process is more concerned with attitude rather than an actual process.
Perhaps the best way to put it is to think about motor racing. My father, an avid motorcyclist, would tell me while I was racing that if I was not almost crashing, I wasn’t trying hard enough. Mario Andretti said a similar thing: “If everything is under control, you’re going too slow.” I enjoy working on the absolute edge of my comprehension, where it feels as if I’m not entirely sure what is happening in a piece or that I really have a full control over it. I like to feel that if I stop thinking about it for a minute, the work will fly from my hands, slamming into walls and bursting into thousands of fiery pieces. I want it to demand my total concentration, that failure of focus will not be tolerated and excellence on my behalf is merely adequate.
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?
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