REVISTA JONATHAN SCHIPPER
An Interview with Jonathan Schipper by Pablo IA from Belio Magazine
Me interesa conocer el proceso creativo que utilizas, si lo importante es sobre todo disfrutar del proceso o llegar a determinado resultado… Cuéntame un poco cómo es en tu caso.
I’m always curious about the creative process. Maybe for you, it’s a question of enjoying the process rather than the result of any process is good as long as the result is satisfying?… I don’t know; tell me a little bit about it.
The process for me is really an obsession or addiction. I often cringe when I hear making art is fun. It's enjoyable at times but fun is certainly not the right word because my projects usually take a few months to a year to create. I usually don't start them until the core idea of the sculpture has been floating in my head for a few years. My hope is that if an idea can hold my interest for that period of time maybe it can hold someone else's for a small fraction of that. The end result is as disconcerting as satisfying. I like to set my work on the edge of the reason so I often find myself when a project is nearing completion wondering what the fuck I'm doing! "Is it genius, is it shit?" is a constant refrain in my head towards the end of a project. There is a lot of stuff already in the world and it takes a fair amount of arrogance/stupidity/stubbornness to make more of it.
Lo que está claro es que cada una de tus obras es pura ingeniería, creación casi “franskestiniana”. Me llama mucho la atención como le das alma a la robótica He visto fotos en tu taller, con las manos trabajadas, negras, con grasa… Parece que se divierte cuando crea, cuando ensambla, cuando todo funciona…
What is clear is that each of your works is pure engineering, almost a “Doctor Frankenstein” creation. I think is fascinating how you give soul to robotics. I have seen photos in your workshop, with the worn-out black hands… It seems that you enjoy yourself when you create when you assemble pieces when all it works…
To me, sculpture is the process of moving ideas from my head into objects in such a way that when someone comes along the idea can in some form move again into them. That process is very Frankenstein. I'm asking a piece of iron or plastic to tickle someone’s mind/soul in some way.
Pero… ha sufrido alguna vez durante el proceso de creación?
But … have you suffered at some time during the creative process?
I find the creative process to be full of more suffering than anything else. I imagine it's like a marathon, a kind of suffering that in the end feels good maybe?
Una distopía es una utopía perversa donde la realidad transcurre en términos opuestos a los de una sociedad ideal…. Si paro y pienso, si miro y reflexiono, a veces pienso que ya vivimos en una sociedad distópica, pero que no lo sabemos… El mundo se está muriendo lenta y dolorosamente, como tus coches. Pero no nos damos cuenta.
A dystopia is a perverse utopia where the reality goes opposite to an ideal society …. If I stop and reflect, if I look around and think carefully, sometimes I think that already we live in a dystopic society, but that we still do not know… The world is dying slowly and painfully, like your cars. But we do not realize it.
We are certainly living in a system that functions for some better than others. I chose to live in NYC - it's social dysfunction and extreme economic cruelty is legendary. I also visit what, in my estimation are societies that are much more enlightened, etc. I can't seem to find it within myself to move to such a land. There is a richness here, that even as I live towards the bottom of New York's economic ladder, I can't seem to live without. It's not that I want the world to be this difficult, but difficult times sometimes breed amazing things.
La sociedad ha estado muy controlada en las maneras de ver y pensar a través de los medios, somos víctimas de un imperialismo de la percepción. Veo que en sus obras trata de exponerlo e invita a la reflexión.
The world has been absolutely controlled by the media, we have been told how we have to see, to look… we are victims of imperialism of the perception. I see that in your works that you expose it and invite it to reflection.
Absolutely! The amazing thing to me is how accepting we are of this fact. Media proclaims itself objective- and we somehow buy it? It's hard to have an original thought when around every corner lurks some idea of how we should be and what we should think. We find ourselves running after every new thing as if our life is at stake. It's an interesting process of exposing something that you can’t really ever leave.
Has comentado que nos hemos acostumbrado a parar el video, a encontrar el segundo justo inmediato a la muerte o aquello que nos plazca. Este es un tema recurrente en todo tu trabajo.
You have said that we have become accustomed to the ability to pause the video, finding a frame just before the moment of death or just as we please. This topic is appellant in all your work.
I have always been fascinated with the little window of time in which we experience life. We know stuff happened before and stuff will happen after, but it is always in imagination removed for later or in memory, already happened, unchangeable. So much of my work is about my desire to fight that little window and how ultimately impossible that task is. Media brings us forward and backward in time and space and that is really quite a powerful thing. My work often centers on the tools that make this media time travel possible, how it works and doesn’t work.
Destruir, reconstruir… una y otra vez. Tus obras me llevan a reflexionar, me invitan a pensar en el antes, en el después, en el pasado, en el futuro… y, como consecuencia, en el ahora.
To destroy, to reconstruct … again and again. Your works invites me to think; about “before”, “later”, the past, the future … and, as consequence, in NOW.
I suppose this is one of the ultimate questions. How do we experience the moment with the knowledge of both the future and the past? It is the forbidden fruit. I really don't want to get into the business of telling how to experience the now I might need to form a special club for that. I'm more interested in underlining the question and letting people figure it out for themselves.
De nuevo la inacción. Y es que tu arte me dice que estamos en “pausa”. Me provoca desasosiego y necesito pensar, moverme… Como una de tus performances, tu trabajo me sacude!!! ¿Tiene esto sentido para ti? ¿Es lo que pretendes?
Inaction again. Your art is telling me that we are in “pause”. I see it and I feel uneasiness, I need to think, to move… As one of your performances, your work shakes me!!! Do you understand what I mean? Do you expect this?
I love the uneasiness you're describing! It is what as an artist I'm really addicted to. It's awesome to not know if an image or a piece of art is good or not. It means you are stepping out of the mediated and known and thinking for yourself and not knowing where to go because the territory is not familiar. It is really quite amazing to step back far enough from yourself to watch some of the mental processes that makes you, you.
¿Cómo te imaginas el futuro si las cosas no cambian, si seguimos sentados mirando la tele, dejando que la tecnología nos muestre lo que tenemos que vivir?
How do you imagine the future if things do not change, if we are still seated looking at the TV, allowing the technology to show us what we have to live?
It's hard to imagine any big paradigm shifts. Media is connecting us to a greater and greater extent but often in superficial ways. It often seems very negative but I do have some sort of faith. Just as you watch a plant grow you can't expect its individual cells to know that it's making some sort of tree. Maybe we are doing the same thing. We are certainly wiring each other together maybe it is just too early to see what we a making.
Siempre me ha gustado “jugar” a cambiar las cosas de contexto: los objetos cotidianos se convierten en cosas diferentes cuando se colocan en un contexto diferente. Como la gente… Cuando he visto tus performances, mi juego se ha convertido en arte. Tus instrumentos convierten a las personas totalmente en objetos.
I have always liked "to "play" changing things: the daily objects turn into different things when they place in a different context. Like people… When I found your performances, my “fun” became art. Your contraptions completely objectify the human figure.
I have always found it interesting that people find it so negative to be objectified. We are objects. I think harm is caused when we forget this fact. We get so involved in social hierarchy and ideas that we believe we are somehow inherently more valuable than other objects. I believe humans have value but so does everything else. This idea was the bases for a lot of my early work specifically Swing Set and Self-Examination Machine.
¿Por qué crees que tratamos de esconder nuestra propia humanidad a toda costa?
Why do we try to hide our own humanity?
When I said this I think I meant our physical humanity. We believe in our ideas of ourselves, we certainly are not exactly how we imagine ourselves. The illusion of self allows us to function but at the same time hides what we are. I think it's often the role of the artist to work with these illusions. I think this is why the nude is such a foundation of Western art, even though the nude is now just another cliché.
Hay quien dice que el artista tiene la responsabilidad de ser la voz de sí mismo. La conexión con el resto del mundo vendrá si se su expresión ha sido sincera ¿Qué opinas? ¿Crees que un artista no debe hacer un trabajo para nadie, excepto para sí mismo?
Some people say that the artist has the responsibility of being only his own voice. The connection with the rest of the world will come if his expression has been sincere. What do you think about it? Do you believe that an artist must not do a work for anybody, except for himself?
I do believe this is true, but to manifest things in the world an artist must often work with others and that is a process I have often found to better my work. I often find that art needs limits to be great. Those limits can come in so many forms... budgets, space, collaborators, etc. These limits are like a location for architecture, a great artist can use these limits to their advantage. At the same time, the artist must fight for what they believe in and not give in to the limits and let them define the work. It's a difficult process but one I think is completely necessary to make art.
¿Cómo crees que tus obras transforman a quien las ve? ¿Qué sensaciones quiere despertar en los espectadores? ¿Qué importancia le da a quien ve su obra?
How do you believe that your works transform to whom sees them? What sensations do you want to wake up in the spectators? What importance do you give to whom see your work?
It's very important to me what spectators take from my work. I'm more interested in creating questions than giving answers. I would much rather someone takes home an uneasy feeling than some sort of exaltation. If someone walks away from my work thinking it does shit but still thinking about it, I feel I have done my job in the same way as I would for a person who walks away loving the piece.
¿Consideras que el mundo puede transformarse mediante la creatividad del sus individuos?
Do you think that the world can change through the creativity of its individuals?
I think it is the only way the world does evolve. We have always needed people who decide it’s important to do new and different things. It's how thought evolves. Beauty is a way of evaluating very complex ideas. I think the perception of beauty is a way for our mind to guide action without evaluating all the raw data. If a scene or object fits the pattern it works. It's the job of the artist to make and fight for new patterns. As our culture grows and evolves our ideas of what is beautiful change with it or because of it.
¿Quién te llama la atención últimamente? ¿Puedes hablarnos de algo o alguien que crees que debiéramos conocer? ¿Tus influencias?
Who in the field catches your attention the most recently? Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about? What about your influences?
I find the most inspiration in the artists closest to me. Try Amelia Biewald!
¿En que estás trabajando ahora mismo? ¿Qué está bullendo en tu cabeza?
What are you working on at this moment? What is boiling in your head?
Right now I'm in between projects. I want to spend some time drawing and working on proposals. When I commit to a project it can take a year- I want to be sure I'm up to it!
¿Qué te gustaría ser si no fueras artista?
What would you like to be if not an artist?
I have always been very in awe of big science research, etc. Maybe in another life!