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"TRIPLE ACTION RELIEF"
from

total batt/espace awareness

·'

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN O'NEILL
by RHITA TEKST

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"What captures our imagination, as we look at

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the prints of Durer or Rembrandt, are the rich
possibilities of the medium. The expressive
qualities of printmaking are immediate and
compelling. We see clearly the interaL-tion of
carved wood, or etched or engraved metal, with
paJler and ink. The physical sensation of both
the resistance and embrace of materials lies
close to the surface of the experience.
Michael Botwinick. Artists at Gemini G.E.L.

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Is :your use of pun and metaphor as titles a strafallem intended to confuse approaches to
reading the wori? And if it is, wh:, do :you exercise inclinations to delude the viewer1
Instead of delusion, which to me suggests irresponsible behavior, let's assume for the moment that titling
is an invitation to connect imaginative processes. Jokes, puns, words games and metaphors relate to
unconscious occurrences that call to be named in language, just as dreams demand to be visually
deciphered. The social aim and function of humor is an expression of psychic evacuation, not dissimilar to

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 lower forms of biological evacuation. Humor parallels dream mechanisms, although the function of humor
is different. Jokes, puns, humor and comedy release repressed ideas and emotions and consequently set
patterns for potential evacuation.

What it, the generating force that project. your construction of imaginary relief1
An amplification of the mood of childhood. Childhood having once had an ignorance of comedy when there
was no need for an understanding nor a need for humor to make the child happy is the premise for
organizing the contiguity of visionary relations. That organization culminates in exploring and expressing
endoceptual, or primary processes of creativity. During that process of evacuation, the format of integral
psychological fragments diverge as puns or metaphors. A measure of the work I will consider performing
arrives at conscious destinations as a pun or an overheard phrase, as a little lyric with a cartoon image
attached. The outcome of the visual equation is that ambiguity, functioning as a propellant for double
suggestion, is always relative to the concept yet distanced from it. The allusion of the pun or joke fits neatly
into the illusion of the idea.

So how would you define the illusory concept you call "total battlespace awareneBB"1

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Total battlespace awareness or TBA, is a military term that expresses comprehension of a tactical
situation on the battlefield. It means officials have a sound grasp of the logistics within the combat zone or
battlespace. That information is indispensable in developing retaliate or first strike contingencies to repel,
reduce or neutralize the situation. The battlespace situation in the case of "Triple Action Relief', is an
interpretation of that idea without the weaponry. Total battlespace awareness becomes the experiential
social realm, the spheres and spaces of the human condition. The need for temporary relief from
ontological congestion, spiritual constipation and psychic migraine is evidently lacking. I initiate the Triple
Action effect to reduce peculiar and specific symptoms in those models of distress. I intentionally
transpose the military battlespace onto the societal arena, where it would seem to me we're all kicking and
bitching and talking and fighting for rights and privilege. I'll sue you, and you can scream about sexual
abuse and take your father to court years after and get allot of cash. Everyone screams compensation.
Whatever the case, it is a little like an ongoing war without any collective purpose or teleological reward.
The games of social intercourse occur in an ontological battlespace and if you examine that space
carefully, you begin to see how varied the conflicts are. and how the potential relief of imaginary solution or
imaginary freedom can help to depressurize the battlespece.

Are you asserting that your work provides tnnporary relief from ontological preBBurel That
the vit,ual result. of any given piece can ea.N •plrit&aol constipation and psychic headache!

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I am concerned with procedures for evacuation of these symptoms, which to me represent a need for

,n wt\at.wr form they can obtain it, through sleep,
sex, eating, euphoria or violence. I anthologize images ,nto b9tng because I have a need to rearrange the

temporary relief. People seek comfort and reparation

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obvious into an article of experience that is distanced from the original event. I am interested in the effects
of anything I produce regardless of weather it is print, oils or an installation. There are limitless
pataphysiau remedies for innumerable discomforting human conditions. Perhaps in this way I refer to
human suffering more than anything, but by saying that, my motives could easily be misinterpreted. I
examine the positive building material in all things negative because duality is the transitory office of all
things, and I am a clerk in that office. For every type of human suffering there should be some equitable
form of experiential relief. Dispelling pressure as it moves into the imagination and closer to freedom. I
would like to think that this menu for "Triple Action Relief' has ingredients to ease discomfort by brining
the prospect of imaginary solution to peculiar individual circumstances. I would like to think this is a basis
for individual freedom which imagination can provide.

Would you agree that ~u are fabricatift/l psychological projectiont1 about the value of
peopln experiencn without truly knowing the level or intent1ity of that experience
beforehand1
No, I would not agree. I am not diagnosing ontological deficiencies and then offering blanket remedies. The
imaginative realm .is not a general, nor a specific guarantee for the relief of human suffering. Emotional
situations are precarious, mercurial and unique. They can initiate moments of clarity where imaginative life
can help to evacuate ontological pressure. I experience my own invisible type of suffering and freedom, but
I do not profess to speak on behalf of the experiences of others. That knowledge is private before it
becomes public and it is often difficult to transcribe. Experiential fatigue, social apathy, spiritual decay,
hatred, prejudice, racial and economic superiority, all project the need for some form of temporary relief.

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Imaginary solutions to a negative scenario can bring about positive psychic change, which I suppose is like
placing an imaginary blanket over the reality principle and attempting to suffocate that. We are on a rapid
learning curve as we approach the end of this millennia. I invent methods of evacuation by visual means
that might accommodate communion with that learning curve. Many people today are displaced as the
forward momentum increases. The work acts like an informercial selling imaginary products to dispel the
symptoms of ontological constipation, spiritual congestion and psychic migraine.
The entire opus is an appropriated fabrication of human conditions dislodged from their historical or
cultural origins. Remedies I may suggest are not chemical nor homeopathic, nor are they precisely
aesthetic; it might be that they are more like opposite forces in chimerical alliance. In the case of "Triple

Action Rellef"' the triad of relief factors are focused principally on ejecting psychic contamination through
a pataphysicat orifice. This science of imaginary solution is what I am most compelled to explore and
reflect. It is a necessary method needed to install the orifice for evacuation. When I consider the
subversive potential of imaginary solution, I proceed with that b1,1ilding material. Carol Becker's article
·surveying the Aesthetic Dimension at the Death of Post-Modernism•, offers a succinct interpretation of
Marcuse's •new consciousness•, that of a return to imaginary forces yet uncontaminated by the reality
_principle, a return to the freedom of the imagination. I support this view because it defines something
tangible in the Triple Action Relief formula.

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''the new consciousness seems to be that realm of
the

imagination

which

has

not

yet

been

colonized by the reality principle, that aspect of
the psyche which has managed to retain a desire
for wholeness and has remained untouched by
the oppressiveness of the reality principle or the
deafening defeatism of the prevailing ideology''
Carol Becker

"Triple Action Relief' may be a prescriptive reminder of the energy of imaginary processes required to

subvert prevailing ideology. In my mind, that exists as a matrix of potential solutions to choose from.
Imaginary tactics involve the process of making legible introspective experience that has a bearing on the
commonwealth of human spaces. Spaces and experiences that are unique, not identical, but that initially
share a mutual grounding. Each subjective experience has within it a common bearing, the unique nature
of experience of the imagination is the shared terrain I am describing. I make imaginary diagnostic
conjectures in the hope of relieving myself and others as well. One day's findings are immediately
exchanged and renewed by other external forces along the way, and the game continually develops. The
strategies of the imagination are complex and exuberant and never really quiet.

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Do you recognize psychological changes or shifts in moods and external conditiom as
having had an effect upon the evolution of 'Triple Action Relief'?
That logic is verified when conceptual choices I have made and the results of those choices succeed in
enriching and widening the visual exchange. Opening outwardly with my work to converse with many
different art forms other than the peculiar language of my current research, is the same process of opening
that occurs when assembling bits and pieces of images as collage notation. Although separated and
fragmentary, they form an investment towards developing future projects I envision for print. Openings into
other media have occurred while I've been busy with Triple Action Relief I have pursued and completed
some of those investigations already. The present lithographs however, are progressions of psychic
registration, the nomenclature of emotive meter and psychological tempi. The orchestration of appropriated
imagery is fabricated into a kind of connect the dot's game, metaphorically speaking. My intimacy with
imaginary material is an invented and playful metaphysical feasibility plan, exercised through the realm of
the senses. A productive visual fantasy that spawns physical action which works in concert with an
intellectual investigation into the underlying causes and effects of disparate interior moods and external
conditions The uncertainty of attempting to connect and express these factors is exciting because I do not
presume to know the outcome.

You often tall, in musical metaphon,, Is this device relevant to the manner in which you like
to disturb meBBage and meaning, through musical innuendo?

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I experience music as a deeply provocative and visual occurrence. I'm sure most people do with their
favorite musical interests. In my mind, that provocation becomes an interplay of nearly photographic

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 projections. Curious surrealist cartoon ballets, comically tragic situations and scenes of chaos and
epiphany arrive at a conscious destination as I have mentioned. Those impulses become the seat of
conceptual experience, but what brings it all on is a preconscious tremor. Structures of the sublime are
animated against the framework of an incomprehensible cosmos during conceptualization, ,and I believe

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that endoceptuat complexes power conceptual projections onto my portable electro-chemica! cerebrascreen. That's an honest description. I listen to many different forms and origins and eras of music,

commensurate with my involvement with many forms of creative communication. Instrumental music is a
superlative form of non-verbal communication, initiating an internal dialogue that could describe what we
may feel about ourselves, to ourselves at that moment. Because music transcends language and word
prejudice, sound becomes an invaluable resource that is allied with the imagination. Music is a strong
addiction and provokes a loosening of repressed images for me.
·.,

Could you exprea in a clear manner, without becoming orJerl:, psychoanalytic, your
meaning of endoceptual procea and how it relates to the •cereba-screen• and to imaginary
solutiont
'-

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The phenomenon is referred to as amorphous cognition. It is a preverbal and previsual faculty. It is
dissimilar from the dream image because it does not manifest as an image at all, but finds a way to
surface as such. Cerebral imagery does not in itself constitute creative production for me all the time,
those images are merely the surfacing flotsam.

"Amorphous cognition, a kind or cognition that
occurs without representation, that is, without

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being expressed in images, words, thoughts or

actions, since it remains an internal, private
occurrence. From the Greek endo, meaning
inside, this is different from concept which is a

mature Corm or cognition that can be expressed
to others. The endocept could be said to be the

actual presence or knowin1 without images. The
intent, not the image, bein1 a foundation or
psychic lire"
Arietl. The Psychological Componerg ol Cr9111Mty.

Isn't this concept a reflection Freud's order of "'ottanlc9 feelingst
Yes, in a remote way but that is where I will terminate any similarity. The endocept is an internal
occurrence as Arieti posits, and was of certain interest to Freud no doubt but exquisitely exploited by Jung.
Arieti's position is more appetizing, even more than Jung·,. It

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is

easier for me to understand and relate to

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my own experience. My private encounters interface comfortably and effortlessly with endoceptual
properties, and that awareness helps me to compose conscious beginnings to previsual stirrings. It is not a
sign of unmanageable neurosis as some may think. There should be no difficulty of understanding here.
Endoceptual presence is an intermediary construct of the brain; it is not equivalent to a,ctions, words,
images or clearly felt emotions.

I suspect that your curiosity for psychoanalytic nuance and metaphysical trace elements in
your experience coMtructB the inventory of imaginary solutioM, as you refer to them. Do
combinatio118 of emotional, psychological and aesthetic pleasures determine the framework
of your approach towards resolving an image?
The balance is an inclusive fusion of these elements and the ratios transform rapidly. The natural residue
of that experience resides i_p the finished image. I regulate and attune the mixture as the work evolves.
Should an emanation from endoceptual origin demand conscious attention, either through the mechanisms
of dream symbolism or as the arrival of a conscious idea, then I have to attend to making that legible.
Psychoanalytic characteristics of particularly dominant voices in me surface very swiftly as well, and
although it is difficult to maintain the moment mindfully, its duration is sufficient enough for preliminary
notation. Intuitive information is then committed to visual collision. Disparate sources of interest are
brought together to achieve a fair representation of that experience in the desired composition. Image and
idea are handmaidens, coalescing in the mind as unified expressions exhibiting the potential for conscious

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evacuation. I pretend that original occurrences such as these, deep within the psyche, arrive ex nihilo.

When you make collage notations then, are you always looking for poBBibilities that could
satisfy aesthetic desires through observation and use of visual collision?
Yes, it's an eccentric sensation just knowing where an idea can work, just by looking and working with the
fragments of the whole. Shifting it about with your fingers, eyes and hands. Intuitive seeing is attached to
the craft element in this equation. As~ects of external sensitivity and internal dialogue promotes image
composition. Collage plays an extremely important role in getting the thing out of my way and onto a
tangible surface. Then I can work towards a solution. I am interested in problems of visual association as
they refer to empirical issues and to inclusive views of the social milieu, of which I am an active member.
Beyond my own invisible experiences however, I think I can offer a menu for temporary relief to ontological
congestion, spiritual constipation and psychic migraine. Let's say I am drawn into the venture of seeing
through a continued lifting of veils. Peeling back what I consider to be existential strata and laminating
echoes or close approximations and interpretations of that specific bandwidth in the print. I want to see the
image outside the constraints of my over-active, private and compulsive imagination. I satisfy that impulse
very quickly. You let techniques nourish you and they complement one another much like amino acids.
Collage is psychic digestion of those nutrients in another form .

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Do you thinJ, you could •implit, that notion1
Metaphon and purzlee will always describe the games of pataphysical playtime. I won't bother offering a
simplified

exampre. because I couldn't,

but I'll offer this quote because it parallels the way I might answer:

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"The artist who makea collage ill foremoat a 11eer,
an examiner of the proce1111 of 11ight. Collage11
derive their potency from the ability of the eye to
see, rather than the hand to replicate. Effective
collage11 carry within them11elve11 the 11ense that a

~·

momentary confrontation of viaual element11 ha11
been juat barely caught and fixed. Catching the
eluaive sight is the busineaa of the collage maker.
Whether collage ill constructed of more-or-leas
nonrepresentational element11, or of picture11 of
things,

or

of gum

wrappers,

makes

little

difference. Each element in a collage is a fugitive
from

the

world

outside. We

see

a

world

constructed with bits from our world, but of our
world no longer. A collage is a world of its own. It

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gives new identity to the bit11 of paper, cloth or
whatever.

This

environment

itself

is

an

accumulation of escapees. Each element is both
individual

and

part

of the

litter

of the

background for each of the others. .i\ny one
element has the power to alter the meanings of
its fellow11. The total meaning of a collage is not a
simple sum of the parts. Rather, meaning ill an
unstable

pile

of

meanings

overlapping,

complimentary, contradictory."
Charolette Stokes: "Meaning In the Collage of Max Ernst,•
1979. Art In America

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So tlN est.nded benefit,, of espreuive investigationa in collage become the principle
motivationa for taliillll the idea into other area111
Yes, precisely. I move closer in proximity to interpretation and invention because of the collages. In a
manner of speaking, I work towards heuristic insight during assembly that provokes collision at
intersections where psychology, imagination and visions meet. Psychic collisions are like. miniature
spiritual leaps or like brisk, existential slaps about the h~ad. I awake to the potency of elusive self-evident
truths locked in the mind that are consciously transcribed when I play. My desire is to mimic the tell-tale
whispers of intangible circumstance, attempting to connect the experiential realm with creative heat. That
is exactly how the experience unfolds as I play. At one stable moment during collage playtime, the course
of intimate eontact formed in collage changes. At this intersection, conscious eruptions or psychic
collisions occur without too much intellectual restraint, and by that time the image is glued and set. I
realize that the conscious lleat generated during my intimate contact with disparate pieces of images
brought together in sudden visual collision, parallels my idea of psychic heat and creative process coming
together form the concept. I find expression for a particular countenan~ of my thinking, taking private
impulse into the public sphere.

Hou, would you describe these collisiona or point,, of impactl

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Invariably the exuberance for my work is amplified by inducing internal conditions to move outward. Visual
schemes I embark upon often produce complimentary collisions, tributaries that move out of a single
exercise. Notation fulfills a need to put on record the first steps of those future projects. Ideas for thematic
works in print fit the medium very comfortably and then some ideas do not, so other projects are recorded
for paint or installation. Whatever. I see an object or a thing, an image in an ad or hear some ambiguous
line from TV, and I think that would be a great beginning for a print. That is the point of impact. I will have
some notion about one image and what to connect it with and decide how to go on. That is the point of
collision. I say to myself, well, that reaction or thought because of that news broadcast or televangelical
sermon, or the amusing pun I would like to use as a title instantly becomes visual. A little snippet of
Tuesday's dream remembered on Thursday or the intensity of Saturday's rage or Sunday's elation could
be the basis for an installation several months ahead. I can make etchings or collage or oil sketches of that
site now to record those impacts on the way to the project. Impressions of collisions are extracted from
psychologicat intersections. In a legion of satisfactory ways I come closer to visualizing the problem,
refining the id• and tuning the voices as I move along into the piece.

I thinl, ,vu lil,e to 80Und lU,e a late romantic. An you nostalgic for romantic idealism! Are
you an idealistr
I suspect romanticism in its ugliest manifestations are as dead as doornails, and I don't think I operate as
an idealist in the strict sense of the word. Romanticism, as you infer, is really about alienation and I am not

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alienated. I live integrated in membership with society .

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 ''The individual . ... lives in society. That is the
primary characteristic of individualism. The only
question is what form that society will take . ..
. [sic] ....this myth of the triumphant, unattached

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individual is pure romanticism, and romanticism
is the handmaiden to ideology"
)

John Raulston Saul / The UnconscioU& Civilization

I am not overtly nostalgic but I do possess aesthetic preferences for certain eras. As much as I may
display ideological inclinations I am always suspicious of ideological canons. I am in the present extracting
from the past, a distant past or recent past, and that is precisely how I conduct my investigations. If you
mean being an idealist pr&9ludes giving imaginative treatment, an idealistic treatment to anything I do,
then I confess I must be an idealist. I think idealism is a specific to individual will, and the need to express
those ideals is taken up as everyone dances that dance. Ideology thrives but my intimacy with imaginative
process moves beyond ideological authority.

''In the oppressive air of conformity which
ideologies create, those ideologies wait patiently
to feed off human credulity. Fashion, as an

example, is merely the lowest form of ideology."
John Rauston Saul / The Unconscious Civilization.

To be inclined towards romanticism isn't entirely bad form however, but could be misconstrued as bad

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fashion. I don't think I am an irreversibly romantic, and couldn't care less if the label stuck to me like
napalm anyway. As a younger man I was ensnared by the ideologies of art historical influence in the desire
to emulate and identify with that. Today, I disassemble my constructed identity and invent fictitious
persona as part of the function for uncovering what the mind truly wishes to express, while I devise various
codes of content and context for subversive use in the work. The imaginary complex is very difficult to
orchestrate in one supreme, acoutiscly balanced environment. I think ideologies are mostly discordant
utterances of social contrivance in the throes of death, and I am present to document the demise. So in
one sense yes, I am tethered to ideological structures but do not consciously subscribe to them. I think,
rather, my intent is to dissect them. As for being nostalgic, the only evidence of attachment to a nostalgic
past for the moment are obviously contained in the choices of images I have synthesized into "Triple

Action Reller'. I offer temporary relief from oppressive ideologies that I may touch upon in intentionally
ambiguous ways. Every ideology has its attendant disciples; Triple Action Relief would like to inject
imaginary playtime into the prevailing ideological arteries.

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What generata your collage aesthetic; what is it that sustai111J your level of investigation of
the ontological battlespacel
I start with a background, a place that appeals to my eye. A place that I invent I have familiarized in some
way. Looking into that space and inventing the familiarity about it, I begin to itemize in my mind the pre-cut
resource pieces for collage I have ready in the studio. They may be essential in getting the tHing off the
ground and are usually what I see first. I'll take some 1 of those pieces and sprinkle them about the
background. That's when I think my playtime begins. That's when I begin to think pataphysically. Lately
I've been playing with black and white photographs from a book of ancient Scottish church architecture as
backgrounds in a little suite I started in 1998. Now I have seven episodes in the suite. So it is the primary
background information that releases an idea from the stockroom of imagination launching it into the
theater of invention. It is a matter of free play and free associations. A momentary source of relief from
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diurnal earth-bound concerns. I'll play like this for hours and the collage will change every time I touch it. It
will stay on the drafting table for weeks at a time collecting dust. Or in one evening enough exuberance is
produced to solidify the idea. I'll play with the collage until the right intersection has been struck, until I
witness immaculate collision.

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Well then isn't the need to redre.. childhood experience through your playtime, a form of
ideological nostalgial Isn't pataphysical playtime an ideological predisposition exemplified
in Surrealisml
Terry Eagleton stated in his book The Significance of Theory. that "children perhaps make the best

theorists.· Another observation is that;

'the minds of children, have not yet been
educated into

accepting our

routine

social

practices as ''natural", and so insist on posing to
those practices the most embarrassingly general
and fundamental questions, regarding them with
wondering estrangement which adults have long
since forgotten'.
Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress, Theory as Liberatory Practice

Before that, Andre Breton declared that childhood came closest to life. I respect impulses to continue with
childhood invention in contrast to adult conventions, that would have me behave otherwise, living
disenfranchised from childhood altogether. I welcome the complications of maintaining investigations of
those dualities. I do not see waking life and the autonomic aspects of interior life as separate or secondary.
I invent methodologies to reduce ideological symptoms of distress, and I believe that they are grounded in

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the purity of childhood precognition that was once unconscious and free as a product of the marvelous .. I
guess in that sense I follow a Surrealist ideological extraction. If I were to spend time perplexing over what
I am and what I am not in relation to ideological principles however, I would get lost in a blurred landscape

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 very quickly, and I am certain that that loss could disarm my ability to express anything useful. I don't
make friends with ideology or dominant theorems because they are not stable doctrines. Just like cultural
conventions are fragile and brittle. Death, however, is still the great leveler, a certainty that eliminates
barriers, compartments and prejudice because it is a common, reliable occurrence. It is the.one event we

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are certain to attend while moving about within the conflicts, contrasts and dilemma in 9ur human
battlespace. Death is the apex of the marvelous, childhood is the apex of life, and together they are
beautiful. Marvelous. Look, I'll offer this quote from Breton 'to clarify:

''Childhood comes closest to one's real life; a
childhood beyond which man has at hie disposal,
aside

from

hie

coinplimentary

laiHez-paeaer,
tickets:

only

childhood

a

few

where

everything nevertheleH conspires to bring about
the effective, risk-free poHeHion of oneself'
Andre Breton

Do you believe that you have partially solved the problem11 and notions of e,q,reuing these
psychological collisions in 9Triple Action Relier,
I think Sink. . .or Swim is a good example of this idea of a collision, appropriated image and my invisible
psychological environment. Every juxtaposition of elements here generates specific points of visual impact
across the picture plane. Associations are struck between elements when they collide. Sink. . .or Swim
was conceived as a collage on the table top but broke like a collision in my mind.

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The circumstance that provoked the concept for Triple Action Relief was the difference these collages
brought about and they way in which I worked them. They were not assembled as unique works like other
collage that are specific in their bearing. I began playing with scale relations between the elements in Sink
or Swim on the Xerox copier. I envisioned technical steps during the excitement and exuberance of that
moment, and that sustained the development of Sink. . .or Swim. It was the moment and place where
imagination and experience collided with an enormous impact, producing the visual trace elements of that
collision. Those traces became the lithograph.

ICan you tell me about the aesthetic and/or thematic properties at worl, in Sinla. . .Swim1
A young urban Kodak housewife holds three identical photographs of a nuclear detonation. The photo's
and letter she's holding are from her homosexual scientist son who is working at the Nevada Proving
Grounds. He suggests to her the potentially hazardous long-term effects of radiation disposal in the
ground, and refers to contamination of the food chain through the water tables. She's obviously happy for
him and his scientific work, but when I chose this image of her for the work, she looked to me as if she
were really thinking about her mother. I think that's why she's smiling like that. Smiling like a contemporary
urban Mona Lisa in profile. The background of naval seamen swimming together activated other relevant
associations and the concept grew out of that association. A homoerotic underscoring subjectively

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 Sink. ·.-_or Swim
1~98

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 some of the

line

established the invented
assembled in a

environment as the

11orno1sex:ua1 son couldn't

himself to tell her about his """'"'""'

obsession served as deterrent, deflecting acceptance,
theories of the

As a

the truth of

matrix at this intersection. That is a term Eve

discussion of male homosocial desire.

"By speaking of "homosocial desire", Sedgewick
places male bonding and male homosexuality on
the same continuum. Yet in ou:r society she

obl'Jerves

that

this

is

continuum

denied:

relationships among male politiciruis, business
partners,

athletes

and

soldiers,

the

many

alliances between men on which patriarchy is
based, are thought to preclude homosexual ones.
In fa.ct, the more closely men associate the more
likely they are to express hatred and fear of
homosexuality;

male

homosociality seems

to

require homophobia."

The homosexual context into which the swimmers are I placed became a transhistorical echo of Eakins,
Sutcliff, Cadmus or George Bellows. Realists who depicted men and boys congregating and swimming. I
do not believe the thematic meanings in Sink ... or Swim are immutably homosexual though. It is difficult
to absolutely resolve an image conceptually and theoretically, so for my purposes it is more important that
nuances of meaning and metaphor filter appropriately leaving ambiguous, compositional sediment to
harmonize the motif. Sink •.. or Swim contrasts aspects of heterosexual dominance with conditions of
homosexual latency within the homosocial matrix,

imposing a stereotypical masculine guise.

Conceivably, the equation here is Oedipal; a collision of incest taboos and delayed sexual tension or
something like that Part of the parody of taboo associations, mother/son or father/daughter attractions,
are embroidered to the fabric of homosocial theme, nr~"""'""1$W'1 as a portrait of indifference and isolation. Do
you want the rest of it?

PleWJe.

The 3 mechanical collars revealing interior working-1

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vaginal in form because of the elliptical profile of th•

~m$

they were masculine in their industrial

1H%J~.

manufacture and military purpose. The reveal of ba~
testicular references, supporting the implied sexual

cooed sexual nuances. I saw these collars as

,n the collar suggested clitoral as well as

JUXl:!i~ion.

The collars played well into the story line

because they were actual bearings used in aircraft Ellflg,~ construction for the military, perhaps they were

 even at work on the engines of Enola Gay.

Wncf.kit-}J~ut

the property for invention was prime real

estate for thematic development. The ad in whictt1f6und;~ll~•collars was from the period during the second
world war, so maybe you begin to see the connectionsl'imagJhed existing between the machine parts, the
boys swimming, the homosocial subject and the rriatenfaJbbject.
They are open and partially flayed, chromium,

•

~qp ~~~fglistening, revolving at great speeds _across the

picture plane. They are the harbingers of a new Pop ~~tiiTlism. When I considered the happenstance in the
numeric association of three collars and three photographs, !thought hey, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost
which inevitably led to the formation of the Triple Action Relief triad. I had satisfactorily answered a
fragment of the problem within the equation. The collars swim across the surface of the background like
industrial martyrs, elevated to the status of chromium sainthood as engineering wonders of flight and war.
They beckon for penetration in a comfortably harmless atmospheric manner, and the boys in the pool
underneath seem unaware.~·

Your subject matter in this suite is consistent with themes of apocalypse. Are you playing
with anxious, obseBBive millenarian fever or playing with themes of prophecy of the death of
the world by nuclear exchange?
I've never earned a drivers license. I'm frightened of huge propane tanker trucks as they scream by your
car window. I always shiver because I pretend they will detonate at the precise moment they are beside my
window. I'm a white-knuckle passenger in every aircraft I've ever flown in. Nervous anxiety is a valuable
source of essential creative nutrients for me. Anxiety generates so much tension and thought so there's
much to consider ipso facto. I create mental agitation for myself in such a way that it becomes a
productive part of the creative process and the energy I use for extraction. Thermonuclear arsenals of the
world's superpowers are the most frightening devices of all. I am not speaking prophetically or making
psychic prediction about the end of the world in this suite, but yes, I am playing with those elements. I do
thin.k something pernicious is underfoot however. "In this place there be dragons"; and to me the dragon's
breath is that of thermonuclear discharge.

Why do thermonuclear detonations hold such a fascination for you?
In my view, detonations are equitable with libidinal energies only on a much more intensified scale.
Explosions and detonations are some of my favorite things to watch as are pornographic displays of
ejaculation, and the connection resides here. I have a nuclear fetish. I am overwhelmed by the symmetry
and perfection of a thermonuclear detonation, the trajectory of thermonuclear ejaculate. It seems to me
that war and tactical military capability are simply a rerouting of skewed erotic impulses, historically bent
on conquest and dominance rather than on copulation and/or homosexual pleasure.

14

•

 "Seeing comes before words. The child looks
and recognizes before it can speak . •. .The relation between
what we see and what we know is never settled"
John Berger.

 •

"Perception
phenomena

includes
that

a

intervene

complex
between

set

of

sensory

stimulation and conscious awareness."
Areiti. Creativity, The Magic Synthesis.

It is precisely that sphere of intervention, "between sensory stimulation and conscious awareness", where
my interests are primarily focused. It is at the interchange of psychological material and physical
dynamism that the collision is replicated through visual means. Thermonuclear detonation holds an
equivalent meaning in relation to collision in that way.

Does television do for you today what you invent it may have done for you in the past? Can
you be serious about the,'effect TV frequencies have had on your creative energies?
I was born in an era seduced by televised imagery. Cultural imagery appropriate to every consumer type
and entertainment model of the era. Beauty was all in the eye of the rayode transmitter and every house
acquired that immature technology. It was to become a form of worship, setting up electric altars to the
static charges of entertainment gods and consumer product angels. The technological development curve
in 50 years has been impactfull in itself. We received much of our household technology because of the

•

second world war. Just look where the TV industry is today, instead of three channels we have three
hundred and fifty or better and you can watch 'em all.
Violent, sensationalist talk shows, para-militant evangelical broadcasts verging on the maniacal,
descriptions of every brand of psychotic paraphernalia and social desire, infomercials selling every hope
and wish for beauty and longevity. I think TV is absolute in it's function and purpose. To my mind, the
characters and situations I see before me are reminiscent of the animated in cartoons I knew as a child.
Totally fabricated and illusory. Unreal. I attempt to absorb and replicate similar contexts in some manner in
the work. I remember everything from childhood cartoon exposure, all the humor and comedy mainly
because the plot and situations appeared to grow out of the musical score.
I remember being amazed by this visual syncopation. I could re-visualize the stuff well because I could
remember all of the music. That is an exponent of my musical interests cross-pollinating with TV. Another
form of collision. The impact of television is a valuable resource for notation. I monitor projected forms of
social artifice, consumer hype and identity sensationalism, sex and violence and scads of naturalist,
astronomical, political and consumer informercials. It is important for the bearing of the work.
I also observe the contamination this medium embodies and I thrive on forms of social contamination and
the psychological double-dealing of cultural identity politics. Television is the sina qua non of social
barometers. An immense electronic simulacra of unattainable desires, fixations and fetish. My exposure to
television, the portal of electronic collage, was an early imprint on my impressionable mind. I am sure the
sensuous quality of moving pictures, editing, color and advertising were organized in my psyche equitably

•

as deep at a preverbal level. I am convinced by photographic documentation that early creative
motivations via psychological frequency exchanges in front of that machine may have occurred. Another

15

 invention, but one that invigorates and keeps me playful. It is a way in which I stay psychologically regular
and culturally adjusted. This is an exciting imaginary project to unfold and document as an adult.

What relevance does this fetish for television have for you in your practice today(

•

I play with the fantasy that television broadcast frequencies may have been responsible for initiating early
psychological drives that sustain the pataphysical play-time I colonize today. Because of long-term
frequency exposure at close proximity to the screen, ideas about childhood imprinting have become
enlarged as an invaluable symbolic system, a lexicon working all sections of my cultural construction. I
foster the games, fantasies and inventions I pursue. Knowledge rises to the conscious surface like graphic
flotsam. I pick up the debris, examine it closely, and begin constructing the image. It is like recalling a
tune, I can hear the score ttfat might accompany my work were I able to read or compose music, and the
images become the nomenclature for this musical activity. My works are the cartoon episodes animated
against the backdrop of contemporary human battlespaces with a sound track yet unrecorded.

'Triple Action RelieF may be concerned with impending social issues, but can you defend
and demystify the subtle, near invisible quality of conceptual properties you arrange
through ambiguous relationships between things only you choose to see!
One thing I can say is that conceptual properties are represented in part by the layering of color over color,
image upon image. Lithography is closer to painting as I treat painting to be, and they are both able to
allow the development and realization of a given conceptual topic. Inks and oils have very distinct handling
characteristics, I mean, in the layering of color and image. They are much akin to inner and outer dualities.

•

When I work the stone I am physically working a little like glazing on canvas, building up the micro-layers
of transparent ink through_multiple press runs and allot of sweat So for me, lithography is a soft medium,
soft because it is malleable, it lends itself to the task of suggesting or inferring interior emanations,
representing the laminate structure of the psyche and societal tissue. This is something I enjoy privately
about the work. It is not something readily available to the viewer.

You cannot escape technical considerations in printmaking because that is the physical
occupation neceBBary to arrive at finished works. What can you say about this?
Quite frankly, the technical benefits of reductive, addmve and evolutionary approaches to the work are
comfortably distributed in accordance with my conceptual requirements. Those techniques promote
essential openings for extending the work performed at the press. I can describe what I have experienced
in the collage and orchestrate that as a print Some of the tell-tale signs of softness in lithography allows
for excellent surface-printing mileage; taking one soMW1t wnh or group of marks or Xerox transfers into
multiple runs and colors while shifting paper direcbOns and reducing the image matrix along the way.
Adding and subtracting surface color associations and image construction are of great value in bringing
the image to fruition. I can work sympathetically and conf'ldentty beyond the authority of technical process .
Printmaking is a fantasy playground of alchemical expenence and impish psychological elaboration. An

16

•

 •

intimate relationship with the materials is as equally important as the physical activity and processes of
getting closure on an idea. That is the reward I earn. Satisfied with the resulting work ethic the outgrowth of
my imagination is amplified and enlivened.

Would you say at one time you risked being caught in the technical complexity of the
medium, in the embrace of technical planning every time you moved towards an imagel
Do you mean like snagging conceptual flesh, slicing yourself open on technical barbed wire, suffocating in
the froth of technical recipes and drowning the concept?

jPrecisely.
I used to be a glutton for technical hype. Look, you have to be aware of technical recipes and what they
can accomplish. You have to know the softness of the medium and the sequences inherent in processing
the image to print. Softness is the metaphor I use for naming the lithographic process. I do not find
restrictions in the labor involved, in fact I thrive on the preparation. Painting is soft as well but it is a more
mercurial station intellectually, more liquescent as a performance. I remind myself that materials are soft
and set it up in the mind like that. A reminder that technical factors are mutable and expressive latitude is a

•

matter of control and intellectual sympathy for the process. Creative latitude occurs simultaneously as well
while working sympathetically with the problem in a spontaneous, inclusive approach. Spontaneous means
refined rhythm and consistency of physical processing. Inclusive because it is all in the control of the
processes to the point where technical reasoning doesn't contaminate conceptual approach but rather
enhances it.

IDo you search out>objectB and or subjects that make commentary about society or the warldl
Yes I do in every respect. In magazines from the decades before and during the 50's, to the exact year of
my birth in 1955. Even in the beautiful refuse I find on late night walks that I bring back home, all possess
the potential to speak to those concerns. It is only a matter of application and the recollection of that
situation in which I made the discovery. That is part of the triple action effect for me. One private
experience will lead elsewhere and I may not be so aware of it the time. I use the process of elimination
and authentic choice to reach the conclusions to my investigation that generate the impact of image
equation. I say authentic choice, as a means of describing a conscious selection of images based largely
on impulsive and compulsive behavior traits that stirs my imagination. A bird, a sock, a steaming beaker.
Objects and pictures of objects excite me and become subject th'emes for inclusion as part of a larger
thematic construction. I want to reveal the whole complexity of imaginary projection .

•
17

 Are there personal and emotional associationa for you in specific objects and subjects you
have selected for this suite!
Some internal reactions, like psychological, cellular, or metaphysical catalysts, recognize that the nature of

•

an object always appears vague and inconclusive, while aspects of other objects can become sure, clear
and loud. Certain objects assert themselves and I may not know why, but sufficient interest is generated to
follow through with the investigation. In any case I bring these things together to sustain ambiguity
because it is ambiguity that spawns my interest in the first place. In "Triple Action Relief' I have been
using a ffNI key images as repetitions, which I observe have had an effect on the thematic development of
the suite. I will use a snippet of an image, or crop an aspect of the original element, and use it repeatedly.
The function of keeping concept enlivened through the use of scale and proportion are compositional
elements employed in the work. I invite and entertain technically controlled accident because that
occurrence usually promp~ alternate ways of resolving the visual problem when it comes to surface
manipulation of the stone or paper. I am like a specialist in any science chipping at little minuscule
archeological fragments of social interchange and magnifying those specimens that become the dominant
elements, or voices, in a composition.
That's why a thermonuclear detonation has such an enduring quality for me. Its exciting, lethal,
unpredictable, absolutely sublime and erotically charged. Next to death itself, it is the prime leveler of our
times. I can never loose my fascination or use for that contemporary icon. I am seized to reconstruct
notions of intense personal, emotional and social extravagance. Pataphysical investigations without
answers to complex human problems offer temporary relief and imaginary solutions that exist for anything
at any moment. It is a little like Lewis Carroll's concept of 364 un-birthdays in Alice In Wonderland. That
you can have this big surprise when you are not expecting it. So it is with Triple Action Relief. Human

•

nature likes to kennel and meter concrete explanations to everything and compartmentalize that
information for safe and predictable review. I tend to think contrariwise to that notion, inviting the
unexpected to join me for tea. Inviting catastrophe to break bread and dismantle the compartments.

The energy and activity in your worle suggests a veiled presence that seems to position much more into

the idea than we can readily see. If the audience can't distinguish the substance of your
message, of what use is the triple action relief effect?
There's always an undercurrent of parody in signs and symbols that find expression in my appropriated
pseudo urban realism. A parody because, especially with the comedic titles or leaders, as I call them, they
are assigned for the benefit of lyrical inference and invitation. The phenomenon to really look for in the
work is precisely that point about usefulness, but the viewer will have to be conscious of his/her interest
and purpose for useful impressions when vifN'ling the work. I find the work useful and enduring, I suspect
the viewer may find the results useful as well but I won't guarantee that. I might say that the work is a form
of entertainment and that there should be no confusion with other forms of higher expression. You have to
consider that there is always more in the image than what is witnessed. What's more important for the
viewer is to think about what brought it on.
Of course, there is exploration of deeper considerations and I like to follow deeper considerations. Like the
evidence I have contrived for "Thermolmillennial Brown Studies". If I am unable to describe every

18

•

 •

nuance it is because I have been careful preserving as much of the original intent as I can. I am selfediting and allot of the initial clutter is thinned out as it surfaces. There are varying degrees of external
interference;. distractions, mundane concerns and responsibilities, but I attend to the whole job description.
1 believe that I may carry some of that futile energy back into the work, and rearrange it's u,sefulness. I'm

extremely active because I like burning a bit at both ends and my constitution and interests are,such that I
focus on how much I want to do most of the time. I want to keep on working the whole model of
production, making an inventory of the opus so I have many projects in areas that are going on all the
time. Which is the primary reason I am cross-disciplinary in my practice. It is just in recent years that I
have sustained research primarily in lithography.

Would you describe or define your obsession with multiple layers?

That would be a perfect indication of emotive symbolism at work. Hopefully at best, it is a pale reflection of
endoceptual processes. Look, I work it out like this, in sections or parts;

''there is a part of me that is very insular and
spare, and there's another part that's very
excessive and chaotic. Dangerous. There's a side

•

that extremely emotional and there is little
reasoning with that, hut there is also a side that
is very clear, reliable. Even predictable."

I voice the compositions according to intuitive responses to previously printed layers, images and colors
right from the start. 1hat observation may be assisted by a light, airy or introspective mood. Color defines
psychic heat and contains the emotive complex. What more can I possibly say? Layers are reflections of
the modis operandi of internal combustion, the heat that dictates image choice and color association that
is not always exclusively controlled. That is the way I work, with fragments and pieces, building and
rebuilding, shifting and cutting and inventing, hiding and discovering fragments in the psychic sandbox.

Traces of illustration and advertising trends from the analogue past tend to structure
thematic treatment in this suite. Are you romanticizing nostalgic desires in your privileged
experience! ls "Triple Action Relier effectual in examining the past to comment on the
present!
I believe it is. My consistent return to advertising sources of the 1950's is just that specific. I am drawn to
the state of things as they were just slightly before, and forever after, 1955. Adolescent jazz, blues, poem
and beat, the car industry, food and appliance production, airplanes and advertising, space rockets and
better weapons. It all makes me think again and again about the conditions of the world in 1955 when I

•

appeared. The appropriated images I use refer to all periods of human history though. Most often they
embody a complexity of opposites that force consideration of that which is beyond what we think we know.
So to my way of thinking, that which is unknown represents the office of creative invention and solution,

19

 and I am a clerk in that office as well. Aspects of mysterious, spiritual direction forms an intense
preoccupation with the measure of all things. I think in light of the current creative task, the work reflects
the weight, bearing and gravity of experience. Transcribing experiential process is the performance of a
lifetime.

•

I orchestrate forces or energies into principle components for a piece, inventing equations as a ~omfortable
private interest. Seeking out and resolving problems, whether global in nature or conspicuously selfinvolved, are as amorphous as they are sensory; perceived before they are visual or poetic. Well before
they can become language. Areiti's description of the endocept is appropriate here:

"The endocept is a primitive organization of past

experiences, perceptions, memory traces and
images of things and movements. These previous

experiences,

which

are

repressed

and

not

brought back to consciousness, continue to have
direct influence. In fact, the intention of the
endocept is not the image or impression but the
foundation

of psychic life

at

a

preverbal,

preconscious level. Though it does possess an

emotional component, it does not expand into a
clearly

felt

emotion.

Although

this

is

an

intermediary construct of the brain and is not
equivalent to actions, words, images or deeply

•

felt impressions and emotions, it is equivalent to
oceanic sensations that are felt as atmosphere or
intention."
Arieti.

IHow do you

see yoursel/1

Personally I never take too long a glance in any reflective surface for fear of getting entirely distracted by
self-induced narcissism although I am genuinely involved with that to some degree. Forcing an exiting of
self is a high priority and is a form of evacuation so that I can perform the work I do. It involves the giving
of myself to a considerable degree. If I didn't exercise in this way I would become shiftless, stupid and self
absorbed. I wouldn't see as clearly as I believe I do and I know I could become a proficient misanthrope.
So I have to out myself at every opportunity because I don't need to get lost in preoccupation's that are
unproductive and lethargic. I set up cerebral beacons to follow and plot the course avoiding major
catastrophe, but I am not always successful. I will set myself up for self-induced turmoil and upheaval
periodically because I know how to harness the energy of negative experience for the benefit of positive
collision. What I do see of myself is more like this:

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 •

•

Grip Tightly...Stop Barking
1998

 ''I like to live, to live my life intensely. I am the
type of person who loves his life passionately. Of
course, someday, I will die, but I have the
impression that when I die, I will die intensely as

well. I

will die

experimenting with

myself

intensely. For this reason I am going to die with
an immense longing for life, since this is the way

I have been living''.
Jody Berland.

Are you insular in your private life and creative practice?
I don't consider myself part of any group, school or movement if that's what you mean. I stimulate my
autonomy and tend towards solitude. I am not unaware of others, I just have my own agenda as does
everyone else. What I do see of myself is transcribed and reflected into the images I concoct, and this is
what is most important to the evolution of my thinking. I own an impressive array of psychological
characters and adjacent emotional variables that all require attendance and maintenance. I keep myself
occupied with various methods of extracting the metaphoric or symbolic quality out of myself because I

•

know it will synthesize into the work regardless of the medium. I am a biological, electrochemical machine.,
constructed of intensely elaborate and complex programming. I am wired with flesh, nerve, artery and
sinew, a gesture of creation and evolution. I am the result of the causes and effects of cultural collage. I
am a hodgepodge of minerals, elements and impulses, and I am the site of calm and balance. Intentionally
disrupting identity, disrupting the conspicuously stationary or apparently fixed and reliable attitudes of
reality in the midst of experience so it is difficult to be totally insulated from the environment.

Where is the purpose for Triple Action Relief located! How will it function beyond the
privacy of your own invented cosmology!
My work is mainly about vision, about seeing, as I have mentioned. In that sense every work to date could
be a fragment of an undefined whole. I don't see each work as insulated and separated from the larger
opus. You can converse with solitary fragments in any number of ways and many images I compose are
intended to function that way. I possess an obsessive/compulsive relationship with the energy I use to
make pictures, but I'm not interested in drawing others into that neurosis as it surfaces. What I offer
instead is temporary relief from the potency of that neurotic experience. Relief in the form of appropriated
images joined at the hip in a dance of representations, that are in keeping with the implicit beauty and
parody I find in the juxtaposition of images endemic to the cultural mainstream. So when you see my work
as a fragment apparently cut off and on its own, or as a single voice contained within a choral suite, you

•

see an open situation. You have to look for the incidental elements. You have to get beyond the linear
implications of what you see before you. I don't make that easy you will understand, because if the work is
complex and ambiguous then it is more a true echo of the likeness of psychological life and the shared
cosmology of those spaces. That is the location of the work.

21

 Since your wor'I, is comprised largely of appropriated imagery, are you not intimidated by
the legalitia surrounding the protection of intellectual propertyl
I prefer a total disregard of intellectual property, as I prefer as total disregard for my constructed identity. I

•

prefer instead the freedom of Eros, flux, alteration and invention through the exploitation of those
intellectual materials. I structure evidence of unstable societal complexities that I represent through the act
of appropriation. In doing so, I intentionally collage the world around me into alarming and exciting
propositions that belittles the profit-minded attitudes of intellectual property protection. I think we have
reached a moment in history that accommodates the disruption of those attitudes. They are much too
exclusive so I prefer the irony of that brand of theft as a combative exercise.

Do you feel the aspirations you have had as an artist during the last decade have initiated
another 'l,ind of aspiration, another directionl
The parameters of aspiration are not fixed. I have matured and I am in full operation with the work.
believe that every image or setting, regardless of medium has a relation to that continuous evolution.
Everything I do has an effect on the entire program. Triple Action Relief is a very different aesthetic or
aspiration compared to Corpus Hermetlcum. They are different in their bearing than the gravity of the
lesen und lernen suite or The Falling Monkey Motif. The Surrender Danny Nite Lite 1998, is

obviously distant from all of the above, as would be the painting Baked Plasma Inversion. So the
performance is an inclusive one that allows expression in variant forms. The aspirations widen there and
the impact of those conclusions are brought to bear upon other interests.

•

Style and manner in your wor'I, has changed from one project to the next. There seems to be
no real location for the indelible mark of your own hand, but there is definitely a "look" to
the work regardless of medium. What do you think that isl
I resist being pigeon-holed as looking one way or being one kind of artist or another. I think style is a soiled
concept and a brittle cultural convention that is similar to compartmentalizing information for safe review. I
change because I appropriate, and the exploitation of those elements brings with it the difference I am
seeking. I do not care for a style in the work but there is evidence that a work may be mine. Sometimes I
lapse into relating a completely fictitious author for the work, but it is still my product. I am polymorphic,
polysexual, and I do not want to occupy any specific area or look like a specific type by whatever relation I
have. I resist all definitions of immutable identity. People will say well, how can you do that successfully?
That is the privilege of my private experience, you cannot witness the polymorphic effect but you can rely
on

my explanation because I can exemplify some of the terrain. I like changes to continue without

restriction. There may be evidence of my hand but the moment I see that concretization occurring and the
signal then is to proceed in another direction.

•
22

 1• thal evidence at worl, then in "Thermomillennial Brown Studies"f Thia worl, may lool,
.nolhi1111 li11• th#! other pieces, yet does it share a thematic proximit:,1

· l'hermomillaaial Brown studies is a crazy thing

·''Ei;(ormof frenzy performed

in itself. It is really a form of instrumental composition,

as a Scherzo in three movements. I would define that frenzy fo·r this piece as

·· ·· ~~ness, the insanity of mutually achieved destruction, which, like the definition of Scherzo, is really a

J91<e.

The whole delusion of social equality and serenity and safety is coming undone in a self fulfilling

prophecy, melting in the intensity of thermonuclear discharge. The entire complex of civilization irradiated
and· no one escapes. Well, anyone who is not protected and in control of the exchange. The piece is a
visual invention, more an anticipated conclusion for reality if we all really work at it. This is a very real
threat. The suggestion that the world has the means to sustain that level of annihilation absolutely levels
any cultural or political or et_~nic borders and boundaries that exist today, so why have them in place at all?
What is the meaning of freedom if we live with the threat of annihilation every minute? What good are
rights and privilege if two or three key people decide what the targets are? If that decision were to transpire
there would be millions of friendly casualties. I am angry in this piece as I participate as one of the many
sorry friendlies who will in a millisecond, perish under the heat of exploding hydrogen suns, the hammer of
intensity descending. Something of a cultural nightmare is constructed in this work, my nightmare is our
inability to communicate effectively and to put down the powers and technologies that hold us in jeopardy.

•

Every atom of meaning will be lost should this ever come to pass .

The idea of Scherzo as a compositional motive for Thermolmillennial Brown Studies comes
again. directly from intense musical adaptations you impose on the work. Is anyone eu,e
liatening besides youf
That's an internal materialization and my mouth is not a speaker. I can't project the aural exactitude of
internal things, but I can infer them visually. Weather the viewer knows music or not is beside the point
completely. I am interested in setting up a legible clue, an introductory remark designed to invite
participation. Music being the invested interest it is, I become a closet conductor in gestural evacuation
imbuing the work through an invented osmosis. That's my invisible experience of internal invention and my
gift of visual invitation. I think I am able to transcribe sensory delights to my satisfaction when the piece
confirms the visual game.
First of all, both triptychs, Thermonuclear Brown studlee and the Course in Temporal Mechanics,
although graphically opposed, proceed as fugues. Simply, three voices interlaced and speaking together.
Specifically to Brown studies, scherzi and invenzioni, the Joke and the invention assume graphic relations
of three, as in Sink or Swim. All accidental occurrence of three, the materialization of triple action relief as
a fugal motif.
The Italian plural, scherzo means a joke. Today the denotation is applied to instrumental music, more like
contemporary forms of sonata. As intended for the , ~ evolution of this form, the meaning of the

•

word was not to be taken too literally, so I'd say Brown Studlee is actually marked scherzosamente;
playful. A playful joke with even visual temperament that is wry disrupted and exceedingly hot.

23

 Brown Studies unfolds as three small jokes. It is extremely complex visually, slightly congested and
dense, but quite frankly, this fugue builds visual pressure as an approximation proper to the form of the

scherzi or invenzioni I am telegraphic and music is the aural frequency that projects images onto the soft
terrain of imagination. As this piece emerged the density of three's appearing was too obviou~ to avoid and

•

that is how I arrived at the title.

Cynicism and humor appear to collide in the piece "Grip Tightly. . . Stop Barking». What i8
the undercurrent of concern in thia piecel
The underlying homoerotic motive came from the same resource pictures of seamen in training together
that I used in Sink. . .or Swim. The sailor climbing the rope was one of those images. I was amused by
of the man's interest in his erection, or me and mine, and perhaps his
the rope as a probable extension
;,
interest in the erections of his seamless. Because it was a military training scenario, I like to poke fun at
the potential homoerotic undercurrent at work in groups of men and boys in their exclusive homosocial
cliques. The rope emerged from between his legs like a mystically possessed hemp-snake of a penis. This
reminded me of East Indian snake charmers, the way they can put a cobra in a trance, making it waver to
an'd fro.
When men or boys masturbate we know their sex wavers to and fro as well, only with more determined
attention and vigor. A totally goal-oriented activity that I play as a motif of control. This seaman had a
handle on his rope, which introduced an onanistic theme for the lithograph. I ended up trimming the top of
the rope to resemble the glands of a penis, isolating that portion against the natural color of the paper well
above the scene below. The caption of the original picture, Grip Tightly, became the title for this piece.

I

Every male has to grip his erection tightly in order to pleasure himself so the underpinning I imposed on
the composition was one of masturbation and homoerotic attraction.
So I am really talking about the control mechanisms that deem masturbation somewhat unworthy or
indecent and secondary as a sexual activity when compared to heterosexual intercourse proper. Two of the
floating collars are actual line illustrations of anti-masturbation devices· from 18th century France. These
devices were prescribed and indeed worn to prevent insidious habits from getting out of control. Much as in
the same way, the remote controlled, battery operated anti-barking collars were used to prevent dogs from
excessive barking by delivering a shock to the throat of the animal. Pavlov's dog incarnate. Either way, the
equation was about control of sexual functions that are natural and necessary. Pseudo-scientific control
administered from a distance. Like barking for dogs and masturbation for human males is something
worrisome and something to be regulated. I simply played that up until the scene was complete. other
compositionat elements from pornographic sources were tactfully edited and added to enlarge that view.
The blue boy in the lower right hand comer is masturbating in the original image, but I thought one doesn't
need to become so literal. Allot of other artists can take care of that, I take care to be slightly underhanded.
I think allot of viewers will catch this innuendo. It is a comical and delightfully hot little lithograph.

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Recurring themes of youth, beauty and homosexuality are especially evident in much of your
work. You may talk about obse88ive/compulsive moral control of private sexual expre88ion
and conduct, but what are you really attempting to describe? Are these icons profoundly
personal, more about you then the society in which you frame theml
As I have said before title and image moving in concert conduct double suggestions in what ever I do. The
themes encircling homoerotic experience make no pretense about weather issues of homosexuality, or of
sexual difference in general, may ever be integrated and forgotten. Sexuality is an evolutionary uncertainty
as well as an intellectual one. I firmly believe and endorse the autonomy and subversive strength of
difference.
The erotic beauty of boys has emerged with visual culture throughout sexual history. Every variation of
human sexual interest of which attraction to youth is one, and that evidence is sustained in history. My
work reflects ideas about th.iS perceived beauty, because I am also attempting to reflect the kaleidoscopic
variations of sexual expression as a basic expression of human pleasure and imagination. In many of the
works I have completed prior to this suite, I dedicated the exploration to pertinent homosexual issues
surrounding the beauty of male youth because I have that understanding. Even this aspect of experience is
played out in the social battlespace but it is one aspect that has an ugly face. Attuned to the youth sex
dilemma as it unfolds, extraction's are made to benefit understanding and initiate discussion of sexual
inclinations that cannot speak their names. I neither condemn nor condone.
Private imagination thinks what it will and fantasizes what it likes, and that is entirely private. Yet that

I

private fantasy today is amplified digitally, broadcast to the publicly and anyone can have access. Today
any interested party can examine the gamut of everyone's imaginary menu. There is no regulatory
governmental body dispensing mandatory microwave imaging-collars to offending foreheads, collars that
telectronically transmit morally questionable private fantasy back to the God Head of police operations.
The police and government and the church would love to improve on that technology, and quite frankly,
they do. An immense push to the extreme religious moral right strengthens intense anti-behavior. It would
appear that all kinds of fevers are surfacing as we reach a tremendous millenarian pitch in this moment of
the world. Our knowledge of our bodies has been changed and amplified by virtue of virtual constellations
entering our precarious biological fragility like another virus.

In the print Emergency &cape Velocity you portray a youth escaping from potential danger.
Surrounding him are icons of popular culture, electric razors, Tootsie Pop planetesimals
and fl.ash 1aoods. What is he really escaping from? Why do these things escape with him?
He is escaping the gravity of history. Aided by a contemporary gold version of the Tyco Monolith from 2001
Space Odyssey, and everything that icon evokes, the shuttlecraft icons of popular culture are the tell-tale
traces of historic meaning in a fit of escape. You must understand, I spend allot of imaginary time in deep
space and watch films and TV programs that depict and sustain that situation The boy, an erotically
charged archetype, is auto-referential. I came to this image while reading Baudrillard's "The Illusion of the

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End". The chapter on "Pataphysics of the year 2000· held significant confirmations for the formulation of
this idea and its relation to the thesis core. In the opening lines of this chapter Baudrillard recants Elias

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 - - - - - - - - ~ ----------

Canetti's maxim that ·a11 mankind suddenly left reality". That was the line that brought about the image. Let
me quote,

"Canetti's expression ' all mankind suddenly left

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reality' irresistibly evokes the idea of that escape
velocity a body requires to free itself from the
gravitational field of a star or planet. Staying
with this image, one might suppose that the
acceleration of modernity, of technology, events
and media, of all exchanges- economic, political
and sexual - has propelled us to 'escape velocity',
with the result that we have flown free of the
referential sphere of the real and of history. We
are 'liberated in every sense of the term, so
liberated that we have taken leave of a certain
space-ti.me, passed beyond a certain horizon in
which the real is possible because gravitation is
still strong enough for things to be reflected and
thus in some way to endure and have some
consequence."

I

It was this passage that brought about a recognition that pataphysics in the year 2000 was precisely the
point of departure for Triple Action Relief and that I may be partially on the right track in my thinking. So I
had to take advantage of that moment and explain it to myself visually. When Baudrillard said "a// atoms of
meaning get lost in space», I knew I could proceed with the construction of Emergency Escape Velocity.

The image is based entirely on his statement.

''Each atom pursues its own trajectory to infinity
and is lost in space. This is precisely what we are
seeing in our present-day societies, intent as
they are on acceleratin1 all bodies, messages and
processes in all direction• and which, with
modern media, have created for every event,
story and image a simulation of an inimite
trajectory. Every political. billtorical and cultural
fact possesses a kinetic tnu11ra which wrenches

from its own space 11.Dd propels in into a
hyperspace where, since it will never return, it
loses all its meaning. No need for 1eience fiction

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 here: already, here and now, in the shape of our
computers, circuits and net works we have the
particle accelerator which has smashed the
referential orbit of things once and for all."
Jean Baudrillard

1 wanted to talk about getting away from the past in a big way, even though that meant using the images
that denote the thicket of history. I mean, that's the parody in this piece, the joke that nothing really exists,
and that there may be a way to escape everything historic. The proposition of escaping from meaning
propelled this idea into a firm visual commitment to uncovering the wealth of imaginary solution. The visual
conclusion makes me laugh, and if I laugh I am pleased and relieved and can maintain happiness. The
weight of history is lifted into the sphere of the imaginary where it collides invisibly with the infinite, knocks
itself out of the referential orbit of meaning forever. It was a way for me to satisfy creating an opening for
evacuation through the image of an imaginary escape.

That position becomes a paradox for you then doesn't it? It is a contradictory position to
hold when you look at the images you use to make a statement, and it would seem that you
may be the only one enjoying this joke?

I

If you examine "Give Us This Day'', you can see that, paradoxically deeper concerns will never escape
referential orbit. How can I escape the reality of recognizing that a third of the global population is starving
and dying in poverty when I fry my eggs and eat my cake? Contradiction can become quite fruitful as a
graphic device. I do not wish to escape the reality that I have a bed and food and a toilet, and I think
everything in that sense is a dangerous paradox and a dreadful joke. I am not laughing here as much as I
am in Brown Studies, but you can see I've employed the smiling urban housewife again as the
representative of the 5 food groups. A part of me recognizes that the privileged position I occupy is not
altogether comfortable. We are not immune to poverty eventually knocking on our safe little doors one
night as the whole societal complex collapses because of devaluation in property and currency. At times I
welcome that situation to unfold tomorrow in our privileged battlespace. How I observe and comment on
my position as a visual artist in the mean-time, is to investigate the severe nature of inequality as the
human joke in all its manifestations unravels in the lithograph.

Death appears in many guises in your work, and you look at death with a fascination that
borders on fetiahiam. Are you commenting on life and death principles as a potential
learning tool, attempting to synthesize something of the two?
I cannot succeed with every pataphysical synthesis, but the fascination about cessation to life is equitable
to the erotic content in the work, and those let motifs evidently take precedent. I am preoccupied by intense
subject matter. The repeatable example of life forces expiring is that split second when sexual convulsion

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becomes a reminder of complex duality. Typically we want to sleep after after we have expired. We wish a
return to the unconscious infinity of sleep and the imaginary cosmos of dreams.

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 "One third of our lives is spent in sleep. It is
consolation for the troubles of our waking hours
or atonement for their pleasures; but I have
never known sleep to he mere repose. After a few
minutes'

lethargy,

a

new

life

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begins,

untrammeled by the limitations of time and
space, and undoubtedly similar to that which
awaits us after death....... "
Gerald Nerval I Aurelia

So I employ clues about the color of death, about the surface texture of ecstasy, the hues and tonality of
dream life that varies according to an unannounced interior plan according to the visual inventory of
imaginary solution. That mechanism focuses on death frequently. Individual death, my death, the death of
millions, the death of the psyche, the death of politics, the death of fashion, of history, commodity and
economy. I attempt to convey the meaning of inevitable cessation, a peculiar preoccupation, by designing
its opposite. There is a sublime dualism at work there. I believe through the intentional, tactical deployment
of comedy, parody, pun, metaphor and clues, the foundation upon which I have conceived my theater of
invention is a masked tragic figure, and always speaks about death with a smile. I like things that resonate
beyond the physical and I have invented this entire atmosphere precisely to satisfy that contingency. I am
fascinated with death because I anticipate my own as the concluding, central project to everything I am
learning. It will be the moment I do my best work.

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With a "Course in Temporal Mechanics", I find your inference of a double suggestion
slightly problematic. As this piece is the complimentary fugue to Brown Studies, how does
this equation operate contextually?
The title is the clue really. The situation could be an academic environment and a path or direction one
navigates. Both occur simultaneously, which to my way of thinking reflects the operations of internal
dialogue. The dialogue is between subjective past and battlespace present, and the marvelous state of
awareness that is a vehicle for negating and progressing beyond the moment. By inducing memories to
emerge in that space, the temporal rupture provokes alterations that cancel out the relationships between
past and present, cancels the relation between meaning and substance and permits free association. That
is how this piece works for me. That is my experience of it.
At the point of cancellation, which is much like the point of collision, the substance of pataphysical
evolution takes place in the guise of a temporal examination, and the problems that construction carries.
That has become the theme. The fragmentation of multiple meanings are indicated graphically. DNA
strands, flying fish,

illuminated mandellas, red shift indicators and electro-chemical reference are in

relation to temporal problems that become the psychological variations of that composition. Two and three
part inventions, variations on a basic theme. Again, a musical leitmotif albeit a private one. As far as the
relation to Brown Studies goes, even nuclear fission is a demonstration of temporal mechanics. So time,

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which slowly and evenly consumes our lives, and potential nuclear annihilation that will consume our flesh,

has become the architecture for the equation.

It would appav that the problem11 of existence are carried over thematically ,into Limited
Nuclear ~ and arrive again on the threshold of nuclear fetish. It appears everyone
faced with destruction in Triple Action 'Relief is smiling. Why?
They comprehend the joke and are no longer afraid of dying. No one in this cosmos is terrified of time
suddenly stopping, and they evolve in their stories as happy and contented folk who have found relief. The
smile as I have mentioned, is the sign of acceptance and indifference, it is a wry smile that knows
something about the realm of things that cannot be expressed. The juxtaposition of elements in these
compositions enlivens the smiling subject as they take a philosophical look at the events unfolding within
the battlespace. It is the sjgn of the game they are expressing on their faces. They are aware of the
processes of invention and imaginary solution.
The falling monkeys are a recitation of an earlier work that once again talks to the mythical fall from grace.
They are comedic, puckish imps, joking and fooling and playing with what little they have control over.
They control their descent, unable to reverse their direction they make the best of it on the way down.

•

Hou, would you like to end this interview? Are there considerations for neu, projects next in
line?
Triple Action Relief has brought about the opening of an entirely new constellation of possibilities.
Although there are several images still to follow for the completion of this suite, I am enthusiastically
devising new strategies that will elaborate on what I am presenting here. I am in mind of that work as we
speak, notations already developing. Much of this new work appears to require a three dimensional
presence, something to fill a room or a wall. Another part of this evolution is wishing to reveal itself in oils.
There is much to be done still in the print medium as well so the menu for my relief is apparently
continuous. I have added and amended allot to my current investment with the images in this suite, and
now I am pursuing the next phase. I'll leave you with this to consider, the quote speaks eloquently about
the properties of this and the next phase.

"l believe I may • . .conjure up the perversity of
the relation between the unage and its referent,

the supposed real; the virtual and irreversible
confusion of the sphere of images and the sphere

of reality whose nature we are less and less able

to grasp" . .. in the pursuit of questions about the
relationship

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between

representability

and

subjectivity, it is no coincidence that death
provides the thematic venue for those questions
the object of repre.entation is not the

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 experience of death itself, but the confrontation
with it ... being in the process of dying cancels
out the possibility of participating in the act of
representation ... we cannot narrate or describe

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death in the first person ... when we represent
the living body, or bodily experiences, death is
always present ... to be aware that in moments of
pain and ecstasy a loss of self is inflicted on the
body as a prefiguration of death ... the difficulty
of representing the experience of death may be
clarified by examining the interaction between
,,

visual representation and looking''
Jean Baudrtllard. The Evil Demon of Images.
(emphasia mine).

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