Technique - virtuosity / application / costume
Medium - delivery method / container
Creator - messenger / vessel
Content - the experience
Concept - the thought
Execution - the body
The connection between the artist – the messenger, and the execution of their physical experience, dictates their work, their mind, their thought process, their everything. The work itself, a disembodied object, the artifact, acts as the concentrate from a string of moments expressed through physical action, to become thought/feeling made tangible.
Do we want to understand the object of the art or do we want to understand the person behind the object of art. When does the expression of a creative act, in and of itself, become the topic/subject matter of the work, in and of itself?
More simply put – does the object of artwork, or the deliverer of the work resonate more, and if so in what ways? For me, this question has a torn answer, as somebody who completely loathes the cultural obsession of personality over content; I reject the notion that the artist as personality is remotely relevant. However, I do believe the artist as facilitator of the work – deliverer of the work, is in fact utterly more important. I feel the act of expression is, in and of itself, the work. We/humanity/artists are the work. We are artwork. Our physical effort to capture and give form to our thoughts and our fleeting perceptions is the base level of the creative act.
Seen through the lens of an improviser, one does not execute finality, but one practices how to execute decision. Many choices will inevitably be the wrong choice within the context of a certain flow structure, but it is within the delivery of the choice that holds the subject matter of the choice. I am not looking to appreciate the deliberation of choices but the activation of choices. How one behaves not how one thinks.
I want to see the mark of the person. I want to see emotion. We are emotion. I want to see thought as action. I am not interested in seeing science as art. I am not interested in a logical rational art. I am interested in a messy, convoluted, questing, uneven, uncertain or clear expression. I want to see the act of creation, not the polished idea made manifest by technical virtuosity framed by months of deliberation. I don’t want to dominate the output of the work by my minds will. I want to see the work act as the record, the tablet that the word is written upon. I want to see work that is, in and of itself, the record of the messengers experience.
