On a regular basis I'm asked the question "what do you think you were doing?" and I hate this question. I have no answer for this question as mind and body are not directly linked in that fashion. I could tell you in great detail what I currently AM doing but I couldn't not tell you with any great insight as to what I THINK I am doing. The thought process ended a long time before the action has begun. This action is outlined and better explained in William S. Burrough's "Discipline of DE" (Do Easy) as the following excerpt summarizes:
"DE is a way of doing. It is a way of doing everything you do. DE simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage which is also the quickest and most efficient way, as you will find as you advance in DE"
"Now some one will say... But if I have to think about every move I make ...You only have to think and break down movement into a series of still pictures to be studied and corrected because you have not found the easy way. Once you find the easy way you don't have to think about it. It will almost do itself. "
And then comes the problems. You know why you did it, you know what you did, you know how and where as well. But you weren't thinking at that moment in time. Without question there are many times in life when you must justify your actions but then justification never has anything to do with thought either. I could think myself a hero to steal money to give to the poor but I'm hardly justified for it if caught. etc.
So when it comes to the art making process, the concept of explaining work and what I was thinking during the creation is ludicrous but the following explanation never works: "you see, I wasn't thinking, I was doing. The concept existed long ago and the actions that were taken were simply the quickest and most efficient way of realizing the concept."
This especially doesn't work when the end result is what amounts to "shit" in the eyes of a critic. Which leads us into an entirely new vein of ideas: Must the critic (any critic--the New York Times, some high falutin' gallery in the con-game art world, your mom, etc.) be a tangible reality in the world of the artist? Does the relevance of work in society matter? Is the subconscious the only recognizable partner in your dialectic? And should they be trusted? And, perhaps the real question is too obfuscated for the pseudo-intellectual critic--"what concept were you trying to realize?"
I'll leave off there for now. More to come soon.
