Apart from your work as a visual artist, you're also active as a performer & musician [ within the very subculture much of your artwork references]; is there, to your mind, a clear demarcation between these facets of your artistic output, or, to put it differently- does each aspect give you a vantage point from which to view the other aspect critically?
-Yes, I believe there is a necessary separation. But the live experience definitely influences my visual work. I am exposed to things and unique situations where my perspective is shifted. I think that is good.
Printed matter/publications are an important part of your oeuvre. They are, for the most part, 'zines, and, as such, have been reproduced using the xerographic process. Could you tell us something about your choice of method and what its aesthetic holds for you?
-I think it is an aesthetic choice and something I enjoy manipulating and using this machine but it has a lot to do with my familiarity with it since I have made zines for 18 years now. But I think artist publications are important for artists to kind of helm their work and ideas, work in interesting collaborations, etc.
Does the use of analog printing methods mirror of the use of analog synths in Locrian; are they essential to the sound/look of the conceived piece?
-I never thought of it that way. Locrian isn't exactly the most pure analog band though. With Locrian it is mainly because people throw away these devices for new ones, there is a planned obsolescence in technology that is disturbing.
How do you go about compiling a zine? Is there a lot of planning beforehand, or is it more of an organic approach? Or does the process vary per zine?
-I plan a lot, sometimes months ahead, depending on the collaborator and elements involved. I have a lot of ideas and printing methods I want to use so it all come together. But the process is different if I do different printing methods. Or if I include audio or a DVD. So like with LEADLIGHT I xeroxed by hand every page in all of the editions. But like with DARK MATTER/DUNKLE MATERIE I sent it out to be printed since I liked that printers intense dark pages of toner. So I tend to think a lot about the mysterious aesthetic.
Is your work crafted with a specific demographic in mind? Does it intend to clarify a subculture to 'non-initiates', or is it designed to speak in a visual rhethoric that appeals to those already in the know?
-I feel that its an easy thing inside the subculture and outside it is more difficult to convince. But I strongly feel that my observations are somewhat universal, they speak to a larger tendency in human expression to generate ritual and systems of belief no matter how profane. I think if I can give them an opening into something mysterious then maybe they'll want to know more. Typically insiders are more jaded, the excitement has been sapped out by the blogs and insider positioning.
Your work might, for all intents and purposes, be described as dark. What is the importance to you, as an artist, of light, both in the physical and the metaphysical/metaphorical sense?
-I think I have always been attracted to dark things, the abject, the transgressive. I want to elevate that state, I want to present it in a way for further contemplation. Bring its glorious mystery to light.
What is the practical apllication of annihilation?
-Annihilation is at the root of desire, to me all live music events are situations where people are drawn to the center of destruction to be annihilated into a mass and born as an individual again.
Can blackening lead to illumination?
-Of course.
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