[Ladder Climb, still / 2006] Greg J. Smith: Your artist statement describes the plight of the protagonists in your video work as being trapped in an “inescapable cycle of trial and failure” and you also liken the structure of many of your pieces to a long-winded, anticlimactic “shaggy dog joke.” While many of the scenarios you create are seemingly hopeless, a viewer of your work is often invited to make an emotional investment and root for a positive outcome. So, with all of this said, how do you design your projects? To what degree do you think about the experience and engagement of the viewer? Do you set out to connect with them, or should your work be read as more introspective meditations on the experience of being in the world? Jon Sasaki: The viewer is of paramount importance to me, and I care enormously about what they think. I hope that the work touches on something familiar in the viewer… feelings of frustration, self-doubt, longing, whatever. My intention is not to exacerbate these things, but rather to point to some shared condition. I hope that, if people recognize something of themselves in the work, they find it comforting to know that others feel the same way too. Or at the very least I hope people find some form of escapism in the absurd humour. I want the work to be useful to people in some way. It occurred to me though, that maybe these things are only funny to me. Shaggy dog jokes are generally more funny to the teller than the recipient. They are long, clumsy convoluted ways of getting to something that could have been conveyed much more efficiently. Sometimes I think making art is like that. At times the effort far outweighs the results, something that takes months of studio time could maybe be communicated far more economically another way. With a hug or something, I don’t know. And sometimes the audience already knows the shaggy dog punchline, they can see coming it a mile away. I actually prefer it that way. Then it’s not about the need to hear resolution to a buildup, it’s merely about spending time together. GJS: I like this discussion about punchlines and hugs – both are refreshing descriptions of the response one might get (or need) after encountering your work. So, while I think it is clear how you feel about the viewer who comes to your work, how would you contextualize the ‘protagonists’ in your installations and videos? JS: Really awful things happen to those protagonists. For the most part, they are doomed to some weird purgatory of irresolution. Their narrative arcs are pretty much flat-lined, or at best, incredibly shallow sine waves. It seems a bit funny that my work often has its genesis in autobiography, because I honestly don’t see my own situation in such bleak, futile terms. I guess they are extrapolations of small frustrations and self-doubts. After a piece is completed and I step back from it, I usually oscillate between identifying with the protagonist and feeling some deep revulsion for the stasis he represents. There is a lot of pathos in these situations. People often approach the Flyguy and physically hoist him upright, trying to give him a momentary boost. Even though I don’t really invite that kind of ‘hands-on engagement’, I like that a bunch of cloth, thread and electronics can become a container for empathy. GJS: I know that your Electric Speed piece Gravity was largely inspired by a photograph. In this image, a stunt car is driving along the side of a vertical well and the driver is standing vertically with his torso protruding from the passenger window and his arms are outstretched as if he were flying. Could you describe your reaction when you first encountered this image and how it led to Gravity? JS: That photograph was the final piece in a puzzle that I had been trying to solve for a long time. I had wanted to talk about forward momentum, and the imperative to keep moving forward once in motion. I wanted to talk about the perils of deceleration. I had been pondering some other ways to approach it, but when I saw that photo in one of those free commuter dailies, it all came together. I love the gesture he is making… so triumphant, as if the potential dangers of his activity are out of his mind completely. The motorcycle rider in my Electric Speed piece, Alex Fox, makes a very similar gesture while standing upright on his bike. He is incredibly precariously balanced yet he creates the impression that he is oblivious to the danger. He circles quite happily. The image makes me think of Poe’s Descent Into the Maelstrom, which McLuhan was fond of citing.
[Gravity, still] GJS: Do you think the figure that “circles quite happily” works as a metaphor for the 21st century citizen? How do speed and daredevilry relate to the navigation of ‘supersaturated’ media environments? JS: The rider has a bit of an ‘everyman’ thing going on, but I guess I wasn’t trying to be all-encompassing with the metaphor. I’d be happy if some people found it relatable to some facets of their lives. For me the appeal of daredevilry is in the complacency projected, the rider’s apparent lack of concern for the consequences of his actions. That said; I don’t really know what those consequences look like when the metaphor is transposed back to the real world. i.e. what the analogue for falling off a cylindrical wall would be when referring to media environments. In fact I like it better when it’s an ambiguous, unstated threat. It’s a cautionary tale with no clear take-away. Sometimes I walk past construction sites and see those signs on the hoarding that say: “DANGER DUE TO ___________” and they have not been filled in with a specific hazard. In such a case I don’t know whether I should be on the lookout for falling bricks or sinkholes, and it makes me very anxious. I hope this video makes viewers very anxious, I prefer it when I’m not the only one who’s agitated. Maybe I see my role as the unhelpful guy standing around rhetorically asking: “should we maybe slow down here?” And indeed the rider has been literally slowed down in this case. The video was shot at a high frame rate which makes Alex appear un-tethered from the physical forces that enable him to stick to the wall. Slowing the footage down makes the centrifugal motion invisible, and the situation looks even more precarious than at normal speed. The piece is still a time-based work, but the slow-motion imbues it with some qualities of a still image. There is an immediacy to it; the whole pattern (albeit distorted) is legible instantaneously without having to wait for a sequence to unfold. McLuhan might have described it as ‘non-linear all-at-onceness’ or some such thing. Since the rider has no destination, we know as much about him at a glance as we ever will. GJS: Lets step away from pure momentum, unidentified sources of danger and triumphant gestures – could you provide a little information on the production of Gravity? I know you researched quite extensively to select an appropriate site and filming this sequence was no simple task. Please provide us with some context to understand how this work was created. JS: In the 1920s and ‘30s these motordromes were everywhere. In fact they were so common that performers had to look for additional ways to spice up the act… riding with live lions in a sidecar for example. Today, though, they are few and far between. I think there are still a few walls in North America, but they weren’t very accessible. So I decided to shoot one of the two remaining shows in the UK. I met up with the Ken Fox Troupe at the Cumbria Steam Gathering in the Lake District, and shot footage for two days. (I appreciate the irony of taking a long transatlantic flight, two trains, a bus and a one mile hike in order to make a piece about Electric Speed and the dematerialization of geographic distances.) But it was well worth the trip, the riders were incredibly generous with the access they granted me. I was allowed into the centre of the arena, tucked in among the parked bikes. That upward perspective was crucial to the piece, but tricky to shoot… I was in tight quarters, following the rider by doing pirouettes with the camera, trying not to bump any motorcycles off their kickstands. Initially I had considered shooting with a high-speed 16mm but in the end it wasn’t feasible. That camera takes forever to load, it doesn’t autofocus and requires 120v AC, so it was totally impractical. I opted for an HDV camera at a high frame rate and fast shutter speed. At the conclusion of every show the riders “pass the hat” by inviting the audience to toss coins into the centre of the arena. I was kind of worried about getting smacked in the face with a two-pound coin thrown from 20’, but I guess I should be glad I didn’t have to deal with any live lions during the shoot. |
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