Artistic Statement

In keeping with the theoretical convictions of my book, In The Blink Of An Ear, my practice is concerned less with the results of an artistic process than with the process itself. My work is situation- (not just site-) specific. I am always looking to question the assumptions of the context in which the work will be experienced and to draw attention to the latent and local constitution of power and persuasion. This demands a critical posture, tilted at media, institutions, formal conventions, art history, and ideology. I see my work as part of a lineage of immanent critique shared by post-Cagean musical and gallery practices – a line that includes the sonic arts, conceptualism and performance.

Form is that which has already been carved out of the strata of experience by the influence of culture, ideology, and habit. The work is merely a catalyst, highlighting certain features of certain forms and nominating them as germane to a given situation. The 'craft' of my practice, lies in the framing of the experience, to include specific effects and exclude others; what Herbert Muschamp once described as 'the spontaneous organization of individuals around the act of paying attention.' The work of my work can happen after and outside the exhibition or performance, when, in some moment of casual connectedness, a sinewy association might coalesce.

Practically, my work often confuses the category of the work itself with its supplemental materials. This allows the work to leak into the world and vice versa. The presence (or absence) of documentation becomes a crucial question. More often than not, I am content to leave the responsibility of archiving the work in the hands (and heads) of those who have encountered it. Like a friendship or an affair, the truth exists only in the impressions left on, or in, the participants. In this sense, my 'mark-making' takes place, not on paper or canvas, but on the palimpsest of individual memory, intellect, and emotion.

Common to all my work is the invisible caption: 'Nothing is so obvious that it’s obvious.'