EyePopBuzz
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JohnnieSteveCook.pdf
| Interview |
From: curator [mailto:curator@point-n-shoot.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 4:02 PM
To: 'Johnnie Steve Cook'
Subject: featuring you as the first artist? JOHNNIE STEVE COOK,
EPB: fIRST tRANSMISSION, to establish an online / blog based gallery space featuring you as the first artist? Are you game?
EPB: We can rewrite this to work up an interview we could craft together over sporadic exchanges…
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EyePopBuzz.point-n-shoot.com
tRANSMission:
Online Allthetime curated exhibitions of works that transcend or aspire TO ALTERNATIVE practices within the arts. We are uniquely concerned here at EyePopBuzz with illuminating the underlying process or practice of the artist not just the product. We are looking for work which transcends the wall, the wall street, the space, the scene and opens up the practice to new states.
oUR first feature examineS the works of Johnnie Steve Cook a <Midwestern media artist?>.
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EPB: Johnnie Steve Cook - a little background bio might be a good start - Of all the illustrious personalities who you've intereacted with over the years whom would you deem the most influential if any, in shaping your work or process and in what way. Consequently, should I ask is it relevant ? - can we look to biographical influences in order to develop a better understanding of the filmic narratives you throw up in front of us?
JC: Biographical Info, born in Kansas City not Raytown ...
Biographical Influences ...
Hmm, Clancy probably had the greatest impact ... required thinking and all that ... taught me how to research threads and follow them into the rabbit hole ... Gary Sutton also would need mention, Gary pushed in different directions and somewhere between those two I found a voice ... John, I would also have to name you in this Inquisition as well as John Ferdico, we all being on similar pages at that time and comparing crib notes etc and so on ... But Patric required answers for decisions ... Why did you do that? (you know, until he asked me that, I never quite considered what drive existed behind conclusions, which when you apply that to something like a decisive moment ... well ... so began the therapy ...
JC: More Biographical info ... born 1964, eldest son of native Missourians, one sister who is younger ....
The cigarette obsession ended 28 days ago ... eeps!
Some more biographical influences would have to include both my parents, Dad was a tinkerer, always taking things apart and reassembling them ... though I never followed in the mechanical aspects of this man I find a strange connection between his re-inventions of lawn mowers and and garden tillers ... small engine parts becoming metaphors for human foibles and misfiring romances ... revisiting these with the eyes of the tinker seems only appropriate given where I came from ...Mom was a seamstress and quilter ... again, metaphorically I find this interesting ... stitching together scraps of other things and making them into something else altogether ...The simplicity of my family life always left me scratching at it's edges and wondering why ... I learned a lot about looking and seeing from them ... about the potential of things ... a certain echo of wonder ... wow, who'da thunkit?
EPB: As I read the work and quite frankly I've been meaning to mention - there is a hell-of-a-lot of words to read here! Is this photography or is this a novel and if its not one or the other what the hell is it?
JC: You left out of the biographical Info, the three years of J school at The University of Missouri Columbia ... Images and text ... The relationship of the two have always carried a certain seminal quality for me ... Story telling, News Item, the exploration of this intersection that exists between these two types of media have always interested me ... How we understand ourselves though print and photography, the histories we bring to that mix and actually the separation between what is said and what is seen ... What we say and what we mean ... again, I think it is about the collision happening between these two elements ... those things left in the margins that I find most interesting and continue to explore ... the debris of our passing, left strewn about us in our own relationships in our own struggles to understand why we are who we are and not who maybe, we wanted to be ... Maybe, it is a language of disappointment or distraction, maybe it's only a filter, I'm not sure ... but that's why I am still looking ...
EPB: So, certainly biography/biographical influences are relevant in the work - are in fact seminal elements to your process and formulations of the narrative elements. As such its relevant to ask to what extent do the characters, emotional dilemas, directly reflect a biographical engagement/experience? Are we understanding who you are, why you are and are not ? Flights of fancy, fantasy are these emotional and intellectual flights of your own experience that you are attempting to articulate. Is this an extention/expantion of an autobiographical form?
EPB: Can we look to any particular series/set and deconstruct / flash back to the source of inspiration and follow that thread through concept to construction?
EPB: Some images seem to be borrowed or found - some are obiously photos you've made. How do you determine the imagery? Is the text source(s) relevant? Is there an underlying historical referrent beyond your own biography that you are connecting to ... a context building around any particular social / historical events that we should have an understanding of...
In example: AIDS epidemic for Nicholas Nixon or Duane Michaels perhaps or more historical World War II for the Dadists?
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Expanding the autobiographical form ...
Well, yes I suppose one would say that, starting with something very specific in my past, mostly something which may be very trivial in it's onset and then expounding upon it ... I will usually look for some sort of trigger element then, maybe photographic, maybe text and then just sort of run with it ... You might want to consider the acting exercise of sense memory ... Taking something most would consider a minor instance and exploring what it may contain ...
consider how scent can influence memory, or finding a small piece of memorabilia might impart some very specific response ... These sudden and sometimes strong epiphanies have a certain mystical quality for me and these brief little connections seem to carry an almost universal community along with them, not specific yet still shared on some level with almost anyone open to the experience ... Maybe there is some connection with Jungian archetypes ... maybe??? (is Batman a transvestite? who knows ...) ....
I usually hate to be specific with explanations of how things come about, fearing this will sort of close off more ephemeral explorations or interpretations but for sake of discussion, let's take a closer look at something and see maybe what can be found ...
This piece is from a fairly recent body of electronic work, digital in nature that I have been exploring for awhile: