I am not Damo Suzuki

This article on one of my favourite singers, got me reflecting on the improvisatory nature of my practice and of improvisation generally compared to the finished artworks we admire and commoditise. Here are a couple of gems from the interview. First one on the endless potential of the present moment: “I’m not interested in hanging on to the past because I cannot change it. If I cannot change it, I don’t want to spend time there. I like to spend time in the now because there I can create something new but in the past I cannot.” And... “Repetition is boring. Every performance should be a unique experience. If you watch Sheffield Wednesday, you don’t know the score before the game starts. Music, for me, is kind of like sport in that you don’t know any results before." What Suzuki is describing here and what distinguishes his performance art, it seems to me, from other forms of performance art is that he has no ulterior motive, no message for the audience to take away. Meaning is emerging only through the performance, moment by moment. Audience members could well record it on their phones, of course, but it seems he would be indifferent to the quality (of the recording, or his performance) because even a high quality recording of a great show would still be a dead object compared to his living, breathing, shouty, sweaty performance. As a kid, before I knew artists were a thing, drawing was a simple pleasure that absorbed me and I was similarly indifferent to outcomes. Drawings, finished or unfinished, were stuffed in drawers, if kept at all. An aimless flow of sorts towards no end. Dog-eared papers might have started stacking up at times but it was hardly a portfolio. Very rarely were my drawings tacked on a wall. I wasn't taken to galleries. That disposable, transient conception of art changed when I started going to galleries around the age of 17 (this 1981 show especially) and I fell in love with the artefact; the 'presentness' of the object on the wall, or on the floor. There it is. Right now. Me and it in a white room together. The artist long gone (in most cases). Why didn't everyone want to create something permanent? Thinking of my other passions, film and music, which pre-date my love of Art; the directors, actors, musicians, engineers and producers are mostly long dead but their products live eternally in the present and will persist for as long as there is electricity and devices to play them on. Permanence from impermanence. There are of course examples of improvisations that became great artefacts, primarily in jazz, enabling us via the wonders of technology to enjoy the performances many years later. I am a process artist primarily. My work comes out of practice; or more precisely, I act > observe > reflect > react and so on. Not by-numbers, through improvisation; a chain of decisions and actions. There's a basic idea and direction of travel, but no clear visualisation of the outcome. It's a process of discovery, moment to moment, like Suzuki's practice is for him. Unlike him, the meaning for me isn’t to be found in the process. That’s just the vehicle, however engrossing the activity. The purpose of my labours is to achieve meaning in the completed object; to be enjoyed or appreciated I hope for years to come, and long after I’m gone.