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Arranging Tangerines Episode 2 - A Conversation with Anika Todd Part 2
76 Plays4 years ago
In this episode, we take a deeper dive into Anika Todd’s practice, the process of telling stories while exposing authorship, site-responsive residencies, and the expanded possibilities of co-opted public and private space.
Anika Todd (b.1992, Boston, MA) received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin. Todd is a sculptor/media artist investigating landscape and ownership; Todd’s work functions through acts of trespass -- simultaneously enacting and challenging systems that oppress, compartmentalize, and own in order to control. She has created site-specific installations in the US and abroad. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at VisArts Center, Richmond, VA and Co-Lab Gallery, Austin, TX featured in the Washington Post (2018) and Glasstire (2019) respectively. She was the recipient of a City of Austin Cultural Art Council Award (2019) and the Godine Travel Award (2017). She has been selected to participate in numerous residencies including Salem Art Works (2017), Haystack School of Craft and Design (2018), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019).
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Background
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Arranging Tangerines presented by Leiden Stater, conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
00:00:10
Speaker
Your hosts are me, Alexandra Silver, and Joseph Wilcox.
Guest Introduction: Anika Todd
00:00:16
Speaker
Our guest this week is Anika Todd.
Anika's Artistic Practice and Recent Work
00:00:26
Speaker
Thank you so much for inviting us.
00:00:27
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:00:28
Speaker
We just wanted to kind of talk about your practice.
00:00:33
Speaker
And I don't know if you wanted to kind of like start any particular place or... Yeah, I kind of...
00:00:41
Speaker
Maybe picking off of where we were talking about before about the work I just made for the show, for the NFT show.
00:00:52
Speaker
the long origin of that work is actually a nice place to start because it's was the beginning of me thinking about like at the digital a digital archive and photogrammetry as a tool for making that started in this place in West Texas so I was in grad school in Texas and so I I've been kind of making and thinking about
00:01:16
Speaker
that land as like a starting point for a lot of the work in the last couple years and um this specific place in west texas is called like um lake amistad and it's a it's a dam that's on the rio grande um and it's one of several so it's a part of a larger border project to straighten that river and turn it into a good borderline because when
00:01:42
Speaker
Originally, it was a desert river that just moved every five years and then the border would move, which was obviously a legal nightmare.
Environmental and Archival Themes in Anika's Work
00:01:48
Speaker
And so I was really interested in that space in general.
00:01:51
Speaker
And what's fascinating about Amistad in particular is...
00:01:58
Speaker
It's the home of these really ancient murals.
00:02:01
Speaker
So they're these 3,000-year-old murals of the Lower Pecos people that lived in this whole region that spanned the border.
00:02:08
Speaker
And when they built the dam, they submerged, like, hundreds of these paintings.
00:02:15
Speaker
But more importantly, the...
00:02:18
Speaker
The dam and the resulting reservoir increased the humidity so much so in the air, in the area that it changed the ecosystem, and now the murals are disappearing just based on humidity.
00:02:29
Speaker
Because what preserves murals out there is the dryness, and that's why there's an archive where there's none on the East Coast, per se.
00:02:38
Speaker
And so...
00:02:40
Speaker
I, through, like, University of Texas, I found and was working with these geologists that are... Archaeologists that are trying to make an archive of the murals before they disappear.
00:02:52
Speaker
And they're doing that with photogrammetry and other software and essentially mapping the area.
00:03:00
Speaker
And I think it caught my attention in lots of ways.
00:03:06
Speaker
And, well, I can go into...
00:03:08
Speaker
that area I'm still like turning over in my head because there's just so many overlapping histories with like water rights and the borderlands and this like also ancient narrative that's on top of it that's about like trying to preserve something.
Exploring Surveillance and Perspective in Art
00:03:27
Speaker
And so anyway, that was like my first translation of that idea or one of them was into like
00:03:34
Speaker
what would it be like to try to make an archive of something that was like never quite gonna do it justice um and then i started thinking about making an archive of people which is what i showed in the space but um yeah that that place also diverged into um
00:03:56
Speaker
I was, I, when I originally went out there, another project that I wanted to do out there was I wanted to try to fly a kite with a camera on it to look down at the border.
00:04:10
Speaker
Because the, and the short end of that is I became really interested in
00:04:17
Speaker
all of these spaces are kind of impossible to understand from the ground.
00:04:21
Speaker
They're just so massive and there's so many barriers in terms of the Texas landscape.
00:04:26
Speaker
You know, Texas is 99% like privately owned.
00:04:30
Speaker
And as an individual there, you have, it's hard to understand the place that you're in, in terms of like both physically and then as an outsider politically.
00:04:40
Speaker
And so there was like,
00:04:42
Speaker
I wanted to make an image of trying to see myself from above and see the space from above and do it in a way that wasn't included in a violent history that would be, you know, that is so associated for me with drones and, um, that kind of aerial satellite imaging technology.
00:05:00
Speaker
And out there is like very specifically, um, used still as a tool for violence against like people on the border.
00:05:10
Speaker
And so, um,
00:05:12
Speaker
That impulse of flying a kite on a drone, I mean, flying a camera on a kite as like a shitty drone, as a drone that I'm not quite in control of, is a lot of what I just kind of wrapped up in my most recent project, actually.
00:05:32
Speaker
I ended up, that kind of spun into the kite never worked.
00:05:36
Speaker
I left Texas.
00:05:37
Speaker
Pandemic happened.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:39
Speaker
but I ended up in New York here and was here last fall.
00:05:43
Speaker
And it sort of, it turned into, um, flying, flying a camera on balloons in, and I flew it in downtown Manhattan in the financial district.
00:05:58
Speaker
And, um,
00:06:00
Speaker
uh and so there's two videos there's one that is like looking in the windows of the buildings and that that one's like more kind of related I think to surveillance but also you see the balloons and the the the absurdity of like the trick itself and the other one is just looking down from above at myself and that one kind of has like the movement of the drone as like I'm not in control of it and the
00:06:27
Speaker
The balloon is like tethered to me with this rope.
00:06:32
Speaker
And so it's a two channel video.
00:06:35
Speaker
There's a one that goes up into the air and I'm looking down on myself.
Installation and the Role of Perspective in Art
00:06:40
Speaker
And the other one I like lower into the East River on a rope.
00:06:46
Speaker
And that one goes like down underneath the water into the depths until you can't see me anymore.
00:06:53
Speaker
um yeah so I built the my most recent show like about kind of around that video work um I built like a it had like a water sculpture that was a pump rope system and then also this like uh projection piece behind it too that had a material way and the video was like hanging in space so I I had these um
00:07:18
Speaker
They're sitting right behind you, actually.
00:07:20
Speaker
I only used one of them, but it's a hanging monitor box.
00:07:24
Speaker
So it was suspended from the ceiling and the floor and hovering in space.
00:07:29
Speaker
And there's one video on one side and one on the other.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like a little...
00:07:37
Speaker
That's great.
00:07:40
Speaker
I noticed there was a lot of work that you have trying to look from above down.
00:07:45
Speaker
Is that you trying to understand something or trying to... I know in your statement you talked about trying to control.
00:07:56
Speaker
So this bird's eye view and then there's also a lot of... Birds actually factor a lot in your work, in your previous work.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:08:05
Speaker
Can you talk about that a little bit?
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a good question because there's two sort of like directions.
00:08:15
Speaker
One is that bird's eye view, I think I've always had a relationship with and looking down from above as like inspiring awe.
00:08:26
Speaker
And it's an interesting problem for me of like bird's eye view and God's eye view of like sometimes it's awe and sometimes it's like a feeling of like
00:08:37
Speaker
ownership or control over the space and that they're very close and both are held in that and i think something beautiful happens when you leave the surface but also you everything is abstracted and you lose meaning and tactility as well at the same time and so i'm really interested in that like tension of when of what's lost in zooming out and like how to how to uh
00:09:05
Speaker
how to like hold some of the bodily, how to like reinsert the body into that space, you know, that can be so abstracted and absent of like, um,
00:09:21
Speaker
The tactile world.
00:09:22
Speaker
Anyway, so that's like the bird's eye view stuff.
00:09:25
Speaker
And then the bird stuff, I think I made two pieces that I think you're referencing to.
00:09:34
Speaker
And one of them is it takes some of the questions of ownership into thinking about Western scientific method and categorizing and organizing.
00:09:48
Speaker
So I made this...
00:09:50
Speaker
I found these dead birds outside my studio and I was I had been thinking about that like how to make an image of when something goes from
00:10:03
Speaker
taking things into pieces to understand them to like taking them into the pieces and then losing what, losing what the center of it is, you know?
00:10:12
Speaker
And so I wanted to alphabetize something that shouldn't be alphabetized and, or would lose its meaning if it was.
00:10:18
Speaker
And so I dissected the birds into like thousands of parts and then alphabetized them and made an image of it.
00:10:28
Speaker
And, um,
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like a similar space that I was just trying to articulate with the God's Eye view of this.
00:10:35
Speaker
It comes from a curiosity and wanting to understand more, but then also simultaneously something's lost in that process.
Challenges in Documentation and Archiving
00:10:44
Speaker
And you're trying to make sense of something that I don't think, again, it's impossible to kind of like make sense of the entirety of, we can't even explain, we can't even explain what a bird is scientifically.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:56
Speaker
You can admire it.
00:10:57
Speaker
You can, like you did, you took it apart.
00:10:59
Speaker
And then the outcome, you, the taxonomy, you said it was like, um, so to me, it reads almost like a musical score.
00:11:10
Speaker
Mm.
00:11:11
Speaker
Mm.
00:11:11
Speaker
because I have a little bit of history in music, but it just, it's almost, there's a rhythm to it.
00:11:16
Speaker
There's this, but was there a system that you were kind of trying to follow or was it just kind of just?
00:11:23
Speaker
Besides them being alphabetized, that's kind of it.
00:11:27
Speaker
Like I just organized things by lettering and then, and then obviously it's like, like aesthetic of just like spacing and, and,
00:11:39
Speaker
I think I was, I was interested in giving it an order, you know?
00:11:42
Speaker
And, um, yeah, that process was really, for me, kind of pushed me to an edge of like, uh, I learned a ton about a bird, but also it was like more gory than I, you know, I, more gory than I had imagined too.
00:12:01
Speaker
Um, that's,
00:12:04
Speaker
It's interesting because it kind of relates to the piece that you did.
00:12:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:12
Speaker
Where you found the deer and then you kind of just witnessed it kind of decomposing and becoming, going back to, I guess, its natural form, which is just nothingness.
00:12:23
Speaker
And then you just very poignantly at the end just kind of like sweep away the remnants.
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:29
Speaker
That's a nice relationship with the two.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
They feel like similar, like a revisiting of that.
00:12:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:12:38
Speaker
I was just going to ask if there's a common thread, because I'm seeing it, but I don't know if it's intentional, but I think it probably is.
00:12:47
Speaker
But in a lot of the work, it seems like it's about the failure of documentation or the failure of archives to actually represent anything real.
00:13:00
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:13:01
Speaker
Um, and so I guess I'm wondering like, and this is like kind of a shitty question because it's like what the work is supposed to be doing, but like what, like how do you, how do you kind of want the work to live in that question?
00:13:12
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:13:13
Speaker
Like what's, um, what, what do you kind of like hope for the work to do?
00:13:17
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:13:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:18
Speaker
Yeah.
Storytelling and Perspective in Art
00:13:22
Speaker
Um,
00:13:27
Speaker
I think it has to do with speed, maybe.
00:13:32
Speaker
I think of a lot of the works as slowing myself down enough to see that failure or slowing the viewer down by association of seeing the places where those archives kind of fail to hold the whole thing.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think about it
00:13:58
Speaker
But I guess that feels like the process of looking in general of like kind of trying to grasp and trying to draw around things and describe things like from outside of, you know, that's like the endeavor that we're all always engaged in.
00:14:13
Speaker
And so maybe this, um,
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think sometimes I wonder with my stuff, like I don't want to be like heavy handed with critique because I'm always at the center of like, oh, it's still me trying to see this thing.
00:14:30
Speaker
Like at the center, I'm always still trying to see it.
00:14:33
Speaker
But then at the same time, I'm like,
00:14:35
Speaker
looking at all the failures in the way that I'm trying to see it.
00:14:38
Speaker
Sure.
00:14:39
Speaker
So you're like seeing and showing at like the same time.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
I think it feels important that it's always centered with myself because it's not like this is a bad way of looking.
00:14:49
Speaker
It's just like, this is the best way I can come up with.
00:14:52
Speaker
And there's still all these holes in it.
00:14:53
Speaker
It feels like, it feels like more of the, yeah.
00:14:55
Speaker
And if you like see the holes, you actually see what the thing is even better.
00:14:59
Speaker
Exactly.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I'm always interested in that.
00:15:03
Speaker
I think a lot about, um,
00:15:07
Speaker
like uh telling the story and also showing who's telling it like and i think about that in in the work a lot and i think about it like with any kind of storytelling including like academic like anytime you're reading anything like thinking about who's writing and how we consume that information and expose it is like really interesting to me um
00:15:33
Speaker
And I think I always try to expose myself.
00:15:36
Speaker
Like, you know, I'm making an image of this thing, but also you're looking at me looking.
00:15:41
Speaker
And that feels like the center of a lot of the work, too.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:44
Speaker
I can see that.
00:15:46
Speaker
That reminds me of that piece you did Grounded in Culver.
00:15:52
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:54
Speaker
So the people interacting with the piece are viewing things, but they're being viewed as well.
00:15:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker
Which I found very interesting.
00:16:02
Speaker
And in particular, the jumping off point was that conversation you had with the gentleman.
00:16:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:16:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:16:10
Speaker
Which I found amazing.
00:16:12
Speaker
I don't know if you want to talk about it, but it was just like the fact that he was trying to live outside of society.
00:16:21
Speaker
Far enough where he could still get beer.
00:16:24
Speaker
Which I thought was great.
00:16:25
Speaker
This is Texas also?
00:16:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
This is Texas.
00:16:30
Speaker
But then he was outed by bird watchers?
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:33
Speaker
I couldn't help but think of the Central Park Karen.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah, the Karen.
00:16:38
Speaker
No, for sure.
00:16:39
Speaker
That was my feeling.
00:16:40
Speaker
I mean, I think, yeah, this is a little bit of what I was kind of mentioning earlier of like often the works start with like an interaction with someone that I have.
00:16:51
Speaker
And that story ends up getting like sort of buried or being not important.
00:16:56
Speaker
But with that one, it felt...
00:16:58
Speaker
like, it still feels important to the work, and I never quite found how it fit.
00:17:03
Speaker
Like, I think the work became pretty, like, pared down in a way.
00:17:08
Speaker
But I do love the story of him, and it feels important to, like, the center of that work is about, like, the ethics of kind of, like, deciding who belongs in a space or who has the ability to look.
Ethical Considerations and Space in Art
00:17:21
Speaker
And... And... And in that case, like, yeah, he was...
00:17:30
Speaker
Also, in conservation, I think...
00:17:35
Speaker
I obviously think a ton about the environment and, but I primarily like identify myself and my work as like thinking about how people, the, the places which people get stuck when they're like trying to think about the environment or, or get stuck and not including other people when they're like editing out, um, in order to think only about the environment.
00:17:59
Speaker
And, um,
00:18:01
Speaker
Or where it doesn't, it's not a whole conversation about, like, who's actually living there.
00:18:05
Speaker
It's not just a green space.
00:18:07
Speaker
And so I was interested in his story for that reason of, like...
00:18:11
Speaker
There was... I mean, it's pared down in some way, but it's such a crazy example of, like, people that are interested in seeing the environment, but only in the way they want to see it.
00:18:23
Speaker
And it's actually very tight and violent in that way.
00:18:27
Speaker
And so the work was kind of, like...
00:18:31
Speaker
trying to help us like it's all constructed lenses that are taken out of cameras and binoculars and other photo equipment and but instead of you being in those being in your hands they're like embedded in the architecture and so you kind of have to move around them it takes some of the agency away from like the bird watchers i guess which would be you in this scenario but um anyway and he wasn't
00:18:54
Speaker
congruous to them watching the birds.
00:18:58
Speaker
He took away from that experience and they had to call him out.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
Which is sad.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
Because he was not trying.
00:19:03
Speaker
No.
00:19:04
Speaker
And he lived on the site where I made that piece.
00:19:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:07
Speaker
So that was another part of it is that he was the, you know, this gallery...
00:19:13
Speaker
bought this lot in East Austin and they asked me to make the first installation there before they built the gallery space and knowing that I make site specific things and the only thing that was on the lot was him and he was living there and like and those this empty lot and so as someone like entering the space it just
00:19:35
Speaker
became important for him to like be a voice in it at least or or i like tried to adapt whatever i was thinking to like
00:19:44
Speaker
him as an element.
00:19:45
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it's it's more complicated than that.
00:19:49
Speaker
I mean, he was at the opening and chaos ensues, you know, which is, you know, part of it.
00:19:56
Speaker
But yeah, it's fun to hear that story and just mentioning like or what you were mentioning previously about sometimes like
00:20:07
Speaker
formats like this allow you to get at the work what what's driving the work even more and i like read a review of that show on the train on the way over here i was like oh this is a nice piece it's like you know it's interesting but like to know to know i mean it's it's a wonderful piece but to know the the backstory is like it's yeah i mean i i think that's true for for a lot of works but for i think for some works it's even more important right
00:20:31
Speaker
I'm trying to close that gap a little more.
00:20:33
Speaker
It feels like for myself.
00:20:34
Speaker
Cause I, I agree that I think it stands alone, but especially with that review, I was sort of like, damn, like,
00:20:43
Speaker
I didn't get it, actually.
00:20:45
Speaker
I feel like I didn't put the story back in it enough for it to get there.
00:20:50
Speaker
I mean, that's a personal kind of like challenge for myself.
00:20:53
Speaker
Like, how do I close the gap or tell more or bring it through more so that it's there?
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:00
Speaker
I mean, it's one reviewer, right?
00:21:02
Speaker
So it's like... No, for sure.
00:21:03
Speaker
But I think in general, that's like something I'm moving towards now.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
Of like thinking about...
00:21:09
Speaker
how do I hold that first story?
00:21:10
Speaker
Is it through writing?
00:21:12
Speaker
Or is it more apparent in the work itself?
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:19
Speaker
Which I do think brings up interesting kind of like aesthetic questions about what like an exhibition might look like, right?
00:21:25
Speaker
Does it include like, you know, research documentation and things that people can interact with and yeah.
00:21:32
Speaker
Can you do it with just a single thing?
00:21:36
Speaker
Do you need to augment it with like you said, documentation with the gentleman speaking in a video with an NFT?
00:21:43
Speaker
And then you run into the problem.
00:21:46
Speaker
of are people even going to engage with documentation material if you allow them to?
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:21:53
Speaker
But, you know, it's like who's your audience too because you guys would.
00:21:57
Speaker
Or it's like thinking about people that go more in depth.
00:22:02
Speaker
The option, especially with public work, of there's a first experience and then there's also a way to dig into it if you want to and that being separate.
00:22:14
Speaker
For sure.
00:22:14
Speaker
And first and foremost, I think you're right on in the sense that the initial thing has to be engaging, whether it be visual or sound.
Audience Engagement and Exhibition Challenges
00:22:22
Speaker
It's got to be in the very least engaging to as many people as possible.
00:22:27
Speaker
So then you can kind of continue to either bring them in.
00:22:30
Speaker
And your work does want to...
00:22:32
Speaker
Does kind of like ask To explore more.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, because you get the sense that this person's actually done a lot of research then right it's it's been thought out and then this that piece in relationship to the Monsoon Monsoon.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:22:51
Speaker
You took it up you found an abandoned building building and you kind of try to restore it or you kind of like
00:22:58
Speaker
It seemed like it was like a purposely not... I like fake restoring.
00:23:03
Speaker
I uselessly restored it as artists do.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, that...
00:23:12
Speaker
So Monson is this place in Maine.
00:23:14
Speaker
It's an artist residency.
00:23:15
Speaker
And I had like some, I had a hard time being there, to be honest.
00:23:21
Speaker
It was really, it was really new.
00:23:24
Speaker
We were some of the first residents, but also the, it was this kind of outside art world of the art world money that had given tons of money to this arts organization.
00:23:35
Speaker
And it was being run pretty weird.
00:23:36
Speaker
They bought like a whole town basically.
00:23:38
Speaker
And we're in the process of turning it into an artist residency by renovating all the buildings in a way that wasn't very sensitive and also kind of just like going like this on top of the town.
00:23:52
Speaker
And as someone, I mean, I worked at an artist residency in upstate New York in a really rural place for like three years.
00:23:58
Speaker
And I'm pretty, I'm really interested in residencies as like, they all deal with this problem of how to be.
00:24:06
Speaker
an insular culture of like outsiders that are like inserted into a place.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I'm fascinated by the different answers people come up with.
00:24:16
Speaker
You know, I don't have like, I think they're great things.
00:24:19
Speaker
And I think there's lots of different ways to answer the question.
00:24:21
Speaker
And with Monson, I just like had a lot of critique of that, their answers.
00:24:26
Speaker
And when I was there, I kind of couldn't, couldn't stop thinking about it.
00:24:31
Speaker
So I,
00:24:33
Speaker
I took myself out of the studio space they gave me and I found this house in the woods that was falling down in the town that actually was owned.
00:24:43
Speaker
It was owned by the residency, but they hadn't done anything with yet.
00:24:48
Speaker
And I, it was like an old hunting cabin and it was totally decrepit.
00:24:55
Speaker
And there was all kinds of like old,
00:24:58
Speaker
There was someone – it looks like someone just got up and left.
00:25:00
Speaker
Like, there was tons of shit in there.
00:25:02
Speaker
And I cleaned it all and, like, renovated one room, basically.
00:25:07
Speaker
But the house was, like, leaning, like, at a 45-degree angle.
00:25:11
Speaker
And so I had to, like, trim 45-degree everything.
00:25:15
Speaker
So everything was, like – it's hard to see in the photos.
00:25:19
Speaker
But it's, like, pretty wild, like, a lot of those –
00:25:22
Speaker
Like, in one of the photos, you can see the kitchen cabinets.
00:25:25
Speaker
And, like, all of those panels are trapezoids.
00:25:28
Speaker
They're not, like, squares.
00:25:29
Speaker
Oh, no way.
00:25:32
Speaker
And, yeah, I mean, it was pretty weird.
00:25:35
Speaker
That's one of the things, like, that is one of, still, I think it's one of my favorite pieces of, like, it just feels like mine.
00:25:42
Speaker
Like, it was just for me.
00:25:43
Speaker
And, yeah.
00:25:45
Speaker
Also, no one ever saw it really.
00:25:46
Speaker
Like they found the residency found out I was doing that and they told me to get out and they told me to take it down.
00:25:51
Speaker
And I was like, I made it better.
00:25:53
Speaker
I'm not going to take it down.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah, but I I don't know.
00:26:01
Speaker
Um, so, so for like that, that work and maybe some of your other, um, public works and like how you work with the failure of documentation, um, you know, like, could you talk a little bit about kind of like trying to actually document work in a way that's not like trying to investigate the failures of documentation, but like, you know, to, to document these things that nobody's ever going to see, but that you want to be able to share.
00:26:27
Speaker
Um, I don't know.
00:26:27
Speaker
What is that?
00:26:28
Speaker
What's that like?
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:31
Speaker
I'm getting better at it all the time.
00:26:33
Speaker
And I take, and I, it's like half of the work for me.
00:26:36
Speaker
And it's, it's, it's also not a surprise that I've ended up making video now.
00:26:41
Speaker
Cause like the first video I ever made was because I was trying to document the work, you know?
00:26:47
Speaker
And so, and then like, anyway, um,
00:26:50
Speaker
But I think with Monson, I just took before and after photos.
00:26:57
Speaker
But I don't know if it's enough.
00:26:59
Speaker
I mean, I think a lot of that, the story actually is okay.
00:27:03
Speaker
It does a good job, maybe.
00:27:06
Speaker
And there's one person, it's so cool.
00:27:10
Speaker
I have to share this story because years, a year later, I got a message on Instagram.
00:27:17
Speaker
from this guy who was like in his 30s and he grew up in Monson.
00:27:23
Speaker
And I don't know how he found my Instagram, but he like messaged me and he was like, I found your house.
00:27:30
Speaker
And it like, it, he got it.
00:27:35
Speaker
And he was like, I really respect it.
00:27:37
Speaker
Like I have been torn up by what's happened to the town.
00:27:40
Speaker
And I just like want to say thank you.
00:27:43
Speaker
And I was like, whoa, literally the one,
00:27:47
Speaker
person who the kind of who the work was for, but I don't know that person, like actually saw it.
00:27:53
Speaker
Sort of insane.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I'm done.
00:27:56
Speaker
Like, it's fine.
00:27:58
Speaker
That one's fine.
00:27:59
Speaker
I didn't need to like, document it.
00:28:01
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:28:02
Speaker
And like, to like, you know, to deal with all the kind of like, bureaucracies of
00:28:07
Speaker
the art world and like trying to do, you know, getting grants and applying for residencies and all those kinds of things.
00:28:11
Speaker
I imagine getting a message like that is, uh, very helpful.
00:28:16
Speaker
And yeah, in terms of supporting, I don't know, you know, just like psychologically supporting your practice.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:28:24
Speaker
It goes a long way.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:25
Speaker
I mean, I love this in the sense that some of my favorite artists like Jeremy Dollar and Glenn Ligon, every time they've gone to residency, it's always been they haven't dragged their shit and just kind of like continue their practice.
00:28:38
Speaker
It's just like an exploration of what the actual surroundings are and then doing something in relationship to it and maybe even giving back to the community, which I feel you kind of do.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker
And I really love that spirit.
00:28:49
Speaker
Having not participated in residency before, I would think that would be
00:28:54
Speaker
I mean, you guys probably, because you've been to a lot more than I have, or I haven't been to any residencies, but I imagine there's a contingency of people that just continue to do whatever it is that they have and they just kind of slap it on top of whatever it is.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:07
Speaker
They kind of like put blinders on as far as what.
00:29:12
Speaker
So it's kind of sad to me, but I appreciate that you kind of like take that into consideration.
00:29:16
Speaker
I wonder if I will be able to keep doing that, you know?
00:29:21
Speaker
I think it's sort of like, I love that part of it, but it's, it gets harder.
00:29:25
Speaker
I think when you're, you have to like have a show or something, you know, like part of it is just being wide open and being like, I can make nothing or I can respond to this place, you know, and not, and having that be really possible.
00:29:40
Speaker
But I love it as a prompt.
00:29:42
Speaker
I think it's a really good prompt for myself of like, it's a great challenge.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:47
Speaker
You're like, I have a month and I don't know anything about what I'm going to make.
00:29:50
Speaker
You didn't come with anything.
00:29:52
Speaker
You didn't come in with anything.
00:29:54
Speaker
No, yeah.
00:29:55
Speaker
I used to think that a badge to earn your artist badge is when you don't have to go to the art store to buy your supplies anymore.
00:30:03
Speaker
Oh, that's nice.
00:30:04
Speaker
What, you go to Home Depot?
00:30:05
Speaker
You go to Home Depot and you go straight to like a fabricator or something.
00:30:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:11
Speaker
Awesome.
00:30:16
Speaker
I just have one.
00:30:17
Speaker
I mean, one last question, maybe.
00:30:19
Speaker
So this, especially in relation to that last project, but I think in general, right, you talk about ownership a lot.
00:30:24
Speaker
We haven't really talked about property, which I think the two are obviously linked, but like a little bit different.
00:30:30
Speaker
So I'm just wondering, like, what's your like, what's your philosophy on property?
00:30:36
Speaker
I am.
00:30:40
Speaker
I am so interested in, like, un...
00:30:47
Speaker
on like designated like co-opted communal spaces that get kind of like used and they're loose and they get transformed all the time and I mean I grew up in Boston and just in you know it's a small city but still a city environment where those places were always the spaces where I felt like I had room to maneuver and to create my own reality and
00:31:15
Speaker
So anyway, I'm really drawn to those as like for all that they hold in terms of like a protest, but also just as like these like spaces where things are possible, which feels like when you own something and you have like a logical order about what's supposed to happen there.
00:31:32
Speaker
Like it just is a it's a series of like tightening down of like the things that are possible.
00:31:40
Speaker
I never knew how much I cared about it until I went to Texas.
00:31:43
Speaker
Really.
00:31:44
Speaker
I was really like I have just I never had lent this language before there because I didn't see it in contrast to the way that people think about property rights there.
00:31:57
Speaker
It's just like super strong.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:01
Speaker
And yeah, I think like that does a lot for like defining yourself in opposition, you know, and which maybe is like where I'm at now.
00:32:10
Speaker
But yeah.
Spatial Exploration and Influences in Anika's Art
00:32:12
Speaker
Cool.
00:32:15
Speaker
Did you grow up next, close to Walden Pond?
00:32:18
Speaker
No, but I haven't been there.
00:32:21
Speaker
Is that near Boston?
00:32:23
Speaker
It is outside of Boston.
00:32:24
Speaker
It just seems like it fits in within your model of like, you know, stepping away and being amongst nature.
00:32:33
Speaker
I have like a couple more questions.
00:32:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:37
Speaker
Gordon Mott-Clark?
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:39
Speaker
How does he factor in?
00:32:40
Speaker
Because I see things, but I don't know.
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, I love his work.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:46
Speaker
He's like one of my favorite of like that generation of land artists.
00:32:52
Speaker
Partially for his like, even with like the house split, like his just shifting of something.
00:32:57
Speaker
Like he doesn't go in with this like suit.
00:32:59
Speaker
I mean, I mean, it is a heavy hand, I guess, but it's more of just like a small gesture of like a one move and, and letting that move transform the space, which I really, I think I carry.
00:33:14
Speaker
yeah especially is it the one here with the water going down the rope did you cut a hole no or was there already a hole in place where you kind of like of the rope on the sculpture yes um no there's no hole in that it's like more of just a a water pump system okay yeah oh i thought there was like a something you had to cut oh in the top yeah yeah yeah no it's like a series of hoses oh okay it's like mm-hmm yeah
00:33:42
Speaker
Cool.
00:33:43
Speaker
And then the other thing, that interactive cave, I was really interested.
00:33:48
Speaker
You haven't talked about it, but it probably has the most relationship to the NFT that you made.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
I haven't.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:00
Speaker
A little tangential.
00:34:03
Speaker
One thing that's pretty fascinating in Texas is where I was living, there's a whole series of caves.
00:34:09
Speaker
There's a cave system underneath Austin that's really important for the geologists there as making an archive, because we've been using that word, but of understanding the water table in order to try to change policy.
00:34:24
Speaker
Because right now, pretty much you can, in Texas, you can just take as much water as you want if it's underneath your property.
00:34:31
Speaker
And so by understanding that it's a whole system, that's like how you start to advocate for changing legislation.
00:34:39
Speaker
So I became really interested in caves for that reason.
00:34:44
Speaker
But as I got more into it, like going down into the caves with these researchers, I was really struck by the reason those...
00:34:52
Speaker
that people are go down there is to feel small and like the similar feeling of like standing looking down on like a mountain top or something is to feel small and that you're like not in control and I am always fascinated by our need for that in a way and I uh anyway I made I wanted to make a sculpture that was about how
00:35:15
Speaker
you couldn't understand the cave just by looking at it.
00:35:17
Speaker
You had to like feel uncomfortable.
00:35:20
Speaker
And so I made this like, I made this exact model of the cave using photogrammetry.
00:35:27
Speaker
So it's like thousands of pictures all stitched together into a 3D model.
00:35:32
Speaker
That's like pretty exact.
00:35:35
Speaker
And then, so there's like a virtual look through of that space where it's very like machine-like and bodiless.
00:35:43
Speaker
And then,
00:35:44
Speaker
that is alongside this hanging sculpture that hangs like four feet off the ground that you have to like bend around in order to be inside of.
00:35:54
Speaker
Um, and that's made out of like an office ceiling.
00:35:57
Speaker
So that's like drop ceiling tiles and shit.
00:36:00
Speaker
Um, so, and those are like paired together.
00:36:03
Speaker
Um, yeah, but I, I really,
00:36:08
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:09
Speaker
I never, yeah, I would love to like experiment more with that cave model in like virtual space of like, there just seems like a lot more territory there of curating an experience through something and thinking about the ways in which it works as a replica, but also doesn't work, which is like what we've been talking about.
00:36:30
Speaker
And are you trying to give the experience of the awe that a cave would, that disembodiment of you being this tiny thing?
00:36:37
Speaker
I think so.
00:36:40
Speaker
And also, but I think so, but I think I was more, I was like, but you're getting more of it out of this office building thing that I made than out of this model.
00:36:49
Speaker
It was kind of my bad.
00:36:50
Speaker
Well, that's also the inability to kind of like, that's the failure of it, right?
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:54
Speaker
Because you can't actually experience a thing.
00:36:55
Speaker
So it was both.
00:36:56
Speaker
But something that really cool that happened with the office building thing is one of the coolest things in the cave is the looking at each other thing.
00:37:03
Speaker
Because when someone's ahead of you, you just see their feet.
00:37:07
Speaker
They're totally cut apart in terms of your experience of them as like a whole.
00:37:12
Speaker
And that happened with the office thing a lot.
00:37:14
Speaker
Like there was this relationship of when you're in it and when you're outside of it, like witnessing each other.
00:37:19
Speaker
And so that part, part like was actually very direct translation of what happens in the cave, which was interesting.
00:37:27
Speaker
Interesting.
00:37:27
Speaker
So what, like looking at the back of the heads of people looking at the Mona Lisa?
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker
No, I have like a really good picture, which I could show you.
00:37:34
Speaker
But basically, like when a lot of these caves, like you stick your top or half of your body and you're wiggling through and it's just like you just see the person's feet.
00:37:42
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:37:43
Speaker
You know, like that kind of thing.
00:37:44
Speaker
So disembodiment.
00:37:44
Speaker
Yeah, disembodiment.
00:37:46
Speaker
Interesting.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
00:37:49
Speaker
My parents are from the Dominican Republic.
00:37:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:52
Speaker
And there's these caves called the Tres Ojos, the Three Eyes.
00:37:55
Speaker
And you go in it, it's like a cathedral.
00:37:57
Speaker
Wow.
00:37:58
Speaker
And it's just the most amazing thing.
00:37:59
Speaker
It's like you just go in there, the water is like sparkling blue and clear.
00:38:03
Speaker
Amazing.
00:38:03
Speaker
The depth looks like it just goes on forever.
00:38:08
Speaker
you don't even want to do anything.
00:38:09
Speaker
You just want to just be.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:13
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I can, I can say they're really centering.
00:38:16
Speaker
I think it's, it's like, I found it centering even in Austin to be like knowing that they're there.
00:38:21
Speaker
Like you'd be on the surface doing your daily life and you like still know that those spaces are right there and that,
00:38:29
Speaker
that kind of like constant is like part of, I was interested in like how to make us think about that.
Themes of Transparency and Future Projects
00:38:36
Speaker
Cause that changed my relationship to it.
00:38:38
Speaker
Even when I wasn't in the space, you know?
00:38:43
Speaker
Um, I think I just, one last thing.
00:38:46
Speaker
Have you ever read the book, the fall by Camus?
00:38:50
Speaker
No.
00:38:52
Speaker
I think you might like it.
00:38:53
Speaker
Cool.
00:38:54
Speaker
It's about, it's a one-sided story.
00:38:56
Speaker
Kind of like the NFT piece you did where you had the conversation.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:01
Speaker
So it's one gentleman in Amsterdam.
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:04
Speaker
At a bar called Mexico City.
00:39:06
Speaker
Right.
00:39:07
Speaker
Talking to a stranger about a theft that he did, which is art related.
00:39:12
Speaker
Well,
00:39:13
Speaker
Oh, sorry.
00:39:15
Speaker
Oh, you're in it right now.
00:39:16
Speaker
I don't think it's a spoiler.
00:39:17
Speaker
It's definitely a spoiler.
00:39:21
Speaker
Sorry.
00:39:21
Speaker
Should I cut this piece out?
00:39:22
Speaker
Anyway, the idea of... What was it?
00:39:30
Speaker
Judge, so it's Judge Penitent.
00:39:32
Speaker
When I tell my story in completion to you, I'm telling you all my foibles and everything.
00:39:38
Speaker
You can't, you have nothing over me anymore.
00:39:40
Speaker
Because I'm telling you everything I've done.
00:39:43
Speaker
I'm telling you all the good things and bad things.
00:39:45
Speaker
It reminds me a lot of like what people are trying to do on social media.
00:39:48
Speaker
It's not working in that capacity, but it's just like, here I am.
00:39:54
Speaker
Now, where are you?
00:39:56
Speaker
And it's like, I've got all my shit out there.
00:39:58
Speaker
You have nothing over me anymore.
00:40:00
Speaker
Uh, but I, I think in relation to what I've seen your work, I think you, you probably get something out of it.
00:40:06
Speaker
Cool.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:07
Speaker
Um, that sounds great.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:09
Speaker
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
00:40:12
Speaker
No, that was fun.
00:40:14
Speaker
Jeff?
00:40:14
Speaker
Good.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:16
Speaker
Oh, uh, what are you, what are you working on right now?
00:40:19
Speaker
What's, uh, is that part of this segment?
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:23
Speaker
Well, I just wrapped up this show and, um,
00:40:28
Speaker
which was like kind of felt like conclusion of some of that above below work that we just talked about.
00:40:35
Speaker
But one thing that was exciting that was new in that was I kind of used color for the first time and it felt really good.
00:40:43
Speaker
I was like, this is cool.
00:40:45
Speaker
And I'm excited about, there was two things.
00:40:48
Speaker
I think,
00:40:49
Speaker
The things that I pulled out from that show was I used this... So I made this video of this very simple gesture.
00:40:58
Speaker
I've been sort of fixated on these... I don't know if you guys have seen when vinyl signs have holes cut out of them so that the wind can pass through.
00:41:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:41:07
Speaker
But it's just such a sweet gesture of cutting a hole in something to make it stronger.
00:41:12
Speaker
And I...
00:41:14
Speaker
The show itself was called To Hold Water.
00:41:16
Speaker
It was like thinking about all these thoughts about ownership a little more abstractly of like just trying to grab onto something that doesn't want to be grabbed.
00:41:24
Speaker
And so, but anyway, that video is like pink and the whole room was pink and it had this really, um,
00:41:33
Speaker
Visceral like bodily feeling it did that thing of reinserting your body and emotive creating an emotive space And I was like really interested in that alongside of like something that's more Didactic or whatever because of the video was on top of that.
00:41:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I want to keep working with that That's kind of like the realm I feel in moving towards I also
00:42:00
Speaker
I'm going to residency in a week, and it's a month long.
00:42:05
Speaker
It's in Connecticut.
00:42:06
Speaker
So maybe I'll make something that I don't know what it is yet.
00:42:08
Speaker
But also, I have been playing with these hinges that respond to temperature.
00:42:18
Speaker
They're like greenhouse hinges, and when it gets above 70 degrees, they open.
00:42:22
Speaker
Ah, yeah.
00:42:23
Speaker
And they're just kind of sweet in the way that all the movement is related to the space.
00:42:32
Speaker
So I would love to make an outdoor piece with them.
00:42:34
Speaker
That would be really fun.
00:42:35
Speaker
So I've been turning that over a little bit too.
00:42:39
Speaker
Cool.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Conclusion and Credits
00:42:40
Speaker
That sounds exciting.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:41
Speaker
Very cool.
00:42:44
Speaker
Well, great.
00:42:46
Speaker
Do you want me to close this out?
00:42:47
Speaker
You were kind of doing the intro.
00:42:48
Speaker
That sounds perfect.
00:42:50
Speaker
Outro.
00:42:50
Speaker
So I guess I'll do the outro.
00:42:52
Speaker
So, again, we just wanted to thank our guest, Annika Todd.
00:43:01
Speaker
And thanks, everybody, for listening.
00:43:02
Speaker
And I don't know, is there like a pitch?
00:43:05
Speaker
People should go to your website?
00:43:07
Speaker
Yeah, go to my website.
00:43:08
Speaker
We're going to find you.
00:43:09
Speaker
yeah uh anikatodd.com anikatodd.com and um she has work in the current uh exhibition up at lydianstater.co um yeah thanks for listening to our first ever podcast maybe maybe maybe okay oh perhaps perhaps
00:43:31
Speaker
Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, a New York City-based crypto fine art platform focused on the emerging NFT market.
00:43:40
Speaker
You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at Lydian Stater NYC on Instagram, and follow us at Lydian Stater on Twitter.
00:43:47
Speaker
Many thanks to Anika Todd for taking the time to speak to us this week.
00:43:51
Speaker
You can check out more of Anika Todd's work at anikatod.com.
00:43:55
Speaker
Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music.
00:43:59
Speaker
His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
00:44:03
Speaker
And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
00:44:08
Speaker
I don't know what to do.
00:44:11
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:44:13
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:44:16
Speaker
I don't know what to do.
00:44:18
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:44:20
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.