Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Arranging Tangerines Episode 30 - A Conversation with Anika Todd "The Return"
6 Plays3 years ago
In this week’s episode, we welcome back Anika Todd, our inaugural guest on the podcast. As we talk about what Anika has been up to for the last year, we discuss teaching, the ethical concerns of sunlight access, the transferable nature of air rights in NYC, how a nomadic lifestyle helps emphasize incongruities, balloonery, space travel with a lower case ’s’, and the pros and cons of documentation when it comes to conceptual artwork.
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).
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Arranging Tangerines
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Arranging Tangerines, presented by Lady and Stater.
00:00:05
Speaker
Conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
00:00:10
Speaker
Your hosts are me, Alessandro Silver, and Joseph Wilcox.
00:00:13
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:00:14
Speaker
I know what to say.
00:00:17
Speaker
I just know I want to be like you.
00:00:20
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:00:22
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:00:24
Speaker
I just know I want to be like you.
Guest Introduction: Anika Todd
00:00:34
Speaker
This week's guest is Anika Todd, The Return.
00:00:38
Speaker
We're rolling.
00:00:39
Speaker
Just one set of headphones, huh?
00:00:40
Speaker
That's it.
00:00:41
Speaker
We don't have enough to split the others.
00:00:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:44
Speaker
All right.
00:00:45
Speaker
I think.
00:00:45
Speaker
No, it's fine.
00:00:46
Speaker
You can play God for this one.
00:00:48
Speaker
How do we sound?
00:00:50
Speaker
You guys got to be as close as possible.
00:00:51
Speaker
You'll let us know if... Actually, this makes me feel better that I can't hear it.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:56
Speaker
Close.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah?
00:00:57
Speaker
Perfect.
00:00:57
Speaker
A little closer.
00:00:58
Speaker
Is that okay?
00:00:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:00:59
Speaker
Great.
Anika's Popular Episode and Marketing Impact
00:01:01
Speaker
So, Annika, Todd, you're back.
00:01:06
Speaker
I'm back.
00:01:07
Speaker
A year later.
00:01:07
Speaker
A year and some.
00:01:08
Speaker
You know you have the most popular podcast of ours.
00:01:11
Speaker
That's because I watched it many, many times.
00:01:14
Speaker
We had a theory about it.
00:01:14
Speaker
We actually think it's your dad.
00:01:16
Speaker
We think your dad watched it.
00:01:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's probably my dad.
00:01:20
Speaker
I love that.
00:01:21
Speaker
We figured he had some kind of bot or something that he programmed to listen to it from different IP addresses.
00:01:27
Speaker
Which, if he could continue to do that for our other... Okay, I'll get him.
00:01:30
Speaker
I'll see him tomorrow.
00:01:32
Speaker
Awesome.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to pump up this one.
00:01:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:35
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:01:37
Speaker
Because I listened to it maybe a month ago.
00:01:41
Speaker
And I think we were talking about it just before we started podcasting.
00:01:44
Speaker
It was like, this is... It encapsulated a certain...
00:01:49
Speaker
aspect of your trajectory.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:52
Speaker
And it'd be interesting to hear where you've gone from there.
00:01:55
Speaker
But I was also, it's like, it was perfect.
00:01:58
Speaker
It's like, if somebody wanted to know more about you, you could say, Hey, you could just listen to this podcast.
00:02:03
Speaker
It's good.
00:02:04
Speaker
It's good marketing.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:05
Speaker
You don't have to do that.
00:02:06
Speaker
You don't have to say, Oh, you know what?
00:02:08
Speaker
Just here.
00:02:09
Speaker
I wish they would do that.
00:02:10
Speaker
Here's my elevator space.
00:02:11
Speaker
Everyone wants it fresh, you know?
00:02:15
Speaker
You're going to do a proper intro?
00:02:17
Speaker
I don't know if she needs one.
00:02:18
Speaker
Do you think so?
00:02:19
Speaker
I mean, you could say our guest this week.
00:02:22
Speaker
Oh, besides saying it on the thing?
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:25
Speaker
No, I guess we'll probably... No, our guest this week is Anika Todd.
00:02:29
Speaker
The return.
00:02:31
Speaker
The return.
00:02:32
Speaker
Part three.
00:02:33
Speaker
Part three.
00:02:35
Speaker
And the last time it was post...
00:02:38
Speaker
The first exhibition we ever did.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yep.
00:02:40
Speaker
And pre the three-person exhibition that we did, which was like fun because that was the fall of the show was work that we had talked about in the podcast.
00:02:50
Speaker
And then we got to do the exhibition about it, which was cool.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, a lot's happened for a lot of us.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
Pretty awesome.
Moving to St. Louis: Teaching Aspirations
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:58
Speaker
And now you're going away to St.
00:02:59
Speaker
Louis.
00:03:00
Speaker
I am.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
For a teaching gig.
00:03:02
Speaker
For a teaching gig.
00:03:03
Speaker
That's fun.
00:03:04
Speaker
I didn't know you were...
00:03:06
Speaker
A teacher?
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:07
Speaker
Teacher type?
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
We don't know yet.
00:03:09
Speaker
It's on.
00:03:09
Speaker
Interesting.
00:03:10
Speaker
But I think my theory is that I think I'm going to get it.
00:03:18
Speaker
I think it's going to use more of the part of my brain I use when I make art than fabricating does.
00:03:23
Speaker
Because that's my other job.
00:03:25
Speaker
And like learning, making things is great.
00:03:29
Speaker
And that's like half my work.
00:03:30
Speaker
But it's like super exhausting.
00:03:32
Speaker
So I'm hoping that teaching just like feeds the tea.
00:03:36
Speaker
the thinking brain more.
00:03:37
Speaker
Is the fabricating stuff like pretty like, um, mechanical, like, is it like following directions?
00:03:45
Speaker
Is there decision-making happening?
00:03:46
Speaker
Is it problem solving?
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:48
Speaker
Fabricating is always problem solving.
00:03:49
Speaker
You're always learning something about material, but I think the way my work has gone, it's like more useful to use the other part of my brain than like the learning minutia about how to best build things.
00:04:01
Speaker
Sure.
00:04:01
Speaker
You know, which I feel pretty fluent in at this point.
00:04:05
Speaker
So there's a way in which, yeah, I'm just hoping teaching fills that other part a little bit more.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:10
Speaker
We'll see.
00:04:11
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:04:11
Speaker
I just hope it doesn't take too much of your time and your mental capacity.
00:04:15
Speaker
Me too.
00:04:15
Speaker
And that's sort of part of the jury's out feeling.
00:04:18
Speaker
I think it's, it's about primarily like creating the most time for the work.
00:04:23
Speaker
So we'll see.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:26
Speaker
Because everybody's got to get paid.
00:04:28
Speaker
Everybody's got to eat.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
And you want to do that and be able to make work.
00:04:32
Speaker
For now, I got, there's got to be a hustle, so we'll see which one it is.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:36
Speaker
I'll say this much.
00:04:37
Speaker
You will be an awesome teacher.
00:04:38
Speaker
I can imagine being around her energy, like as a young student.
00:04:42
Speaker
That must be.
00:04:43
Speaker
I mean, I think the classes will be enjoyable.
00:04:44
Speaker
Whether like she'll be a good teacher, I think.
00:04:46
Speaker
I think just being around Anika is going to be something.
00:04:49
Speaker
That's great.
00:04:50
Speaker
I don't have to do anything.
00:04:51
Speaker
No.
00:04:52
Speaker
Hey, guys.
00:04:54
Speaker
Let's go outside.
00:04:55
Speaker
I'm kidding.
00:04:56
Speaker
I have a very broad definition of good teaching, and I think that it depends a lot on
00:05:00
Speaker
the person and the personality and the yeah and the ethos for sure yeah yeah i think the second annika is like you guys notice the sun like uh miss todd i thought we were gonna learn about wood you just you just had a well please you guys want to make balloons um so yeah what have you been doing for the last
00:05:27
Speaker
365 days.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:29
Speaker
Well, you don't have to do all that, but maybe the last six months.
00:05:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:33
Speaker
You can start with balloons.
00:05:34
Speaker
I'm going to... Also, just so everybody knows, we like dropped this podcast session on Annika at the Brooklyn Ice House without prepping her at all.
00:05:44
Speaker
Drinking a beer.
00:05:45
Speaker
Drinking a beer.
00:05:46
Speaker
Which is similar to the first one, but... But you knew we were coming.
00:05:50
Speaker
But I knew you guys were coming.
00:05:51
Speaker
You knew we had equipment.
00:05:52
Speaker
But did the first one have a dead mouse?
00:05:54
Speaker
No.
00:05:56
Speaker
Not that I knew of.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:00
Speaker
So I think I'll start closer to now with like working backwards just to jog my memory because it seems intimidating to go back that far.
Art Evolution: Surveillance, Space, and Sunlight
00:06:10
Speaker
But I, what I just was describing to you guys a little bit is that I, so I, in the last podcast talked a lot about this kind of
00:06:21
Speaker
body of work that developed from being out in the desert and like thinking about surveillance and looking down from above in order to understand space and then how that shifted in coming to New York and thinking about the same concepts, like in the sort of structure of ownership in New York city.
00:06:39
Speaker
And, um,
00:06:41
Speaker
One thing that I'm noticing like in the transition time is that the next kind of like chapter of what I've been thinking about sort of began when I moved again and I went to Chattanooga for a residency last, just this year.
00:06:57
Speaker
So in February, March, I was there for two months and I,
00:07:02
Speaker
I think the contrast in being in that place sort of like brought to light some things about New York that I wasn't aware of that had been like affecting my psyche.
00:07:11
Speaker
And that is sort of this like relationship to sun and sunlight that I had in the city and that shifted greatly.
00:07:21
Speaker
So when I was in Chattanooga, I was like in a studio that was like full of light all day and I found myself responding to it and just wanting to like be present with it and sort of make work that,
00:07:30
Speaker
captured something that or articulated what I was feeling about it.
00:07:35
Speaker
And, and that that kind of impulse was directly related to having no light in my spaces in New York.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I think interested in, you know, some of my past works, a lot of them sort of think through like elements, but through kind of also with our policy that shapes how we use and define those elements.
00:07:58
Speaker
And so, Sunlight proposed this thing in terms of New York of
00:08:03
Speaker
you know, our, our access to sun is largely defined by like other things outside of us, including like development and like, but then written into, you know, as you look into it, like there's all these laws in about airspace, which I had been thinking about before.
00:08:21
Speaker
And a lot of that has to do with sunlight too.
00:08:22
Speaker
When, when airspace is bought up on a block and a building gets built, that's when all of a sudden it changes someone's space without them
00:08:31
Speaker
having any control or it really being defined in that way.
00:08:35
Speaker
So there's a way in which sunlight became this like articulating of some like nebulous thing that was happening in terms of development in New York of like that a lot of the people I knew
00:08:46
Speaker
in my kind of bracket of income, let's say other artists, were sort of without access to it.
00:08:55
Speaker
Anyway, so that that but it's interesting because before this moment, I guess I hadn't I guess I described this to you earlier today.
00:09:03
Speaker
I hadn't like
00:09:04
Speaker
connected that I think something happens for me when I move from place to place that's really important, which is part of why I move all the time.
00:09:10
Speaker
There's like this perspective looking back on where you've just been that sort of expands your relationship to the to both places.
00:09:19
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:09:21
Speaker
But it's also it's a fresh look at the place you're going to, right?
00:09:25
Speaker
Because a lot of times, oftentimes, the wacky stuff that happens in New York, you just kind of get used to it.
00:09:31
Speaker
And it's not until somebody comes from outside and says, did you just step over a person, like going to the train?
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
And?
00:09:40
Speaker
Exactly.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:42
Speaker
And I love leaving New York for that reason.
00:09:45
Speaker
I think it like is one of the biggest contrasts I ever feel like the shift in perspective.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:53
Speaker
Being in this place.
00:09:54
Speaker
But yeah, I just walked past a building yesterday that had I think it was like a condo building and some of the condos had
00:10:06
Speaker
like patios that have been built over, like covered, not even patios, they're just like covered rooms that have been built over the building next to them.
00:10:14
Speaker
And we were like, we were like, they must have bought the airspace above that building or they bought that building, right?
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:22
Speaker
Because otherwise, like you can't, you can't do that.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:25
Speaker
You like need to get permission or whatever.
00:10:27
Speaker
But you don't like need permission to block people's sunlight.
00:10:31
Speaker
No.
00:10:33
Speaker
Like it's like one of those residual effects of like,
00:10:36
Speaker
both like legislators and like wealthy folks that like affects people who have lower income that they have no control over how that happens.
00:10:43
Speaker
For sure.
00:10:46
Speaker
Didn't you have a project about airspace?
00:10:48
Speaker
I did.
00:10:48
Speaker
I had, I tried to convince my landlord in Chicago to sell me the air rights temporarily of the building that we were living in for like a dollar.
00:10:57
Speaker
But he was super nice guy, but he was just like, I mean, he knew better.
00:11:02
Speaker
I mean, how do you convince somebody to sign a contract for art?
00:11:06
Speaker
It was just really strange conversation that went nowhere.
00:11:10
Speaker
Right.
00:11:10
Speaker
Because he was like thinking about how you were going to screw him.
00:11:12
Speaker
Right.
00:11:13
Speaker
Of course.
00:11:13
Speaker
Which like you're not.
00:11:14
Speaker
I don't even know how you could.
00:11:15
Speaker
Right.
00:11:16
Speaker
But like, why risk it?
00:11:17
Speaker
Right, risk it, yeah.
00:11:19
Speaker
But in my research, I found out that churches typically are one of the ones that sell their air rights.
00:11:24
Speaker
There's no other way they're going to go higher.
00:11:27
Speaker
But they're really wide, so they have a lot of space.
00:11:31
Speaker
And then I did a project where it was like a science poster where because they sold the air rights, the church cut the... So God no longer had access to that church because they sold the air rights above the church.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, they were around.
00:11:47
Speaker
Wait, where did you hear this?
00:11:48
Speaker
No, I was just conjectured.
00:11:51
Speaker
Wait, why do the churches sell air rights?
00:11:52
Speaker
Because they're not going to build up anymore.
00:11:56
Speaker
But here's the question is then, like, why do places?
00:11:59
Speaker
Who wants to buy those air rights?
00:12:01
Speaker
Anybody who has, like, new construction, any kind of, like, any building, they can go higher depending on how much they get as far as air rights.
00:12:11
Speaker
Adjacent, and in New York City, I think it's the whole block.
00:12:14
Speaker
No, the whole city.
00:12:15
Speaker
They changed the law.
00:12:16
Speaker
I forget how many years ago.
00:12:18
Speaker
So you can buy air rights.
00:12:20
Speaker
You can buy somebody else's air rights and transfer them to your building and go up.
00:12:24
Speaker
That's how you make a high rise in a neighborhood that's not slated for that big a building.
00:12:29
Speaker
You buy the other rights.
00:12:30
Speaker
That's insanity.
00:12:31
Speaker
It is.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
That doesn't make any sense.
00:12:34
Speaker
No.
00:12:34
Speaker
Unless I'm like not thinking of it.
00:12:35
Speaker
Well, I am curious about the citywide thing because I mean, I guess it keeps the overall hype down.
00:12:41
Speaker
Sorry.
00:12:41
Speaker
By a block, you know, like in the logic I was they were like, well, it will it will all equal out in the wash if like these buildings all stay at certain.
00:12:52
Speaker
There's a certain level that all the buildings could be at, but these buildings are going to sell all that to this one building.
00:12:58
Speaker
so that building will be the only tall one so like average height will stay the same exactly and that would make sense but i think it's changed and that's why no it is because now you can transfer it from like queens or something and now that's that's allowed some of these really ridiculously high high rises right next to another high rise where there were no air rights available before you buy like air rights from west virginia and transfer no it has to be new york city i'm sure that'll change yeah it's just like developers need
00:13:23
Speaker
more height so they're gonna get it somewhere and and also like higher is not necessarily bad right housing is a problem we do need like more housing affordable housing and if that's a high-rise cool it's usually not affordable but but that was an interesting case study you said with your friend's apartment right the more development cut off that literally cut off the access to the sun
00:13:45
Speaker
So yeah, I was talking earlier that I live in this building in downtown Brooklyn, which is definitely usually not a residential neighborhood historically, and it was kind of rare.
00:13:58
Speaker
We live in like an old commercial space, but I live in a co-op there that's been around for 15 years, and when they first moved in, they had sunlight all day in these two floors of the apartment.
00:14:11
Speaker
And now it has become similar to like Long Island City where all the glass development, it's these like glass residential towers, which
00:14:22
Speaker
you know, hit all the things because they're not affordable housing and they're sort of just directed at like shifting the purpose of the neighborhood pretty fundamentally.
00:14:32
Speaker
And anyway, those have started to go up in downtown Brooklyn.
00:14:35
Speaker
And so there's like no sunlight anymore in the space I'm in.
00:14:39
Speaker
So it's kind of a kind of a case example of like the things we're talking about.
00:14:44
Speaker
When I went down to Chattanooga, I sort of just like was thinking about the effect of like living in a space without light and there's like 10 minutes a day in that space where we have light in the kitchen and was thinking about what could I do to kind of make a sculpture about that moment during the day or just kind of call to attention like the effect of having that light in that short period
Urban Development and Art Conflicts
00:15:09
Speaker
of time.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:12
Speaker
I was going to mention before, so Trump had built this stupid building in Chicago and it cut off
00:15:19
Speaker
So it was so high, it cut off the lake view of another fancy building behind it.
00:15:25
Speaker
It was like a Mies van Drou IBM building.
00:15:27
Speaker
It was like one of the first class skyscrapers.
00:15:31
Speaker
And they were pissed.
00:15:32
Speaker
Multi-million dollar residencies are like, we had a direct view to the lake.
00:15:37
Speaker
And the lake is the thing in Chicago, right?
00:15:40
Speaker
Did they make a new law?
00:15:41
Speaker
He sent them pamphlets for if they wanted to buy in his place.
00:15:48
Speaker
But I thought, why not build a video?
00:15:49
Speaker
I mean, there's probably tons of lawsuits, right?
00:15:51
Speaker
Oh, they had to be.
00:15:51
Speaker
But what can you do?
00:15:53
Speaker
So they cut off the visual sight line to this thing that was cherished.
00:15:58
Speaker
But I was like, why don't I sell them a video feed?
00:16:03
Speaker
Of the real time of the lake, and they could put it on the beautiful flat screen monitors.
00:16:08
Speaker
I mean, I've talked about windows that are real looking for people who live in basement apartments, right?
00:16:14
Speaker
If you could get a real...
00:16:16
Speaker
like a real feeling video feed of outside that could change people's lives.
00:16:21
Speaker
Add to that the light that you use for like that.
00:16:25
Speaker
It could be built in.
00:16:26
Speaker
Seasonal depression where you actually get like sunlight.
00:16:29
Speaker
There you go.
00:16:31
Speaker
Transform basement apartment.
00:16:32
Speaker
Should we start a company?
00:16:34
Speaker
I think we just did.
00:16:36
Speaker
We don't need to change the legislation.
00:16:38
Speaker
We can just make new products.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
The market will sort it out.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
Lydian, Sator, Windows and more.
00:16:45
Speaker
So I have a great story that I just learned the other day about this topic.
00:16:49
Speaker
And the so the Sky the Skyrim, the Terrell Skyrim that's at PS1.
00:16:57
Speaker
They recently rebuilt the entire thing down the hall from where it originally was because of this building.
00:17:05
Speaker
The high rise was built and it was like poking into the space, which is great.
00:17:10
Speaker
And then it's going to happen again.
00:17:11
Speaker
It's perfect.
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to happen again.
00:17:14
Speaker
And I just I think that that moment of art being like, no, it's not.
00:17:19
Speaker
But isn't that the problem with the white gallery to begin with?
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:17:23
Speaker
It's like this fictitious notion of like pristine whatever.
00:17:26
Speaker
Right.
00:17:26
Speaker
In the middle of chaos.
00:17:28
Speaker
I mean, but at least Terrell's not pretending to not be that.
00:17:30
Speaker
They're like, he's like saying this is what this is.
00:17:33
Speaker
It's like a fictitious moment that is constructed.
00:17:36
Speaker
I wonder what his take is on that, though.
00:17:38
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure they had to get his go ahead to move it, right?
00:17:41
Speaker
I'm sure it was, I wonder, it would be interesting what the conversation was, you know, between the institution and him.
00:17:47
Speaker
I wonder if he was pushing for it.
00:17:50
Speaker
He might have been.
00:17:51
Speaker
As like, it's not the work anymore.
00:17:53
Speaker
Right.
00:17:54
Speaker
That's such a cool version of that work, you know, being like, oh, it's actually about this.
00:17:59
Speaker
I could see him not being interested in that context.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
Totally.
00:18:05
Speaker
Where I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting now.
00:18:07
Speaker
That's cool.
00:18:08
Speaker
Right.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:10
Speaker
Huh.
00:18:12
Speaker
I love the background music.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to have to like do some crazy editing.
00:18:16
Speaker
Flip it backwards and make it slow so we don't get caught by the filters.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then have Hanukkah speak in the robot.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
Just feed it into like the hello.
00:18:24
Speaker
Is that how it goes?
00:18:25
Speaker
Copyright stuff.
00:18:26
Speaker
I think only YouTube does that.
00:18:28
Speaker
Situation.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:30
Speaker
We'll see.
00:18:32
Speaker
But it's to go back to the sun.
00:18:34
Speaker
So this is still from above.
00:18:36
Speaker
The sun is an above thing shining down.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:18:41
Speaker
This is your thing.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is great.
00:18:43
Speaker
I mean, also, like, you know, it's easy to make connections between a lot of topics because life overlaps a lot.
00:18:50
Speaker
And that's like what you do as an artist with your interests.
00:18:54
Speaker
And that's like what.
00:18:55
Speaker
critics and curators do is like make these connections and you're like oh yeah sure but i mean that i do think that's a pretty one-to-one with uh the way that like um systems kind of like play into the lives of regular people in different ways whether it's surveillance or like sunlight access or whatever yeah yeah and i think these like
00:19:22
Speaker
the ways in which they're sort of made invisible to us by habit and also on purpose a lot of times.
Art's Role in Highlighting Invisible Systems
00:19:29
Speaker
And like, I think sometimes the premise is like just to call attention to it as a way of sort of like,
00:19:36
Speaker
resensitizing us to like things we forgot about.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:19:41
Speaker
I think I asked you the first time I was like, what are you trying to do here?
00:19:46
Speaker
Which and I was like, that's not a very fair question or like not a good question.
00:19:51
Speaker
But you said something about kind of like calling attention to or like re re exposing the senses to these things.
00:20:01
Speaker
Right.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:02
Speaker
Which I think is really valuable.
00:20:05
Speaker
What I notice about what I,
00:20:08
Speaker
in a very simple sense, that's what the sunlight does to me in general is makes me sort of present.
00:20:15
Speaker
I mean, you think about like our obsession with sunsets and like, um, sort of like every photographer's like obsession with light because that's like what is being captured and what is creating, um, form in that instance.
00:20:30
Speaker
And it's like, sort of, it zooms you into this, this moment.
00:20:34
Speaker
It's actually like very particular to that space.
00:20:36
Speaker
And, um,
00:20:39
Speaker
there's like an interesting question of how to do that with sculpture, whereas a lot of times that's not a focus of sculpture.
00:20:45
Speaker
And so it's been fun to like turn over in my head to think about.
00:20:49
Speaker
what it would be to sort of make sculptures that are about that like present tense with light.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
And that's kind of what I've been trying to solve with myself.
00:21:02
Speaker
We haven't talked about what I've been actually making, but that's sort of the transition, I guess.
00:21:08
Speaker
So the piece that you made on Governor's Island with the kind of like mural size photograph in the room.
00:21:18
Speaker
Would you call that a sculpture?
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like a site specific installation, you know, which is maybe not a sculpture, but it's in closer relationship to like that than like a photo would be where a photo is like a record or like a capture of the moment.
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
It's meant to interact with the space.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's meant to interact with the space.
00:21:44
Speaker
And the people in it.
00:21:47
Speaker
And it shifts meaning a lot when it's not in that space.
00:21:50
Speaker
I think that's sort of the definition of site work.
00:21:54
Speaker
It does have meaning outside of that, but it loses a lot of the original form when you're not in the real world.
00:22:00
Speaker
Right, it becomes the documentation of a thing that happened in real time that was the actual artwork.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:06
Speaker
Which is kind of fun to think that the documentation can be embedded in the work.
00:22:11
Speaker
when you make it and then it's this like takeaway.
00:22:15
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:16
Speaker
That's a half formed thought.
00:22:18
Speaker
We could cut that off.
00:22:21
Speaker
You're very, I mean, if anything, you're very good at calling attention to these small moments on these, these situations or moments or ideas that pass people by all the time.
00:22:35
Speaker
Like I think back to that project you did where you kind of found that little
00:22:40
Speaker
Was it the house that you kind of rebuild?
00:22:42
Speaker
I mean, that was.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
And then that one guy that remembered it.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:46
Speaker
And it was like, that was awesome.
00:22:48
Speaker
That's fantastic.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:50
Speaker
For that to have.
00:22:51
Speaker
But to find those situations.
00:22:55
Speaker
I don't think you're actively looking for them, but you're just, you're creating situations like moving from place to place so that you kind of like, you're more aware.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:03
Speaker
Right?
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:04
Speaker
And I, so just to describe, I think the story of when I, so as a thought of how I was going to approach making work about this, when I got back to New York, I was like, cool, well, I want to,
00:23:17
Speaker
I've been, I guess I'd never described, we're talking about it in the abstract, but I was experimenting with in Chattanooga, I was like making these photographs that essentially I was taking time-lapse and then I'd have like a hundred photographs of a sunlight moving through a room and then I would composite them into one image, like trying to sort of like capture time passing in one image.
00:23:41
Speaker
And when I got back, I was like, well, it'd be interesting to try to do that in people's apartments to sort of like...
00:23:48
Speaker
make a description of like essentially how they don't get light in their apartment.
00:23:54
Speaker
And I did three of the shoots and what I found was that they weren't very interesting and what was most interesting was that
00:24:07
Speaker
For weeks after and before this, I was in conversation with these people about I asked them, well, do you get sunlight in their apartment?
00:24:15
Speaker
And they would be like, I don't know.
00:24:17
Speaker
And then they'd be like, no.
00:24:19
Speaker
Or they'd be like, you know, they started noticing and being present in their space in a very different way just because of the question.
00:24:27
Speaker
And the shoots that I did do, I would spend eight hours with them and we're just sitting and looking at the space with them and sort of talking about light.
00:24:41
Speaker
always at the end of the shoot, we'd be like, I'd be like, oh, well, we should have shot this.
00:24:46
Speaker
Like, this is the moment.
00:24:48
Speaker
Would have been the moment.
00:24:49
Speaker
And I haven't reshot any of them.
00:24:52
Speaker
I don't know if I will.
00:24:53
Speaker
And I just think that that sort of...
00:24:57
Speaker
I haven't figured out quite where the translation is going to end up or how this is going to become an artwork, but there's something really interesting going on about people being brought into presence into their space just through the prompt of us doing this together in their space.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll see.
00:25:16
Speaker
I haven't used any of them yet, but... It was great to hear the process.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm hyper aware of kind of like...
00:25:27
Speaker
the way in which systems work and especially economic systems and how it affects lower income folks and the advantages that higher income folks have.
00:25:36
Speaker
But when you asked me about the light in my apartment, I had never really thought about light as being one of the advantages of living in the neighborhood that I do, where the neighborhood is very much associated with upper middle class wealth.
00:25:52
Speaker
And there's lots of reasons for that, like beautiful trees and it's close to the park and blah, blah, blah.
00:25:58
Speaker
And it's clean and all those things.
00:25:59
Speaker
But I hadn't really thought about light as being one of those things.
00:26:03
Speaker
But it is.
00:26:04
Speaker
I mean, that's just like and we were just, you know, talking about basement apartments, which are always cheaper because the light sucks.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:12
Speaker
I guarantee you that neighborhood has stringent.
00:26:15
Speaker
laws protecting those brownstones from being taken down.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
And then it's brought to the utmost extreme with these like 360 views that people have in those buildings that, um,
00:26:29
Speaker
I think New York is such a fascinating place because it's like these things exist everywhere, but they're like in such specific like polarized.
00:26:38
Speaker
They're wildly heightened.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, they're so heightened about.
00:26:41
Speaker
And I think very visceral, like the basement apartment thing is like an epic.
00:26:47
Speaker
It's huge epidemic in the city of like I and I remember last year during the flood of like people I knew getting
00:26:56
Speaker
losing everything because they lived in illegal spaces.
00:26:58
Speaker
Right.
00:26:59
Speaker
It's like half the basement apartments in New York are illegal.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:01
Speaker
They're all legal, but they're forced into these spaces because of rent stuff.
00:27:05
Speaker
And then they have no rights.
00:27:07
Speaker
And, um,
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a but you're right that it light is not how we usually talk about it.
00:27:14
Speaker
We usually talk about in all these different ways.
00:27:17
Speaker
Right.
00:27:17
Speaker
Even though you like look at real estate listings and they're like beautiful light corner unit.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's like it's very much up front, but it's not necessarily the thing that gets talked about directly.
00:27:29
Speaker
Right.
00:27:29
Speaker
And there's no like legislation about that.
00:27:32
Speaker
I mean, there's legislation about windows and but there's no legislation about like sunlight.
00:27:37
Speaker
Right.
00:27:37
Speaker
Right.
00:27:38
Speaker
So it makes it kind of nebulous and like interesting to try to articulate, you know.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
I would love to see sunlight legislation.
00:27:49
Speaker
They'd be installing mirrors everywhere to like bounce light into apartments, which would be fantastic.
00:27:56
Speaker
You'd have to have a certain amount of mirrors hitting.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:59
Speaker
Then we'd start a mirror business.
00:28:00
Speaker
I was just thinking about it.
00:28:02
Speaker
I mean, that is so interesting to go about it from that angle because even on the opposite end, so you live, let's just say you do live in the upper echelon and you have access to all this amazing light.
00:28:15
Speaker
These people don't even live in their apartments for like the whole time.
00:28:19
Speaker
So it's like, it's such a joke.
00:28:21
Speaker
Well, and I've been collecting obviously these stories because I bring this up with lots of different people.
00:28:28
Speaker
And one of my...
00:28:31
Speaker
Someone I met the other day works in a, I forget where, but they work in a building downtown where they work on the 40th floor in like a, you know, there's light all over the office.
00:28:44
Speaker
But they experience it as like, they were describing, I was asking them about sunlight and they were like, well, we get light all day and I see the sunlight, the sunset from my window.
00:28:55
Speaker
But it makes me, like, excruciatingly claustrophobic because there's no way for me to open the window.
00:29:02
Speaker
And there's, like, they're completely airtight spaces, most of those buildings.
00:29:07
Speaker
And so there's this relationship.
00:29:08
Speaker
They feel like this, I should be outside in this moment.
00:29:12
Speaker
Like, they're being brought into the present, and then they feel even more trapped than usual.
00:29:16
Speaker
And...
00:29:17
Speaker
I just thought it was so interesting.
00:29:18
Speaker
They had that, you know, at first when I asked them about like, they didn't have any idea about it.
00:29:23
Speaker
And then they were talking about this moment of them feeling trapped.
00:29:26
Speaker
That's kind of the description of what I think about those tall buildings is they're sort of this polarized and like they're outside, but they're also so inside, you know, and so isolated.
00:29:41
Speaker
I wonder how much that has to do with it being work also, like being able to like see outside while being stuck at a place as opposed to like living in with windows that like begin to feel like part of your house.
00:29:53
Speaker
Right.
00:29:53
Speaker
If you can like see out.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting.
00:29:57
Speaker
I haven't.
00:29:59
Speaker
I haven't met anyone who lives in those buildings yet, so maybe I should ask them.
00:30:04
Speaker
I have a book, if you haven't read it yet, for summer reading.
00:30:08
Speaker
High Rise.
00:30:08
Speaker
OK.
00:30:09
Speaker
You ever read it?
00:30:09
Speaker
No.
00:30:10
Speaker
J.G.
00:30:10
Speaker
Ballard.
00:30:11
Speaker
Cool.
00:30:11
Speaker
It's about a new construction building in England, and it goes to shit.
00:30:16
Speaker
And the whole building complex turns into tribes.
00:30:20
Speaker
So the bottom...
00:30:21
Speaker
People kind of like the ones that get the least sunlight.
00:30:24
Speaker
They kind of get together and the architect lives on the top floor.
00:30:27
Speaker
Did they make a TV show out of this?
00:30:29
Speaker
I think they made a movie.
00:30:30
Speaker
I think I saw the movie.
00:30:31
Speaker
It's horrific.
00:30:33
Speaker
It is.
00:30:33
Speaker
So everyone's like warring at each other.
00:30:35
Speaker
Everyone's like...
00:30:36
Speaker
The bottom is the tribe, the middle is the tribe and the top is a tribe.
00:30:39
Speaker
And they hunt the dogs from the people that because they have a little piercer.
00:30:43
Speaker
But if they put it up.
00:30:44
Speaker
Exactly.
00:30:46
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:30:47
Speaker
Exactly.
00:30:48
Speaker
I feel like if you made my art into a horror movie, it sounds good.
00:30:52
Speaker
You know, Parasite is kind of like that.
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I mean, I.
00:30:56
Speaker
I loved that movie because it really articulated the stuff so viscerally when that apartment.
00:31:01
Speaker
Oh, for sure.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:03
Speaker
You kind of feel that class distinction with real intensity.
00:31:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:09
Speaker
That's great.
00:31:10
Speaker
I was going to say, well, one project that
00:31:15
Speaker
This is like the never came to fruition yet.
00:31:18
Speaker
Well, maybe that's the description of like these things are, I'm sort of, I feel like I'm at the beginning of the process and I'm starting to figure out how they're turning into formal language.
00:31:27
Speaker
But I, at the beginning of the summer, I was like, I'm going to find a window washer.
00:31:34
Speaker
Who's going to take my camera and put it on his arm and then go up in these buildings and make images of
00:31:43
Speaker
the like and that the image would then be looking in the windows and also like defined by the motion of the person who's doing the labor and in relationship to like the piece that actually I shared with you guys of this balloon that was like looking in the windows of Wall Street.
00:32:06
Speaker
I called everyone.
00:32:07
Speaker
Nobody wants to talk to me.
00:32:09
Speaker
So we'll see about that.
00:32:11
Speaker
It sounds like maybe you just need to get a new job as a window washer.
00:32:16
Speaker
I don't think a phone call.
00:32:18
Speaker
You'd have to be in person with your ID.
00:32:20
Speaker
In person.
00:32:21
Speaker
You think I need to make the video?
00:32:23
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:32:23
Speaker
You'd have to be in person with the people doing the windows because I don't think they're going to take you seriously.
00:32:27
Speaker
No, there's no one over the phone.
00:32:29
Speaker
You tried Craigslist?
00:32:32
Speaker
I should check Craigslist.
00:32:33
Speaker
I think Craigslist can be a pretty good point of entry.
00:32:38
Speaker
Would you commission them to do drawings as well?
00:32:41
Speaker
Like temporary?
00:32:42
Speaker
Because literally you can draw while you're taking away the silk scum.
00:32:47
Speaker
That's like really messing with...
00:32:51
Speaker
What?
00:32:52
Speaker
Her process and her work.
00:32:53
Speaker
I just injected myself.
00:32:54
Speaker
It has no place in anything that she does.
00:32:56
Speaker
All right.
00:32:56
Speaker
Can I make a drawing?
00:32:58
Speaker
He's like, so if this was my project.
00:32:59
Speaker
If you find the window washer, you can do whatever you want.
00:33:02
Speaker
Right.
00:33:03
Speaker
Because I am down.
00:33:05
Speaker
Help me with the connect.
00:33:07
Speaker
And I got you.
00:33:08
Speaker
I don't know if they speak Spanish.
00:33:10
Speaker
I'm sure a lot of them do.
00:33:12
Speaker
Actually, I called one company and the woman was like, they're all Ukrainian.
00:33:16
Speaker
They don't want to talk to anybody right now.
00:33:18
Speaker
I was like, okay, fair enough.
00:33:20
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:33:20
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:33:22
Speaker
But I bring that up as sort of an idea of how it might, some of these ideas might like come into like visual, like another video piece that would kind of like be closely related to what I've made, but sort of extend into thinking about these like the labor involved in cleaning the structures too and like these residential spaces, but yeah.
00:33:50
Speaker
I'm going to take a pause so you guys can get more beer and I change the batteries.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
I mean, are we still recording?
00:33:56
Speaker
We're recording right now.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
What time are we at?
00:33:59
Speaker
30 minutes.
00:34:01
Speaker
You know, I mean, sure.
00:34:05
Speaker
I just want to ask a couple more questions.
00:34:06
Speaker
I'm sure you do.
00:34:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:07
Speaker
All right.
00:34:08
Speaker
We don't want to take up too much more of your time.
00:34:09
Speaker
We're going to go on the record now.
00:34:11
Speaker
Back on the record.
00:34:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:13
Speaker
Balloons.
00:34:14
Speaker
I know the project that you did with us with the balloon looking into the.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:19
Speaker
like Wall Street building, which we meant that SNF too was pretty, I thought it was pretty epic.
00:34:25
Speaker
In the sense that you're constantly trying to, you're almost like, I don't know if you're trying to get access to something that you knew wasn't happening or it's just like what's happening inside there.
00:34:36
Speaker
But it also ties to the balloon project you were doing in Governor's Island as well.
00:34:41
Speaker
And I got the sense
00:34:45
Speaker
you have all these cisgendered billionaires taking off to space.
00:34:48
Speaker
Like being an astronaut is now a thing.
00:34:51
Speaker
Like they can do readily because they have the means.
00:34:54
Speaker
And you're like, I'm here too.
00:34:56
Speaker
You know, like I can go to space.
00:34:58
Speaker
And it's with this like mylar that heats up with the sun.
00:35:04
Speaker
It's sort of sad and silly.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
But it kind of calls into attention this whole thing about
00:35:11
Speaker
you guys could probably pick a thing and cure it or you can go to space.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
Um,
00:35:26
Speaker
I guess there's two things.
00:35:27
Speaker
The first thing that comes to mind about balloons that I was particularly... It started with the video that I made where I was, you know, they were a mechanism to lift the camera, but the thing that was important about them about articulating the image, they end up defining the way the camera moves and therefore affects the video in a way that, like, what's sort of the center of that video is that it moves differently than a drone.
00:35:54
Speaker
And that is affected by the wind and by like weird air poles that happen because of the buildings down there and all these like unseen forces that the balloons kind of make visible.
00:36:08
Speaker
And and I think I became sort of.
00:36:12
Speaker
further interested in them from that process because there's a way in which they were always surprising me with with that it sort of felt like they were moving on their own accord but really they're just making unseen things visible because they're like moving in terms of these like conditions that I can't I don't have access to unless I am trying to operate which is a silly task which is a futile a futile task yeah also I think that work
00:36:38
Speaker
works so well because like obviously the like the shtick is fun and interesting in and of itself like the novelty of the balloons but then like the actual result is interesting on like a very different level that you're describing right um and a lot of times work doesn't get past the shtick part yeah not your work but like work in general yeah there's like um and i think that's the the the
00:37:06
Speaker
Something in what you just described is like the goal with responding to the billionaires going to space too.
00:37:11
Speaker
It's like, it's not just total, it's not, the aim is not to totally discount them because there's a really central human impulse to explore and to know beyond.
00:37:22
Speaker
But, but when you add like, there's something magic that happens when you're having this like absurd humor to what they're doing because it is absurd that they're going to space at a time like this, you know, and it's actually not absurd.
00:37:33
Speaker
It's pointed and like specific that they're doing that.
00:37:36
Speaker
And so that when you have, like, if you can find a place to be silly and sincere about it, it feels like a good counter to what's going on.
00:37:44
Speaker
Where you don't oversimplify by just being like, you're an asshole.
00:37:48
Speaker
But it can be both, you know?
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah, humor's good at that.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, humor's good at that.
Public Workshops with Solar Balloons
00:37:53
Speaker
Right.
00:37:55
Speaker
So the balloon, the big balloons, the, like, solar-powered balloons, in particular, I felt this was the ones I built on Governor's Island.
00:38:03
Speaker
And then I did it again in,
00:38:07
Speaker
in Chattanooga as a workshop with people.
00:38:10
Speaker
And what's really fun about them is the way they, when you do like public workshops with them, there's this expectation like, okay, now the thing's gonna perform like work and it doesn't work at all.
00:38:24
Speaker
Like it flies, but there's no control.
00:38:26
Speaker
It's complete chaos.
00:38:28
Speaker
which is not something we're used to doing as like a public together is trying to like orchestrate chaos.
00:38:34
Speaker
Right.
00:38:35
Speaker
So they're sort of objects that show the wind and the way we're not in control and they rip into pieces.
00:38:42
Speaker
And that's like they're not precious, but they're huge.
00:38:46
Speaker
There's something really nice about that as like they've become for me.
00:38:50
Speaker
They're like very much about like doing it with a bunch of people and being together out of control.
00:38:56
Speaker
Like, um,
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:58
Speaker
Was there ever, like, a perfect moment with one of those balloons?
00:39:01
Speaker
Like, it just worked?
00:39:02
Speaker
Oh, very fleeting.
00:39:03
Speaker
Only when I'm by myself, right?
00:39:05
Speaker
Interesting.
00:39:05
Speaker
Like, never when people are around.
00:39:06
Speaker
Well, also, like, the intention is to make them work.
00:39:11
Speaker
It's not like you're going into it, like, let's, like, make these things that malfunction.
00:39:16
Speaker
No.
00:39:17
Speaker
But it's just, like, any kind of, like, collaborative, messy thing that happens where there's a goal.
00:39:24
Speaker
It, like, doesn't.
00:39:26
Speaker
work like it's supposed to, but it does work on a level, right?
00:39:28
Speaker
So I think it can be a nice metaphor for a whole lot of things that are collective and collaborative that don't end up being what they're supposed to be, but there's like kernels there and there's inspiration there that's like really...
00:39:42
Speaker
Important.
00:39:43
Speaker
And the journey or the process is the thing.
00:39:45
Speaker
Is the thing.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:47
Speaker
I mean, they fly.
00:39:48
Speaker
For sure.
00:39:49
Speaker
They always fly.
00:39:51
Speaker
And maybe I'll just describe something about them that's interesting.
00:39:55
Speaker
Is they...
00:39:56
Speaker
The reason they don't work is because you're trying to tether them to the ground.
00:40:02
Speaker
If you let them go, and this happened by accident, they go to New Jersey.
00:40:06
Speaker
They're just gone into outer space.
00:40:08
Speaker
Specifically New Jersey, though.
00:40:13
Speaker
Something about a magnetic pole of that particular region.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:40:18
Speaker
Just love Jersey.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:21
Speaker
So when you're trying to hold them down, the wind, if there's any wind, it will drive them sideways.
00:40:29
Speaker
So there's this relationship of trying to let them go enough that they'll go vertical and then hold them down.
00:40:34
Speaker
Every time you try to hold them down, they start to hover near the ground and become precarious.
00:40:40
Speaker
like they're gonna rip or something and it's because you're putting tension on the rope.
00:40:45
Speaker
So yeah, there's like this give and take of that when you're doing it with people that's really fun to like feel as a group.
00:40:53
Speaker
So many metaphors there, like when you let go that's when something happens.
00:40:58
Speaker
Yeah, they take off and they don't listen anymore.
00:41:02
Speaker
And they have like the potential to like get stuck in airplanes propellers.
00:41:07
Speaker
Yeah, I get stuck by helicopters.
00:41:09
Speaker
Give me a panic attack.
00:41:13
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:41:14
Speaker
Powerful.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:16
Speaker
I think balloons are they've been a I don't know if I'm the balloon girl.
00:41:22
Speaker
Maybe I'm moving to a different place, but I'm definitely they were a surprise and I was like,
00:41:29
Speaker
they do a lot of interesting things in terms of how they articulate stuff.
00:41:34
Speaker
I used to be the balloon guy.
00:41:36
Speaker
Oh.
00:41:36
Speaker
Because I did a lot of work with twisting balloons.
00:41:43
Speaker
Well, were you in that residency when I came?
00:41:45
Speaker
We were in grad school together.
00:41:47
Speaker
You know, like, so we had a low residency program where you bring all the work you did in semester, you put it up on fake walls and then you get critiqued or whatever.
00:41:56
Speaker
This particular one, I came in with nothing but a bag of empty balloons.
00:42:01
Speaker
Not big ones, like clown ones.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:04
Speaker
And then I spent the whole day blowing them up, talking to people, and it's like making these structures and everything was like gridded.
00:42:11
Speaker
And then eventually the whole space was filled with these balloons.
00:42:14
Speaker
But that's one of the things, like you can fill a space quickly with a balloon.
00:42:18
Speaker
Take up form.
00:42:20
Speaker
Um, but yeah, the whole time everybody was like, is this going to be garbage?
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Like, is he going to like, is he going to like pull this off?
00:42:27
Speaker
Like, is this like, is this like him slacking?
00:42:30
Speaker
Is this a joke or is this actually like good?
00:42:32
Speaker
And what's your, you don't get to answer.
00:42:33
Speaker
What do you think?
00:42:34
Speaker
I mean, it's like little column A, little column B for sure.
00:42:37
Speaker
Uh, the, the resulting installation was cool.
00:42:40
Speaker
Uh, but it was because he was a slacker that he showed up with empty balloons.
00:42:43
Speaker
In my defense, I spent two months making things like in houses and in my apartments.
00:42:50
Speaker
So I bought I brought documentation so people could see all these forms that I made.
00:42:53
Speaker
You can't bring them with you because they're fleeting.
00:42:56
Speaker
Right.
00:42:57
Speaker
But yeah, it was a lot of practice.
00:42:59
Speaker
It must be fleeting.
00:43:01
Speaker
Must be fleeting.
00:43:02
Speaker
I appreciate that.
00:43:03
Speaker
But I have a soft spot for balloons because of that.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:06
Speaker
He also like he like apprenticed with a twister.
00:43:10
Speaker
Did you?
00:43:10
Speaker
To do that piece?
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, I had gone, Chicago has a balloon shop that you go in, not very fun, you go in with like a clipboard and you have to pick the balloons and they're like all like each one has a different size and a different gauge and a different like thickness and it's like it was a learning process and while I was in line a guy looked at me he goes, he goes, are you a twister?
00:43:32
Speaker
I'm like,
00:43:34
Speaker
No.
00:43:36
Speaker
I'm like, I'm an artist.
00:43:38
Speaker
I'm just learning how to do balloons.
00:43:40
Speaker
And he goes, whatever you call yourself.
00:43:42
Speaker
Yes, I love that.
00:43:46
Speaker
And he showed me all.
00:43:47
Speaker
He goes, let me show you something.
00:43:48
Speaker
And he made a tiger.
00:43:51
Speaker
He goes, that's my D game.
00:43:54
Speaker
He goes, you've got to pay me to see my A game.
00:43:56
Speaker
I'm like, wow.
00:43:57
Speaker
So he talked a little bit.
00:43:58
Speaker
So you have a long way to go.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:01
Speaker
You would be very upset that you'd never pursued the balloon.
00:44:05
Speaker
That was your one and done.
00:44:06
Speaker
That was it.
00:44:07
Speaker
There's still timing.
00:44:09
Speaker
I went to go get a pigeon from a pigeon guy for that piece I just made.
00:44:14
Speaker
Because I've kind of been thinking a lot about these pigeon guys because they... Lots of whole others.
00:44:19
Speaker
Wait, the ones on the motorcycles?
00:44:21
Speaker
Pigeon guy?
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:23
Speaker
The ones in Bushwick.
00:44:25
Speaker
They're like in Brooklyn and they just raise birds.
00:44:29
Speaker
There's a big culture of people that raise birds on their roots.
00:44:34
Speaker
And I went there to... So there's a place called Pigeons on Broadway.
00:44:39
Speaker
It's a pet store there and they only sell bird stuff.
00:44:42
Speaker
And I went in there months ago.
00:44:44
Speaker
Because I think they're really interesting like...
00:44:48
Speaker
use of public and private space like and also they like in terms of using roof space and they have like a pretty tender relationship with natural world in the middle of New York City.
00:45:00
Speaker
And like pigeons are gorgeous, but people hate them.
00:45:02
Speaker
Yeah, like they're like
00:45:03
Speaker
quote, disgusting, but like, they're actually like really beautiful birds.
00:45:05
Speaker
And these guys are like largely working class people that just like love birds.
00:45:09
Speaker
It's pretty fascinating.
00:45:11
Speaker
Anyway, I got a lesson from him on how to use, how to capture pigeons.
00:45:16
Speaker
And he was pretty upset when I didn't pursue it.
00:45:18
Speaker
It was like a full time career.
00:45:20
Speaker
He was like, why did I spend time on you?
00:45:24
Speaker
He could have been investing in somebody who, yeah, who like actually wanted to take care of pigeons.
00:45:30
Speaker
But you're, I've heard of this method.
00:45:33
Speaker
It's like a way to kind of like know where the pigeon's going to go.
00:45:36
Speaker
You like put your hand up above your head.
00:45:39
Speaker
And then it looks pretty violent, but you have to be quick with it.
00:45:43
Speaker
Is it because they're like paying attention to your hand and then you swipe them?
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
And then you just come in quick.
00:45:47
Speaker
That's how I get my cat.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:49
Speaker
See?
00:45:53
Speaker
Well, cool.
00:45:55
Speaker
So then you're going off to St.
00:45:56
Speaker
Louis to teach, right?
00:45:59
Speaker
And then you're going to pursue light.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to see about light in St.
00:46:03
Speaker
Louis.
00:46:04
Speaker
I mean, I'm excited about St.
00:46:06
Speaker
Louis.
00:46:07
Speaker
It's very strange architecturally, and it has a really kind of long and dark history in terms of the city.
00:46:18
Speaker
And it's very physical in terms of the way it's in the built landscape there.
00:46:24
Speaker
All things that I'm very interested in.
00:46:27
Speaker
So I visited for the first time last week just for a couple of days.
00:46:31
Speaker
But I was like, this is an interesting place.
00:46:33
Speaker
So I'm excited to dig in.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:36
Speaker
Awesome.
00:46:37
Speaker
Any other questions?
00:46:40
Speaker
You know, I did have one question that I didn't ask earlier, which was, do you ever do guerrilla installation sculptures that you don't document that you just leave places?
00:46:52
Speaker
or have, did you used to?
00:46:54
Speaker
She just left.
00:46:59
Speaker
Um, and maybe not even like officially, but like, you know, you happen to like you're at a thrift store or something.
00:47:05
Speaker
And you just rearrange things.
00:47:07
Speaker
Um, no, actually, I think it's interesting because I think the answer no has to do with, um,
00:47:22
Speaker
Like it, it doesn't, there's a way in which my process completes when I document something that's because of the kind of installation artists I've, I've sort of become and built.
00:47:36
Speaker
And now like, unless I take a photo of it, it feels like unfinished in my own process outside of showing it to other people.
00:47:44
Speaker
So maybe that's an answer for it, but I actually have, yeah.
00:47:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:47
Speaker
That's cool.
00:47:48
Speaker
I was just curious.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:50
Speaker
Follow-up question.
00:47:51
Speaker
So the documentation for you is just the binding endpoint to a project?
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, and that's kind of
00:47:59
Speaker
I can't extract that from the way that my work is mostly seen, you know?
00:48:06
Speaker
I sort of wish that wasn't true, but at this point in my time, most people see it through a document.
00:48:13
Speaker
So I've become very concerned with that.
00:48:17
Speaker
And in a way that doesn't feel cheap.
00:48:19
Speaker
It feels like it, but it has to be it.
00:48:22
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:48:22
Speaker
It sounds like a problem to overcome for you.
00:48:24
Speaker
Because it's like... Sure.
00:48:26
Speaker
We met, remember Maria Gabler?
00:48:28
Speaker
We met at the, she has a problem with that because she wants you to experience the installation.
00:48:34
Speaker
And she hates the fact that the documentation is the only thing that lingers.
00:48:37
Speaker
Right.
00:48:39
Speaker
But it doesn't even equate or come close to the walking through a position.
00:48:43
Speaker
There's also something to be said for pragmatism, right?
00:48:45
Speaker
Right.
00:48:46
Speaker
But I like the idea that you can kind of work through that.
00:48:49
Speaker
I will say, too, that just as a consumer of conceptual art and as someone that obviously I care about that work and...
00:48:59
Speaker
I've gotten so used to and some of my favorite art, most of it I haven't seen and I've largely like read a sentence of what it was and that's still my favorite art.
00:49:09
Speaker
So I have appreciation for the fact that it can hit even if you're not there.
00:49:14
Speaker
So I guess I have a little of both in me.
00:49:16
Speaker
Like I'm not a stickler for it, but obviously I would like to do both.
00:49:22
Speaker
I like to make things that people see all the time.
00:49:26
Speaker
Sounds good as a visual artist, but yeah.
00:49:31
Speaker
Awesome.
00:49:32
Speaker
I think that's a good ending point.
00:49:33
Speaker
That's an excellent ending point.
00:49:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:35
Speaker
Well, thank you so much.
00:49:36
Speaker
Good luck with your teaching gig.
00:49:38
Speaker
Thank you.
00:49:38
Speaker
Hope you get what you want out of it.
00:49:41
Speaker
Thank you for doing what you do.
00:49:42
Speaker
You're an inspiration.
00:49:44
Speaker
My daughter, the fact that she knows and has said the words Annika Todd like several occasions when asked about artists.
00:49:52
Speaker
I mean, that's you've completed my.
00:49:54
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:49:56
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:49:56
Speaker
I love that.
00:49:57
Speaker
I'm not going to add any more thank yous to that flattery.
00:50:00
Speaker
That's pretty good.
00:50:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty good.
00:50:02
Speaker
That's going to carry me for a while.
00:50:04
Speaker
Well, yeah, thank you.
00:50:05
Speaker
Thank you.
00:50:12
Speaker
Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, an evolving curatorial platform based in New York City with a focus on the intersection of contemporary and crypto art.
00:50:22
Speaker
You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at Lydian Stater NYC on Instagram, and follow us at Lydian Stater on Twitter.
00:50:29
Speaker
Thanks to Anika Todd for taking the time to speak to us this week.
00:50:32
Speaker
If you'd like to learn more about her work, visit our website at anikatodd.com.
00:50:36
Speaker
Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music.
00:50:40
Speaker
His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
00:50:43
Speaker
And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
00:50:48
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:50:50
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:50:51
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:50:54
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:50:55
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:50:56
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:51:09
Speaker
you