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Ken Volante
160 Plays4 years ago
Ken Volante has been asking questions of SRTN guests for awhile. In this special episode, Rachel Lally, podcast host of Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other returns to ask the SRTN host the baffling questions he usually advantages himself of. Ken Volante is a labor activist.
Volante is originally from Pawtucket, RI which is known as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. He has worked on behalf of working people for a quarter century and was involved in the beginning stages of The Wisconsin Revolt.
He holds degrees in English literature and Philosophy from The University of Rhode Island, an M.A. in Philosophy from Marquette University, a M.S. in Labor Studies from The University of Massachusetts - Amherst. He has worked as a grocery clerk, a bookstore clerk, a University Professor and a union representative. His creative endeavors include hosting the podcast 'Something (rather than nothing)', painting in an abstract style, writing short pieces and he has recently started doing short documentaries.
Volante is influenced by the following artists: Kathy Acker, Nikolai Gogol, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Plato, Immanuel Kant, Jesus Christ, Stanley Kubrick, Polly Jean Harvey Andrei Tarkovsky, The Buddha, William Faulkner, David Lynch, Taylor Swift, The Cure, Neurosis, Neutral Milk Hotel, Weedeater. (((Remember, every list you write will be incomplete))) This episode is dedicated to my lovely parents Kenny Sr. and Patricia :-)
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Transcript
Introduction & Theatre Beginnings
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:17
Speaker
So what were you doing the other night? Were you doing like a stage thing? Stage, like a little train? Yeah, I'm directing. I started this year, I started in youth theatre. So I'm sure I told you the last time you were chatting, I was fortunate enough to be involved in youth theatre when I was grown up and that was what kind of instilled me the confidence and
00:00:43
Speaker
And basically I got to see that, you know, theatre was actually a job that people could do and not just, you know, something that's a hobby. So,
Directing Challenges in the Pandemic
00:00:55
Speaker
yeah, so I've been working with a group called Drama House.
00:00:59
Speaker
out of the city centre of Dublin but still in Dublin and we started a youth theatre this year and so I've been working with the founder of Drama House and we're participating in a competition with the
00:01:17
Speaker
with the National Theatre in London where they commission a number of plays every year for young people. So we're taking on with plays and I'm directing one of them this year, which is an enormous challenge because we have no idea if we'll be allowed to be in class together or have to rehearse on Zoom or have to perform on Zoom or perform on stage or whether we'll have an audience.
00:01:43
Speaker
everything is absolutely up in the air, so it's been a great lesson in just being in the moment, I suppose.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, and it sounds it sounds it sounds exciting. And I think the the uncertainty, you know, is is definitely part of part of any production.
Revisiting with Rachel Lally
00:02:05
Speaker
So, Rachel, I'm talking to the listeners right now to describe what's going on. We have Rachel Lally here, who is I don't want to say an old friend of the show, but a friend of the show over time. I look up great.
00:02:22
Speaker
You know, I looked it up. You are on episode 41. I have that episode date as July 1st and a lovely episode. I will say, I got to say, Rachel, that I continued the show after you were on because not that your answers weren't good, but you didn't resolve all the questions. So even after you were on, I decided to continue to be here.
00:02:49
Speaker
The show, some questions were unanswered, but so we have Rachel back and Rachel wanted to welcome you and I think you're going to ask me questions. Isn't that what we decided? I'm going to turn the tables on you, Ken, because I've been listening to you for a while and you've been asking all the questions and being the philosopher you are, I feel like you need to be in the spotlight.
00:03:17
Speaker
And we need to put you in front of the microphone and we need to comment the line on you for a moment. And I'm going to ask you some questions and see how you do. OK, before I do get to ask one as a point of personal privilege, I'd imagine these might be a combination of the strange combination of six or one half a dozen of the other in something rather than nothing. That's a mouthful. That is a mouthful, yeah. And it's going to be off the wall, I'd say.
00:03:47
Speaker
All right. Thanks, Rachel. I'm ready and I'm thoroughly terrified. Good, good. That's where I like it. I'll start off easy. I'll easy in gently and then I'll hit you whenever you expect it. So, Cam, tell me, what were you like as a young person, as a young human? As
Ken's Childhood Reflections
00:04:05
Speaker
a young person. I don't remember.
00:04:14
Speaker
I talk to people sometimes and they're like, I remember when I was like three years old and, uh, you know, I was, I was staring at the tree and it was sunny and it was beautiful and I was blissful. Like, I don't know. Like I have memories. Actually, Rachel, you're going to appreciate what I think my first memory is and it might be a illustrative. I think I was supposed to be going to preschool.
00:04:42
Speaker
And I was in line and somebody made fun of me and I punched that person in the stomach and I never got taken into school. I think that happened. I got pushed in line when I was younger. So that definitely threw me off. No, I didn't do a lot of art. I did a lot of reading. I was a very athletic kid. I played baseball. I played football. I was really fast, a really fast runner.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I didn't create many things that I recall, but I really enjoyed sports and I did well in school. But yeah, not as far as art or creativity. I had a lot of energy. I was a smart little kid. I was a good little athlete.
00:05:32
Speaker
And I had like a troublemaker streak in me. And I think that's come out in art and in the work that I do as a union rep. Can you remember what the kid hit you for? What they made fun of you about?
00:05:48
Speaker
Um, I don't know, but it was kind of weird. It's like, I wasn't socialized properly. Like it was too young. You know what I mean? Like it's like, Hey, I want to take the kid to go on to Santa's lap and you know, it doesn't work out. It's like way before time, but, um, no, it was just like, I like to tell the, that I remember this interaction or I had this interaction that I was fighting for justice or something like that. Rachel, I can't tell you that I'm much, might've just been irritated and maladjusted.
00:06:18
Speaker
That might be a work of creation of your own. We'll never know. Thank you. You're trying to salvage it. Thanks. So you do a lot of things.
Artistic Journey and Inspirations
00:06:29
Speaker
You, like me, are multi-disciplinary artists. You have your podcast, you paint, you write. You probably do lots of other stuff that I don't know about. I know you've been working on videos.
00:06:40
Speaker
and been involved in a burlesque scene and lots of other things. So what forms of art do you enjoy? And I suppose there's two parts to this question. What forms of art do you enjoy consuming and what forms of art do you enjoy being involved with? Yeah, I am.
00:07:02
Speaker
I'm very, I would say, reasonably obsessive about art that I love. And by that, I mean I've read and listened to hundreds and thousands of books over my life. I've watched a ton of movies. My dad was a huge movie buff. And we would watch the worst movies and the best movies.
00:07:31
Speaker
terrible horror movies, low budget movies, you know, the top movies. And so a lot of movies and a lot of books. And then a very pivotal moment for me, I never really saw painting or painted or new painters. But when I was 17, I had the opportunity to travel overseas on a class trip and I went to Spain.
00:07:59
Speaker
And I studied Velasquez and I studied Spanish painting and I was able to go to the Prado. And I was just, you know, Rachel, I was just a city kid. I'm from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the East Coast and the U.S. And so a lot of this higher art or the Prado, all this type of stuff was kind of like talking that I'm taking a trip to Mars. You know what I mean? It was very different.
00:08:29
Speaker
than the experience of others, but I love movies, love painting, and I love books. I do enjoy writing. I don't write a lot.
00:08:44
Speaker
And you said I'm in a, I did a documentary on Zora von Pavanin, who was also a guest on episode 10. And yeah, I just started working on video. Another video project I worked on was with a friend of mine artist, Megan McGroarty, which was a work
00:09:06
Speaker
Why she runs about women running for office around the United States in the 2016 2018 election and the unique issues women face
00:09:20
Speaker
while running for office. And Rachel, I'm sure you're sensitive to some of these things where, you know, why do you have a press conference with a long discussion about what a female candidate is wearing rather than her position on, you know, public housing, right? Yeah, we certainly have that problem here too. Yeah, so those are some of the things that I really enjoy and things that I've done. And I adore painting, you know, myself.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah. Great. So tell me more about your painting. Let's chat about your art. Let's talk about how you come to create what you do, what is your process, and how you decide what projects to work on. Oh,
Painting Late in Life
00:10:09
Speaker
my gosh.
00:10:10
Speaker
You know, Rachel, I feel like I'm excited by hearing these questions as much as I have asked them. I got to admit, I probably haven't thought too much about it. No, painting for me is a very strange relationship and process. And the reason why I say it's strange is that, Rachel, I don't recall painting anything at all.
00:10:34
Speaker
in my life prior to being when I was 45 and somebody introduced me to painting and it was it was very crucial at that point. It was about three years ago and I didn't know you know kind of that I had permission to paint or what you used or what you you know any part of the process but I learned and like a lot of things I've studied is self-taught
00:11:00
Speaker
And at that point, it was very important for me to communicate in a different way. Rachel, you know, when you say things with words or you say things visually, they're very powerful languages. Um, but they can communicate different things. They're going to be different ways of speaking. Um, so when I started painting, it was just kind of like an outburst of like whatever the heck showed up. And then I started to.
00:11:29
Speaker
realized that I might be able to express things abstractly or formally or by a strange design rather than ways I wasn't comfortable with, you know, technical expertise, being able to see something and then record it on the canvas. I haven't shown myself to be any of that, and that hasn't been my interest. It's been more of a feeling
00:11:55
Speaker
And I also paint with a great, great, great impatience, meaning that I can't stay in front of it for too long. So it tends to be evocative and reactive and a little bit uneven of an experience. I don't go to the easel to just drift away for a few hours. It's actually somewhat of the opposite of that experience. So it's been an exploration for me.
00:12:26
Speaker
You said two really interesting things there. The first was that you didn't realize that you had permission at the age that you were to participate. I'm a big advocate for everyone can learn anything. I hear this a lot when I teach drama myself. People say, I'm not an actor. I'm not creative.
00:12:52
Speaker
they make excuses or they feel like they're not allowed or there's barriers up and it's not for them or they're not allowed to try certain things. And it's really important for people to know that you can start anything at any moment in time. And once you want to learn something, you can learn how to do it.
00:13:14
Speaker
it's really, really important. And I think the second thing you said that was really interesting was about just going into it with no sort of preconceptions and just, like, I think you're painting work from what I've seen anyways, very expressionist. So you put a lot of yourself into it, but it's not defined by, you know, what anyone else has told you it should be or
00:13:45
Speaker
You know, it's your, it's your own, it's your own conversation with the canvas. So I think that's really important. Yeah. I think Rachel, and I want to say this cause I've been talking to, to folks around this, you know, I've been quite honestly in doing the podcast, I've been, I'm really just, you know, befuddled at art and art processes. I'm just truly fascinated by what artists do and how they do it. And, you know, including myself.
00:14:11
Speaker
But I'm really just always kind of just in a state of wonder about creating things. And I think I have a different relationship with painting, with writing, with anything, with video and with producing a podcast. And I think part of my task has been to
00:14:36
Speaker
create a good relationship with each one of those and I'm still in the process of doing so because I find that I'm having a relationship with what I'm creating and sometimes I think it's manifesting kind of unhealthy relationship aspects like I want to make sure my relationship with what I create is calibrated
00:15:00
Speaker
and expansive and serving my own mental health. Yeah, I think very much what you're talking about is the argument between the process and the product. And sometimes the process is more important than the product. And sometimes the focus is on the product more than the process. And both are OK. Both are OK.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good distinction. That's, you know, that's helpful. And everything I create has been more towards like, you know, health and betterment. So that distinction, I think is really helpful. That's why I'm talking to you, Rachel. Yeah, it's really interesting to think about, you know, and the processes are important. I think, you know, most of the time,
00:15:47
Speaker
the actual artistic process itself because so much of it is invisible for it for the person who views the final product they don't necessarily see the whole process that goes into it or the thought patterns or the you know all you know sometimes you can look at a painting and not realize like that's a month's worth of sketches or
00:16:10
Speaker
years worth of playing with a team or you don't see a play and not you don't see the months and months of rehearsals that have gone into it or the years of training that an actor has been through or you watch a film and you forget that it was you know filmed over the space of a year in like loads of different locations and stuff but
00:16:33
Speaker
The process, lots of things happen in the process that are very magic and the product isn't going to be the same if you don't go through all those steps either.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. And that process versus the outcome is something that I'm newer in the relationship with. And the painting process itself is very therapeutic for me. The simple application of wet paint onto a canvas and those strokes in and of itself probably has most of the therapy for me. So I know that. So I got that. And that's helpful. Yeah, I think there's something about what you're saying about expressing yourself in a visual way, which I think
00:17:15
Speaker
Lots of people think of being sort of an out there kind of thing or like a thing that artists do, but when you look at the statistics of how people receive information and the actual, the communication of words being like 10% of how you receive
00:17:33
Speaker
your impression of someone or a message and the visual or nonverbal information being like a much higher percentage of that, something like almost, you know, 40, 50, 60%. It's no doubt that humans constantly are looking for these visual ways to communicate with each other. It's really important to us, like on a very basic scientific level as well.
00:18:02
Speaker
Thank you, Rachel. This is why I have you. You're helping me along. Okay, so right. What's the situation at the moment with you guys there and with COVID and the pandemic and stuff? So here in Dublin, we are literally
00:18:19
Speaker
We've just come out of a six-week, quite severe lockdown where everything but essential services has been open. So we've been still able to go to the supermarket and stuff, but not much more than that. So this week is the first week of us being able to go to like, you know, clothes shops or
Pandemic's Societal Impact
00:18:39
Speaker
Um, a restaurant with very strict measures still in place before Christmas. I guess the goal here is for everyone to be able to spend Christmas with their families with little risk of, of infection rates going up. So where are you guys with that at the moment? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Right. That's, um, it's, um, this is, this is the, I don't know, it feels like.
00:19:08
Speaker
For the last few months, it feels like kind of being held hostage and then not by government or any of that type of thing. For me here, the problem is the rest of Americans, because we've seen this huge acceleration of kind of like denial, conspiracy theories. I'm not sure if you've seen a lot of this. It's real. I've been following a lot, yeah. And we certainly have had
00:19:37
Speaker
a surge or just this emergence of a subset of society that I didn't think was so large in this country that are very anti-science, I mean anti-establishment, but I don't necessarily disagree with that, but very anti-fact, I would say.
00:20:05
Speaker
Well, I think that's part of the dynamic that I've seen that's changed. I mean, Rachel, you're you're a thinker. I'm a thinker. I mean, there are certain I want to see assumptions. There's certain beliefs that I had. Like, if you take a look, you know, here for the United States, right? I didn't really. I mean, United States has a very violent, bloody, difficult history. But I didn't see the U.S. as like a
00:20:34
Speaker
fascist place like I didn't see that there was something in the spirit where people kind of be like nah like nobody could tell me what to do I don't need to take you know commands from an old man you know like like there was just kind of some like spirit of rebellion um and I honestly don't I overestimated that that piece and
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're I'm experiencing some things here just seeing what the in this country where, you know, you actually have a verifiable, like numerical outcome of an election where I think something like 80 plus percent of like the Republican Party here doesn't has not accepted or won't enunciate that another candidate has won.
00:21:25
Speaker
that you have massive resistance to some health protocols. It's just really incredible that there are forces at play that seem kind of beyond the control of, I don't know, maybe rational, balance-minded, science-oriented, health-oriented, communal living.
00:21:52
Speaker
It's kind of like some of the worst aspects here of like individualism I'm gonna get my own thing anti-government anti anybody tell me anything is run rampant and Made it a very very you know dangerous situation here so I don't know like I said, I feel like I
00:22:18
Speaker
The divisions that are here, I've never felt such strong antagonism in categorically towards people who are in danger in my health and what it means for the future. So I feel it is a pretty intense situation with surprises. And I've heard some surprise in your voice about some of the things you've seen, I think, during the pandemic there. Is that correct?
00:22:47
Speaker
Well yeah I mean it's just an unprecedented year that something on this scale would happen and I suppose it's the first time and you know for my, certainly for my generation probably for many generations in this country where we've had to trust our government and
00:23:10
Speaker
I mean, our government is, whether they're trustworthy or not, I mean, there are experts and there are people you can trust within that group. And what I feel is happening in the US is that there's a lot of distrust, like in various factions and distrust of different parts of society. You know, it's very much
00:23:41
Speaker
in contrast with each other, there is there is mistrust there and it's very vicious and aggressive, I think sometimes. Yeah. And I think, you know, for me, this might sound a little strange, but, you know, with with Trump, it was he's a, you know, he's a, you know, media reality type show type guy. And, you know, the reality shows came out when they were trying to bust the
00:24:07
Speaker
the screenwriters and such over here in the U.S., right? So there was this regular old, you know, your regular programming. And then when the writer strike came about, they moved more towards a reality format in order to try to bust the union. So we're like part of this with Trump is like,
00:24:27
Speaker
I think we're unpaid actors in a reality show. It just feels that way with hopefully a peaceful transfer of power in January. Fingers crossed and I hope, I hope it is peaceful and it works out. And yeah, we're all, the rest of the world are waiting to see what happens.
00:24:53
Speaker
So
Art's Role in Society
00:24:53
Speaker
in terms of what is happening, culturally, politically at the moment, where does art fit into all of that? Well, yeah, I mean, I've been, as you know, asking a lot of guests, because I think there's been a couple of major disruptions, at least in my experience here in the US, as far as the pandemic and, you know, the role of
00:25:23
Speaker
you know, the role of art in a pandemic to, you know, is it value? Does it go up? Does it increase? I think it does. But also there's the component of social change that we've seen here, particularly in very close to me in Portland and the historical racial injustices in the U.S. And I believe, you know, right now that
00:25:54
Speaker
Art has a very pivotal role in a different role for different people. For some, I think it is part of the revolution or part of the opening up of opportunity, ability, consciousness. So I work in the labor movement and pickets, visual pickets, protest.
00:26:19
Speaker
bodies, you know, artists putting their bodies on the line in protesting racial injustice. In the US, I see a lot of those things as very artistic acts in formal art helping that happen. So I view art
00:26:45
Speaker
now as having such a vital, active, everyday role in disruption, but also in awareness about the social change that's going on. I get excited about it, but I think there's a countervailing potential in art of being a conservative reinforcer, you know what I mean?
00:27:12
Speaker
of, you know, white power of, you know, kind of historical injustices. So it can cement injustice, but it can also disrupt art's ability to do that.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, you're dead right. And actually, it's very interesting what you said about, you know, when all the screenwriters went on strike, you know, the reality TV format became at the forefront. And it is kind of interesting how that narrative can shift and it can be, you know, art can be abused and misused as well. And I think many artists don't
00:27:52
Speaker
like to accept that reality or think about it too much. So I think that's a really important point that you brought up.
Defining Art and Perception
00:27:59
Speaker
So, Ken, what is art? I don't have a big answer on this. My answer on this is art is somebody pointing at something
00:28:21
Speaker
and showing you it. An artist is gonna put a, gonna paint something and put it on the wall and point to it. It's going to be a video is going to be, but the artist is going to point at something and say, look at this and
00:28:45
Speaker
So does art define by the fact that there is an observer or an audience? I think it's on both sides. I think there is intention. And in a lot of discussions I've had with artists like yourself and others on the podcast, there tends to be
00:29:10
Speaker
two major elements to this, right? One is the artist, like the intent of the artist, and one is the viewer. So I do see the relationship as the individual who's pointing, physically pointing, showing, representing, saying that this is something for you to look at. But it is dependent, it is dependent on the others' eyes.
00:29:39
Speaker
Um, so there is that relationship, I think between, uh, the art piece in that, which is viewed, but primarily that the artist is pointing at something and say, look at this, please look at this, or it's $25. And what were who, would you say has made you who you are?
00:30:12
Speaker
Can you hear the guy singing? Hang on. Is there something in the background? Do the guy ain't slide singing like at the top of his voice? I couldn't even hear it. It's a mysterious sound. Who or what? I mean, you know, my parents and especially my mom, and I want to say a couple of things about that.
00:30:41
Speaker
My parents, you know, my mom was 16 when she was pregnant with me. My dad, she was a sophomore in high school and my dad was a senior in high school. And, you know, they're just they're just a couple of kids trying to get by, you know, and both come from larger families and they started a family.
00:31:05
Speaker
Imagine being a 16 year old. Yeah. Yeah. So my mom was a sophomore in high school and she ended up getting her GED. And, uh, you know, my dad was working and they, you know, they had little Ken Jr on the way and then my brother, um, and then my sister about 12 years, uh, later. So I had, you know, very young parents and, uh, it really is. And, um,
00:31:31
Speaker
So, you know, my mom and dad really instilled upon me. I mean, they knew that we grew up in the city. They had seen a lot of stuff in the city, you know, kind of difficult things for working people, you know, things like alcoholism in the family, you know, just some of the difficulties in getting through life. But
00:31:51
Speaker
They very much created, they put everything into the environment for us kids to do our thing, to kind of like have a normal life, to have what we needed. But the biggest piece of it, Rachel, was that they said to me, you can do whatever you want to do. You got to go to college.
00:32:16
Speaker
You got to, you got to further your education. You got to look at possibilities, but you got to do whatever it is they feel can do. And I also want to mention something else about my mom. There were certain things that as I've gotten older, I look back where she did stuff.
00:32:33
Speaker
that was just kind of like mind opening because she's a really quiet woman and she really, she's really interested in, you know, having people feel comfortable and feeling at home. But we'd be watching TV in the eighties and there'd be like a gay couple on TV or something would be on a news program and she'd be like, what do you think about that? And she was talking about how it's important that people love each other. We get uphold love.
00:32:59
Speaker
I mean, there'd be a, I remember seeing a video, it was like a natural birth and my mom was like, watch this. This is where babies come from. This is a natural, you know, this is a natural birth. Yeah. She did a lot of things that were, you wouldn't know these things. She was so quiet about her. Just for her is fundamentally like treat people the right way. Give people the dignity that they deserve. Let people love who they want to love. Let's,
00:33:28
Speaker
And so it was, it was quiet, but it was very impactful for me. And, um, uh, and my dad and him instilling, uh, both in my brother and I and my sister, the ability to do what you want. So they didn't, they didn't close down options for me. And so I was just a city kid.
00:33:53
Speaker
wide-eyed, interested in things, no idea which direction I was going. But I think it's very clear that my parents laid down the foundation so I could explore what I wanted in life. And I couldn't rate that more highly. She sounds like an incredible person, both of your parents doing it, whether in particular. They're still together. That's amazing.
00:34:22
Speaker
You know, I'm 48. So the calculus calculation for my parents anniversary, I always remember it's x plus one. So I'm 48. Their 49th anniversary is coming up. I'm so impressed that you can do math too. What an amazing answer to that question. And so what is it that makes you want to create things or to be an artist?
00:34:53
Speaker
Um, I, I'd like to say, I'd really like to say, Rachel, that's, it's an innate thing in creating the art for me, but it's not, or it's not yet. Um, I'm just being honest. I'm not connected to the deep. I think it sounds like it is, but
00:35:18
Speaker
It's like you're saying that it's not because from what you've from your answer, this sounds like it is something that's very unique. Well, I feel the need to be exploring these issues, to exploring these issues and to be creating things.
00:35:40
Speaker
And I feel, at this point in my life, more compelled to. But this is the Philosopher's Dilemma, and I'm probably interested in what you have to say about this, Rachel. I mean, there's something funny about this show that I do.
00:35:54
Speaker
When you're a philosopher, you kind of laugh at the questions that you ask, right? What is our, why is there something rather than nothing? You know, why are we here? You know, what is death? You know, what does it mean to live a good life? All these type of things. And it isn't like if, you know, on the basis of me doing this program and the questions you ask, because you do a philosophy program yourself, that
00:36:19
Speaker
The questions aren't, the questions still kind of haunt you after the fact, like they kind of... You can never know the answers to the question, can you? You can only think about what the options might be. So there's so many questions that you'll never have the answer to. And there's many, many points in life where
00:36:42
Speaker
you know, whether it's tragic circumstances or very happy circumstances where you'll never know that why something happened for the best or the worst or why somebody did something that they did or not, you'll never have the answer to those questions. And it is the most frustrating
00:37:03
Speaker
thing I think when you're a human, you always seek for answers, you seek to understand everything and to be in a place where you can accept that sometimes you just don't have the answers and you can be really angry and bitter about that or you can accept it.
00:37:24
Speaker
and be at peace with it or laugh about our struggle to continue to try to do it anyway. Yeah, I mean, but that's fundamentally what being a human is, isn't it? Well, yeah, I mean, you keep and I like the way that you put it too. And I just want to
00:37:45
Speaker
You know, the point about the questions, the questions are haunting, but they're also, they're revitalizing and they're also maddening. They contain all these qualities that's, you know, that's like art itself. But on the question of like, I mean, I want to give a, maybe just a tiny bit, a little more specific on like, on creating things.
Philosophical Explorations in Podcasting
00:38:08
Speaker
Like I know when I need to paint and I go to paint.
00:38:12
Speaker
If I'm going to write, I have to force myself to write. And when I'm doing the podcast and creating these type of things, I'm usually pretty darn unsure of what I'm trying to do or where it's going. But I like the ability that within the conversation, within the creative act,
00:38:40
Speaker
that other things open up. I'm trying to do the podcast as an experiment. Rachel, I forget if I told you this. Coming up pretty soon, I'm going to switch over the podcast for a mini experiment where I switch it and call it nothing rather than something.
00:39:01
Speaker
And yeah, yeah, I'm going to be doing this. So we can do a few more episodes and then I'm going to switch it within the context of the program. And the idea is this over four episodes through a Buddhism and Taoism in some of philosophical traditions that point to that there actually is nothing that you can show that within that to exploring the question that way.
00:39:30
Speaker
And at the end of that, I'm going to try to lead for a podcast, a kind of online mindfulness, nothingness therapy to, you know, kind of switch the question around and have it lead towards health and then go back to
00:39:52
Speaker
this program, but you're doing such a fantastic job interviewing me. I fear you're going to take this program over, Rachel. I might have a job, Ken. As you were saying, I think that's very stoic, to live without anything or to be without
00:40:13
Speaker
luxuries and to be content with that, that for me is that philosophical, you know, that's the way. So Ken, why is there, if there is something rather than nothing? Now my answer two ways, isn't it? Kind of a weasel way after all this time. Don't disappoint me now.
00:40:45
Speaker
I'm going to answer it two ways and I want it to reflect what, you know, at this time in my life and the studies that I've done, what are actual, the way I see answers to this question. First of all, I will say that the question might be incorrectly posed, which I've hinted at in past episodes.
00:41:08
Speaker
On a philosophical basis, I am indeed heavily influenced by Buddhist philosophers, including the philosopher Nargarjuna. And this philosophical tradition is based kind of on a deconstruction. If you show things, if you point at things to be the case, now within the Buddhist tradition, there's no thing in of itself.
00:41:38
Speaker
and there's no ego or observer to observe the thing. There's more of a flow in a reality of which we use language to kind of parse out, right? So what I mean by this is that I'm sitting here and I'm looking at a microphone and the microphone is there, but it's just an experience flow.
00:42:05
Speaker
But as far as language, and I need to break this apart to describe this to you, I'm going to describe myself as a subject, as an ego, as a person. I'm going to describe this physical object, the microphone. But there's a belief within Buddhist philosophy that there's no inherent essence or inherent there-ness of either myself or the microphone. So I believe
00:42:30
Speaker
fundamentally that we are in a situation where there actually is no thing in a philosophical sense. The other way, like I said, it's a little bit weaselly to try to approach this at this is that I'm heavily influenced by astrophysics and cosmology and science and it's certainly something I've studied on my own.
00:42:53
Speaker
But I've been influenced in such a way that I do believe, though I can't explain, that the universe does seem to have exploded out of potentiality and to have come actually from nothing. So at the end of the day, Rachel, I think I'm committed to trying to defend that there is no something.
00:43:23
Speaker
That's what I got for you. Well, I wasn't expecting that. I think I'm going to I'm going to turn the tables yet again. And I'm going to ask you a question that you might not be expecting. OK. So we both live pretty close to the coast. Yeah. Yeah. About an hour away from me. Yeah. So I'm walking along the beach one day here in
00:43:53
Speaker
tear into them. We're very lucky here. We're on the sea, basically, 20, 25 minutes in the car. You can jump in the sea and go for a freezing cold swim. There's seals, there's dolphins, there's the whole lot. Anyway, I find this rock, right? And it looks amazing. It actually looks like a sculpture.
00:44:17
Speaker
And fortunately, because I'm me and I'm multidisciplinary and I'm very talented, I just so happen to be running a pop-up gallery in Dublin this week. And I just thought I'm going to put this stone on display as a sculpture. I'm going to present it to the world as a sculpture. It's not though, it's really just a rock that I found on the beach. Is it art, Ken?
00:44:47
Speaker
Uh, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's such a good one. I'll tell you when it's, I'll tell you when it's art is because you said, look at this. And when it was sitting there, um, I think there's a very deep question of which philosophers can tangle with that. If you are a believer in a, in a God, if you are a theist, if you are a believer in God or gods,
00:45:17
Speaker
There's going to be an author behind that. And I think you can call it a, you can attempt to call it a work of art in and of itself because of the creator who's created those things or the, or the magic forces of the earth or whatever, that there is a creator. But if you're agnostic on that, I'm an agnostic. Is a tree a work of art? It is not. What if I'm like, Hey, do you look at this tree? Then maybe.
00:45:48
Speaker
It has to, there's a presentation element. I think here's, here's what I'm saying. And we can, we can kick this around. What I'm saying is these, these, these objects, these living things, these scenes, uh, that rock, that boulder with the, with the belief in a creator, I think you have an artist. If you doubt the separate creator, you don't have a work of art.
00:46:17
Speaker
But you, Rachel, you being the multi-talented person that you are, you looking at that beautiful creation, you getting away from any question of theism, whether a God created that and you putting that for display and others saying, hey, look at this. It's an art piece now. So if I stand on the stage in the theater and do absolutely nothing and I charge everyone like 85 quid, right?
00:46:45
Speaker
and you've paid 85 quid, you're gonna see Rachel Ali live in, I don't know, what's your big arena there? Here it's the tree arena. Rachel Ali in the tree arena, 85 quid tickets. And I walk on the stage and I'm like, I am married. Well, great question. I would say that art
00:47:13
Speaker
in the art world or the established art world is that, right? So if I'm a famous artist, and I know it's an extreme position, but if I'm a well-known artist, right? So let's go back to the rock, the beautiful, we'll call it the rock, the rock sculpture, right? It's like a Michelangelo, this rock, like it's absolutely amazing. It's just beautiful. And I'm Andy Warhol, and I've gotten out of the city.
00:47:42
Speaker
right? I've gotten out of the city. And, uh, why can't you be Ken Volante? Here's why. Ken Volante goes and sees that and says, Hey everybody, Hey art world, look at this piece of art. And they say, Ken, Ken Volante, what was, what's going on? Like, like what's going on? What's the context? But there's a ready-made context in the art world for
00:48:11
Speaker
And I'm talking Warhol now or the name to point at something and say, this is art. And because of the magic alchemy that is, that we believe exists in the art world. That might be art. It's the Brillo sculpture, right? It's the Brillo box. Well, I worked in the grocery store, Rachel third shift. I worked in grocery stores six, seven years when the, I love working in the grocery store because of the people.
00:48:40
Speaker
Now, when I picked up the Brillo boxes and put them on on on the shelf, there was no there's no accepted magic. There was no context for anybody to say a frame on it. Would people consider it differently? Possibly because of my definition where I've said, if art is somebody saying, look at this, if you look at it and see it in that way, you're looking at a piece of art.
00:49:10
Speaker
Where did the magic happen, Rachel? What is it? Where did the magic happen? I mean, that's where the... I was discussing recently with Holly Campbell on a recent episode of the podcast.
00:49:27
Speaker
And there's this book called A Big Magic, and she was just raved about it. And I went into it. And I was like, oh, I always like when my guests rave about something. And it was just a gorgeous book. And it's basically that there's this living idea that thoughts are energies that live, and that these thoughts may visit you. So Rachel, right next to you, there may be a thought
00:49:54
Speaker
of this grand play of which you're the, you know, you are the person and you latch onto it. That thought has been traveling the world for 2,500 years. But finally, it's found Rachel Lally to receive manifestation. Isn't that how ghosts work, though? Yeah, it's a ghost.
Creativity and the 'Magic' of Art
00:50:13
Speaker
It's magic. It's weird. There's a transformation.
00:50:17
Speaker
I'm not totally against that, by the way. I'm just saying it just sounds like a ghost. Do you think there's like ghost plays and ghost songs in the world and they just like smack into you one day and you're like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Well, I want to go back, Rachel. I want to ask you something on the bit about where there's nothing. All right. So I really love what you said about
00:50:44
Speaker
All right, I'm going on the stage, right? And we're talking about nothing, right? Here I am on the stage, right? Now, let's say it's you, Rachel, right? So you go out on stage and I'm going to say it's in Dublin. There's some recognition of you, right? How could they do it off the stage right away? Like, no, no, no two ways about it.
00:51:07
Speaker
Well, what if you, what if you, let's change it a little bit. What if you were dialed? I mean, what if you were dialed up Rachel, right? Your parents, you're dialed up, you go out there, people, this is Rachel Allie and she's out there and she's going to stand there and she does this crazy podcast. This might be a thought experiment that your experiment that you are experiencing, you know,
00:51:35
Speaker
And then you're out there and you do indeed nothing. You did nothing, right? What is that event? It's nothing rather than something. I'm doing nothing. So are you saying that the context defines the art? Well, look at it absurdist, not absurdist, existentialist or a play about nothing waiting for Godot.
00:52:03
Speaker
Right, Rachel? Right. What a great play. Right. A great play. Right. But you know, the deep cosmic joke is that nothing's occurring kind of. Right. I mean, nothing, but nothing is not happening. Like it's like, you know, you put a group of people in a room and you're like, you know, you go into a class of kids and you're like, what do you want to do? And they're like, nothing. And you're like, go on then.
00:52:31
Speaker
Do nothing. I dare you. They can't do it. They can't do nothing. Doing nothing is very, very difficult. Well, that's in connecting to the point when I was mentioning about the Buddhism and the therapy and the fundamental question of something rather than nothing, when folks sit down to meditate, which is doing nothing, which is breathing, posture,
00:52:58
Speaker
and your thoughts first lessons in acting by the way doing nothing so hard so hard for so many people well what is the tell me about that and act i'm fascinated with you as i'm i'm not trying to take this over but what so rachel let me it's just to kick around ideas i i'm fascinated by acting right and i have an expressive part of my personality where
00:53:25
Speaker
Like I just go into different characters and there's kind of like play acting or something within that. Now you do, I mean, you have a public face with your work and you are a creator and when you act, what about what you have to say there about acting and about nothing or the mindset that you need to be in to take on another personhood?
00:53:56
Speaker
that's a massive question. Okay, so there's so many aspects to it, but I'll speak about a couple. So the first is that in order to understand the impact of all of your actions, your movements, your gestures, where you are, your
00:54:19
Speaker
relationship to the place that you're in, to the objects in the space, you first have to understand what it's like to do nothing and it is so difficult. So like lesson of acting 101 is
00:54:36
Speaker
stand in a space, have people look at you and try to do nothing. And we are so conditioned as humans to not do that, that even that is very, very difficult. So you have people touching their hair, fixing their clothes, going from side to side, looking at their friends, trying to make someone laugh. They'll start just laughing because they feel awkward. They'll direct attention to someone else.
00:55:03
Speaker
like just standing doing nothing, that's a lesson. And then the other thing is to be your authentic self, which is something that clowning and comedy is very concerned with. So to be present and to be yourself without any of those
00:55:26
Speaker
learned behaviors and expected behaviors without perform. Because in order to learn how to perform, you have to start from a space where you're not performing, but we all perform all the time, every day in our lives. So to learn how to not perform is actually the most difficult thing. I love that. Yeah.
00:55:51
Speaker
the learning not to perform. And I think there's just something crucial there when I've seen it as the most within the psychology of mindfulness and Buddhism is that
00:56:07
Speaker
Why
The Challenge of 'Doing Nothing'
00:56:07
Speaker
is it that the most basic activity that of not performing or doing anything is the most difficult, which drives a human mad or could drive a human mad? You got to get up, you got to do something else. Funny, funny, when you even speak about, you know, Buddhism and doing nothing, I'm picturing a person doing something, which is sitting with their legs crossed and there being in their head. And that's not what doing nothing is.
00:56:38
Speaker
What is doing nothing, Rachel? It's so hard. Like I got I could do a whole podcast like honestly, and it is literally so hard. I've been in classes, you know, with with with people and, you know, they've said, like, I want to do nothing. I'm like, you're not doing nothing. You're tapping on the floor.
00:56:57
Speaker
You're getting bored. You're writing in your notebook. You're texting someone. You're looking at me because you're really doing it. You can't do nothing. Go on. I challenge you. You can't do it. It's very difficult. It takes a lot of training. And that's what actors train to do. And that's what Buddhists aim for. And I'm sure lots of other spiritualists and other professions, probably ninjas
00:57:27
Speaker
people who are into karate and stuff, I have no idea. You have to start from neutral and then build on it. Yeah, some ninja wisdom needs to be involved. The question of nothing is so fantastic. And the thing is too, Rachel, I'm totally serious on that bit of what I'm moving this towards, because I think
00:57:52
Speaker
At the end of the day, I truly believe that, you know, no matter what we're doing around asking these questions and things like that that the nature of philosophy, art, you know conversation about these things is therapeutic, like, it has to be therapeutic at least that's the way it's been positive for me because it has to help
00:58:14
Speaker
It has to help your living. It has to help in your discovery of what it is, how to live.
00:58:23
Speaker
Otherwise, it seems to be potentially creating this source of agitation. That book that I mentioned, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author gets into this. It's this male fetishization of torture. It doesn't have to be male. Women and other genders can certainly engage in this.
00:58:47
Speaker
you know, the tortured artist trope of, you know, suffering of the Dostoyevsky of the, you know, the Russian authors and the vodka addiction or whatever, you know, I mean, that there's this deep end. She very much rebels against that and is saying you need to be in a place of, you know, openness and expansiveness for for magic to happen and not be subject to trying to just get through the day. Right.
00:59:17
Speaker
That sounds like my kind of book. I'm definitely going to sort it out, try and find it. How did it feel? Can the tables being turned? How did it feel being interviewed? I thank you, Rachel. I I am a verbal processor, so I actually have to think a lot to like get to what my answer is. And
00:59:47
Speaker
I am Rachel Lally. You've deeply unnerved me by changing this around. But no, it's great. It's been absolutely lovely. You are just wonderful. Wonderful philosopher. Fantastic. It's been really lovely to talk to you again, Ken. I'm sure it won't be the last time.
01:00:16
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.