John Court Man-in-progress

— “Time is the biggest thing we have” – he began saying.
— “Many things happen because of time. So many things which have not my control in the performances. When mistakes happen. I only trust time, it gives perspective”.

— Change within your work? Or change coming from you?

— “Everything, everything, everything in my life. You know, Everything, from the washing up to making the work. Being open to the idea. That I really embrace”.

— “Is a book of sketches. I have 10 or 15!”

— That’s why I did these drawings, because I didn’t have the language. And I do have this other language which… if I use a table, and a chair… I make the object like a sentence. Or like the structure of a sentence. Or a word as well. The word is pretty important for me. I just cannot function with them. I love words but when they become sentences it just doesn’t make any meaning.

— Are you frustrated by language?

— I suppose basically what I was more frustrated with is people wanting to know what I wrote about my art, than looking at the drawings. So I did this kind of statement. That was the basics of that piece.

— John, can you name those basics?

— Yes, I would say is not a movement, is action. I would say time…

— Do you think in verbs?

— I don’t really know what verb means.

— An action… something that calls for something to happen. Like in move, breath… Or you think more in qualities? like cold, beautiful, strange…

— No. I don’t have that much depth in the language. It just spins unconsciously.

— “The only thing that makes sense for me, is to perform, to be in action. But the basics are not being covered by performance these days. Specially time and duration. I have seen duration, but it never has any time…”

But that’s not the business I’m in. I can’t see the image in the action. It’s all for the action. And it’s not for the image. Of course, beforehand I’m kind of thinking yes I need to wear black, and white chalk, and then I have the black tape. I use the black tape because actually, I like the feel of it. It has a stickiness which really works well with the shoulders and parts of the body and it’s like an internal object, because of the tape.

— You can’t see the image in the action, you can’t see the meaning in the sentence… and the entire process is about giving birth to this internal object. So it’s a very sculptural way of thinking (this way of talking)…

— If I’m not using objects, If I’m minimizing my objects, is about the action, I can see where the object talks about the action. Maybe I have the idea of doing that, then I have the meaning of doing that, so why I am doing that? Perhaps it happens in my mind and later my body starts speaking, I mean the muscle is thinking. And then I can get back to this bodily memory experiences from the past, which I get all the time. Specially the childhood. When I’m holding around a stick, or carrying around a stick, or holding my mother’s hand. And from there when I went clockwise, I think, actually, when the stick drops, I wanna go anti-clockwise cuz I wanna pull back time, I want my mom back. I’m performing this performance. I don’t care about the performance. I kind of want to feel that loss, and then it becomes very weird, you see all these things happening. I’m trying to project, sometimes the audience can feel it, sometimes the object, most of the time nothing can happen, you just be open to that, you are just trying to use that, so through that repetition I’m able to do that. The muscle memories, which is something I’m working a lot with now, it happens all the time. And I really I just have to decide the meaning and there is where I talk about knowing. Maybe not really logical.

— So knowing is remembering? (that’s very platonic).

— I have never been in that moment before, I never really go back to the same moment, it’s always different. That was holding the hand, or have a sense of smiling when you are not smiling, with the carrying the boat, it’s like you have a sense of all these people died. You get really unhappy with this kind of situation.

Saying: repetitive drawing-action. Is like the idea that this drawing, the drawing of the 8, I did this drawing of the 8, and then at some point it was christmas. I had this electric train. And I was back at christmas. And there was my uncle. And I had to play it because I was playing it all day. And he always got really annoyed. But I was back there. It’s quite difficult to do it, and it was 6 hours non-stopping, and I get quite involved in doing it. I think why I am doing that? But when I have this experiences, is like the time goes forward and back. Now actually the best thing is that I can go backward in my life, I don’t wanna get forward. Because we all die. So it can go either way. It depends on where I am at the moment.

— Is it independent of an audience looking at it?

— I think that is the big argument or problem that people have in performance. That is participation in art. And I comment quiet strongly, is this not participation? Is there not a social connection? Is more about human condition connection. I’m getting quiet frustrated with that situation, when I think I’m socially connecting.

— The expectation for interaction…

— I always embrace the audience. How they are feeling, I’m not sure about the word audience, I definitely don’t like the word witness. But there is something about witness I do like. As I understand the audience is quite appreciative to see it. And the possibility of an audience is why I do it.

— How do you see participation yourself?

When I see or watch a performance, not very often can I feel I’m contributing to the work, I just feel I’m mourning, I’m reading a set of instructions or something I’m also trying to do. Which is great, specially when is conceptual or intelligent. Which I’m really excited about… But when I’m looking at duration, what I hope to get with duration is that you are able to express yourself in the work, which is very difficult to do in participation work. You kind of get caught up into this bubble and again I think the participation at work is more like these shorter works, structured, sometimes controlled and it actually doesn’t give you the freedom. I just can’t see, I like to be part of the work, and I don’t think in participation, I just think in social pressure. Some people want to do it, some people do not want to do it. I’m responsible for my own actions and they are. I would prefer to be touched by the art, instead of the social control. I would prefer to take what I want to take. I’m kind of influenced by life, I have my limitations.

— Are this impressions about social control somehow determined by your experience as a student?

— Certainly. I am more interested in the past, my childhood, I couldn’t read English at school when I was 16. I

stayed quiet. It was really confusing. I did not understand what was wrong. It was really affecting my life.

— Do you think growing up needs a written structure?

— I don’t know but I think in life you need to communicate with words. Specially in school, I just didn’t understand why in school I couldn’t read and I was always face-lying, writing the words, I never got tested, and then the frustration got into being taken out of a classroom. I use physical tools to express myself.

— Football was great! Fighting was good… I would just fight every day, with anybody. Because I would be so frustrated. And it was really clear, all they had to do was understand my issue.

— Nobody knew you were dyslexic?

— Not only dyslexic, but to explain what was wrong. And then it was really clear, I can see it now. If I go to school now to do a workshop I can see clearly who is frustrated. Of course, I don’t know the reason of their problems, but you can tell someone has an issue. And that they need to be explained what their issue is, or be helped, maybe the parents need to kind of know to understand what there is. Even still with Finland, I see it when I go to school. I do a lot of work in schools. I went to this school in Brussels that have a lot of refugees. Also, the kids that have a lot of problems in other schools come to this school. A very nice school, I had an amazing experience. So I was going to do a week workshop for the students to make an object. What I asked them to do, is if they could make or draw an object of what the language they use looks like. And also how another language, because they don’t speak French, looks like. To draw a shape. And from those kinds of drawings, I designed this object. I really like this object. Based on a circle and a cross. Is an 8 sided hexicon, or shape. An 0 is an x in Finnish, and an x is an x. So it’s negative. So I wanted to use the negative shapes to make it.

— It was so difficult to do because it wasn’t rolling. But that didn’t matter. I was so touched by them. What they have done. This wood carpenter…

— It looks like a monument.

— It was a monument to them. They were so proud of this work. And of course the problem was the responsibility I had to try to achieve a sense of importance to their work. And becomes more than just the action. I think is bigger than just the art, and it motivates me more, and it allows me to push myself. It’s like a win-win situation.

— Achieve. Is this why you draw so many ladders?

— I bet I’ve never used a ladder in the performance,

— So they are just ideas?

— Yes, I have ideas like to make a ladder, I’m quite excited about ladders. Not necessarily to function them as to walk up and down, I like the idea of achievement, climbing up and down. I’ve done a piece where I get on a brick, to get a bit higher. Is called actually “Achievement”. I made one object this year in Venice… during The Biennale. The Venice Biennial. I just wanted to get up a bit higher, as most of the artists this is what I’m trying to do. I personally think is more of an intellectual or a thought thing, instead of a curated thing.

— And what do you think about this relationship between human scale, and monumentality, do you think about that sometimes? I mean when you have a person who is transferring his own movement constantly through the use of some object, in the space, there is a sense of monumentality. Very much thrown to the human scale. Human scale monumentality which is all the time revealing itself. So the way I look at your performances is a bit like this, confronting something intentional because a monument is something intentional where there are memories condensed on it.

— Yes, that’s a nice word. I think performance is kind of like a sense of “permanently-in-the-space”. There is always something left of a performance. Or should be. Just because there isn’t any physicality left… That’s how I approach art, and that is why I stopped making, because actually what was made was the same framework as what was laid. Or the process. I’m not sure that answers your question.

But when I’m doing something, there’s anything that is important. And I left it there. That’s why I’m not interested in the objects. Objects are beautiful. If I would make them as a sculpture, and all the drawings I have them I’m not gonna try to sell them for money. They always put more value in them and they are really not what they were. But with performance, the value is in the work, not in the object. Of course I kept some of these objects.

— These objects – I show you an example, from China, 2012. I have tried to perform until the end and there were these three sticks left. I would love to have one on the wall, because there is so much energy in them. But is nothing like this experience I have, there is nothing compared, even if the object is a piece of stick, even if it was an amazing looking object, it wouldn’t come close to that experience I had. If I would be the public I would take them. An hour on each object swinging… I find it kind of funny. But that is what I want. I want more the idea than the image of it. So I stood there looking at the wall smiling, thinking yeah kind of the same but not quite.

[This reminds me of a beautiful lecture I once attended from a university professor in Madrid. She was referring to the experience of minimal art as a type of “nostalgia for corporality”. A kind of paradox lingering on those contained surfaces. And she often described nostalgia as the “territory of childhood.”]

— So for me this experience, I see one of my friend’s kid, swinging a teddy bear, and he was quite enjoying it. I sent it to my friend and said: “look, give it to your son because it was my inspiration”. It wasn’t so much the movement but how he was feeling. I know that feeling, as a kid when you are doing something, and you are just doing it because you feel it makes sense, you enjoy it. It was just that moment, I get that. Not necessarily in art. But like in other kind of situations.

— Do you have any children yourself? Did they inspire any of your works?

— Yes, I have four. And I’m very good at overprotecting them. I made a series of work about overprotected society. It’s based on the witches hat, which we had in England. These spinning playground things which are extremely dangerous. The playground is a protected site, so you see all the kids there, and they were really pleasing them, but they wouldn’t allow them to come close. This work is about how growing is like, and about trying to allow kids to use their own creativity, so they don’t end up being like me.

— This work feels aggressive. Is growing up then a dangerous game?

— I’m not saying I don’t feel aggressive in my performances at all, I feel everything. Anyhow they don’t feel that, the kids. But of course there is that. And this object broke.

— Poetic justice!

— It was reaaaaally disappointing! I never had an object broke, specially because it was scored as 6 hours and there were 3 hours still ahead. Because I put my body weight on this end, so I’m pushing this thing around… but when it completely breaks I just stop, and I look at this person, I can’t do it, and she looked back at me. The meaning, the idea, was perfect. This is duration you know. There’s no rules. If I feel it stops, I won’t carry on. I have too much respect for the time.

— And the numbers in the lowest end?

— I added the object’s weight on my body weight.

— It’s you and it’s the object and the transfer system again. So measuring the body becomes a repeated gesture crossing many of your performances. What else is there?

— I just know everybody there can understand numbers. I’m very interested in this three… I made some artworks about it. All numbers on a black background. That’s my art.

[He laughs]

— So what I did … a year before I was performing in a school with two black objects. This time I asked if I could go to the school and talk to the students and give some lectures. So two days before the New Performance Festival I went to this school. I told them that I was gonna make a boat, and I showed them a picture of the boat. And I explained I would do a performance with it, I would fold it into an origami boat. And I told them I didn’t want to use my numbers, that I didn’t want to do it alone. I showed them this website when I get all these numbers from. Where all meet. Where you can calculate how many people died, and how many people were born. You just take the time a day. It is quite amazing, we are living, and then we are going to die. It’s a great thing. We spend most of our lives not appreciating being born or being alive. That’s probably the most important thing, that’s what I’m aware of most of the time. …. Sometimes you get heavy, but this reality: I’m quite into that.

— What’s the heaviest weight you’ve ever measured in your work?

— Loss. My mum died in 2012. I had this big show in England. It was really super nice people in this public gallery, and she came and pick the work, it was really great and at the end of it she came and said: “would you like to perform?”, and I was like “great!”. But before the show my mum died (he laughed). It was in the public so it was about education. I was giving workshops, drawing, with kids and students. So I did this performance, with a school table. And I did it for 8 hours. I could do it for 4 hours and then I would move on to this other part of the performance, but then I realized by 6 hours… “well I can do this!”. I opened my arm, and that was very important for me because it allowed me to justify and understand what I’m doing. Is like if you are holding yourself. Yes, that was very difficult.

And since then my work has been different. That loss gave me so much. I feel something was added to me. Just a sense of life, just to justify that you are here this moment, to really embrace it and really do what you want to do.

— Is it from that moment that you become so interested in balancing time? In finding symmetry and working anti-clockwise?

— It’s more the momentum of it. Like in idea meaning knowing. Look at the side, It’s like an 8, but twisted. I’m trying to document how many times I get around. They are numbers. I try to measure the object, but when I start running I’m just running. That’s the momentum! It’s like infinity.

— 8 is their lucky number. Where you aware of it?

— I always do things in China which are more related to China. Two years later I came back. I spend one month before the performance. So I made this video and I just used the outside, the limits of my body to make work. I did two of them, and it becomes an 8, all I see is an 8 because in China is really lucky. And I literally thought: “I need all the luck I can have!”. In this town what they were doing is that they were knocking down lots of building, and there were tons of concrete, dust everywhere. Because it was free, I asked if I could have that rubble and we got them in the space and piled the material in the shape of figure 8, and I walked it in laps for 8 hours durational performance. At the same time, I’m writing in my arm. So now I’m going backward and I’m trying to catch up, I’m trying to balance out the time, which I found really disturbing, and I’m trying to look behind when I’m going backward because I’m trying to look at the past, or touch the past.

It was seven and a half hours before I realized the time runs. And then I had half an hour left. Because of this motion… probably I could say that what happens all the time is that is really hard. My body can’t hold it, is changing, I hope it changes. I always have to rely on the work effect. I always wanted to work very hard to achieve what I wanted. When I went to art school I worked very hard in making objects, but I couldn’t talk about them. And that work effect seemed to have affected me. People really appreciate that. They appreciate I’m working, and they can relate to that. Specially in repetition if they work in jobs that are repetitive, they say “oh I relate to that”.