Dear Shaded Viewers,
I was reading the 13 Questions Interview on the Boudicca site and thought that you might enjoy it too. Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby are behind the label Boudicca
Thirteen Questions
THIRTEEN CALLS FOR ANSWERS FROM ZOWIE BROACH TO BRIAN KIRKBY._
ZB: What was your first NY experiences..?
BK: My first experiences of New York where through image and film. It represented a place that had managed to strip itself of the pomp and circumstance of England.
My real time experience is one of slight confusion a place with the same language but not operating on the same social rules of interaction. I think that for me, because of the movies, New York has this feeling of the unreal – Which I am completely fascinated by, it feels just slightly outside the grip of reality – Hovering with it’s transient crew. [Theme park Reality]_
ZB: When did Morrissey enter your thoughts?
BK: In 1984 a friend gave me a copy of The Smiths debut album, at the time I was listening to Jazz Funk and early Break beat music, Rockers Revenge, Mantronics etc.
Prior to this point I had spent time being a very young ‘Northern Punk’ Listening to Buzzcocks, Joy Division and the Fall, Poetry supplied by John Cooper Clarke…
On first listening to the Smiths it was the lyrics, which confronted me and instantly engraved themselves on my mind. The first line from the Album ‘It’s time the tale were told of how you took a child and you made him old’ The poetry I was hearing sounded very northern and completely new and challenging and although the production on the first album is not very energized. The lyrics demanded so much from me…And not long after the Smiths brought out the Peel sessions ‘Hatful of Hollow’ And lyrics to ‘William it was really Nothing’ an homage to the Book and Film ‘Billy Liar’. Which still to this day remains one of my all time favorite movies. It captures those moments of fantasy, the daydreamer as a way of life…The lyrics to William… became the anthem of my move from a life as a motor mechanic to that of art school and adventures of the heart. The opening lines: ‘The rain falls hard on a humdrum town, This town has dragged you down…and everybody’s got to live their life, And god knows I’ve got to live MINE…’
Morrissey for me was both quiet and loud at the same time, something that I have tried to manifest within my own work. _
ZB: Why did you leave Manchester?
BK: To stay there I would have not been able to become who I am now. _
ZB: Do you think Marcel Duchamp fits into New York can you imagine him there.
BK: Marcel Duchamp had built an imaginary city around himself which I feel could have existed anywhere. _
ZB: In History if you could return what time would it be? What era..?
BK: Des Esseintes in ‘against nature’ by Huysmans._
ZB: Memory of history can stain your experience. Did this happen to you with NY..?
BK: I find my memory is very fragmented when I think of New York I have only ever been there because of work. I feel in a state of high anxiety and lack of sleep – so these expeditions to New York feel like constant stifting of thought. But in those moments of speed and stress, I can recollect sitting down by the Hudson River smoking a cigarette and watching insect like helicopters buzzing around the head of Liberty and cruise liners which dwarfed the landscape behind. Sometimes I have to consciously remind myself to press record._
ZB: Do you feel trapped by a city and its demands? Do you feel free to roam and have different identities?
BK: Cities are like cages and we feed on the contents, sometimes you have to slip through the bars and stretch your wings…
Animosity holds perfect freedom for me._
ZB: Is a thought for everyone or is it personal..?
BK: To answer this question I must run my own personal software as to public or private – It’s an odd feeling sometimes I feel I should say every thought but social conditioning says that it must pass through this software before it enters the world…Answers questions is so dependant on that precise moment in time – Expression is governed by the mechanics of consciousness._
ZB: Global local inscape or escape…?
BK: Global for me seems to isolate the members of our tribe. It bombards them with news and events from all corners of the globe, and seems to detract people from engaging in Local issues. We all run the chance of becoming ‘the jack of all thoughts – and masters of none’
Inscape and escape seem for me to be connected, for it is in this world of imagination and the yearning for a place, which is completely, constructed by ones own mind the ultimate destination. It is one’s own destiny to travel to ones inscape and to return with souvenirs for others to experience._
ZB: Future thought to sell the world…?
BK: The new improved ‘optigrab’_
ZB: Do you often get an answer really fast or is it the deliberation that brings not only answers but all those other questions alongside that make you stay in this world…?
BK: Yes, or maybe no…Yes, or maybe no…_
ZB: Can you sing..?
BK: The voice in my head – sings the way I dream of singing…_
ZB: What freedom do you want?
BK: Time – Space – Beauty – Knowledge___And then…_
THIRTEEN CALLS FOR ANSWERS FROM BRIAN KIRKBY TO ZOWIE BROACH._
BK: Which in-between space appeals to you and why?
ZB: A gap between my front teeth as I dream about being fashionable….._
BK: What are your views on the notion of Freedom within today’s society?
ZB: Distant memories of how I felt about my future when I was young involved a lot of freedom, but now I feel tied to cynicism in a way that denies me true freedom. Freedom is about a belief in Life and people… this is taken from everyone and I find it hard to rescue back. In education of each other and ourselves I guess we need to find answers, as the rules change and limit us on the outside every day._
BK: What question do you yearn to be confronted by?
ZB: If I gave you all the money you would need, would you make a piece of theatre, a scene from a film, an opera, a ballet, that would show in five places around the world that would include the edge of Niagara Falls, A desert, A Villa overlooking the Mediterranean in Summer, a lake in an extinct volcano in Indonesia and Tokyo in a hotel, the tallest and right at the top?_
BK: Our society has created a confused mass information system – Clarity is becoming a luxury within our society – What or how do you fine clarity in your life?
ZB: Still in search of that one…. Tricky when we continually fill our lives with more that is never one’s own choice but generally media or gossip of Life and then of course there is the world’s needs and events that are soaked by the sponge of thought every day……….. Where is the horizon? I surely cannot see any right now. _
BK: What completely fascinates you?
ZB: The emotional journey of man’s life; its complexity versus it naivety and how or why we create thought. Oh…and then why do we love and why and how do we stay in love with life and each other?_
BK: Which album did you find yourself projected in as if the lyrics belonged to you?
ZB: [Hunky Dory merges into and out of Aladdin Sane.]_
BK: Which building would house your ‘Romantic Museum’?
ZB: A thirties long thin building, one floor high with a forest on the flat top roof looking out to seas with an empty white sand beach lying in front; a swimming pool the same length at the back behind; floor to ceiling windows on both sides with a central wall completely covered in books._
BK: Which thought of the future appeals to you?
ZB: Minimal Materialism and the ability to be closer when so far away._
BK: Do you feel our generation is antagonistic and obsessed with challenging the system?
ZB: All generations have the antagonistic, we were not alone; we are just part of a long list of the curious, the uncomfortable, the beautiful and the insane._
BK: Do you think this arises from the influences of our youth and what would you say are you biggest influences?
ZB: Early Bowie, various people’s vinyl collections for the visuals, the words and the sounds, and then …living by the sea, the escapism and storytelling of movies and the disguise and seduction of clothing …and finally, the absolute moment of smoking a cigarette and feeling that being alone was great for that moment._
BK: In your ‘Romantic Museum’ what would be your prize exhibit?
ZB: The diary of our time in Riccione when we first met back in 1996._
BK: You are obsessed by conspiracy! Is this because you have a need for myth and mystery in your life?
ZB: Challenged by my Salvation Army upbringing, post-watching All the Presidents Men, the thought of your elders lying for political gain and greed, really crushed my naivety. That scar led to the immense curiosity and somehow a gentle romance that conspiracy yields._
BK: You spent a great deal of your youth devouring movies – Which movie had the greatest impact on you and still has to this day?
ZB: A Woman under the Influence… Mr. Cassavettes is a genius and her portrayal on the fine line is delicate and intense, All the presidents Men, of course… Mifun an emotional fuck , Salvador … it made me physically sick and educated me with truth, The Leopard..Painting in film, Black Narcissus those painted shots were magical mixed with religion and lust, Blade Runner when she crashed through the glass walls and the moment when she slips like a small deer… Babette’s Feast for how to give someone else a part of you so quietly… , Timecode a phenomenal moment of film making in the modern, Days of Heaven.. How beautiful can light be..?… The Deer Hunter…….wanting to know how to belong that deep, ……Gerry…… for the feeling of still that we all crave and the feeling of knowing someone that much …….. – they all make up the influence that is ongoing and a crucial part of my learning life.
_
The first fashion and photography festival is organized by
Grupo Correo Galliego-NOOVO Magazine in Santiago de Compostela. The co-founders of the NOOVO festival are Charo Gonzalez and Jorge Margolles, I am enjoying being the co-curator of the international aspect of the event.
_
Later,
Diane
