NO LONGER INTERESTED

Ive worked to strike the phrase I am interested in from my vocabulary. It is not easy. For years I have
heard fellow artists explain their practice beginning with:

I am interested in notions of

I am interested in the intersection between

I am interested in questioning

I searched for the phrase I am interested in in connection to artist statement and was embarrassed at
how far reaching this crutch phrase is among my peers.

Heres some examples from the search, pulled in the order of the search; names removed to protect the
guilty:

I am interested in creating places where people have a sense of being connected - of being a part of
something larger.

I am interested in painting as it helps me remember.

I am interested in, how the male is represented and constructed in culture, with all its stereotyping
pictures and its suppressing mechanism.

Hang around artists long enough, especially when they are talking about their work and you will hear this
opening phrase over and over and over again.

As noble as the artists projects may be, the I am interested in preface is maddening not just because it is
grammatically inaccurate like a pet peeve around misusing literally or ironically or because its
another cheap method artists use in puffing up their descriptions of themselves. No, I am interested
culturally isolates artists, obscures their goals, and handicaps their ability to act in the world.

If youre a doctor say, Im a Doctor.

When artists introduce topics with I am interested in, its needlessly vague. Lets look closer at the
examples from earlier:
 I am interested in creating places where people have a sense of being connected - of being a part of
something larger.

That certainly is interesting, but I would ask this artist; are you interested in creating places where people
have a sense of being connected, or are you actually creating those places?"

I am interested in painting as it helps me remember.

Again, are you interested in painting, or do you, more simply, paint because it helps you remember?

I am interested in, how the male is represented and constructed in culture, with all its stereotyping
pictures and its suppressing mechanism.

And again, are you interested in how males are represented, or are you working to change it?

Saying youre interested is hardly descriptive. Are you interested or are you studying? Or researching? Or
investigating? Are you interested in a method or testing it? Are you working within it? Or playing with it
toward some end? Or moving towards something? Or fighting for something? Or defending it? Developing?
Changing? Destroying? Building?

There are so many better words, why list interests at all? Everyone is interested in things. An artists
interests are just as inane or compelling as anyone elses. When asked to describe you and your work,
starting a sentence with I am interested in and making a list, or restating the tag cloud from your blog
doesnt do that well.

Everyone wants to know what youre doing.

Lets imagine I meet a woman at a party and ask so, what do you do? She answers, I am interested in the
body, healing, and science, and how those intersect within institutions and the public. Fascinating right?
But why not cut to the chase and say youre a medical doctor? In the non-art world, people talk about what
they do. Describing what youre doing instead of your interests moves the conversation forward. Its more
clear.

Why be so forthright? Because artists are already too cloistered off from the rest of our culture; isolated in
elite institutions, appreciated by small numbers, and/or segregating ourselves in confusing social
difference alone as some kind of admirable attribute. Around 45 years ago John Berger disparagingly called
this phenomena the needless mystification of art. If we want to change this, and we should, we need to
speak clearly in a language people can understand not by adopting academic language for institutional
appeal or trying to cover over our insecurity with pompous nonsense.

To make art and show it to the world is a generous act. Art is not just for the artist (that is called art
therapy), but also as a means to participate in the broader culture and move it forward. To do so, we need to
take seriously how we communicate to audiences through art, and in how we talk about our work.

Artists arent interested, theyre building reality.

You may wonder, why shouldnt an artist be a little vague and leave some mystery to the description of
their work? And so what if an artists uses language inaccurately we all do it. (I admit, after years of effort I
still have a difficult time avoiding interested in my speech.) And who cares if the language is a little
imprecise, were talking about artists, not writers whats the harm?

Because it changes the work we make.

Saying you are merely interested in something is being non-committal. If Im interested in something, Im
not necessarily taking a position on it, much less any action.

But most artists are not just passively observing. They make work that challenges our view of everything
from shape and form to concepts and beliefs. Most artists dont stop at being interested, they are truly
changing the way we perceive, think, and act in the world thus changing our very reality in deliberate
ways. To believe any less continues to falsly undermine and diminish the power of artists and art in our
culture.

By prefacing our own descriptions of what we do in the world with I am interested in it positions us as
artists at a safe and cerebral distance from the rest of the world. This follows a justification that academics,
critics, and administrators use to explain their positions and their institutions because in these spheres
keeping a critical distance gives one legitimacy. Its also the outlook of a consumer browsing the aisles,
taking an interest in a product, examining it and moving on. These perspectives have somehow bled over to
become a dominant model for artists. While this approach may legitimize an academic, or entertain a
consumer, it does not work for artists. It is disempowering and strips us of our agency.

When artists are describing their work first and foremost as an interest in a set of issues and topics, its
more than an inaccuracy, it lowers our artistic ambitions and blinds us to what is possible. Going back to
an example from my web search, if the artist has said they are interested in creating places where people
have a sense of being connected then any exploration of that interest is a step towards success. For
example, building a tree house, or drawing one, or simply reading and thinking about tree houses could be
an expression of that interest. It doesnt matter what the effort changed, how many people it reached, what
those viewers believe as a result, or if there is an outcome at all because the goal has been set so low and can
be achieved too easily. When we state our intentions so ambiguously were cheating ourselves.

When goals are stated explicitly, it brings a sense of clarity and purpose. Goals give you focus. When you
articulate to yourself and your friends and family in concrete terms I am going to complete the Bay to
Breakers Marathon this year that is fundamentally different focus than saying I am interested in
running. The former means you need to start training and if you dont, you know you wont be able to
complete the run. Whereas, if the most youve said to yourself and others is you are interested in running,
you wont accomplish much because you havent decided you aspire to anything more ambitious. Its well
established that focusing on outcomes and creating clarifying goals works for atheletes, businesses,
communities, and us in our every day lives, and for some tragic reason we believe doing the same in an art
practice is crass and limiting. By framing their work around interest, artists are unwittingly putting a
ceiling on their ability to operate in the world.

The tragedy of Interesting Projects

Especially disappointing is watching how this unconscious handicapping impacts the art that gets made.

Im most familiar with how this plays out in the media art circles of which Im part. Theres so much new
technology enabling art works that werent possible 10 years ago, sometimes even 1 or 2 years ago. The
software and hardware itself is so novel it provides a layer of interesting distraction for the artist and
audience. While a research fellow at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center I had to review reams of
residency applications over the years that fell into this trap.

For example, take a newly introduced circuit-board based micro-controller, add some sensors, write a
program that collects air-quality data, take it on a solo bike ride around a polluted district, throw in a little
theory (maybe) and mix them together for an interesting project. Pretty good, right?

Or combine live social media feeds with a 3-D visualization of the earth and you have an interesting project.

Or combine any new technology with an ancient one. Run Twitter into a typewriter and you have an
interesting project. Combine 3D video with stereoscopic photographs of the 1800s and bingo, you have an
interesting project.

Or 8-bit graphics, or a Kinect 3D motion sensor, or a 3d Printer, with anything, really.

I could go on, but Ive already come dangerously close to describing work made by good friends and
myself.

Any of these examples could be the beginnings of a great, challenging, and world-shifting work of art, but
when any creative person orients their work around an interest in materials, methods, or a few topics its
all to easy to just toss them into a pot and stir it up for a while. Making projects that meet the standard of
exploring an interest is fairly easy.

A prime charecteristic of Modern art was its interest in materials and processes. This was liberating a
hundred or more years ago because it allowed artists to be free of the overarching concern with accurately
representing their subjects. After photography, what was the point? With an emphasis on materials and
processes whole new realms of artistic expression opened up. Well and good. But what came with this
liberation was a type of elision: artists could think less seriously about what they were producing: what
would it look like? what impact would it have? what was it supposed to do? Yes, some asked these
questions, but one could also wallow around in the materials, enjoy the process, and only give an
afterthought, if that, to what you actually produced and the impact it might have on others.

Today, if you want to explore the world of high-horsepower technology combined with loose ideas check
out The Creators Project. Its the home of pointless yet clever mashups. Raphal Rozendaal, who doesnt
care if something is art only if it is interesting, combines modernist painting with flash animation. Or
Martin Messiers orchestra made of sewing machines. Or Gleitheros project using songs, turned into
computer punch cards, and then knitted into scarves. All of these are creative projects and indeed
interesting, but they dont transcend their own materials and cleverness because theres nothing at stake
beyond being interesting.

The irony here is that all this vague interest in high-tech materials and creative process, does do
something. The Creators Project, according to their website, is founded by a revolutionary partnership
between Intel and VICE The purpose of the Creators Project is not to move culture forward and further
great art, its mission is as a showcase of artists whose works are inspired and enabled by new
technologies. The purpose here is looking and consuming its to capture your interest as a viewer. Its a
matter of taste, but to mine, finding truly challenging art works is the exception. On the Creators Project,
its wow and hollow spectacle over all else. And brand recognition for Intel and Vice.

Understand the high art world is not different. They just conceal it a little better due to who the work is
interesting to; wealthy collectors. The idea that the purpose of your lifes work may simply be as a supplier
of alternative currency and high-end home decor for the ultra rich is not something many artists want to
confront.

We are more than interested, we are powerful.

While the field at large may have self-esteem issues around this, artists are the best equipped at shifting the
perceptions, attitudes, and actions of the cultures they are embedded within. Unfortunately, propaganda
and advertising have cast long shadows on these practices and theres a natural reluctance to have any
association with this sort of cultural manipulation. However while artists creative people without an
ulterior motive or corporate backing have retreated, marketers and propagandists have filled the void.

If artists are going to change culture for the better, we need to step up and begin admitting we 1) have
tremendous power 2) have largely not engaged it, and 3) handed over our cultural role to marketers and
corporate-backed entertainers by default.

As artists we need to reclaim our agency and our position, articulate what we mean beyond being
interested, and be clear with ourselves and others about what exactly we want to do. Whether its painting
landscapes or avant-garde performance, challenging fundamental societal shortcomings or, sharing beauty
through form and color, if we ever want to get anywhere significant with our work we need to take control,
elucidate what were striving for in certain terms, and periodically adjust and calibrate those aims as we
move forward.

Clarity in purpose is not clarity in art.

When it comes to art theres some powerful myths about lives of artists that come into play. The starving
artist, the madman, the misunderstood genius, the navel-gazing recluse, the addict, the
freewheeling dandy, and there are others. These are not healthy models. Setting goals and making plans
about your own life, much less your impact on the broader culture is not part of, and in many ways runs
counter to, those myths.

Approaching other areas of our lives with intention comes quite naturally. If youre over 25 and looking for
a place to live, you have a budget, an ideal living arrangement in mind, a distance from the other key
locations in your life you dont want to be too far from. Planning out how and where you will live comes
naturally. Theres room for the unexpected, but just doing my thing and seeing what happens will
probably land you on the street. It wouldnt be hard to find an artist with a detailed plan and vision for
finding the perfect studio situation, but reluctant to put these same tools to work for their art. There are
few helpful models, few coherent paths for artists that are empowering in this way, so its much easier to
believe in the myths about libertine artists and not follow through with intentional thinking.

But these myths, combined with the I am interested in detachment, have subtle but strong
disempowering effects. A smart person can infer by speaking with artists, reading a few contemporary art
magazines, catalog essays, or artists statements that having lucid ideas about what youre trying to achieve
with your work, much less a connection to the audience goes against the grain. For art students who dont
read between the lines, its common to be told not to speak in such direct terms about their work. Or worse,
told this is not art, or not what artists do.

The error here is conflating clarity in ones purpose with clarity in their art work. Clarity in purpose is a
great thing. Knowing who you are, why you do what you do, what youre working on, where you want to go
with it: this is highly personal and beneficial work that we all do as we grow. Having unambiguous goals for
yourself, your work, and its role in culture provides direction. With a point on the horizon to move
towards, its easier to filter whats important versus what is getting in the way.

Clarity in art work having one message that is unequivocally understood by most or all viewers is
usually terrible. Mystery, a little ambiguity, uncertainty, contradiction, multiple layers and meanings, these
are powerful agents to be used and leveraged by artists.

But you need clarity in your purpose in order to actualize the power of mystique in your art. In this way, art
functions like a prism. It is able to project layers of colors only when light is focused upon it. Clarity in
purpose enables the spectrum of meanings and subtlety on the other side.

Even the most formalist, abstract painter can benefit from clarity of purpose. The main subject of their
work may be light and color, but the purpose is more likely to; create a meditative or revelatory experience
in their viewer, or to alter the viewers experience of reality, or to inspire deep contemplation and a basic
recognition of emotions or our humanity. That kind of thing. The last thing I would advocate for is an artist
like this to alter their course and start shoving a direct and unequivocal message down their viewers
throats - make no mistake, this is not what Im saying. But, they do need to be clear, publicly or privately,
about what theyre striving toward and what their purpose is in order to come reasonably close to achieving
it.

Beyond interest
Getting caught in the I am interested state of detachment is a rookies mistake. Were drawn in to
artmaking through an interest; an interest in the practice, in the sensory experience, and the magic of
conjuring from inert materials. In order to begin, one needs to pursue those interests. But being interested
is the first step, the bottom rung of the ladder. Its the least you can do.

Eventually interests die off. Theyre fleeting. Later in the experience of a young artist one must learn to sort
through their collection of interests, evaluating and organizing as we gravitate towards the ones that
resonate. As we grow, we also learn what matters to each of us the most. Eventually we have to figure out
what we are not just interested in, but invested in. When you are invested, theres more involvement and
commitment. You have a position, an outcome in mind; a way youd like to see things play out.
Expoloration, experiments, and failures happen along the way, but a point to strive for remains.
Anyone who has embarked on some creative project also knows there is a moment when you need to
commit if it is going to get done. Whether its personal drive or an external deadline, eventually you make a
promise to yourself to see something through or feel an obligation to something larger. Youre determined
to complete what youve started and you carry something into action. Then there is action. Getting out into
the world and altering it in some way. You make a contract with yourself and then perform the deed. This
is where things happen.

This is different than interest.

Its scary
Committing to more than interest is scary; just like stating your big goals and deciding to take control is
scary. It may feel too grandiose to say I am going to make people feel interconnected through my
sculpture or I will make paintings that cause people question their existence. More importantly,
everyone can see that this has not happened. They will know when youve failed. To avoid this one can play
it safe and deal in interests: if your only articulated goal is to express an interest in a topic, then no one
knows youve failed not even you. How comforting.

Of course, if all you want to do is wow audiences with hollow spectacles, thats fine too. But be clear to
yourself and everyone else that you are an entertainer. As an artist you can do more, so make sure youre
making a conscious choice.

You dont make great art by staying comfortable. Doing what is important is never comfortable. Stating
your goals, expressing your dreams, and actively striving toward them through an art practice that threads
its way into the broader culture is far riskier than pondering a few ideas and playing with materials in your
studio. But at least you know youre being honest about what you want. And with this honesty you can
begin moving toward those dreams.

While setting a point on the horizon might give you direction, it does not make an easy path. Yes, artists
have power - super powers even. But like Peter Parker learns from his Uncle, with great power comes great
responsibility. Looking deep within yourself, pushing beyond your interests, getting invested in outcomes,
making a commitment and taking action with your artwork whatever kind of artist you are feels much
more high stakes.

Its scary. Its uncomfortable. And youre without a doubt more likely to fail. But the only way youll get
close to the experiences, the culture, the world you are striving to create, that point on the horizon, is
through action. Interest is an important step, but only a first step. The way forward is doing.

Artists; find better words. Be honest about what you want from the hours and resources you pour into your
practice, and push it as far as you can. Help make our every day culture something of your dreams. Because
once you strike I am interested in from your vocabulary, suddenly things get way more interesting.