Multidisciplinary artist Stephen Chen’s work rejects any conventional classifications and is marked with freedom as well as rigorous formalism, when exploring complex ideas and issues immanent in his works through experiments in form and technique. In his BOUNDED NATURE Project that we’ll be discussing in the following pages, he investigates the dialectic and tension between the natural and the man-made; how nature is contained, pruned, and rendered “invisible”. One of the most impressive aspects of Chen’s work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of unveiling the ubiquitous connections between Man’s and his surroundings: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.
1) Hello Stephen and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your multifaceted background? You have been an avantgarde concert pianist, fineart photographer, filmmaker, performance artist, poet, and opera singer. How do these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? In particular how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?
Thank you for having me! It sounds as if I did a lot of different things at once, but what happened was I moved from discipline to discipline trying to find the medium best suited to the ideas I was exploring at that time.
Having experienced how different disciplines have their own set of aesthetic standards and boundaries, which in turn imposes limitations on what can be expressed and how it can be expressed, made me realize the boundaries of style, theory, interpretation et al. imposed on art are not only arbitrary, but made to appear “natural” and immutable.
I think when I started to evolve as an artist was when I rejected how the institution of art enframes (to borrow Heidegger’s term) the artist and the artwork such that meanings are circumscribed by the ontologies they are assigned to. Playing in those sandboxes no longer appealed to me, instead I am more interested in subverting these boundaries, and poking at the slippages in-between.
2) Your approach reveals an incessant search of organic investigation about the dialectic and tension between the natural and the man-made that marks out our media-driven lives that affects our unstable contemporary age. The results convey together a coherent and consistent sense of harmony and unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.dissonanceonline.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process and set up, we would like to ask you how did you develope your style and how do you conceive your works.
One of my first photographic series, PLACES OF THE SPIRIT, juxtaposed American landscapes and churches to compare and contrast different ideals of the sublime; so even early on I was attracted to dialectic and tension.
However it was not until graduate school, when I began to delve into the critical philosophy of Adorno, did I acquire the language to articulate and expand on what I had been doing. I felt a real affinity to Adorno – his methodology defied boundaries, his commitment to the dialectic, and his prescient concerns about the relationship of art and capitalist production (whereby even the avant-garde gets reduced to mere style for aesthetic consumption).
By the time I left graduate school, I had synthesized and structured my artistic practice into the dictum of Aesth(Ethics); whereby every aesthetic decision is a political one. This is why I conceive of my work as allegory, and try to uncover adjacencies and connections beyond the basic idea, to find some way to recontextualize them or distill them into the work. At the same time I don’t want the work to become a jumble of random tangents, so I strive for what I term “Complex Simplicity” – the work appears simple and direct on the surface, but encodes multiple meanings and relationships within.
3) For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected BOUNDED NATURE, an extremely interesting series, that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, and which is both a commentary and metaphor for urban dwellers’ ritualized and cultivated unconscious of their impacts on the larger environment in their everyday actions. When walking our readers through the genesis of this project, we would like to ask you what is the role of chance in your process: how much improvisation is important for you?
The genesis of BOUNDED NATURE came about during a dry spell in my photoraphy. A lot of my early work in the medium was in fine-art landscape and urban photography and I stopped taking photographs because I had become somewhat jaded – my immediate surroundings didn’t seem as interesting or inspiring compared to other places. I tried to kick myself out of it by working on a series with the idea of focusing on little moments of everyday beauty, like a dandelion poking out of a sidewalk crack. However, I eventually abandoned it out of frustration as I could not figure out how I could represent these moments such that people “got it” – they just looked like “bad” photos.
At around the same time, I began experimenting with false-color infrared photography, mainly because I had an unused digital camera lying around that I could convert. I never felt an affinity to digital photography before because I loved the element of chance in darkroom work – you never quite know how your pictures are going to turn out. You could control all the variables to get consistent results, but that would take away the fun of discovery and happy “accidents”. I liked that what was displayed on the screen in digital infrared did not represent the outcome when you process the image on the computer (by making “visible” the channel the infrared data was captured on). I also could not pre-visualize the image (like in film or digital photography) as my eyes could not see the levels of infrared light reflected off different objects, which introduced another element of chance in image-making.
The idea for BOUNDED NATURE came about when I was thinking of how to push infrared photography beyond the tropes of white trees and dark skies. I realized that certain images in my abandoned project would work in false-color infrared, that dandelion would “pop” from the sidewalk crack without having to sacrifice compositional context. This started me thinking on how we are taught to see and visualize the world through the tropes of photography. Nature in landscape photographs is grand, heroic, and exotic; and is largely invisible in urban photography. I saw this as a metaphor for urban dwellers’ cultivated unconscious on our larger environmental impacts – where the idea of Nature only exists in an idealized form but is suppressed in the day to day.
Now that I had a new framework for “seeing”, I found photographic opportunities everywhere in the city, that my own ritualized way of seeing had blocked out. I started the project by replicating landscape and urban photography tropes in infrared, but it got constraining as things started to look the same after a while. I realized that if I am proposing a new way of seeing, I would have to do better and began to improvise and experiment with subjects and framings that would not have “worked” in conventional B&W or color. So the process itself became a monad of the tension between the natural (i.e. chance, what is out there) and man-made (e.g. rules of composition) that the project explored.
4) BOUNDED NATURE accomplishes the difficult task of centering the relationship of the natural in the urban landscape by the intimacy of the subject matter: in this sense, your project could be considered a successful attempt to create a body of works that stands as record of existence and that captures non-sharpness, going beyond the elusive relationship between experience and identity in our globalized mundanity. Even James Turrell’s obsession with light and color is often associated with his early experiences as a pilot… So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process… Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
Thank you so much for the compliment, and for articulating that problematic, as trying to transcend categories of thought is an ongoing concern of mine!
I think while some artists have attempted to utilize esoteric theories or abstracted concepts in lieu of direct experience in their creative process, the works I personally find intriguing are those that stemmed from personal experience – somehow I feel that comes through in the work. Even if one did not have direct experience, I think one has to somehow make sense of it through one’s personal experience to better connect with the audience.
For example, I was recently invited to create a hybrid projection-performance piece for a fundraiser for Haiti victims. I have never been to Haiti, the last time it was in my consciousness was media coverage of millions of dollars that was raised in aid. The easy route would be to just show scenes of devastation. As I did more research, I was appalled to discover most of the aid money went to corrupt contractors and organizations, and the majority of Haitians were still living in slums 6 years after the earthquake. I was incensed at what had happened, and at the apathy and complacency of most people and myself that allowed this to happen. By structuring the piece around this anger, I was able to relay and relate what happened to my and the audience experience.
Where I think personal experience is absolutely indispensable (which you have already pointed out in James Turrell) is in one’s creative obsession. Growing up in Singapore and eventually ending up as a refugee in North America in my mid-20s; what struck me was how people can’t see the limitations imposed on their thought, whether in a repressive regime or democratic society. I became obsessed with trying to transcend the limitations of existing knowledge structures through art. My investigations into the tensions and dialectic of what is considered “natural” vs. man-made, is an outcome of this obsession.
5) BOUNDED NATURE also inquires into the interstitial space between personal and public spheres, providing the spectatorship with an immersive experience that forces such a contamination the inner and the outside: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space?
I think the public sphere has only existed as an idea and ideal – there has never been a unified and inclusive public sphere, even within art. Instead shared concerns are regulated in a social field, whereby hierarchies exclude certain voices, and dictate the boundaries of what is appropriate to express in public vs. private. I think the prevalence of bad art in public spaces is a function of this social field, whereby art is reduced to anodyne decoration, as repressed stasis, instead of interrogating or pushing those boundaries and hierarchies.
Yet I think it could be so much more. I was inspired to find a way to critique and recover the potential of public space when I was in Frankfurt few years ago. I heard of a statue (the Frankfurter Engel) near St. Peter’s church dedicated to LGBT persecution during the Nazi regime. I went to look for it and found it was situated in a “dead” space – between the back wall of a building and the driveway of a Best Western, and frequented by drunks needing a spot. So I did a guerrilla performance piece, GEBROCHENGEL, as a means of reclaiming that space and questioning the sufficiency of “apologetic” monuments; where over a period of 3 hours on the anniversary of Marlene Dietrich’s death, I performed her signature song “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß” (“Falling in love again”) twelve times at random intervals, one for each year of the Third Reich.
6) What has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into urban ritualization is your successful attempt to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols creates a compelling non linear narrative that, walking the thin line between conceptual and literal meanings, establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that “nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead”. What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?
I totally agree with that statement as contemporary art practice and criticism has moved beyond the production of a singular art object into building and understanding a body of work respectively. As a result art is no longer “pure”, viewed in isolation on a separate plane, but within a larger context.
Even in my early photographic work, I was cognizant of the problematic “purity” inherent in the art form passed down since the early masters such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston (especially when the medium inherently fetishizes the idea of an iconic moment). If you were to go to an exhibition of their work, you will see a wall of beautiful photographs; each perfectly contained that does not speak to the next, nor collectively build into something larger than the sum of their parts. I think it is this containment that leads to the sort of ritualized seeing e.g. where people pick out their favourite pieces, offer bland compositional “critiques”, or consider how it would fit in their décor.
To counterpose that, to try and make viewers engage in the work as a whole, I structure my photographic projects like a musical score; whereby each photo (like a musical phrase) loses something when taken in isolation. Your observation on how the work creates a non-linear narrative is both perceptive and correct; I don’t think most people are consciously are aware it is what I set out to accomplish.
My musical/narrative inspiration is the Passacaglia form which is non-linear, as opposed to the Sonata form, which is linear (having a distinctive exposition and development). I see linear narrative as both ritual and tyranny. From children’s fairy tales to corporation press releases, linear narratives dictate meaning – there is only one way to think (and one way to behave). In contrast, the Passacaglia form (which itself has so many variations that scholars can’t agree on the distinctions) is a set of continuous variations over a bass; and it is this structure of shifting meanings over a base that makes it especially suited for allegory. By layering and varying conceptual and literal meanings, I hoped to convey and encourage the viewer to see beyond the manifest, to uncover hidden references, and even create new unintended symbolic connections for themselves.
7) You are a versatile artist and over these years you have gained the ability to cross from one media to another: in particular, we wouls like to spend some words about another interesting piece entitled THE SCHOOLING OF DESIRE. We have appreciated the way your approach reveals such incessant search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. So we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.
It is funny you should ask that in the context of THE SCHOOLING OF DESIRE because it was actually my past opera training featured in that piece which made me commit to the multidisciplinary route.
Up until 2008 I was still trying to make it as an opera singer, preparing and going for auditions and competitions. My training had made me capable of producing a big beautiful sound but I was profoundly unhappy. That beautiful voice was not mine; it was shaped and molded by how others thought I should sound, and what it sang was dictated by what others thought was appropriate for it. It is this same paradox of sensuality and discipline that I worked into THE SCHOOLING OF DESIRE via my operatic voice.
Basically I quit opera when I realized why I was so unhappy. I had lost my voice, both in the physiological and political sense, and surrendered my agency and my most intimate mode of expression to others. The notion of each aesthetic decision was also a political one, shifted from a rather academic and abstract concept into something personal that I embodied.
It was during the process of rediscovering my voice that I realized going multidisciplinary was the way for me; not just for ideas I want to explore, but who I am as an artist. Previously, I had kept everything separate (in fact my old work is still on separate websites) and tried to fit into existing aesthetic structures. Being able to shift between, or even hybridize different modes, expanded the possibilities and complexity of ideas I am able to explore.
8) When investigating the dialectic and tension between the natural and the man-made you also convey a subtle but effective socio political criticism Your work conveys a subtle but effective criticism concerning the materialistically driven culture that saturate our contemporary age. But while artists from the contemporary scene, as Ai WeiWei or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to express open socio-political criticism in their works, you seem more interested to hint the direction, inviting the viewers to a process of self-reflection that may lead to subvert a variety of usual, almost stereotyped cultural categories. Do you consider that your works could be considered political in a certain sense or did you seek to maintain a more neutral approach? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?
I think the sort of Political Art you reference has become a style in itself, which makes it problematic. By being blatantly political, any criticism of the art gets conflated with a criticism of the cause, so concessions are made because the intent was “correct” (not to mention the issue of the vested interests of curators and collectors who benefit from marketing the artist as political).
The majority of my works are rooted in a political intent, so in that sense they are political. But they are not explicitly so because doing so means you either shut out those who disagree, or preach to the choir; both of which are passive and untenable positions and do not engender change.
The power of being indirect lies in the perception it is less forceful. Neutral is a shade on a swatch, not a stance. I don’t want to tell people, I want people to think; which is why I prefer to work with non-linear narrative structures, so as to create spaces for people to make their own linkages. Particularly for those working in a climate rife with censorship or conformity, I think it is one of the few viable strategies for expression that does not overly compromise one’s authenticity.
I believe the role of the artist is to somehow break through the sea of apathy and complacency in the public sphere of our highly mediated and materialistic culture. I have no utopian delusions about sweeping social transformations from art. More so than ever, one has to guard against the codifying, commoditizing, and co-opting impulses of the contemporary age. However, if we all create enough ripples, it just might become a wave of change.
9) One of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?
Thank you. The issue of audience reception is a critical component of my creative decision-making process. One of the things that resonated with me in Adorno’s conception of the dialectic is the notion of immanence, of coming from within. When I am creating a piece, many of the decisions are around how to create the conditions and symbolic structures to encourage the audience to think actively, to reflect beyond what is manifest before them. This is why I prefer a less explicit approach, and why I often don’t like to talk about my work, as that would be telling the audience what to think. Yet at the same time, I don’t want the work to be so esoteric and so veiled that I have to explain every reference!
These tensions and decisions between what is latent vs. manifest, what is immediate vs. resonant etc. inform the type of language used, and how it is used (as language encodes relations of power in its meaning). In BOUNDED NATURE, I chose to bracket the visual language of fine art photography as it relates to landscapes and urban subjects, as a means of showing what they have excluded.
Other times, I have explored the use of language both as connective thread, and as context to add layers of meaning. For example, in BALLAD 4 (that was created to counter the whitewashing hype of Sochi Olympics) a single aria connects the anti-LGBT hate and violence in Russia, Uganda, Nigeria, India and other parts of the world. The aria I chose is a French aria that Tchaikovsky used in one of his operas. In tracing the aria to a French (who are against marriage equality) opera about an English king, I connect the colonial roots of language and homophobia in the other countries. In BALLAD 4, this history appears in English subtitles, in tandem with the French words I am singing, while I am gesturing in sign language (to represent the silence of the victims).
10) Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Stephen. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
Thank you so much for having me, and for the opportunity to share my practice with others! I am actually not working on anything at the moment, which is new for me! I had been averaging a new work every month for the past 3 years, and I think I need time off to reset, to re-evaluate where I have been, and rethink where I want to go.
One of the areas I think I would like to get into is the so-called New Media Art, things like interactive installations, virtual reality, robotics etc. I find a lot of what has been done in that space rather gimmicky and merely demonstrate how “cool” the technology is instead of saying anything meaningful. I think it would be interesting to explore how this diverse set of practices and technologies could be shaped and harnessed as commentary and critique.
Another area I have been giving a lot of thought to is ways of extending the notion of the artistic gesture, moving beyond the model established by Tehching Hsieh, using non-art forms as a mode of expression. It is something I began experimenting with a year ago when I created the CENSURED IN CANADA film festival, which subverted and commented on the cliquish Canadian art scene, and how film festivals are curated.