Self interview

I am currently working on a small publication to be published by wotadot before the end of this year. This book/ publication will contain a compilation of short pieces of writing that I have done throughout the years, in notebooks and sketchbooks, alongside my visual work. I have recently noticed that I am writing more and I am curious about this process and where it can go with my visual and performative work.

(The vague) Self Interview

  

How are you feeling right now?

I’m quite anxious. I’ve been biting my nails a lot. Yeah, I’ve been anxious a lot, actually.

Are you ready to start?

I’m not sure I am ready. Maybe we shouldn’t start yet. I think I need to calm down. I will not know what to say….I haven’t prepared.

So, should we wait for bit?

Uuumm, maybe. Let me just move around a bit…see how I feel afterwards. Are you in a hurry?

Not really, I mean, we can wait …are you sure you are alright?

Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just need to move around for a bit. [Breathes in through the nose and out through the mouth noisily]

[Pacing around nervously] You know, the other day I went to an event and one of the hosts started by talking about delaying starting. Delaying starting something puts you in a position where there are more possibilities. Once you’ve started, the possibilities are substantially less.

            Why did you bring that up? Does that interest you?

It does. Has been on my mind ever since: delay the start. Maybe because I tend to procrastinate a lot and this idea fit in well with that (?) Well, …not really. Seriously [Still moving], maybe because I am interested in things that are not final, finished, polished. In my work, that is. The emphasis is in the process and not in a finished outcome. Once I consciously start, I loose interest.

            How do you resolve your work/ a project?

[Stops slightly out of breath] That is a good question.

[Long pause]

When I am working, finishing what I am doing doesn’t get thought about too much, as in a conscious way. Everything just tends to unravel and happen and it is considered finished when the particular process I am following at the time comes to an end; often a task, or a procedure or a sequence of events / tasks. But I would like to think that I never really started, therefore never finish.

            What sort of work are you talking about?

I am referring to visual work, drawing and photography. That’s interesting: I momentarily forgot about the bookwork. A book is a finished thing, right? So what I said before doesn’t make entire sense. I need to keep moving for longer [breathes in and out, noisily and fast, again]. I’m not making any sense.

            Where do you get your ideas from? What makes you do the work that you do?

[Stops, standing still] Its difficult- perhaps interestingly so- to define a clear source for ideas. I think ideas tend to be more impulses and tend to come from actions. They tend to be intuitive and responding to something material, some quality/ connection that is visible to me in that particular moment in time. It seems that there is an inner intelligence that I can’t rationalise which recognises all these little connections. Maybe I don’t work with ideas….that may explain why I can’t work to briefs/ commissions.

Now- movement and performance are whole new territories for me. I am still figuring out a process that is mine. [Sits down]

            Are you ok?

Yes, I’m much better now.

            Ok, should we start?

Ana Vicente

16^th May 2015