[this is an interview I did with artist Jeremy Deller in July 2010, still fresh to the Islands, for my planned book with interviews with British thinkers, philosophers, artists, activists about the meaning and possibility of a revolution today. amongst other interviewed are: Mark Fisher, David Crowley, Owen Hatherley, Dominic Fox, Jon Wozencroft, Isaac Julien, Ulrike Ottinger, John Roberts, Douglas Crimp, to name a few.
Still unfinished, there may be a new spur to finally do it. The yesterday's event of Margaret Thatcher's death gave me the impulse to publish this interview on the blog. Miner's strike and Orgreave remain a wound on the UK's working class. So often it occurred to me that many who were interested in Jeremy's work (crowned last year with a big retrospective in Hayward Gallery, Joy in People), may not necessarily share his politics or politics of the miners.
Mind you, this was made just after the Tories have been elected, and doesn't contain any of the atrocities of the last 3 years, only their predictions.
Let it prompt my work on this book (when I finish the previosu one). Hopefully, we'll see it published this or next year. If you like it, please share it and cheer me on to finish the book).
ORGREAVE
AND OTHER BATTLES
INTERVIEW
WITH JEREMY DELLER
25/07/10
with thanks to Owen Hatherley, who helped with transcription
AGATA
PYZIK: I wrote to you for the first time when there was still a Labour
government four or five months ago, and I thought that would be a good start.
My partner lives here, and I've been visiting for seven months...
JEREMY
DELLER: So you know a bit about the politics.
Yes,
or everything I can. People are terrified, and it's funny, though it sounds
like a simplification, but your best known work, on the Battle of Orgreave,
considered the disaster of the previous Tory government, and we're having another
one, in fairly different circumstances not only politically but as far as the
development of capitalism goes, but I thought – there will be some kind
of...the amounts of cuts that are going to be introduced...
...are
going to be bad. But I think everyone knows it's going to be bad. Because
earlier nobody knew what was coming. All the arts organisations should be
worried, everyone should be worried – there'll be cuts from 25-40%, more or
less. So we'll see. But they seem to be enjoying it.
Who
seems to be enjoying it?
The
government. So it could lead to a social breakdown, some sort of breakdown of
our social fabric, of society. There could be more riots, a repeat of 1981.
Do
you think a kind of historical repetition is possible?
Yeah, I
think it always is. It's really about human behaviour rather than history. So I
think it's...we'll see. If they do what they say they're going to do and things
happen, then there could be a lot of trouble ahead. A lot, I imagine. Though
they don't seem to be worried about this.
So I
started with the Battle
of Orgreave, which is nine years old now -
Yes,
2001.
Which
has become some kind of...one of the favoured examples in terms of
participatory art, for instance in Clare Bishop's text in Artforum a couple of
years ago, where she wrote about you, Artur Zmijewski and a few others, as a
kind of 'delegation', delegating other people to make your work or to interact,
which then becomes your work. On the other hand, re-enactment is fairly present
in domains that have nothing to do with art. We have a lot of historical
re-enactments in Poland,
especially under the right-wing government. This year we had the re-enactment
of a 600 year old battle with the Germans, and the Warsaw
Uprising is one of the favourite themes – battles in the streets of Warsaw that get
re-enacted.
The
Jewish uprising?
No,
the Warsaw
uprising of 1944.
That's
interesting, I didn't know about that.
So
Artur Zmijewski, who is frequently juxtaposed with you and others working in
this area has been shooting this cycle called 'Democracies' for the last two
years. You're familiar with it?
Mmm.
...which
is filming direct participation in 'democracy'.
It
sounds really good.
I
could send it to you. It's his testing the very basic possibility of participating
in democracy.
But it's
documentation.
Documentation
plus editing of some kind. But I'm mentioning it in the context of the Battle of Orgreave, which
is something completely different, though you have real people, real policemen
and real miners, as well as people who specialise in re-enactments. So my
question is – what is the strategy behind it, given that the poignancy of the
Miners' Strike has been a trauma ever since, something that people put almost
on the same level as the Second World War, a myth of the working class – what
was the strategy behind staging it like this?
Why did
I do it, you mean? I did it because I remember seeing it on TV when I was a
child, or a young man, a teenager, so I wanted to do it as an investigation.
Also there's a sense of absurdity to it, and ridiculousness, and a humour which
doesn't get picked up on much. To re-stage a riot - it's almost impossible, by
definition. And too use the re-enactment societies, who are huge in Britain, where
it's not really a nationalistic thing, because they re-enact battles from all
over the world, but also ones where the British lost, often. So it's...I don't
see it as too nationalistic, but I wanted to engage those people on something,
and work with them on a political re-enactment. A political battle, not
something that happened a hundred or more years ago, but something very very
recent, or too recent to re-enact. Too soon for them. For them it was very
unusual to do this. So there was a number of reasons to do this, really.
Personal, and then about history, British history, because re-enactors look at
history in a very specific way. I wanted them to look at British history in a
different way, in a rough way. In a way they don't really understand, maybe, in
the sense that they don't see the Miners' Strike as a war, as a Civil War. I
was presenting it as a form of warfare. So they had to think of it as part of a
war. And also, they were meeting people who had been part of the strike, which
you can't do with any other war, really, apart maybe from the Second World War,
because they're all dead. So they've got to meet and mingle with veterans of a
war, of a campaign. I was interested in that. You can see that in the film –
they mix or don't mix, or maybe they get a little bit scared. Mainly it was
about investigating a moment of history, on a grand scale. Investigating it
physically rather than with a text, or film. Rather than just looking at an
archive, actually doing it as a reconstruction as a form of investigation.
Yeah,
although people who live there don't need to re-live it. It was really for
other people, because they know about it already, they live with it. It was for
the actors really, and then the general public.
What
about the miners who participate? Whenever there are anniversaries of Auschwitz, the survivors sometimes wear again the
stripes. There's this very interesting aspect of trauma or reversing the
trauma...
...but
also of pride, a sense of pride, for the miners, and if you're an Auschwitz survivor there's a shame in that you survived,
or a shame or whatever. For the miners...yes, they didn't really wear old
clothes, they just wore their normal clothes. Everyone does, really. We didn't
go for re-enactment in those terms, but we did try and make it a piece of
performance art, like a massive performance art piece. But going back to your
question. Yes, the miners are always brought up, and as the years go on, it's
looked at differently. The anniversary was more sympathetic to them. Initially,
there were no anniversaries until 2004, so we did it in 2001, and before that
there hadn't been anniversaries, or any interest in it, because it was too
difficult to talk about.
What
was the impact on the participants?
Some had
a really good time, some were upset by it – the miners, I'm talking about. It
was a range, a variety, but what I think they enjoyed most was meeting all
their friends, everyone came back together – about 200 guys came back together,
and they could talk, they could socialise, which was really important.
What
about the potential that...this is in a way the sense of re-enactment, but
since it was staged, it raised again those emotions, but it couldn't have a
political impact in a way.
No.
So
there is a certain futility to it.
Yeah, of
course, and an absurdity to it as well. The absurdity of remaking a riot.
But
what was the miners' reaction, weren't they disappointed?
No, they
understood it. They weren't expecting a new revolution because of a
re-enactment, they weren't expecting the world to change because they were
doing that. They're realistic people. If anything, it was the re-enactors who
were expecting something to happen during the re-enactment, who thought it would
start a massive real riot and then a battle and then a revolution or something.
So the miners were just totally pragmatic about it. They weren't expecting
public policy to change or the mines to re-open at the end of it.
The
boundary, if there is any, between art or what have you arises – did you
experience criticism on that level, that this thing promises much more than
it's able to give?
No, or
if it did I didn't hear it. No. I wasn't setting out to change the world. It
wasn't promising anything, there was no promise. It was an artwork.
You
use the word 'performance', and obviously there's discussions about what
performance is, whether it can be reproduced. For you what's the essence of
performance as such?
That's a
big question. In that piece in particular? It's a public event, people acting
out roles, or former roles. It's rehearsed, it has a script – and it has an
audience, and that's what a performance is really, because a film hasn't got an
audience. There is no audience when it's being made. So the role of the
audience is important. But I'm improvising really. To be honest - I don't
really think about these things. I don't think very much about my work, and I
try not to, and let other people do it.
But
on the other hand something like this re-enactment is a very consciously
political work.
Of
course it is. It's very pointed. But what I'm saying is that doesn't mean I
think about it too much in retrospect, or even at the time – I have an idea,
and think let's do this idea. I don't think of the theory, or dissect it too
much, because if you dissect ideas you end up thinking 'that's a terrible
idea'. This won't work, that won't work. So I try not to. But it was a
consciously political work, and made at a time in which the art world was not
particularly interested in politics, where the mainstream artworld was more
interested in hanging out than making political artworks.
When
for the first time did you think you wanted to make art that engaged other
people, not just the artworld?
I think
that in terms of making art that works with people, which is I think what you
mean,
Yes,
working with people, that is collaborating, that is delegation...
1996.
Because I did a project with a brass band. It happened in 1997, but it began in
'96. I realised I enjoyed doing it and that I didn't have to make objects
anymore, but I could just work with people. I wouldn't have to make an object,
but it was a thing.
I'm
thinking about social sculpture, and Beuys...
Yes, but
I wasn't thinking about that.
Whenever
we do something that engages people it engages communities, and this is
something that your work is about.
It can
be, yeah. The brass bands are people who make music within communities, so
there is that. But I do lots of other things as well, because if that's all you
did then you become a certain kind of artist, especially in Britain, where
everyone has to work with communities, you are asked 'can you work with these
kinds of people', these people of this area...so with the Olympics there's all
this art made about the people who live in the area, all of that.
In
the Lea Valley. So is that what you're doing
now?
Of
course not – I just want to do my own thing. I don't want to be asked and
dropped into a town or a school and think 'these are the people I have to make
art with'. I'm not interested in that. So no.
How
did you get interested in fandom communities? For instance with the Manic Street
Preachers?
Well, I
liked them, I wasn't a 'fan' in those terms. I liked Depeche. You probably like
them, being Polish!
Well
yes...I can't remember whether you included Polish fandom.
No,
sadly. If we made the film again we'd make it about the Eastern Bloc, really. Russia. Rather
than the US
and the world. There's a really interesting US-Russia connection with the band,
they were big in both countries during the Cold War.
I
must get back to fandom communities, because they're transcending communities.
Brass bands are a group of people who all live in the same town, Manics fans
are living in the different cities of Great Britain. But I would prefer
to discuss that project now, 'The Uses of Literacy'.
That was
the same year as the brass band performance, that happened within four days of
the brass band performance.
I
just happen to live with an ex-massive fan, so I know...
Do you
have the book?
No...
It's
really nice, you should give it to the person you live with. It's cheap!
I
probably will. Well, two things. It's funny for me, because it shaped him in
those seminal years...
15,
16...
Yeah,
maybe even younger. This plus the Folk Archives.
Yes,
because they're the same thing, they're both forms of contemporary folk art.
Well not this, but what we did with the exhibition, and folk art was about
traditional and contemporary folk art, because folk art in Britain hasn't been looked at in a
good way, as being stupid.
There
is this distinction, that Hanns Eisler made between folk art and mass art. This
is mass art, but folk art is in a way nostalgic, yearning for the past, but
this is not. Depeche Mode called one of their albums Music for the Masses.
Yes, but
I think the fan response is a kind of folk art. This is mass art, it's
mass-produced culture; but when someone produces something about the band, that's
makes a drawing, this is folk culture. That's what I believe. Because folk art
isn't about yearning for the past. It can be, it can be about ancient ritual
and tradition, but then so many things aren't. And who's to say that those
drawings of pop stars aren't yearning for something? They're also about the past
or about nostalgia.
I'm
not saying that nostalgia's bad.
That's
why we make folk art, and why we make folk art contemporary as well.
Contemporary folk art which isn't about the past, but which is modern.
Traditionally folk art has often been very political, about the moment – about
the strike, about the event that happened, the riot, or whatever. So we
included a lot of material like that, trade union banners and so on. So I don't
agree with that definition. But then I agree mass culture is not folk art,
obviously.
But
forget about the definition – I thought that was brilliant, that you gathered
all this work. A friend of mine said once that the writings on the walls of
loos...
I did a
book on that once. A book of poetry from toilet walls, in 1994.
If we
take this definition of art as something that is made of...that is modern and
fresh, to be honest, something disinterested, made out of free will, this
modernist idea – so this is it, art created by fans, and poetry on the loo...
Yes,
it's equivalent. And also it's not...you don't see it very much on the whole.
Maybe now with the internet you can see it more, but mostly it was invisible.
So I wanted to make the invisible visible, really. Art made by fans – you don't
get to see that. Unless you get sent it, if you're a member of the band – but
otherwise it's private. I wanted to make it public.
How
did you start to gather this?
It was
pre-internet, so I gave out pieces of paper to fans, at a queue for a concert,
in London. And
I put an ad out in Melody Maker, or NME, I can't remember, and then people sent
me things. It's very simple. We kept in touch, and I did this show, and now
it's owned by the Arts Council. It gets shown round the world or whatever or in
Britain,
and it's part of a national collection, which I'm really happy about.
So
did it come from the idea that pop music is the modern form of folk art.
Popular
art. I like music, and I enjoy seeing people's devotion to bands. I enjoy that.
So it seemed natural. I was interested in the band, and the band's fanbase. It
was only meant to be an exhibition for one day, but it worked as an exhibition,
so it was repeated – it had its own history after that, which is great. After
that I did a few more things about the band. It was very enjoyable doing the
exhibition.
The
band had a very exceptional appeal, because it wasn't really about the music
itself, it was about Richey Edwards.
Those
lyrics.
The
lyrics, and slogans.
This is
the best example, this album is the best example. What's the quotation there?
They always had loads of quotations, from history....and on the singles.
There's
now a novel about Richey Edwards, Richard by Ben Myers.
Fiction?
Is it any good?
It's
a first-person narrative by a former music journalist. I was wondering what
appealed to you in Richey Edwards' work, because now it seems obvious...
It's not
obvious when you're 13. Obviously he wasn't 13. But it's very appealing to
young people at a certain age.
I
must say that I find it strangely appealing, this in-your-face attitude, and
the tragedy behind it...his going to the end in certain things. I'm asking you
– why this following, why this band?
Because
it was unique. It was at a time in Britain when most bands wanted to
be as stupid as possible, as dumb as possible. And they were they exact opposite.
About every generation, every decade, there's a band who is intelligent, clever
and witty and so on. There wasn't another one. It was the Smiths in the '80s
and in the '90s it was this band. In the '70s I don't know. A band which is
going against what is popular. Which is what they always did, they were very
good at that, especially with this album.
At
the peak of Britpop, with the rise of New Labour.
It's
such a downer of an album. 'What is this album?'
It's
monstrous.
It is,
something really unpleasant about it. So I was very happy to do this.
So
who was the typical fan?
It's
quite easy to guess. Not surprisingly, it was a sixteen year old girl who lived
in the countryside or at least not in London,
and who didn't have many friends.
It
appealed to...
The
classic pop fan, who was very intelligent, and read a lot.
Who
was working class?
Not
necessarily – but definitely not wealthy. It was exactly as I expected, which
is a community in itself. But now with the internet it's much easier to really
feel part of something. Before it was fanzines, letters, maybe phone calls, but
now of course it's something else. So maybe it's about something that has
disappeared. Maybe this fan world has disappeared because of the internet or
changed into online rather than at home in the bedroom making stuff. I'm not
sure.
On
the other hand you could still make a film like Posters came from the Walls.
Have you
seen it? You're not allowed to see it. The lead singer doesn't like it, and
we're never allowed to show it again – even though it was made by Mute. Mute
paid for it in its entirety. It's owned by Mute records. It can never be shown
because the lead signer has a problem with it – though I suspect it's his wife,
who is this crazy woman. He's a bit crazy too. But it'll end up on the
internet, so people will see it. At the moment it's on show in Russia, and it's been shown in the UK. Basically
we're showing it until they come down on us and tell us not to show it. Because
it's stupid not to show it, it's crazy.
What
you were able to still depict is a strong community, persisting for years.
In the
Depeche film? Yeah, and that was especially in Russia. I thought that was the most
amazing story. Making the film was fun, and I'm very happy with it. We had to
cut a lot out, but we kept the best stories. But that's like fan adulation to
an extreme degree, like no-one has really had since the Beatles. In Russia, the way
they talk about the band.
What
was the appeal of the band, why do you think they had this emancipatory effect
in the Eastern Bloc?
It's to
do with timing, how they looked, about the music, about how it looked, how it
sounded, about how it's easy to reproduce, you can make copies and copies of
that music and because it's very clean it can be copied very easily, so it's
also for technical reasons...they looked really butch but kind of gay...they
had everything you wanted really. The songs were really short and easy to
understand – it was kind of perfect. And they were making their best records at
that time, when it was disappearing, when all that change was happening, they
were making their best songs. Even though they weren't really aware of it. They
don't really know why they're so popular there, they have no idea. They don't
really think about it because it doesn't really matter, it's just great to be
popular. But it was really something that was adopted. They were adopted by the
Eastern Bloc, the people there. And it's very modern sounding as well. It's not
decadent rock music, it's a new kind of music.
Maybe
it was embodying their idea of liberation at that present moment.
Exactly,
those kind of tortured lyrics. It's not dissimilar to the Manics really. It
works well with young people, they identify with the lyrics, the content, and
the sound had all these minor keys.
What
was interesting for you, the transcending again or the sense of community or
the lyrical sense? I remember this tremendous guy, the homeless guy from London featured at the
very end. Someone told me there's more homeless people in London
than in Moscow.
I live in Greenwich
and I hardly see them. You made him visible, in a way.
There
will be more homeless people now, because of this government. Without a doubt,
that's one thing I can guarantee, more people will become homeless. When he was
homeless, ten years ago or so it was a very serious problem – there was like a
city of homeless people in London,
at the underpass where the iMax cinema is now, there was hundreds of people
living, like a shanty town. It was called Cardboard City.
Hundreds of people lived there, it was like something out of Sao Paulo, and that was the result of ten
years of those policies in the '80s. It's got better since, it's not as bad as
it was, but it'll get worse now. They were moved to hostels, they were given
more help, and also it disspiated, because that site was closed, they dispersed
around London.
But socially things got better in Britain, so they were helped.
I'll
come back to the quotation of Richard Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy,
because there's this chapter on how popular culture and popular music are
fooling the working class, 'sex in shiny packets'. He's very critical of it.
He was
very anti-pop music. He took it too seriously, he was worried in a serious way
about popular music, he didn't understand what it was really, because he was
too old – he was pre-rock and roll. But the Manics were always interested in America and its effect on Britain, but
they were a popular music band who transcended that. This is why I used the
term The Uses of Literacy. But also it's an interesting phrase, an interesting
four words – because they used literacy, they used books, they used it,
they used the act of being literate.
The
very name of their band, and calling themselves Ministers of Propaganda...
They were
playing a lot, they were playing with their image. It was a game, in a good
way. They were very clever, though some of them more clever than others. They
understood it, they understood the game, and what they were trying to do. But
Richard Hoggart was just terrified by what he saw. He was right in some ways,
in other ways he was not right, I think. But that he looked at things closely
and took it seriously was very unusual in Britain at the time. So that's why
I used the title for my book.
Probably
it was unavoidable in the development of the system, what we could see is the
levelling, and now the widening the gaps between rich and poor in liberal
societies. But you mention the game, and I wanted to ask about that in relation
to the Battle
of Orgreave. What is the game for you?
It's
definitely a sense of play. It was a political statement, but it wasn't out to
change the world. That's where activism differs from art. Activists actually
want to change something very directly and very specifically, while artists
don't really want to do that, or be so clear in their intentions.
And
you insist that you are an artist.
Absolutely.
If I was an activist and I did that piece at the end of that piece I'd like the
mines to re-open, or everyone to get a job or something. Then there's an
endpoint, an aim. But with that piece of work there wasn't an aim. So I'm not
an activist.
To
put it very bluntly, how do you see your role, making these very politically
loaded and informed works of art?
Should I
have a role? I'm just an artist, I like making things, and seeing what I can
get away with. I'm just seeing how far I can go with things, and that's how it
is. I don't have any aims, I don't have a list of things I want to do. That's
why I'm not an activist. They use art forms maybe, but not as an endpoint, as a
beginning. So they'll do performances as a way of trying to change things, and
that's what I'm not. I'm not interested in that.
It's
something that's always raised...
A lot of
activists have art backgrounds, I imagine – they went to college and learned
about performance art maybe, and they use those forms for political ends, in
terms of issues or policies or whatever. But I'm not in that camp, no pun
intended. I'm interested in it, but I don't want to be part of it.
What
is this film you're working on at the moment?
There's
two, they're both biopics. They're both about elderly men who have had
interesting lives. One is about a 70 year old man, he's a wrestler, he's from Wales, very close to where the Manics are from,
and he was a coal miner, and left the mine, and went to America to
become a wrestler. He still wrestles, but it's really about his life, how he
managed to leave industry and become part of the entertainment business. Then
another one is about a British artist who's 83 and lives in the countryside,
and still makes art, and it's about his life. His name's Bruce Lacey. He's
semi-known, but he does incredible things. The other one, which is relevant to
you, is the car from Iraq,
which went round the US, that's
coming to the UK, and is now
owned by the Imperial War Museum
in London.
It'll be on display in September. It'll be part of their collection, on display
in London and Manchester. It's relevant for your questions
about art and activism and stuff.
It's
funny that you mention the Imperial War Museum, which is a very interesting
institution, based in a former mental institution, as there you also have
re-enactments, of being in a bunker, or being bombed or something like that –
museums that provide this 'war experience' – it seems relevant to the Battle of
Orgreave. Calling it a battle.
That's a
provocation.
As a
kind of reference to the Middle Ages, even.
It was
known afterwards as 'the battle', it was very quickly known as a battle.
Because of the nature of it and the scale of it, with thousands and thousands
of people – and also how it looked, it looked like a medieval battle, with
police horses and the scale of it. And also its importance. It became one of
the most important events in the strike, because the police very publicly won a
battle. And they on the propaganda war as well, about the battle. So it was a
battle. I did a book about the Battle of Orgreave, called The English Civil
War, again as a provocation.
How
did you talk to all these kinds of people, did you have to convince them?
No, I
think most people understood it very quickly. Re-enactors had to be convinced.
I think, maybe. The miners didn't – they understood it, on the whole. On the
whole they were very excited about it.
It
re-enacted a seminal moment of their life. Did they have a sense of failure
about it?
Well
they're glad it's remembered. And also that through history the opinions on the
miners have changed, because it's a much more sympathetic view. Through history
you can see what was going on much more clearly, the results and consequences.
So they were happy for the attention, and for the opportunity to tell the story
in their own terms, and that was important. You've seen the film?
Yes,
it was part of an exhibition at CCA in Warsaw.
I was interested by the form in which you have parts of the battle and then
single people commenting on it.
We tried
to interview different people, like a policeman, an organiser, a woman, that's
important, some of the miners. We wanted to have a narrative structure to the
film. And also those people who don't usually get interviewed about their time
in the strike. Normal people, really – it wasn't the politicians, but the
footsoldiers, really. Which was interesting, because they were all very
compelling, they way they spoke. It was really good to do that. We did it after
the performance, we spent a day with each person. We were really happy with
those interviews. In the book there's interviews on a CD.
Do
you know Artur Zmijewski's work?
A little.
I've not seen it, but a friend's worked with him on a project. I really like
the sound of it.
He's
getting into controversial things like the Holocaust, for which he's frequently
accused of exploitation. Were you ever?
Of
course. As soon as you're working with people that's what you're accused of, as
if they're not intelligent enough to understand what's happening. Even with the
Folk Archive, when we put on a big nice exhibition with a book, we were told we
were exploiting them. It's just the most stupid thing to say. A lot of people
really hated that exhibition, really hated it. Art critics hated the fact they
had to review it. They wrote 'I didn't want to review this show, but I had to',
which is funny, but it really shows the kind of attitude to folk art in Britain, it's
very class-based. That was interesting to see. They couldn't bear to see it,
some of them.
They
didn't like it because of class?
No, they
didn't think it was art, they thought it was terrible. And it was exploitative.
What they were voicing was their own fears, because they didn't have the
capacity to review what we'd presented them with, they didn't know how to
understand it as art.
The
Depeche Mode film is a classic form of documentary...
You
don't have to be an artist to make a film like that.
Why
is that appealing for you?
I like
documentaries. I like them, I like making them, I like watching them, I like
making my own. With the Depeche film, more than anything I love films about
music and musicians, so I wanted to make a film in that tradition, about a
band. It was very exciting. I like the process of making films, seeing what
happens. I'm doing a variety of things really, there's no way I'd want to limit
myself to doing one thing, I never have. I'm curating as well, I'm curating a
show in the next year, doing more films, maybe another performance piece. I'm
lucky really, because of winning the Turner Prize not a lot of artists can do
what I do in the UK,
so I'm in a very good position. I'm always being asked to do things so it's
good not to do one thing.
The
things you've been creating to date are very unusual, in that they're works not
made by artists, so is this going to be in this vein?
It's
actually a version of an exhibition I did in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo, about British
music, and British identity through music. It's music-based, but it'll have art
in it and music. It's not clear at the moment. It's about how our identity has
been shaped through industry and music. It's not clear as you can tell.
Music
as industry?
The
industrial revolution and its relationship to British rock music.
Probably
what happened a hundred years in Manchester
was probably the biggest revolution since the Palaeolithic or something.
Yes – Manchester, Birmingham
– all these big musical towns had an industrial base.
I'm
going to Sheffield later today.
Well
that's a very important one, for electronic music.
I'm
fascinated by this, that the most exciting music from the late '70s was made by
working class people in industrial towns.
Well
that's what my exhibition is about, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle. Centres of heavy industry and
their relationship with what became the music industry.
Now
we have this austerity nostalgia, a sort of cover for the austerity policy of
the government, 'Keep Calm and Carry On' and so on, which unconsciously tried
to use the war policy.
Those
posters when they came out were massively unsuccessful, because they were seen
as massively patronising to the general public. Now they're taken as ironic,
and they're everywhere, aren't they. People felt patronised by the English
ruling classes – you are fantastic and you are the British public, keep going.
Really crude propaganda. Now it's seen as very nice.
Can
people see the very cynical politics behind it?
Well
some can, though some voted for it. People must understand what's happening,
they'd be crazy not to.
If it
was possible for an artist to influence how people vote, would you like it?
No.
That's for activists, I'm not interested in that. It's nice not to be told.
That's the problem with activism, it's very preachy, it's very 'you are wrong,
I am right, and I have a moral high ground and you do not'. It often doesn't
see the complexity of situations. Some people in Iraq think the invasion was a
fantastic thing. You could tell some people that and they wouldn't believe it.
But for a lot of other people it was the worst thing that ever happened to
them, so I'm much more interested in complexity rather than having all the
answers. That's what politicians do, they say they can solve all the problems,
and they're usually wrong. Usually it's better to see things in a more
complicated way.
The Trevi, somewhere on Holloway Road
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