Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences (Roy Ascott’s phrase). That solves a lot of problems: we don’t have to argue about whether photographs are art, or whether performances are art, or whether Carl Andre’s bricks or Andres Serranos’s piss or little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ are art, because we say, ‘Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen.’ (…_ Suppose you redescribe the job ‘artist’ as ‘a person who creates situations in which you can have art experiences’.

Once we get used to the idea that we are no longer consumers of ‘finished’ works, but that we are people who engage in conversations and interactions with things, we find ourselves leaving a world of ‘know your own station’ passivity and we start to develop a taste for active engagement. We stop regarding things as fixed and unchangeable, as preordained, and we increasingly find ourselves practising the idea that we have some control. Most importantly, perhaps, we might start to think the same way about ourselves: that we are unfinished (and unfinishable) beings whose task is constantly to re-examine and remix our ideas and our identities.

What a bastard Beethoven sounds — arrogant, paranoid, disagreeable. Why am I still surprised when people turn out to be not at all like their work? A suspicion of the idea that art is the place where you become what you’d like to be… rather than what you already are…

My ideal is probably based on the story I heard years ago of how the Japanese calligraphers used to work — a whole day spent grinding inks and preparing brushes and paper, and then, as the sun begins to go down, a single burst of fast and inspired action.

That cultural image — which you find throughout Japanese culture from Sumo to Sushi — is very interesting and quite different from ours. We admire people who stick at it doggedly and evenly (I also admire them) and put in the right amount of hours. But more and more I want to try that Japanese model: to get everything in place (including your mind, of course) first, and then to just give yourself one chance. It seems thrilling.

Oldenburg’s earlier stuff — before he knew what he was doing — looked best. So often the case that people work best when they are stretching out over an abyss of ignorance, hanging on to a thin branch of “what-is-still-possible”, tantalized by the future.

I take it as valuable on it’s face. An obvious turn-of-phrase. The collective knowledge of the known universe is housed in libraries all over the globe. It only stands to reason that libraries ARE truly incubators. Every idea ever committed to print can be found within the pages of a book in a library somewhere. How incredible to be able to pour through those pages, to gather up and store and ruminate on those conversations and discourses. Oh, and I could be mistaken, but libraries are free, are they not? Free knowledge? The most precious, valuable thing on the planet for free — and not taken advantage of. Astonishing…

Sue also gave me what remains to be one of my favorite children’s books, Kit Williams’ Masquerade. It changed everything for me. Williams gilded an elaborate golden hare, and ornamented the piece with precious jewels and metals. He then buried the treasure in a secret location in England and created a treasure map in the form of a children’s book. On it’s face, the elaborate illustrations told the story of the moon falling in love with the sun, so much so that she offered him a golden gift and entrusted it to a hare to be delivered. But, the hare lost the gift, and now it was up to the reader to find it. Clues in rhymes and visuals were hidden throughout the story and should one properly decipher Williams’ words, they lead right to his gilded golden hare.