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Emerson Sigman
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Emerson Sigman
* - A performative rant for camera. Curl - A performance for camera on Chicago's North Shore, in front of Lake Michigan. An interpretation, reaction, and resistance to an assigned verb: to curl.
An interview with
Emerson Sigman Since the first time we have watched Curl, we have appreciated its performative nature, and at the same time the simplicity of its visual style. How did you come up with the idea for this work? The greatest, most challenging response anyone’s had to this work was someone who said she knew it was supposed to be boring. At first I thought she was wrong, that I’d been misinterpreted. I thought I’d something unattended in the work to have someone find it boring. I felt as if I’d failed. What’s really the case is that my interests differ from my audience’s interests. I was excited by Curl from the start. But the thing about me is that I’m thrilled by anti-theatre and alienation, whereas most others seem to resist these notions. I make art for myself, as a means of progressing my being. Curl serves as documentation that I have lived and changed in this moment in time. I don’t have to entertain, I simply have to be.
This idea has also been done before. It’s not anything I’ve come up with. Other performances have involved chopping away at hair. Everyone has had a haircut. Each time I perform an action, it is something that has been done before. What makes it different is my body, in a particular space and time, and the way the work is documented. In your video we can recognize a simple at the same time masterly work of editing:in particular we have noticed the way you use jump cut. How did you develop your style? I wouldn’t say I have a style. I have ideas, and then I make something from my ideas. Each element will be in service of that concept. It’s something you refer to as simplicity, but I look at as necessity. There’s no method of editing except for what an idea requires. In this particular work, I knew I’d be cutting my own words out from the start. Following this concept informs the way I perform for the camera.
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After making this video, I’ve since seen footage of celebrities or politicians edited just to hear their breathing in a similar manner. I find this divisive. It’s a question of ethics, to manipulate what others are saying through the edit, either making a laugh of them or condemning them. I’m reminded of an early episode of The Simpsons, “Homer Badman.” Homer is interviewed by the local news station after being charged with sexual assault. They edit his defensive answers with jump cuts to form incriminating sentences. Though there will always be editorializing, there is a responsibility to the power of editing. I take the responsibility to edit myself and be aware that I am doing so. Could you take us through your creative process when starting a new project? It’s different for every work I create. I see many things in my life that I want to keep. I want to carry them around and let them fester until the ideas become a part of me.
To take you through my process, I’d have to let you spend a lifetime in my head. I watch detective movies. Gritty crime films, particularly from the 70s, are what I love lately. Any kind of puzzling narrative that requires some mental tinkering hits my gut. But there’s a meditative quality to these works too. The protagonist has to solve something dire, with life or death consequences. And it’s so great when an action sequence comes around, because the heroes use their bodies to work through it. When I look at the world, I’m reminded of these films. I’m figuring out the world around me to solve something and then fighting through with my flesh. The stakes are life or death. Do you think art’s purpose is simply to provide a platform for an artist’s expression? Do you think that art could change people's behavior? Art doesn’t have a purpose. The meaning of the word art is ‘to make with skill.’ So an artist is someone who makes anything.
And here again you mention simplicity. Simple once again seems to undercut the necessity of making. If something is simple, it’s because it is onefold. There’s nothing about art which is onefold. I’ve been depressed and static at times in my life, overburdened by a fighting family and the anxieties of major life changes. The revelation of making is enough to motivate me into active being. Makers aren’t limited to curated content. Anyone who makes anything is an artist. I make a living for myself. Do I make it with skill? I’m always trying harder to. So my life is art. Art is not just an agent of change but transformation itself. Art does not have a purpose, art is purpose. Art doesn’t change people’s behavior, it is people’s behavior. How do you live? Thanks for sharing your time and thoughts with us, Emerson. What's next for Emerson Sigman? What are your next projects on the horizon? I’m on Instagram @autoselfies. I’m always making. My next performances will be durational and endurance-based. I’m making work less for the camera and more for public, accidental audiences. I’m also documenting work for other makers of performance to help get their work seen.
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