Practice makes Perfect with Mia Salsjö

In this episode, I sit with Mia Salsjö, a Melbourne-based interdisciplinary artist whose work exists at the intersection of drawing, music composition, text, and performance. The conversation immediately hits off with a discussion of organised chaos and the role discipline plays in her life and work. With degrees in music improvisation, visual art, and one from the Kundalini Research Institute, Mia's relentless drive is embodied in almost every aspect of her life and work. We deep-dive into what makes up that routine and how she started making connections between architecture and sound.

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Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My voice is very high pitched and quite cutting.

Full-Time Artist, Real-World Income

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Um so yeah, just letting you know I don't have a deep voice like this and I mean I've got to You're listening to Serial Music Talks Podcast. I'm your host, Giva, aka Lutzia, and you're here to listen to some really honest conversations I have with Melbourne musicians, music producers, sound designers about breaking into new markets, music hustle, imposter syndrome, writer's blog, posting on social media, ah, a lot of struggles. Is that Modus Operandi? I'm currently seated in the most amazing artist studio I've ever been so far. It's a studio uh by Mia Salsio um in East Brunswick. Actually, it's a studio within a space that's called Hayden's Gallery. Uh, if you haven't heard it, heard about it yet or visited, I highly recommend it's an independently run gallery. I'm here to interview Mia Salsio, an Australian artist and composer of Albanian and Swedish descent, grounded in complex code-based systems. Uh, her multidisciplinary practice encompasses drawing, music composition, text performance, video and textile-based work. And by linking these diverse media through underlying linguistic systems, um, Mia's work reflects on the elusive and fluid nature of communication. I caught her in the middle of development of the new work, so I did my best not to waste her time and go straight into the core of her practice and approach.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Are you a full-time artist? Oh, I'm a full-time artist, but I'm also I'm also responsible when it comes to earning money. So I run my own uh commercial cleaning business, which supports my art practice. I also take up other kinds of opportunities that are around my art practice as well, whether that's talking to VCE students, you know, in ri rural areas or you know, I do other extracurricular activities. Um, my art is the first and foremost, and it does take up, it requires all my energy. So I really don't have time to have a normal sort of nine to five job. Otherwise, I couldn't achieve the amount of work that I do for projects. But the commercial cleaning business that I run actually um is fantastic because I can go there at 11 o'clock at night if I need to or at four o'clock in the morning. That sort of keeps me afloat, paying rents and all sorts of things, food, you know, daily costs of living, petrol, etc.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

But it also, I guess then it it gives you the opportunity not to make compromises with your art.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

The cleaning business.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, just like smartly totally.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

I it's yeah, it and it's also physical, so it gets me out of my headspace because my work is quite cerebral, and um it gets me into a fit my physical body, and um I'm doing something completely, you know, it's a it's a no-brainer in a way. It's a really great job because it uh I don't have to deal with anything or anybody. It's just me, you know, like I don't it it's not a responsibility in a way that another kind of profession is where you come home and you start thinking, do I say the right thing? This cleaning business I've got is fantastic because it's so flexible and it means that I can go away to the studio in Bali and work there really intensely full time and also have an income.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Bro, that's exactly. I I do that in a gym, so I, you know, but I have to pay to get to the gym, and it's but I I completely understand the point where you want to, I guess, you you know, not to underestimate the the work, right? To use uh a different part of your brain. Yes. And you know, let those processes sort of happen in the back.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yes. Um take a break from your, you know, thinking and conceptual and yeah, I think with as I I think with uh creativity or sort of that kind of creative output as artists, that we're constantly processing that in our subconscious. So whether you're making art physically or not, I think that absorbing through your eyes into you know, whatever transformation that has or translation that has in your deeper consciousness is always gonna be there. So if you're not making so for instance, when I was doing that full-time job with Melbourne Pathology for eight months or whatever it was, um I was processing a lot of uh my creative work, I think, in that in that job. So when I went back to the studio, which I thought was the most daunting thing because I'd had this big year-long gap, um, but it wasn't too long until I was like right inside uh like the realms of creativity. But I also think that you need time to we need time out and time to be inspired, e.g. e.g. going to the movies, going walking in nature, blah blah blah, to process that extreme creativity or drive to to kind of create work.

Kundalini Discipline as Creative Fuel

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yeah, just like nothing, I guess. Well, it's not nothing, but it's but it's just a space.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, it's a sort of a sort of like a meditative space. And I guess I I get all of that through my really deep kundalini yoga practice meditation every day in the morning. Every day. Yeah, every day.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

For how long? Could you tell me?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Um I go from anything from 45 minutes to an hour and fifteen or an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Wow, how how when did you start with the Kundalini yoga? Or maybe meditation, like how uh meditation.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Well, it's been sporadically there since my early twenties, but I never really took it up like a serious thing, like it is in I mean serious as in I'm uh this is my medicine every day. So getting into that deep like space of nothingness in the morning and just chanting sound current mantras is a really powerful way to really focus my mind and and allow um that other part, like the crystallization of the nervous the cells really to um get into that quantum frequency, like into the vibration of my of this if your energy. And that's what creativity is about for me too. Sometimes it's about it's not about that I know everything or that I know what's going on, it's more about allowing the energy of my hand to move over my paper. So the the bet the best way to achieve a focus and sort of energy to produce is to actually go into that meditative state, which I I sing chant mantras, and I also do a very a very quite demanding physical um workout, which is about strengthening the aura. So creating a very strong aura around my my body so that I can I'm able to carry that emotional energy in a way that it's not bringing me down or you know, it other other energies aren't gonna get into my sort of sphere and make me I need a clear path to make my work, otherwise I can be an emotional wreck.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

It seems like it's grounding or like just you you can connect with yourself because for example, I every morning I write like just stream of consciousness. I've been doing this for I don't know, maybe five years. And then I also additionally sometimes when I really feel like there's something within me I really want to, you know, uh translate it into music or any sort of sound, then I write more. I get and I feel like it really uh gets me in touch with myself. I really struggle with meditation and impatient I'm very impatient and very just go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I have books of writing, so I used to do that. So I I learnt it from the artist way years ago. Yes, yeah. So that was years and years ago. So I started doing that, and he's fantastic. And actually, I recently did some because I didn't know what else to do, so I just started writing, and that was really great. So that is a tool, it's a fantastic one.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

I I totally Yeah, I'll I'll I'll put it in in the into the newsletter for anyone who's interesting. It's like really for me, it was it just like opens up, you know. You you can because the first page is like ah nothing, you know, the second page you can sort of feel the glimpses, like you you can feel something is going through, and then on the third page, it's when like the all the shit, part of my French, like comes out and you're like, I'm ready, I can now, I'm I'm there.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, yes, yeah, I get it, I get it, I get it. Yeah, so I think I think you know, like it's every people find meditation so hard because it's not the norm, right? So it's not our normal disposition to just stop and zone into the black infinity, right? So you when you shut your eyes and you go up into your third eye to start with, it's just like blackness and and and then you just your mind just starts chattering, right? And so and you you can't you can't sit with yourself, you can't people and but I decided that for a long period of time I had a very up and down life, um, emotional life. So it was very so at one point I got really tough with myself and I said to myself, that's it, you're gonna do everything you don't want to do, and meditation and yoga and all that stuff, and I challenged myself intensely, especially at the start when I was doing bikram yoga. I decided that I'd do everything opposite to what I wanted to do. So, you know, everything that was that I couldn't do, I would do like so I'd use my both hands to do things, not just my right hand or my left hand. I'd use both hands. Wow. So we're even squeezing things, and now what that does is it rewires your brain, and then you start to cope better, and you start to it. There's another, I think, I don't know if this is right, but for me, my experience, I feel like it opened up another door for my creativity or to produce work. Like that's what I have to do. Like, I throw myself into extreme circumstances until they become very ordinary.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

And do you think that you have to continue doing that?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Like getting yourself out of your comfort zone in order to gain access to, I guess, another perspective or I think I I've done that and now I've come to a point where I'm on this particular um meditation and yoga, and that in the mornings is a challenge. So I say, look, nine. So the cr one of the Kriyas is nine minutes, and a Kriya is an action. So it's a set of three minutes, right? It's three, three minutes. And I say to myself, okay, this is nine minutes, apart from all the other stuff I do in the morning. This is nine minutes of pain to nine years of pain. Sorry, yeah, you know what I mean? Nine minutes on the mat doing this where it's really uncomfortable, my mind's screening, just stop now. Like, or don't, you know, make it the time less or do it for one minute, you know, that's our minds, right? And we always want to be relaxed or you know, doing what we want to do. But what when I just stick with it, now it's not so hard, but it's like I believe that you know, building that up right now, every second is your future. So this is my future. So what am I training myself to do? Am I training myself to not to to give up or am I training myself to resist and move into greater realms? You know, where do I want to be? I want to be in the cosmic realm, you know, in the in the that dimension, in those frequencies. I don't want to be, you know, sitting slumped in a kind of depressive state because things aren't going my way. So that's why I always in the in that time on the mat in the morning, I challenge myself. Because then once I've done that and I come into the studio, the studio is not a challenge anymore, it's a joy.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah, one of my friends, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to like completely quote, uh quote him, but he was saying, you know, when you do that heart thing immediately, everything else is just easier, you know, in the day. And like if you go, in my case, if I'm like really not feeling it, but I do still go to the gym, or if I'm not feeling it, but I still sit down in the studio and write down, it's really interesting, but every single time, 10 minutes after, it's sort of like all good, everything is okay. Yes, you forget about that, yes. And when I first encountered your work uh through drawings, uh initially through drawings, I was really just stunned. It was at the same time I wanted to see see them all at once, but also I wanted to get closer to each one of them. But what I want to say also is that that it in a in a way it screams organized discipline. And now we started this conversation with you know, every morning I wake up again, I go through this challenge, through this semi-torture. You seem like a very organized person.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

I'm I'm extreme, I have to admit. I mean, I don't it's not I mean, I'm I know other people maybe who do this kind of discipline that I have. Um but the r the reason why I'm doing it is because I could be absolutely the most laziest person in the universe, right? But I don't exist like that. But I know there's that side of me that just wants to lie on the couch, watch TV all day, and eat chocolate and rice pudding, you know? I that's yeah, but then there's this other part of me that is ex it's has an extreme um inspiration or passion inside that makes me want to do this. And I guess you chose that the right train it too. I have to train that.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

I know, I like would you say it's like a everyday exercise, right? Like through the meditation, yeah. Choosing the that side.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Well, yeah, I think it it's very evident through your work and like through all the success that you've made. Yeah. Uh would you would you say that that discipline is, and then we'll go into the conversation about the actual work that you do, but um, would you say that that's a key to success? Uh let's and let's keep it in the let's keep it in the artist area. Definitely uh uh area.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I think like not being lazy and having discipline is a very good thing to have if you want to if you want to get somewhere with your work, with your work, you know, like to start with before you expect to be asked into shows, you need to do the work and you need to not be lazy. Um and and you know, if it's a s if it's too much, if it's too painful and too much of a struggle, then just think about doing something else, like another career for a while. Because I gave up everything like for a while there. I hated it, I hated everything, I hated life. I just you know, so I gave up and I thought I'm gonna be a neuro go into neuromedicine or some wacky thing like this in my mind. And then I went and did the you know, pathology course and got the job, but it was like got the inkling, that calling to go back to my art and music and and then once I got out of that corporate job, I realized I'm not those people, like I'm I don't fit in there, you know. I guess it's in the staff room, they were talking about their renovations and their children at school and how was your weekend on the outside, you know what I mean? Like, so I was like really uncomfortable, I didn't fit in at all, and so I thought this is not me, like I'm actually an artist, and and that's when I realized you know, I really am an artist, like because I don't think this way, and I feel this drive to you know create things, and so that's yeah, I think to be an artist you need to be smart about it because uh or a musician, like uh because I I've got many musician friends because I went through music school, but it's I think you need to be very uh honest with yourself that uh you know, I would never ever give up my other jobs for just even if I've got success now, I and I'm got money coming, I would never give up my other jobs because with art you it sometimes you're on and then you're completely off and there's nothing going on. And those times in the lowest times for me, the times that I observe myself because they're the times that I want to be the most happiest. Because that's when you know that is this a healthy thing for me or is it not? And I think some people hold on to these ideas for too long and they don't go out and get themselves proper jobs or anything like that because they're sacrificing it for their art. But it's I don't think that's worth it. I think that's really dangerous because you can prosper in a whole life, but also have an art practice, and then maybe one day the art will start to get so vigorous that you can actually become a full-time artist. But even if I'm a full-time artist now, I'm not gonna give up my my other jobs because it's important.

The Site Comes First - Architecture as the Score

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, for the balance, yeah, yeah, the balance, right? Yeah, right on point. I can just nod my head and echo everything you say. I really um but okay, discipline, yeah, a great wall of discipline. I feel like I always go back to that. If everything goes uh uh down, you can always get back to discipline. Well, your work is in in a true sense a multidisciplinary practice, yes, where it which encompasses um uh scoring, so musical performance, drawing, even textiles, light, work with architecture. Uh so some examples um are installations at the Sydney uh harbor bridge, uh Fed Square, uh, and now we're gonna shortly mention it the installation that you have for the in Brighton. Yes. But what I've noticed is that it's always related to a specific architectural build building, it's site-specific, surrounding built environment or a specific architectural uh site. I'm curious what comes first. Is it the space, architectural space that or built environment that draws you in to start thinking about it? Or it's the budget. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah, it's all about money, just straight up. Um it's it is, it's the site that comes first because without the site I can't write music, right? So that's how I write music. I don't uh do it the other way.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

So it's your canvas in a sense, or like a source.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Like what do they call it? The Sibelius or something. Like that that's my canvas, is the actual site. So the site doesn't have to be a built building, it could be a boat, it could be water, it could be dirt, like it's just whatever's site I'm appointed to, I'll go in and just that's where it starts.

Giving a Space a Voice

SPEAKER_02 20:31

And I've read uh a couple of interviews you've you've uh given, and you said that it's like a self-reflexive process for you that where and it's all about translation and interpretation and communication. So it's a very multi-layered, multi-perspective process.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

How do you really if you say you're creating the voice of a space, well, how do you give it a voice? Do you just go and do a kind of superficial analysis of it, or do you go deep inside it and observe absolutely everything from the walls, floors, you know, uh inside the framework, the the engineering, all that sort of stuff, and then you start to develop a whole um system? Uh that's how I I draw out the the system that I create that then creates the music score that I write, handwrite.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

So is it the and and yeah, feel free. I'm just thinking out loud actually. So is it the capacity of a space to engage us and stimulate and and and th those intangible aspects of the space that have the power to awaken something within us, right? Uh is that something that you're you start off from?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Is it I it's is it more like ephemeral? elusive or is it no take myself into the space so I start observing the space so the energy okay you know throughout the space and I start to observe every nuance so looking for like how how it's moving how you're moving around the space and what the shapes and the undulations may be the um the materials of the space often I'll visit a sp deep into the night early morning throughout the day because I'm watching it change with the sun and the and the elements so when it rains is a great time for me to go and observe a a space like the out facade of a space. So it's also the sound of rain how it actually affects the space perhaps or yeah like it's just all about how it's working alchemically with the environment how the atmosphere is happening on the outside all that sort of stuff that changes the material it changes it and it turns it darker or it makes it brighter or it's reflective or you know like it's there's many really subtle nuances that I'm looking for because knowing those things for myself I that is my secret key into like how I'm going to bring those that that atmospheric element of the space into you know the language of the music score in terms of harmony in terms of the modes that switches through the keys. And then when it gets down to the the other stuff like the the rhythmic kind of language and stuff like that that comes down to all the mathematics of the the engineering and um how the engineering how it's structured like what you know where are the the what are the rivets where are the um nuts and bolts from you know how are they made how are they made you know so that all informs the way that I can write the music because they are directly related in terms of for me in terms of both languages. So once I get all that information I start to really analyze it in terms of like what is the most closest aspects of this the orchestra sorry the language of music that relates to the way that that that bolt is produced and made and how many points on it does it have like eight, six you know that all makes sense that or that's the language of the architecture into the language of the music because music is time and numbers right so it's a sort of a in terms of writing music you know orchestrating so this is this is the depth of the elements that I need to actually directly translate that that voice or whatever it is of the kind of the clothes of the architecture.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Yeah I can't I can't say it it immediately um reminds me of uh Gaston Bachelard's book French philosopher the poetics of space and how yeah right you know space is um a place that's filled with our thoughts our beings um you know there's a certain yeah there's so much within a space that's not just the tangible and that's what I noticed that that that is a direct um there is a direct relationship the way that its face anywhere uh is is constructed around us even in nature even on a road that makes us constantly feel some sort of an alertness in our senses so you know we can look at something and smell it but we can't it's not smelling but we could look at something in the distance and smell it right because that's the the architecture of space and and the language of the architecture right but also with music it happens the same way through this this invisible current coming at you.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

So with music it's a sound sound invisible sound waves coming at you and it's actually dictating your whole emotion right so you you put on heavy metal and you start slashing around like headbanging or whatever then you put on some sort of classical piece it might make you feel like dancing or make you feel very very extremely drawn to the emotion of it or you know you you put on some some other piece and it makes you feel sick and hate it and you know it it just brings up this this invisible construction of uh time and space which is both in architecture and music that is what is is governing our quantum consciousness right because we all get that we all feel that there's been books written about it it's it's what we know this right so all I'm doing is actually stating that yeah making it more in the third mind yeah in the in the the third this one I'm talking about the third mind so I that that is what happens when it collides in my understanding.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Yeah I think it's just really uh what you've set yourself like the the whole translation using yet another language be it a musical performance or a com a very interdisciplinary um uh piece of work to say something that's already there it's just interpreted differently uh how long does it take you to develop uh I like to look it's it's really hard because these are commissions that sometimes because museums can be so booked up that they want it in a short period of time when when I should have two years to do it.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

So that's why I'm frantically working on this work because I've only had like a year or something or less than a year to produce the work and so that really my ideal is that I get no less than a year to produce produce the work and that's that's pretty much working full time on it. So two years would have been nice but anyway like there's that's yeah depending on the size of the place and the project also.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

I I suppose that you because you've been mentioning the engineering works and the rivets and and etc so I'm guessing that you're harbor bridge I think once once we start talking everything just goes into a massive kind of this that yeah I know I know it's just like that's good that's good that's good for a podcast. I know look I I am aware of the format that it's really not um the best way and this is a very complex and thorough and so many things and you know we're talking while we're talking while you're talking I'm also looking at the drawings and I'm just you know uh and at moments unable to respond and in moments just really captivated by their presence and then immediately thinking oh my goodness this is exactly what it is right like you know when when you can sense a presence of something that's on the walls and you're translating that into a musical performance or or uh or a light installation or or score to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

There's there's no uh guessing let's say sounds weird doesn't it but it's with with my work it's all um it's all documented it's all transcribed it's all it's there's there's not me looking at a drawing and going that curve sounds like this or something like this that's not I'm not I'm not just I'm actually writing out the language in the drawings so it it's it becomes its own mathematical equation. Okay and so it it becomes they they are measured every mark that is in the drawing is a measured equation and it's also uh it's it's it's slicing through three octaves constantly in the drawings. So there's an actual really powerful code or system that I have that is not just guessing what these entities you know the shades are quite like entities but they're actually deliberate because they're actually taken in this case from the Len Light archive.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Again we we're back to discipline rules structure which is really interesting because now you got me thinking oh wow it's like going from a discipline into a chaos but then again allowing chaos to happen and chaos I'm not sure that it's chaos really but then allowing and then bringing discipline again into back into that chaos and it's a completely different organizing but in a freely way in a new like through new lenses? I'm just trying to understand and I feel like yeah I can see that.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Sort of like swimming into the chaos for me like deep diving into those really uh electric kind of chaotic moments in some of the drawings.

How It Started - From Rejecting Sound to Owning It

SPEAKER_02 32:14

But letting I guess letting things to happen but then also taking control of it.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah yeah actually the drawing process is very it's it's it's not it's not second guessing anything. It's like really quite immediate. It's not controlled in a major way you know what I mean like but there is a lot of control in there but yeah it's yeah I can't say that it's um well that's why you have the work just say it's these are deliberate they might look like squiggles that but they're deliberate they're absolutely if you notice not one squiggle is the same. So maybe the line in one of them is the same but in every single picture the line is of a different width of a different um rhythmic flow so it might go from thin to thick, thin to thick, thin to thick. So that's you know every every single mark in every single drawing is different and every single um pattern or uh symbol is different. There's not one the same how so it's deliberate total deliberate how did you start? When was the first time that you was there a first very like a distinctive I first started well at VCA in art school I went through music school but um in art school I I was very dismissive of sound and music. I I hated it with a vengeance I was like I'm not doing that I'm an artist like and I do these textile works back then and uh I you know do what I do in my artwork and then one of the lecturers Bernard Saxon my wonderful painting head of painting Janine Eaton and Kim Donaldson and all those amazing people and Kate Daw was always like you know we can see like time in this and rhythm and I was like don't shut up I don't I'm don't want anything to do with music. Anyway as I progressed say second year it was like later in second year you know people were saying oh there's this sound art show and there's this you know art exhibition with sound artists and stuff like and I thought you know I'm actually seriously musically trained and I gave it all up you know and I'm in the art school now and people are saying that they're seeing this kind of sound things which I thought was rubbish at the time because I thought they were they were faking it to me because I because I just because I knew that I was doing music I'd done music. Anyway so I decided to go around and look at art sound art shows and things and for me you know I understand why art those artists do that stuff and why they feel the need to you know measure frequencies on walls of buildings and stuff like that or why they put say that the red colour red is the set this sound or something or you know I understand what the investigation or the need to the desire to use sound like that in that way. But I found that a lot of it was sort of just sadly not contained and not a kind of it was just like making noises for the sake of making noises. So noise sound which I studied a lot of especially the beginnings of the futurists and things like that it's like that there was no real kind of connection between what the noise sound or the the soundscape or whatever why why like what why is that concrete block that or why did that why is that wall resonating at that frequency for you like I didn't see the connection right or I'd go and see a video art which was a cinematic piece. Now that's for me that's that that did not move exactly with the the for me that's more about making s film yeah but so then I thought this is interesting and then I thought well what is the relationship between you know visual and and sound like really truly and why does why even bother really uh that was my questions back then like what what's the point of doing all this with sound and thing anyway then I started to look at um translating orchestral scores into I started going to video art all sorts of things but then I w realized that there was an absolute um relationship between the exact nature of like the elements of music so time and sound so time and and uh colour in terms of harmony all that sort of stuff all the you know everything comes together like administrative suit or a recipe and then I realized that uh because you know I'm I love uh there's nothing more abstract or creative to me than orchestral scores they are some of the most out there incredible crazy entities it that ever exist right so people think by making electronic noise all that stuff that's out there it's not for me that's not it's not because you look at it's a score by all the big composers and things that is wild that is tripped out shit like who who could do that anyway so I was just like blowing my mind with looking at these and then I started to work out how many how do I make them exactly exactly each other you know like so how do I make it the sound and the visuals be exactly each other so I worked out that there's 18 digital frames in a crotchet metronomic crotchet equals 80 and I started to um then subdivide rhythmically all the score into the way that the vi the visuals were moving um and and that was fantastic. So I I behind all these people talking was like the Shostakovich Symphony 12. So they go uh like that so it was completely cacophonous but it was the absolute direct score uh um governing the way that these all these fa these people were talking.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

That's very practical.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

It's like very um evident like so that's when I started to realise back then that I I had understood something for myself about how I can control the the true relationship for me between the visual and the sound in a tech technicalities in in the languages of them which I'm interested in. I'm interested in that because we communicate art is about communicating I I think you know it's about so language there's all different languages around the world of course and ways that we communicate with gesture everything. So this is so going into those finite parts of them is how you you connect you put all the pieces together. So that's what I've continued to develop and now it's more about me going physically into spaces and um researching and stuff like that. So it's been a huge journey it's been a many years of of studying this this thing that drives me to want to express it.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

But again it's like a very strong focus it's very clear that you know where you're at you so you it doesn't seem like you devi deviated from your path you've been there all the time it's the same path it's just allowing other things to come in as you know as you learn more about them.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

That's how I see it look a little this is me now explaining your work but like it's like a a jazz musician who knows his you know knows the foundations and the like the movements between chord progressions so well that he can fly right outside the chords yeah but he can in in an instant he can snap back into where they are in the form. He knows the form and the structure of the music so well that his free improvisation which I could say is like my drawings in a sense that the the squiggles on top of the the really regimented architectural um you know drawings is is the spontaneity but I'm in control of it all I knew where I can come back in and say right well that part is this you know and this that sounds like this.

Mastery, Flow, and the Years Nobody Sees

SPEAKER_02 41:09

So it's a sort of that kind of thing I think you know to to really get yourself into a language of your own you need to repeat and you need to work at understanding what it is that you are trying to say and and develop that language really powerfully and then you can go right outside you can do other things you can explore other but you can always come back to that to that framework you know that keeps it tight and and expressive and and alive and and electric you know but also keeps you in in you know in I in check in a way I feel like that's you know at least for me it's like there's this place there's this knowledge this you know ground zero but it's not zero where where it's like this is I know this it's muscle memory it's muscle memory you don't have to think about it like practice makes perfect exactly yeah well like back to discipline but I love this um then it's like another thing I wanted to say is that what it keeps you into is a is a continuity consistency or I mean like continuous a continuous um kind of flow like so the infinite flow of like creativity there's no blockages anymore.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

But you think you have to nurture that creativity as well I never feel any more blocked like you know I used to get blocked when I was learning about what I was doing and and struggling that struggle at the start with being an artist is immense like the intense feeling of that is is horrible actually it's very painful um and I had plenty of blocks where I was like I can't I don't I'm not good enough I'm not I can't do this I'm not I can't you know like I'm not and looking comparing and despairing but then once I I really zoned in and I just started to really believe in what I was doing and really understand that there was an actual I worked out something it clicked especially that happened in Cuba then I um have never I never have a problem now so it's it's wonderful I've just got this it's like I'm in a in a dimension and I'm just on the r ride just going forth.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Wow that's great that's that's envy uh envious is that how you say it uh you know many people um would envy you in that sense but I think understandably in my opinion it's all about nurturing the way I've helped myself and I'm not saying that I'm there uh at the same point as you are I think I'm still learning and like changing and slow slowly transitioning from one practice perhaps into another or whatever. But I think what I What really made a difference for me was making time, appearing, making sure that it's always they always have room to be creative, to appear, to sit down and do it. Absolutely. And then it sort of becomes your routine, it becomes what you do, and you stop thinking about what you're gonna do today. You you just know that you'll be doing it.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah, practice makes perfect discipline. So I just wanted to say one more thing about um don't think that for one moment I say that about that. I'm on this constant, you know, dimension now where I'm just able to produce the work because I'm so strong in my language. I've developed my own language, I've developed my own systems, my own codes, I know what I'm doing. I I can be employed anywhere basically and do it. But why don't forget the years of struggle I've been through, the rejections, the really strong-on rejections, not getting many, hardly any grants at all, being never being included in sound art shows for years. Do you know what I mean? Like I've I have been through the absolute pits in the arts. You know, I should have been the one that just gave it up and was angry and writing on social media, all this shit about the arts. And but that was net I knew deep down inside me, this is where you've got to believe. You've got to believe in what you want to you want to give a precious gift. For me, it was more about this gift of giving, you know, it's a it's a siever almost, it's something that I do as an offering while I'm here. And to, you know, encourage others to find that. But man, I could talk till the cows come home about my years of rejection as an artist and not getting grants and not being and and being out in the outer and not included in sound art shows and and you know, being rejected from a lot of stuff. And don't get me wrong, I've had wonderful success too, and and my success is is now quite prominent and amazing because inside that whole time in those tough times when I thought nothing was ever gonna happen for me, I was um I I knew that I had something, you know, and I just kept staying with it, just staying with it through that period of time and just believing in what I really wanted to say as an artist and musician. And that now has flourished into this. So that's something really important that all artists should know, and creatives and musicians.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

I can't think of a better way to end this episode, you know what I mean? Like uh you you got me thinking, you got me today, you know. I today it's not my best day, so this is you know doing well. Thank you.