Sluik self interview 1.5

Question: Back to those keywords! The words, the words!!

Answer: Yes, of course I agree. But why the hurry? Tudor did not even jump on the train yet. Not a single essential photo is made yet. Not a soul outside knows about this blog or project or book, ego document or whatever. There are no deadlines. There is no pressure. There is no fast solution to be expected from this auto manipulation to end the hype called world crisis . No Venice prize falling on this ticket. It is not going to get our stomach filled and pockets monetized or our unique and outstanding artistic achievements finally acknowledged, affirmed and established in huge white cubes.

Q: Oh shut up! So, what to do with them, the words i mean: night, displaced, coziness, curtains and expose??

A:I guess... for the moment... it will sort out itself once the whole thing is moving. Usually I have no idea where it all leads to but... I have some idea... for me the keywords, or as one wishes, chapter titles are the cement between the bricks of the house. They will help us to focus on our story. If i look at the photographic works Sluik and Bratu made in the past i see the following comparisons and crossovers: we both like photographing without light sometimes and take the eye more serious than the camera, explore the edges of visual beauty, trying to emphasize the exceptional and astounding in the most common banal and basic and in the mean time the limits of what a viewer might except if they see anything at all of the whole we show or fail to open up.

Q: Hey, wait a minute, now i get it! This is all bull! This whole, so called, self interview is not much more than an uprated and dressed up fancy email to Tudor Bratu explaining in rough lines what the great artwork should and could develop in and actually also explaining the opposite: that i have no clue? And i do it like this so at least the first page of the project gets some kind of stuffing? In the spirit of: let's get a lot of text so it probably is intellectual and that looks smart to the contemporaries who might get lost on this blog attempt? Isn't that a little pathetic, pretentious and silly and childish and boring and thin and thick?

A: Yes.

Photo: Sluik got his final wisdom tooth pulled last week.

Sluik self interview 1.4

Question: A set of keys?

Answer: yes or actually some key WORDS in this case: night / displaced / coziness / curtains / expose.

Q: so tell me now, who is this Carla and who is Tilb...?

A: Persistent man! OK, i give the uninteresting truth: a Chinese puppet found in between the rubbish and now hanging on the wall down the stairs in the house i live in. She needed a name and Carla was available / seemed suitable. In this blog she is meant as a balance to prevent the male to take over totally. But that might give away too much and is weak and boring if everybody knows... so i just said that she is dead. At least since 2005 but probably longer and she is buried in Belgrade. She might be an artist or curator or collector. Yes, i like that last option best. War-related of course. She died in that 1999 thing over there... a tower victim of the old type.

Q: She is not some pretty young Latvian girl who got into some wrong business west, wants to go to cozy home but has got to do some paying back first?

A: Ha serious, i really did not think of that! Hmm... just made the titles up randomly thinking of what Bratu and i could visually deal with (or not). Where we could have the dialog and the confrontation, the gaps and the supplements.

Q: Can i get personal? Did i have enough sex lately?

A: What i admit is that i often have no clue what i start with or even end up with. It is just a matter of associative brain jumping. When i now think of it i like that Latvian version. I am actually plain figurative and anecdotal. A deadly conservative if it comes to that! On the other hand this whole thing does not need a head and a tail... yet.

Q: What about truth and honesty?

A: Another beauty of this medium is the constant possibility to edit and delete, add and dispose as much as you want. Any time! Nothing is real here. Everything is easily faked, fooled and manipulated. There is no end to it! Facts come from You Tube and Wikipedia, made by another bunch of onliners. Also their passion and commitment is more precious than their accuracy or knowledge.

Q: So a description for the perception of truth today is that it is a kind of personal subjective empiric experience of ones own observations and that we make vague deals with our direct neighbors in what we actually believe?

A: Yes, i guess so... and that is not too spectacular. The world might be a thick jubilee issue of the National_Geographic with white sharks and the revival of the Vikings for some but for me it is much more like Robert Walser observed almost a hundred years ago after a good sunday walk in the mountains:

'We don't need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much.”

photo: Dear owners of Danone, please contact Sluik for a business proposal (and for a private matter).

Sluik self interview 1.3

Question: Do i need a plan? Do we need a concept?

Answer: I like to approach new challenges, i almost said work, in an associative way. Just get out the right tools and set of keys and hit the road. Sounds simple? Well the magic is actually in the set of keys. In this case Tudor Bratu gave me the initiative to come up with a frame and at the moment of this writing there is not more than that. We could end up with a monster or a beauty.

Q: that worries me?

A: I like it either way. Beginning this year i initiated an online gallery for visions. It turned out a little different than i thought but is a different expectation (mistake?) not as much a learning process as a success formula is?

Q: watch out for clichés and metaphors!

A: With a book it does not matter much when it is written or read but here that is essential for how a text is perceived. As much by the writer as well the reader. It is a fascinating process of awareness of time i get into when i deal with this medium.

Q: it makes in the mean time the question, of who and how many reading it when, pointless and mediocre.

A: Yes, this actually really touches the blogging process. Time becomes a main issue to consider. And then there is the location of consumption: weblogs in the kitchen and printed matter in the dining room! If i may clarify for the ones who do not get it: In the last one you get to see a menu (maybe) but in the kitchen you sit between the ingredients.

Q: So, here we are dealing with the true sketchbook and the perfect sized atelier?

A: Yes... well to stay with the food-example: on a McDonalds level of course. A safe playground dictated from somewhere telling me i am in Heaven and the world is free and the sky is the limit and the access is for all and i can even monetize it!

Q: that reminds me. How is the tail doing?

Photo, Natland 10 April 2009: Sluik has a natural worry he is not taken seriously and is just being looked upon as a clown.

Sluik self interview 1.2

Answer: I live, and will, for most of my life in places which are not mine. i mean they are not my grounds. That is a clear choice but it also kind of isolates a person... i guess this is where the idea for the page DISPLACED comes from... Tudor Bratu is sort of easily displaced too, i reckon... hmm...

Question: ...hmm... Let me continue asking myself questions: Bratu joins later?

Answer: Yes, young and busy till the end of this month in Antwerpen and Utrecht. Exhibitions and agendas! Oh, i left that all behind me! I wrote him I would just start and he can jump on the boat later. Whenever he wants and with whatever attitude or intentions.

Q: What do i expect from the collaboration with him?

A: It is another road and a similar road to the ones taken before but just slightly different. Different asphalt, different views and destination (?), new model car and good company. I expect to see some new things with him. Does not have to be big. Discover a new piece of the puzzle. No, not a whole new puzzle and expect is also not the word: hope maybe... i belief i do. Tudor Bratu gives the wheel a swing in a direction i do not anticipate. Get my drift?

Q: I hope he does. Who do i expect to pull the wagon?

A: Balance is boring and i am not much of a type to follow. For the moment i just want the whole lot to move somewhere and then go against it a little.

Q: Where do the other names come from? Who are Carla, Tilbud and Tilbake?

A: There is nothing most men do or like better than talking about women. So that explains Carla. But i want no trouble so I told Tudor she is already dead.

Q:so Tilbud and Tilbake are men?

A: For the moment: forget them!

Q: What did they do wrong?

A: Is nobody listening to me?

Q: I just do not know yet, do i? Other question: so this is supposed to become an important work of art? Contemporary? Visionary figurative? Postmodern empirical? I have a name for it: Emotional constructivism or what about real virtualitivism?

A: Leave immediately my tail alone or i will shoot!

photo: Sluik cowardly did not open the entrance to a cellar in the centre of Chisinau, Monday 27 April 2009, although he was very curious.

Sluik self interview 1.1

Question: How am i?

Answer: Could do better, next question.

Q: So, i am making a blog together with Tudor Bratu! How did it come to that?

A: Well first this endless blogging: i have been since November last year kind of into it. It started with an invitation to participate in some group blog. Not long after i opened one for myself containing short stories. I kind of like the idea of the accessibility. The quickness and irrelevance of audience. I have to say i always have been a bit skeptic towards this medium. Now i just want to help getting it full, haha!

Q: I want to come back to that later. What about the collaboration with Bratu?

A: Do not know if it is relevant but i knew the work before the man. It was in Bucuresti during the first Biennial for Young Artists in 2004. I was kind of an artistic handyman and (card)board member and he participated as an artist. I directly liked his work. It is kind of rűcksichtlos straightforward. Self assured and black and white. So, we met and later he came to Chisinau, twice, were i lived for a while. He bonded me to him, haha! Anyway: about a week ago he wrote me if i would like the idea of making a book together. I just finished dealing with Senis Besmegenis so his timing was perfect.

Q: Senis melted down totally! For ever...

A: Hmm... do not know that yet... anyway... really thought Tudor came with the right invitation in the right time. And now i hope he is the right man! Can i say a little bit more about the blogging now?

Q: No, not now. Not today.

photo: 17 May 2009 Bergen Norway. Sluik and son Thor are listening to the National Anthem from their balcony.