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NSCAD University 2018 Evan Peacock Satan Knew This Was NSCAD University 2018 Evan Peacock Satan Knew This Was Coming MFA Thesis Statement + Supplementary Materials for Archival Thesis Committee: Jan Peacock, Gary Markle, Sol Nagler, Adrian Fish Program Advisor: Bruce Barber. Forward The original edition of this thesis statement was printed on a commercial receipt printer (Bixolon srp‐350 plus) and was intended to be handed out as a piece of printed matter at the gallery. I was committed to distributing this writing until several hours before the show opened. I flaked for several reasons and ultimately the printed matter edition of this thesis draft was distributed at my opening. Those rationales will be explored later in this document. The printed matter draft encompasses the bulk of my written thesis statement. As such, a digitally scanned copy of that draft has been included. At my defense, my committee agreed that my speech patterns varied so greatly from my written text that the project would benefit significantly from a transcribed spoken word element. This took the form of a conversation between myself and Bruce Barber. The transcription of that conversation follows the thesis statement. 1 1 Typo: The line should read ‘ little camera rooms sometimes organized into little factories’ 2 2 Typo: and so the conflict of separation from ecology is reinforced established as a false narrative A conversation between Evan Peacock and Bruce Barber Wednesday 18th April, Academy A207 12.00pm‐2.00pm Bruce Barber: The more I think of your exhibition, the more that I understand it as an original response to social media. In that sense, it speaks to so much of what is happening in the contemporary era but then it harks back to the importance of Polaroid in the 70s and what artists did with that. The images just got bigger and bigger and then they were going down in size. Polaroid had artist residencies. People were going in there as artists were going down there and having exhibitions and printing more images. But they never thought of the context of putting it back in the cassette. Which is something that you have adopted. Lets’ begin this conversation with your exhibition which has now been down for two weeks. We had a very interesting discussion with your committee ranging over a wide range of related topics to your work and out of that came this suggestion / request that we engage in this conversation so that we add it to your MFA thesis statement and that becomes a public document after it has been transcribed and copy edited, which you will undertake to do before you leave. My name is Bruce Barber, I’m your program chair. It’s been a pleasure working with you ‐‐ Evan Peacock: Likewise. Bruce B: ‐‐ over these last two years and having you in the research creation class. You came in when I was still the graduate director. So we go back, it seems like eons, but it’s not. It’s been a pleasure to see your work and I know your committee members enjoyed the exhibition as much as I did. Out of your exhibition Evan came some questions around your knowledge of film, photography, and the various representations of struggle in the work. One of the key points that you made was that you wanted people to look at the instant photos in sequence, but the scroll text (thesis statement) contributes to the work as an associative practice. And then you add on, as you are prone to do on occasion, overwhelmed by negative associations. So the two questions are: What is an “associative practice” to you? Is it a relational practice like has been discussed in the literature by Nicolas Bourriaud, Grant Kester, Bruce Barber (Who is that guy?), Hal Foster, etc, etc. And it’s been widely critiqued as well. People talk about relational practice when they just throw in a few social signifiers into the work. Evan Peacock: In terms of, for me, the relational qualities… How that word relational sits next to a very specific branch of practice. I’m not sure my own practice can coherently fall under that branch. There might be elements of it that someone can\say “vibes” or comes across as relational. For me, association, it’s like a strategy and it’s open. It’s a strategy to remain as open as possible. Bruce Barber: For the viewer to contribute their knowledge to the work? Evan Peacock: It’s something that I have to maintain openness towards and I think it’s one of the problems I’ve had… and not just a problem but a frustration that I’ve had by holding that as some expectation for myself to try and meet that openness of possibility in my own work. And so trying to format my exhibitions and my statements and things like that in a formal art context in relation to that openness. In terms of relational aesthetics and topics such as this … It’s very tricky for me to know how to navigate that terminology. It’s one of the things about the writing of my thesis as well. So when I say keep it in associative territory. The intent for me was less so to hit the mark of some definition and then subvert that definition or reinforce it but more so, like I said, to be as open to as wide of a range of people as possible. It’s been frustrated because it’s obviously impossible to be perfectly adaptable to every single audience. It’s also like I said, a strategy for myself in day to day life… conversation… working and things like that. Keeping myself open to the associative potential of my own work and that objects that surround me. Bruce Barber: So it’s associative in the sense… has to do with the photographic apparatus on the one hand. With the choice of the vehicle for staging this, and the site? Evan Peacock: Yes. Bruce Barber: When did the title, Satan Knew This Was Coming, come into this? Was this a post‐ factum or during? Evan Peacock: This was a while back. This was an idea that has been brewing for a while. And then, pretty early on into my degree here…. Is this a degree? Bruce Barber: It is a degree! [laughs] Or you can call it a diploma or a certificate… all of those associations. Evan Peacock: My stamp [laughs] Bruce Barber: All of those associations come to play. I was just going through Academia EDU and of course that is one of the most associative projects that comes out of San Fransico for bringing and excluding people from contributing to academia in a odd sort of way. Evan Peacock: For sure, and that sort of mind set is something that I find does actually exist in a very coherent, tangible way towards conversations of entities such as Satan. I think those are conversations of authenticity and for me that is one of those associative potentials of an entity like Satan. About a year and a half ago is when I really thought, ‘ok, I’m going to name my thesis show Satan Knew This Was Coming And the original idea was not just to limit it to photographic apparatus as you were kind of questioning. I think photographs are more complicated and then we are willing to have broad conversations about… but it’s complicated by, like you say, the apparatus, but also because the saturation point with the photographic images is incredibly high right now… it’s also confused and complicated by the emergence and use of other optical and lensed imagine systems… the way in which digital photos are digital information. There is a filmmaker whom I admire, Leos Carax, so said of working with digital photography and digital cameras for a film. ‘It’s not even a camera, it’s a computer’. It’s somewhat difficult for me to agree with that 100% dogmatically. It’s definitely trying to say something cool bad boy kind of thing… It’s kind of fun. Bruce Barber: He’s trying to be an agent provocateur? Evan Peacock: Yeah, and I think there is an element of that with the title of my show. Something that I’ve been holding onto myself with my own practice for a long time is an expectation for myself to be as open as possible to as many different sorts of audiences and people while also wanting to have a certain sort of, like, affect on those people that’s actually tangible. So, you know, looking at art practices, it’s pretty standard avant‐garde move to use contrarian provocation. And one of the ways I think that work … some of the most easily recognizable manifestations of that work… it’s obviously located to historical context and moment… but I think it comes down to relatability to what the subject is. Something like Tracy Emin’s bed for instance is incredibly relatable when you go to look at it... I’ve never seen it in person but I’ve heard that it smells and things like that. It’s a multisensory thing in a sort of way. It’s not obscure, you know? And I think it’s one of the reasons why work like this transmits feelings like that. Bruce Barber: So, associatively, to use that term again, Satan represents for you many different kinds of options. It’s a very open metaphor? Evan Peacock: Yes Bruce Barber: For me, it reminds me of Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper. Evan Peacock: Oh, I don’t know.
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