Darrin Martin & Torsten Zenas Burns Interviewed by Billy Miller

“The Abominable Freedom” - originally published in the online book: “LIMINAL: SPACES-IN-BETWEEN VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE”, Edited by Erica Eaton & Tara Smelt – (page 50) October / 2007 http://www.amazon.com/LIMINAL-SPACES-BETWEEN-VISIBLE-INVISIBLE/dp/0615151175

“THE ABOMINABLE FREEDOM” - What lead you guys to collaborate on the project? We have been collaborating on videotapes since the late 90’s though we also collaborated on performance pieces in our early days as undergrads at The School of Art and Design at Alfred University. As artists in training, I once killed him off as my Siamese twin and he once transformed us into cyborg Butoh boys. Because of a very similar primary artistic upbringing, if you will, we have always had a common ground to creatively meet. The Abominable Freedom was just a kind of organic growth that sprung from a whole series of projects based on speculative educational practices that we’ve made together. In our first video works, our fictions were inspired by uses of media in the training of therapists and uses of electricity in therapy. Our Learning Stalls series was where we first moved into dealing with the subject of the ; a topic that has appeared throughout our works as solo artists. We even constructed a whole net art site that reimagined our educational paradigm complete with channeling guidance councilors, pyrokinetic fluid demonstrations, surgery professors and spoon bending workshops. The Abominable Freedom was our decisive moment to push sme of that content into a more adult terrain.

What were/are some of the ideas and inspirations behind “The Abominable Freedom”? Of course one of the earliest influences was, as the title alludes to, a fascination with Bigfoot and his/her many variations. Besides being an iconic terror from our childhood, Sasquatch is the walking embodiment of nature amongst other things. Whole careers are based on this possible unknown and we were interested in its presence as a looming reminder of cryptozoological mysteries explored but unsolved; land known but uncharted. Then there is a selection of films that inspired the piece. Many of which became part of the project. Three films which are particularly noteworthy that even become appropriated into the piece are The Harrad Experiment(1973), Premonition(1972), and The Wicker Man(1973). All three are commingled with other found and shot sources to unpack a couple major themes; the prospect of an educational social structure that questions the rigidity of monogamy and the untapped inherent in its chance. Ironically, in The Harrad Experiment these questions take place in an educational institution set up as a sociological experiment, a college that instigates sexual relations by organizing co-ed roommates. As one component of the learning environment students are asked to consider the possibility of other human relationships not dependent on a limited coupling. Our main appropriation of some of the classroom dialogs from the movie is an exercise in the slippage between what is being said and who is actually speaking. The professors and students take turns being ventriloquists and dummies. Actually, in the original book, the texts were from the fictional diaries of the students themselves. The students were the authors of realizations that were inspired by their Human Values seminar. In the movie, many of the choice lines about human sexuality are delivered though the fairly didactic pedagogical method of the lecture. We wanted to mess with that convention by dismantling the voice from its original speaker. Premonition was a film exploring shared psychic dream spaces as activated through the inhalation of the spores of a certain kind of red flower. We also used some material from this obscure gem in an earlier video we consider a kind of prelude to The Abominable Freedom called Volcanica. In the latter, we used footage that was either harrowing or celebratory in nature. For Abominable the material added a sobering tone from a classroom lecture about the limitations of shared phenomena in the fact that doubt often turns memories into personal secrets. We also used a few portions of The Wicker Man and other sources to bring in a musical element. We started with a couple of choice songs from Bill Rebane’s The Capture of Big Foot, which was a kind of B-horror flick that included some amazing music. Researching and excavating key songs became part of our process. The Wicker Man is one of those rare movies that uses songs in an intriguing and mystifying way but would never necessarily be called a musical. We wanted to experiment with that notion but drop the idea of a literal narrative.

The video uses footage from several films of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s...why that period?...is it the relative innocence or perhaps the environment of experimentation?

Definitely the environment of experimentation…The counter-cultural revolution of that time period was more than hippy fashions and an anti-war movement. It was a moment when even the sciences funded global conferences and educational experiments to explore psychic and temporal research. A lot of those experiments never really came to full fruition but merely puttered out as funding sources shifted their concerns in other directions. In almost all of our work there is a mining of that time period for these reasons and probably also because the 70’s was the decade of our childhood. A lot of very interesting questions were being raised and things were unfolding. To recontextualize some of them as content in our experimental works is an attempt to resurface and understand them as artists and adults. Our first memory of hearing the word sex on television was regarding the sexual revolution. It seemed so positive. Children of the 80’s didn’t really ever experience that enthusiasm as their first mention of sex on television was in the shadows of the AIDS epidemic. The Abominable Freedom not only nostalgically considers the liberation of that revolution but also inserts its own fictional strands as a way to resuscitate the conversation and make it contemporary. Vis a vis Freud/Jung, etc., I am wondering if any of these topics strike a sympathetic chord? Time travel, out of body experiences, the outer vs. inner environment, sexmagik, psychological and psychic experimentation is a reoccurring strand in our cosmology. In an earlier project we coined the term paraphysiology as counter to . As a term, it is defined as the manifestation of any phenomena beyond scientific explanation that occurs in the actual biological structure of the organism. I’m sure some paranormal phenomena such as the secretions of and tulpoidal materializations would fit into this category. In The Abominable Freedom we wanted to explore the notion of paraphysiology through sexuality because of its unique place in our lives as a privileged form of reproduction. Several scenes refer to reimagined systems for procreation. These systems may be in the alternative insemination via mouth streams or spectrophilia or they may be in the actual birthing act or simulation of the act via ritual. One can take these scenes at face value or project a plethora of open-ended possibilities to their reading. Could sex with spirits actually be virtual coupling or teledildonics? Might the (man-infestation) of male birthing be a genetically altered option? Is Bigfoot an ancient link between man and animal or a future species that will help repair the dichotomy that lies between them? Is the occult the missing link in the scientific prerogative to unmask nature? May we ultimately find out that nothing is aberrant and ultimately devise new sexualities and new freedoms because it is within humankinds’ disposition to invent? While each of these questions fit uniquely into the realm of paraphysiology, psychology is not far behind. The altercation of the family structure calls for a shift in the overall mental state of the members of the reinvented family. While some questions would demand a reexamination of gender roles to their biological core, others would shake the hierarchical structure seeming to enslave most family pets.

Can you say something about the naked suburbanites performing strange rituals, mysterious crystals, and the extraterrestrial orb/melon? (Ideas off the top of my head that were possibly evoked: Alistair Crowley, Wilhelm Reich, Kenneth Anger, L. Ron Hubbard, Space Cults, Luis Buñuel, Jack Smith...?...a “Third Mind” evocation of your daemon brother?...a “Whole Earth Catalog” for innercranial / interstellar exploration?) Suburbanites? That was the deep dark country. Don’t be fooled by the glimpse of the other house in the opening sequence. We were pretty much in the woods. Oh, except for the interior maypole hijinks…that was Brooklyn. But anyway, we’ve always joked about the egg (orb/melon) as being the offspring of the Yeti. Our ritual is an excavation upon which all the images from the tape unfold. Our collaborative dissection and augmentation of the object in question is a possible experimental stem cell workshop gone terribly wrong. The unanticipated visions that exude from the egg upon its insemination with a foreign body have caused the participants even the viewing audience to share a consexual vision of naked desire and occult longings. The list of possible reference you have come up with have a lot of validity as well as other sources of influence. Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Annie Sprinkle, and Carolee Schneemann are big influences upon both our costumed and naked revelry. Space cults that mix it up, including the Raeliens are on our radar. And Crowley, Tantrism, Spectrophilia, Wicca, and Satanism are a few other influences that fueled the work. However, we can’t say we subscribe to any particular philosophy nor do we feel like we should be experts. We are interested in staying open and learning from the misunderstandings that accompany being influenced but not indoctrinated. In the process, we hope to be doing the opposite of what horror movies that unquestionably demonize an entire sexual orientation or religious belief through a surrogate group or single character that is supposed to represent the greater whole. We very much hope The Abominable Freedom celebrates different ideologies and embraces the possibility of beliefs that counter the illogical stance of absolute certainty. Some people have seen our last two pieces as making fun of this or making fun of that…and we’d like to believe that is a reflection of the viewer’s own cynicism which stems from the times we live in. We are having fun with this and that not making fun of anything.

Do you think that there might be a “Kalifornian” element the video? While both of us did get our undergrad degree from a school on the east coast, we both attended different graduate programs in California. Though I think I can say that we were both drawn to California by the impact of artists and collaborators that reside or have resided there, particularly, George Kuchar, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman, Allan Kaprow, Chris Burden, Tony Labat, Doug Hall, Re/search magazine, and Survival Research Laboratories, to name a few.

(INFORMATION ABOUT THE VIDEO PROJECT+BIOGRAPHIES) The Abominable Freedom Color – Video – Stereo - 41:00 - 2006 – Darrin Martin & Torsten Zenas Burns Originally shot video and appropriated film weaves together a musical celebration of the flesh. An egg from the missing link holds a skeleton key to our educational future. On a parallel world, life coaches made of bone & fur activate televisual coursework including circular zooming studies, spectral-mating, and etheric birthing techniques. Manifest Destiny eludes its colonial past and takes refuge deep in our pagan libidinal nature. Twenty one appropriated sources fused with original video scenes:

The Harrad Experiment (Film) The Capture of Bigfoot (Film) Premonition (Film) The Wicker Man (Film) Prince of Darkness (Film) Billy Jack (Film) Satan’s Blood (Film) Harry and the Hendersons (Film) Chariots of the gods (Film) Nudists (Documentary Film) The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue (Porn Film) The Possession (Porn Film) Play-mate of the apes (Porn Film) My Guy (Pinning a buddy) (Porn Film) Taboo ( Porn Film) Sacred Passion (Porn Film) Bigfoot & Wildboy (TV) Six million dollar man (TV) Star Wars holiday special (TV) Doctor Strange (TV) Geiko commercial (TV)

Biographies:

Billy Miller Billy Miller is an artist and writer. He has exhibited his work both nationally and abroad at venues including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Deitch Projects and John Connelly Presents, Kunstverein, München. His writing has appeared in publications such as Vice, Index, K48, Won Magazine, and Butt. He is the editor and publisher of a number of independent publications including When Johnny Come Marching Home Again, No Milk Today, and Straight To Hell.

Torsten Zenas Burns & Darrin Martin Torsten Zenas Burns and Darrin Martin began their collaborations in the video and sculpture programs at the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, where they both received their BFAs, 1990 and 1992 respectively. Burns was born in 1968 and received his MFA in video and performance from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. Martin was born in 1969 and received an MFA in media and sculpture from The University of California, San Diego in 2000. Together, they have based their single channel videotapes, curations, and current performance works on their research into diverse Séance-fictions including re-imagined educational practices, cryptozoological musicals, and trans-human love stories. They have jointly participated in residencies at Eyebeam, and The Experimental Television Center in New York State. In 2003, Electronic Arts Intermix commissioned their net art project, “Lesson Stalls:Learning Net” which can be found at www.eai.org/lessons. Selected videotapes are distributed by VTape,Canada; Recontres Internationale, France; and Video Data Bank, USA. Videotapes have screened at venues including The Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Migrating Forms festival (NYC),The Chicago Underground Film & Video Festival, Pacific Film Archive(CA), The Lab (CA), Aurora Picture Show (TX), Madrid Museum of Contemporary Art (Spain), Recontres Internationale (France), Art Space Bandee(South Korea),Oberhausen Short Film and Video Festival(Germany).They most recently screened their new videotape “What-if? Beyond a carnalove” at the European Media Arts Festival in Osnabruck, Germany.