9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
OLIVER HERRING: I like things simple.

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I like to boil things down to an essence.

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Might have something to do with the fact [br]that

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English is a foreign language to me and [br]that I have to...

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And as I learned English I only was able [br]to express myself in,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in crude ways, but that forced me to make[br]my point clear.

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The reason I started to knit was,

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it was in reaction to the suicide of [br]someone I very much admired

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as an artist.

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Well my work up to that point was very [br]colorful and expressionistic,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I from...really one, one day to the next

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
took all color out of my work

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and all of that expressiveness

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and really subjected myself to this[br]rigorous, monotonous discipline.

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It wasn't a conceptual decision,

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it was an emotional decision.

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Knitting can be very meditative and uh,[br]monotonous.

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But exactly that quality gives you time [br]and that time was actually of,

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that was the crux of the matter.

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I never made more than one kind of stitch.

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I never got into patterning and any of [br]this

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because it was never about knitting, it [br]was about performance.

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Going through a certain motion [br]repetitively, in this case, for ten years.

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People only witnessed the,

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the outcome of the, of the performance,

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the legacy of that time spent.

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And its sculpture was um,

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something that kept me so isolated for [br]so long in the studio.

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Once I committed myself to a piece I had [br]to follow it through

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which could easily take two, three months.

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So once I started I was locked into an [br]idea.

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And the only thing that could really move[br]was my mind.

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And I felt that these early video pieces[br]were a way

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for me to express what was going on in my[br]mind.

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One of my first videos, EXIT,

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starts out with me sitting in the chair [br]that I usually knit in

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and then it just turns into this flight of[br]fancy.

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Certain fantasies that I dreamt about [br]while I was knitting.

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The videos were a way for me to,

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to be flamboyant.

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In my first few videos I am in it because [br]I try,

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I had to try stuff out.

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But eventually I replaced myself with [br]other people.

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My thing is sort of to bring mostly [br]strangers into the studio,

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not always, very often it's friends too.

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But even with my friends,

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there is this sort of need there to do [br]something out of the ordinary.

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I don't think of the people I work with as[br]models or as actors.

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They're not.

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They are people who are willing to [br]sacrifice their time.

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Well in the end these things are [br]collaborations.

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The two people that are here today [br]are my two old reliables.

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I really got to know them very well [br]through making videos.

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HERRING: Now.

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Actually that didn't work.

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Well I like this.

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Now.

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Oh that was just swell.

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HERRING: I don't care too much about the[br]medium.

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I don't even care so much about the [br]object.

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I really care about the pro... the [br]process.

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HERRING: Try and get as much in your face[br]as possible.

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Oh this is red.

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It's amazing, keep going,

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That's a beauty.

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Close your eyes for a second.

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Okay.

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HERRING: You know these guys don't [br]react in the way they would

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ordinarily react to a situation where [br]they meet a stranger.

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It's because of, of, of the circumstances

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and the eccentricity of it that it[br]becomes,

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you, you, you sort of short-cut a lot of[br]formality

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and it becomes very, very soon, informal.

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I don't just mean the fact that these [br]guys spit food dye for hours.

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It is a very intimate experience

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because it's unusual and because you have[br]to

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really give a part of yourself to do it.

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It's, it's um, it's exhausting.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
While these two image formally or in terms[br]of the process are similar,

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the emphasis is very different.

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And I usually wait for a moment that is,

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that brings out some kind of [br]vulnerability and it usually ha...

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I, I never know when it happens,

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it just happens at some point

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and there's this very personal connection [br]there that happens

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and that's what I'm after.

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It's this personal connection with [br]somebody,

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some stranger in a way.

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The focus when I work with a person [br]for one of these sculptures

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is a very quiet focus,

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which is much harder to, to endure,

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especially when you do this on an ongoing [br]basis for two or three months.

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I think maybe the intimacy of the process

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is somewhat disturbing to me

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because um, it's not the kind of intimacy[br]that I generate when we,

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when, when we make a video,

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where the focus is on fun and action.

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The focus when, when I work with a person

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for one of these

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sculptures is a very quiet focus.

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Hmm, I'm trying to match the image

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with the actual place on her body.

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Here is um, I place this part

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and I matched it against her body.

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With this figure over there I didn't have [br]that luxury.

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He came in um, usually at night because [br]he had to work during the day.

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Throughout the process when I attached [br]the photographs

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he wasn't here at all

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and I just sort of had to imagine what [br]it would look like.

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I carved the structure and then I just [br]took it from there

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based on some photographs that I had.

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THE SUM AND ITS PARTS came about

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after an accident where I slipped [br]a disk in my neck

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and I could literally not move one of my [br]arms.

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I felt the only thing I could do was work [br]with one person

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because that seemed manageable

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
since I really couldn't maneuver around.

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(MUSIC)

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HERRING: Was actually quite happy that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the conditions under which I had to work

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
were radically altered because it made me [br]think differently about what I could do.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One guy who I had worked with in a,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in a video before, every week,

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two or three times we met over the course [br]of three months.

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It was really an extended project.

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And we just improvised.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I, I decided that it might be interesting [br]to cut his hair,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for him to shave his hair.

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And um, of course he didn't want to do [br]that.

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So a lot of that time it was about me [br]trying to convince him

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that he would look much better without[br]hair.

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And then in the end he uh, he, he agreed.

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HERRING: Most people are much more [br]unusual

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and complicated and eccentric

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and playful and creative,

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then they have the time to express.

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Play.

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It's a thing that we put on hold

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because we get distracted by so many other[br]things.

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We have to make money.

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We have to pay the bills.

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We grow up.

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And these roles that we play, they're not [br]real.

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But after a while they become real, they [br]become us.

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Play is, is sort of a reminder of what [br]that was like to be a kid.

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And um, we in the end never lose that,

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I think it's always there.

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I mean you carry your past inside of you,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that's clear, so why should it ever[br]disappear?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I think whether it's video or performance[br]or uh,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
these sculptures,

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it is really the learning experience of[br]making these things

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that give me in my life, meaning.