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MIKE KELLEY: Right now I'm working[br]on about the 30th tape

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in a projected series of 365.

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And so it's supposed to be one[br]tape for every day of the year.

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[ rhythmic drumming and clapping ]

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[ women squeal ]

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[ rhythmic drumming and clapping ]

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I... I knew by the time[br]I was a teenager

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that I was going[br]to be an artist.

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There was no doubt about that.

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There was nothing else[br]for me to be.

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I think coming out[br]of Catholicism,

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I have a real interest[br]in ritual.

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I mean, ritual is beautiful,

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but I never was a believer.

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Yet...

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I think my interest in art[br]all along has been

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in trying to develop a kind[br]of materialist ritual.

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And I see all art as being[br]a kind of materialist ritual.

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When I first started working[br]with stuffed animals,

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I was responding to the... a lot[br]of the dialogue in the '80s

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about commodity culture.

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But I was really surprised

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that when everybody looked[br]at these works I made,

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they all thought[br]it was about child abuse.

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Now, that wasn't anything[br]I expected

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and not only did they think[br]it was about child abuse,

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they thought it was[br]about my abuse.

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So I said, well,[br]that's really interesting.

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I have to go with that.

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I have to make all my work[br]about my abuse,

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and not only that--[br]about everybody's abuse,

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like that this[br]is our shared culture.

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This is the presumption

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that all motivation is based on some kind[br]of repressed trauma.

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My work is very reactive.

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I'd make something,

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I get a response[br]that I'm not...

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I... I had no idea[br]I was going to get--

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I don't reject it; I embrace it.

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I run with it,

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you know. That tells me what to do.

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I decided to go back[br]to my originating trauma,

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which was my student training,

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and so I took all these drawings

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that I did in college[br]as an undergraduate

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which are perversions

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of Hoffmanesque[br]compositional principles,

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and I relearned[br]to paint that way.

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And I did this series.

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This is the first series[br]of paintings I did

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in this regressive manner.

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They're called[br]"The Thirteen Seasons."

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They're oval-- I broke[br]from the rectangular form

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because the oval, again,[br]has no end.

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And so it's eternal.

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It's eternally recurring abuse.

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In this kind[br]of trauma literature,

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the parts you can't remember[br]is called "missing time"

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and then you recover it.

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Because I work so much[br]with various kinds of tropes--

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and they're image tropes[br]or music tropes

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or performative tropes--

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it interests me to try

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to bring them into my system

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in certain ways, you know, [br]incorporate them.

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It's part of this whole process[br]of working through things.

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Things start simple[br]and get more complex.

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Sense always comes[br]after the fact in my work--

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to make it, at first glance,[br]acceptable,

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like I've seen some of that[br]before or I understand that.

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So it has to operate[br]on multiple levels.

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It has to be available

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to the laziest viewer[br]on a certain level...

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and then on a more sophisticated[br]viewer as well.

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I think what I make[br]is beautiful.

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I think it's beautiful,[br]because terms are confused

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and divisions between categories[br]start to slip.

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And that produces, um... what[br]I think is a sublime effect,

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or it produces humor,

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and both things interest me.

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And I... I...

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I guess I'm interested in a kind of [br]sublime play or sublime humor.

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—Well, behind... behind...[br]behind the mule is a man

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and then the fake horse.

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—Oh, that's better.

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That's even better.[br]—Yeah.

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You got a man in there to fill[br]up the gap-- that's better.

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—The man is[br]the pitchfork demon?

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KELLEY: [br]It's the pitchfork guy.

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—Stan? It's Stan,[br]if you could get him.

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—Yeah.

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—And tell him not to swing[br]his pitchfork around.

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—Yeah, do something[br]like that.

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Stomp, stomp, stomp.[br]—Come on in.

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[ whinnies ][br]And then go.

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KELLEY:[br]"Day is Done"-- the project

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I'm working on right now--

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is kind of built around a mythos

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that relates to[br]an earlier sculpture I did

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called "The Educational Complex," which is

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a model of every school[br]I ever went to

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plus the home I grew up in,

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with all the parts[br]I can't remember left blank.

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—I think I want to try it

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when these cheerleaders[br]get to about here,

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to give me a big scream,[br]you know like, "Whoa!"

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Like that's the most wonderful[br]thing you've ever seen.

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—The audience should do a big scream?[br]—Yeah.

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—Should they raise[br]their arms like that?

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—No, no, just... just...[br]well, let me...

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I don't know, let me see it.

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Let's hear a big "Wha!"

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ALL:[br]Whoo!

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—Yeah, arms is good.

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Lift the arms up. Whoa!

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ALL:[br]Whoa!

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[ drum cadence playing ]

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—Action.[br]—Action.

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[ drum cadence playing ]

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KELLEY:[br]All these

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videos are based[br]on high school yearbooks.

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It's not because[br]I have any interest

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in high school[br]or high school culture,

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but it's one of the few places

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where you can find photographs[br]of these kinds of rituals.

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—WOMAN:Cut.

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Stand this way[br]a little bit.

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Yeah, let's go for it.

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MAN:[br]Okay.

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It's really close.

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It won't be the same.

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Okay, it's fine.

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The... the image is the same.

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MAN:[br]The image is...

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KELLEY:[br]The relationships

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are the same.

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Almost all of this comes[br]from writing,

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and...

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and then later[br]I tried to say, well,

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how can it be[br]visually interesting?

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It has narrative elements, but it's... it's not[br]straight narrative.

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KELLEY:Cut.

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[ laughs ]

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WOMAN:[br]Good job, Stan.

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All the writing is...[br]is associative,

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and it comes[br]from my own experience, but

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it's very hard to,[br]say, to disentangle memories

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of films or books or cartoons[br]or plays from "real experience."

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It all gets mixed up.

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So in a way I don't make[br]such distinctions.

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And I see it all[br]as a kind of fiction.

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—I can't walk by myself.

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I'm not responsible.

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KELLEY:[br]When I was younger,

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all my writing was generated[br]for performance work.

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—I'm the sailor, but I don't have[br]sea legs, sea legs.

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But I don't walk[br]and I don't talk.

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[ whistles ]

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So this project is[br]very much a way for me

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to get back into writing and--

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because I don't have the time[br]just to do it.

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I have to work it[br]into my work somehow.

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It's like music.

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I didn't have time[br]to play music anymore,

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so I had to make a project[br]where I had...

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that had to have music in it, so[br]I forced myself to make music.

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[ Kelley playing eerie melody[br]on electric organ ]

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KELLEY:[br]Never had any musical training.

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I grew up in a household where there was really

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very little interest in music, and

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they didn't teach music[br]in school.

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And, uh... I

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grew up on rock and [br]roll music, and all

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the musicians I knew[br]were self-taught.

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I've been playing noise music[br]for many, many years.

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But this project's[br]really different

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because this is like[br]no other music I've ever done,

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because it's all based[br]on really,

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uh... typical forms, but

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I know enough about that[br]where I can fake it.

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And, I mean, I don't know what I'm doing. [br]Say, I can't say, oh, that's this chord

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or that's this note,[br]but I know what it sounds like.

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And so we can piece it[br]all together

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and it's believable.

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—Am I going to hear[br]the, uh...

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the...

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orchestra sample too?

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—MAN: Uh, yeah, you'll hear,

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you'll hear[br]what you just did.

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—Okay.

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—Here we go.

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KELLEY:[br]With the computer,

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we can do everything ourself.

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We don't need to get[br]an orchestra;

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we can...

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do all the editing here. [br]We can make films by ourselves.

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[ cymbals resonating ]

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[ drum cadence playing ]

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ALL:[br]Whoo!

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[ drum cadence playing ]

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KELLEY:[br]My dream is to perform it live.

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MAN:[br]Let the final procession begin.

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KELLEY:[br]So that

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the whole thing[br]is performed

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like, say, in a 24-hour period,

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so the day stands for the year.

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[ drum cadence continues ]

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It's very much[br]like a passion play.

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Though a somewhat formalized[br]and ridiculous passion play, though its

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its ridiculousness[br]is purposeful.

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CAST ( harmonizing ):[br]♪ Mary...♪ ♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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KELLEY:[br]I think that's

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the joyfulness of it.

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But then it's a black humor;[br]it's a mean humor,

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so it's a critical joy.

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It's, you know...

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it's negative joy.

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[ laughs ]

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But that's art, I think,[br]you know, for me at least.

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That's what separates it

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from the folk art[br]that I'm going to--that

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I still think[br]the social function of art

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is that kind of...

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negative aesthetic.

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Otherwise there's[br]no social function for it.

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[ women squealing ]

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[ upbeat jazzy music playing ]