My project through VIVO, interviewing media artists in Vancouver, has got even more exciting when it finally comes to meet with the artists after somewhat stressful processes of writing emails, waiting for the replies, and getting confirmation to schedule 6 interviews within my limited time for the partnership as well as their limited time (the artists I’m working with often travel internationally, so I am very lucky to have this opportunity!) I managed to set up a time for all the interviews by the end of October, and I have done three interviews so far.

Today’s blog is a reflection of an interview with Paul Wong. I went to visit Paul at his primary studio on Main street. His studio has a wide window through which you can see what’s going on the street on one side and on the other side is an archive of televisions, recorders, monitors, and cameras that work just fine according to the artist. Being in his studio is like being in the different world, another time and space, perhaps because of the aura of objects in the room and Paul himself. I was able to begin the interview in a relaxed atmosphere. I asked him about how he started making art in the medium of video and the development of the satellite video exchange society as a founding member. He said he was experimenting portapack that was available to him at that time. The way he described how the portable television at that time was radical and shift what one makes, distributes and receives sounds applicable to our situation today – how smartphones and the internet shift the form of our communication and dissemination of information. What has struck me is, by making works by and for audiences outside mainstream televisions, what the artist and his colleagues were doing was radical because they were challenging traditions, conventions, stereotypes, big money, and the very forms of art and trying to create something beyond and outside that. He emphasized how it was very exciting and interesting to experiment, make and show something new to the world. Then Paul talked about the development of the artist society, VIVO. When he said that the artist collective had a serious discussion on the new medium on every Wednesday at 6 pm at the dinner table and they treated everyone equally, I thought the fundamental philosophy of artist-run centre was there, and hearing the experience of how they made it happen from Paul was 10 times convincing than reading its history. We also talked what he thinks about the image-saturated reality of today’s world around us in relation to one of his work called “Flash memory.” It is interesting and inspiring that he thinks we are in the first generation of digital technology and the technology is still being “clumsy”, which he means it’s not developed enough (it still has Wi-Fi problems, glitches etc. to be more sophisticated.) Then we talked about Instagram and creativity, how sharing creative and cool stuff with people influences each other. I like his approach because it is based on his everyday lives and subjectivity to speak something beyond that. What I learned from the conversation with Paul is that by “talking and doing/making” we are learning and trying to understand what it is just like he was experimenting with portapack and talking with the people back then.

It was a really fun interview and gave me insight into the development of media art that is one of my goals throughout the project. As an interviewer, I guess my strategy to refine interview questions to the very simple ones after artist research and list up them so that the interview can be less structured and more flexible worked well this time. One thing I’ll have to rethink is that to what extent I should address specific works of the artist because now I feel like I should have asked Paul more about his artworks in detail. Fortunately, I have a chance to try that out for the next interview with Matilda Aslizadeh this week, so I’ll see how it goes!

photo: the media archive in Paul’s studio

Paul Wong, (born November 20, 1954, in Prince Rupert, British Columbia) is a Canadian multimedia artist. An award-winning artist, curator, and organizer of public interventions since the mid-1970s, Wong is known for his engagement with issues of race, sex, and death. His work varies from conceptual performances to narratives, meshing video, photography, installation, and performance with Chinese-Canadian cultural perspectives.

website: http://paulwongprojects.com/