N O P A R T O F I T

N O   P A R T   O F   I T
Far more important than baking bread is the urge to take dough -beating to the extreme - Otto Muehl

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Interview Series #33: Brandon Davis

 


The NO PART OF IT Interview series was a strain of questions sent to a number of different people between February and March 2019. Each entry was scheduled chronologically to be thrust upon the world on a monthly basis since then. Each individual is introduced informally as if they were being discussed at a bar. 


I think I met Brandon Davis when his Electric Set project was doing noise, and I'd been on the bill in some way. He'd lived above the Reversible Eye venue, which I frequented often, and prior to that, was involved with Indian Jewelry. At one point, he'd curated a 26 piece ensemble that I took part in. Since then, he has spent time living in Germany, Copenhagen, and Spain, where he is now managing some sort of collective that involves healing, at a community center that seems to be pretty well isolated. He currently has a project with Marie Mark Anderson called Actual Figures .  



1. What kinds of things have you been getting into lately?

Comics, economics and Arrington De Dionyso
2. What do you do, do you do it as an artist, or is it a hobby?

I do it as a way of life and if anyone were to ever ask me, the way is the art.
3. How would you describe what you do?

I live to serve. I make other people's things happen.
4. How would you describe your creative progression over the years, in a brief synopsis?

In the early days I was interested in the spectacle and the value of objects. Then I decided that objects didn't matter and it was all about the living thing. Nowadays I think that a lot of things don't even need to happen.
5. How would you describe your philosophy?

The world is the way that you say that it is and you make it that way when you say that it is.
6. Do you believe in psychics, magic, ghosts, or gods? If not, what is your favorite conspiracy theory?

I believe this things are real in the material sense where each thing in itself is represented by 360 degrees of subjective possibility. I think the very large notion of "super-natural" events, includes some very real phenomenon. Some of our attempts to explain that which we experience produces these conspiracy theories that are so wild that I can't help but love them. I love the spirit of the flat earth movement because they simply reject everything with a simple, "nope." I like the ease with which people who believe in the Mandela Effect can imagine the instantaneous creation of an entire universe that only exists to satisfy their ego.
7. What would you say was your most definitive experience?

I was lucky enough to watch Christoph Schlingensief put together his last work, “Via Intoleranza.” He was dying of cancer and putting every last bit of life he had into this opera. I was coming off of a tour where I got very sick and we got robbed of all our gear. The robbery happened at the beginning of the tour and all the money was at the end of the tour so we had to borrow random instruments every night and do what we could do. Most of the time I was so sick that I could only lie in the back of our van coughing up blood until it was time to play. That was when I became firmly rooted in the notion of the NEVERSTOP way of life.
8. Do you have any side projects that I am not aware of? If not, what is something you'd like people to know about you, that you don't think anyone would ever ask?

I spent the last two years living isolated in the country. I worked in a garden and observed natural processes that eroded a lot of the programmed errata from a life time of city living. There is so much that goes into keeping us alive and our consumerist lifestyle is a large part of what keeps us fighting amongst ourselves. If anyone is interested in going through this process at our place, they should get in touch with me. The quarantine fucked up our residency schedule so we are in a position to imagine a new way forward. We are looking for the right kind of people, it could be you.
9. Would you care to name any theoretical "desert island" records, or at least releases that you think are approaching your concept of "perfect"?

If I was stranded on a desert island I'd probably want to listen to the Cramps, "Bad Music for Bad People."

10. What is the earliest childhood memory you can recall?

Sitting in a high-chair, it was a birthday party and there was cake and candles. I didn't know what was going on.

11. Are you able to appreciate other peoples' creative work regardless of their personal shortcomings or inherent flaws? To what extent?

I wish I was but I am not. I just try to not know anything about people anymore. Anytime I have met people I idolize, they were in the same fucked up place I was. Poor them. Poor all of us.
12. Do you have any heroes or heroines? Who are they?

Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist, writer and professor among so much more. His work around Team Human serves as a connecting point for all the solutions we are looking for to save the world.
13. What would you like to have on your epitaph? Or what is your favorite quote?
Be Kind

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