excerpt from interviewing the artist’s memory: 2020 and 2018
JR: What surprised you the most about that excerpt? If anything?
Angel: The audacity!
JR: Haha! ‘The audacity’, what do you mean by that?
Angel: The audacity of the whole thing! The premise is embarrassing–no, the premise is earnest; embarrassingly earnest. And I’m not sure why I’m surprised by that but I suppose I was hoping to read it for the first time, in what years? and find maybe a kernel of wisdom? a gleaming speck of truth or comfort??
JR: But instead you found…
Angel: Instead I found earnest insecurity nervously paraded around as something clever-adjacent. I was too wrapped up in seeming clever, witty, creative… projecting ‘The Artist’! I wish I had been more direct. More direct. Less derivative. More …real and less… whatever this is. I’m honestly contemplating just stopping.
JR: We don’t have to finish the interview. If you don’t want to–
Angel: No, it’s okay. I’m, uh, curious to see where this goes. But… and also, I’m just deeply embarrassed.
JR: Okay, that’s…that’s good to know.
Angel: It’s something. It’s fine. Anyway, I… I’m uh, I am glad that you decided to try making something like this…
JR: But?
Angel: No ‘but’ I’m just trying to figure out where we go from here? What was the purpose originally? Or when you began– sorry when we began again, well, really either of those beginnings– because I feel like I’ve already lost the … thread. And it’s probably what just happens when I’m ‘in it’.
JR: Meta-meta!
Angel: Oh my god. Hah! Yeah, exactly.
JR: Lean into it. It’s weird but worth it. Well, it could be! I mean this kind of thing got us… to wherever we were when we started! And to answer your question of purpose: I think it was to share and explore the ways that we think and conceive of our work and how that was … somehow worthwhile in and of itself. It didn’t have to be art. Art, capital ‘A’. It could just be a way for us to externalize? our thoughts and feelings in some way. A fun play–
Angel: On words?? Are you making a fucking pun right now?
JR: Haha, sure, why not? Um, but yes a fun way to play (on words) and remember. Because! If you remember, for most of our career, we understood memory and remembering as something really fucking serious and ambitious and heavy.
Angel: Right. We were much too serious.
JR: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But we had an epiphany, right? We wanted to try some kind of honesty or transparency around that experience of… taking a good hard look at one’s work thus far… and transparently asking: ‘how did we get here?’
Angel: And what did we find?
JR: Haha, that’s my question for you!
Angel: Fair. Well, from my perspective… it’s still unfolding. And, at the very least, I think it has been worth it.
JR: Not embarrassing any more?
Angel: No, definitely still embarrassing!
JR: So, embarrassing, worthwhile, and…?
Angel: It’s been an embarrassing and worthwhile process. I don’t have words yet for what may or may not answer the question of how we got here but…I’m here, aren’t I?
JR: You are.
Angel: Yeah, we both are.
JR: Still thinking of quitting?
Angel: …I think there’s always going to be a part of me that…
JR: I mean quitting the interviews. Are you talking about something else?
Angel: Mm, you do know me, huh?
JR: I’d like to think that I might but it’s probably more the other way around. But please speak on any quitting…
Angel: ‘I wish I knew how to quit you!!!’
JR: Oh my god.
Angel: Hahahaha! Sorry, uh ahahahaha—okay uh well, I do know how to quit.
JR: Some things more than others!
Angel: If only you knew.
Angel 