As you get older , the valve closes . Art becomes logical , it becomes your job , and it doesn ’ t feel mad anymore .
I ’ ve just told you about things that I know I ’ m going to make and that don ’ t make me feel so mad at the moment . But there are all these other things that we haven ’ t talked about .
FULLERTON Can you discuss some of those ?
GANDER It ’ s just a big list . One idea is this robot arm that would be made in Germany to sort small plastic animal toys . While it divides different species into mothers and children , it plays music to work to . You have a zebra baby next to a lion baby , and a lion mother next to a bear next to a seal . It randomly mixes them up and then sorts them back out .
FULLERTON What was the genesis of that ?
FULLERTON Do you think all these works manifest madness ?
GANDER Let ’ s call it illogic rather than madness .
FULLERTON How important is humor in your work ? Is it a by-product or a conscious element ?
GANDER That ’ s what trying to be creative is . It ’ s playing , because you understand stuff through play . I ’ m interested in accidental art-making , in compositions that come about through happenstance . The structure of comedy is grounded in making collisions and associations that are illogical and absurd . My work uses the mind to think about things in depth , so it ’ s not surprising that what I do is funny . Because it ’ s out of the ordinary . It ’ s not of logic –– it ’ s of illogic .
ELIZABETH FULLERTON is a writer living in London .
GANDER My kids play with toy animals , made by Schleich . I like the idea that when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon , the guy left in the shuttle had to orbit the moon . So while Armstrong made “ one small step for [ a ] man , one great leap for mankind ,” there ’ s this poor dude that no one remembers . There ’ s a futility to the shuttle going around and around . The robot arm is a bit like that . Pure futility . But it ’ s massively loaded with politics and emotion .
FULLERTON Yes , and of course German history .
GANDER I didn ’ t think about that . Fuck ! I need to change it . I need to get some Swiss animals , make a politically neutral artwork . Then there ’ s the snow globe that never stops snowing . An internal blizzard keeps you from being able to see the object inside . And there ’ s a film script that I need to finish . The actor Jim Broadbent has agreed to play me when I ’ m old . He sees systems that happen all around him : the heat signature of all the things in the kitchen , the footpaths of all the people moving around the café . It ’ s like a portrait of someone who ’ s mad .
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