Angela Dimayuga:
When did you first meet?
Korakrit:
So, the first time we actually talked, the first time we were in the same space, was in a jacuzzi; but I was wasted so it doesn’t count.
boychild:
It definitely counts.
Alex:
That counts.
boychild:
I just remember very clearly at Miami Art Basel setting where everything is just kind of a party and blurred and blah, blah, blah; and being like, there’s this really funny moment, and there’s this guy; and I was out there with another friend. Krit was the only other person out at 4:00 a.m. He was having this moment with himself, and I felt intrusive to his moment, but I also was a little bit like, he felt intrusive to my moment with my friend. He was in the jacuzzi like–give me your glasses. I’m in the jacuzzi, and here’s the edge; and I could just see the hair in the water flip over. It was really beautiful, actually. And then literally one month later on my birthday, we performed together in a group show.
Korakrit:
Yes. Then we started working together. I think every single time we do stuff together from then ‘til now, I pretty much have a version of something from it on video. In the piece we did in Venice together, our whole channel is a narrative built on these materials. I think it’s pretty. Then another channel is my grandfather and grandmother. I feel like there’s something really kind of long in this–different stretch of time—together in a way. I feel like for me, I like to think about how you live with living archives. The performance we do together, I think, has a lot of that. When I see the work, from my side, to put all this stuff together and figure out what we’ve been doing together but not in a text based narrative way but in a very–energy, memory, blurry space–I think we talk a lot about becoming. When you look at the past, it’s always becoming something.
boychild:
I think that between Krit and my other collaborator, Wu [Tsang], I feel like they have more or less my archive. But I also think of archive and the medium of film as capture. It’s complicated once it’s a moving image, because the archive in many ways feels like a catacomb or something; but then it’s funny to think of it as a living archive because the way that it metamorphizes through the way that you present it, and also the ebb and flow between both–re-conglomerating archival footage with sculpture, with light performance–it’s continually complicating it.
Alex:
I guess by archive–in the video I talk a lot about–for me, when we were working with ghosts, that’s precisely like the archive; just something that’s maybe not physically breathing, but not–but can still have a being that still interact with–memories, that kind of–I guess archive maybe. Maybe I just like to use that word, but I think it’s that thing, the fact–what, why something that’s not a breathing person or not, let’s say, alive in a physical way anymore; but able to still generate new connections. Maybe that’s more what I think of when I say living archive.
Korakrit:
Yes, the archive feels like it’s a collection of connections or something. Every time we do a performance together, it’s always called together in a room filled with people with funny names. I feel like every piece is a kind of different piece, and sometimes it’s like a big shift: “oh now the characters have changed,” but it’s pretty much still the same piece.
"if you look at a CV, there’s just all of these things that feel the same and different; which is, for me, the idea of difference and sameness"
Angela:
The characters that are you guys, or additional characters?
Korakrit:
Both. But also, what it is; we’re working on one for Performa right now. Even though it’s going to be different, I truly believe it’s still the same piece. Maybe the piece is more like the structure.
Angela:
Yes, maybe the piece is the intentionality behind it because that’s what’s keeping that together. But then it sounds like it’s always a version of the last one. But they have numbers, right?
Korakrit:
The video does. The performance–not really; they’re more like time stamped by location and a moment and an invitation and a gathering, which could be called a party or a performance or an art fair. I think about this to myself in particular, but if you look at a CV, there’s just all of these things that feel the same and different; which is, for me, the idea of difference and sameness, but there’s a blurriness in that.
boychild:
The way that it’s unfolded for all of us together and also separately, with other people, is that, the making is a way of being together and then it always ends up becoming another thing, and it’s a way to continue being together and continue working. I think your work in particular, Krit, is iterative. There was a point in the beginning where I thought it was self-referential; and I think that it is, but it actually is looking more to inter-connectedness and a dismantling of time.
Angela:
I have a closing question. Do you guys know where you would want to be buried or where you would want your remains to be?
boychild:
In Krit’s videos.
Korakrit Arunanondchai, boychild, Alex Gvojic
