Transcript of Interview with Lex Vaughn for The Cable Project, November 19 2004

Conducted by Louis Marrone for The Cable Project

Did you make notes?

I do, I was just going to kind of go like this for a while.

Well, if I could start by asking who you are and your background artistically.

Okay, my name is Lex Vaughan. I've been living in Toronto for about five years. I'm an expat from the US and I've just been really into this art scene in Toronto. It's so hot. It's like I lived in San Francisco for 15 years and then I lived in New York for about a year and moving to Toronto is like the best thing I could have done. It's like right in between the two cities. So I used to do a, I was a co-founder of Bucky and Fluff's Craft Factory. It's like this multimedia tag team duo with Allison Mitchell and we did a lot of in Installation art and lo-fi, you know do-it-yourself art and artifacts and Was with Second City for three years. So do some performing as well as like visual art things like that I drum with a band called the Hidden Cameras And just kind of just take advantage of all the you know, the multimedia stuff that's going on in Toronto. So So yeah, I started I guess that's all for there. Yeah, sorry.

Well, so can you give me an example of your sort of more multimedia art? Maybe the latest thing that you've...

Well, my latest... I've been fortunate enough to be hooked up with Katherine Mulherin Gallery, and she's been really beneficial to my art making in that she did a lot of Bucky and Fluff shows, And then I just had my first solo show with her which was called Peanut Brittle. It just happened in August and it was basically a performance slash installation of recreating a old man's bachelor pad like a pensioner in the gallery. So I made like his living room, bedroom, shop, and bathroom, and then this is character of this old man who time has passed by, named Peanut Riddle, who inhabits the space, and that's this character that I have. And so he basically just invites people into the space and hangs out and tells all these stories. And then I have a lot of paintings that I've done of this kind of faded glamour in men, and all these like, style-y old men in their various stages. And so those are all over the walls for, you know, purchased work. screen printed a bunch of ties with his face on it for like cash and carry I was trying to include like an element of interaction or you know instant gratification with people so a lot of my performances are really interactive based and really thematic and kind of character based work.

Was TV involved?

The only part of television that was involved in the in the peanut brittle installation was the last three days that I was sitting in the gallery as him. He was watching the Olympics for three days on this like old black and white TV that I found from the early 60s and yeah he just had like a little soup and sandwich lunch on a TV tray and watched TV as people came in and you know people had a choice of interacting with him or not but he...

Do you consider TV interactive?

Well that's what I'm trying to focus on right now is TV is mostly a, it's a passive form of entertainment. You know people, people get lazy watching TV. There's, you know, people just, it's a, you know, they veg out or you block part of yourself off when you watch TV. In another way it can be, you know, obviously interactive like when people share loves of shows and blah blah blah and sports and stuff. But it really is such a sitting and kind of spacing out activity. So what I'm proposing is to make it an active form of entertainment to basically use all the elements of repetition and using all the elements of repetition and confines that TV uses. You know, there's a certain diet that we have as viewers of television, like when the arc of a narrative is at its peak, when there's going to be a commercial break, when we can leave and get snacks, when we can pee, etc. So I'm kind of taking advantage of all these systems that are in place with TV and then using them as basically cues for me to be active. So let's say every time one of the women characters on Friends touches her hair, I have to do 10 push-ups. Every time there's a car commercial on, I do whatever, 20 crunches every time there's a, you know, an animated logo or you know, or you see a celebrity that you haven't seen for 10 years. Like I'm making all these lists of things like that you see constantly on television and making that be my exercise regime. So basically just in six months being like from chair to champ, you know what I mean? So documenting what my body is going to be looking like if I interacted with the television rather than just had it feed me information or misinformation.

How did you get involved in the project?

I got involved in the project by my friendship with Timothy Comeau. I've seen a lot of Timothy's work and when he worked with Instant Coffee, I worked with him a little bit on that in Josh Burston Gallery, so he had talked to me about it and some other Instant Coffee people had said, oh yeah, just ask Lex to do it. So I think he's familiar with my work and I am with his.

What was your reaction?

Oh man, I mean, to, Timothy, his whole platform is about raising media literacy awareness in artists just because I think a lot of you know a lot of artists can tend to be kind of isolated or come from like an art school background and not so much into pop culture especially just like what's being churned out every you know 48 hours on the television and and so I think it is really important to to have that awareness and so when I work at Second City you know all of our homework basically is just it's topicality so you really have to know, you know, what the kids are into, you know, like, all like top 10 songs and so you can get the laughs. And so I think that it can work in the same way of just like, you can really create art that's, you know, just just on in status quo, and And there is some value to that. So I lost my train of thought.

What is the value of pop culture in itself outside of art reflecting it?

Well, yeah. I think when you're just in touch with what's going on, whether or not you agree with it or whether or not you agree with the end product, you know, what we see constantly. I think it's important to engage with it, it's important to critique it, you know, not only for yourself of what you're subjected to, but I think, you know, we're all affected by it in some way, whether or not even if we participate in it, it's what's going on. So I think it's really valuable to formulate some sort of, you know, dialogue between people.

What were your TV habits before you got the cable?

Oh, man. I grew up as a TV kid. I was really into video games and stuff like that and had a single mom who worked at night. So my sister and I watched a great deal of television and I've always been kind of on the ball with what's going on and watching a lot of movies. But I've definitely weaned myself off of it. I haven't had cable for about two, two and a half years and it's been great. I've gotten so much more done. I find that with having just like basic seven channels, if you watch TV for 48 hours, You know in a 48 hour period you can pretty much be on top of everything that's going on So I sometimes just would just kind of click in for a little while and see what's going on plus You know internet is like television anyway, so it's pretty hard to avoid. I've had it about three weeks. So yeah, I've had to... it's been kind of a weird relationship of getting back into it because the way I've... my routine has been so much like out of the house or creating within the house like just with music on or in silence like I use my kitchen as my workspace and so I don't really like... it's really distracting for me to have it on unless it's like a baseball game or something like that. But I like watching. I like to act, participating or actively watching television. So yeah, it's just, it's been kind of scary because I find myself sitting down a lot or spacing out and that's why I want to create something where I'm just active with it. Because otherwise you just get kind of brain dead and and sometimes that's totally peaceful. I mean I'm sure there's some sort of chemicals that are released in your brain with these kind of, this the flash and the repetition. Like you do get lulled into some state so maybe I'll work in some exercise that you know allows you a cool-down period or something.

Did you have any favorite shows before you got cable back?

Oh like when I had cable before? Well the good thing about syndication is that you know you can watch your favorite show on any crap channel so I mean I'm always a big fan of The Simpsons and I watch that pretty religiously and since it's on you know the smaller channels I can get that and ... oh no no you know and I always kind of like to tune into Speakers Corner and stuff too like Canadian broadcasting in well City TV I mean it's pretty decent broadcasting even though it is you know what it is it's you know you would never find something like like, Speakers Corner in the States or something, so that's cool. I find now I'm watching, I love, I find now that I'm watching lots of videos. I really like BET a lot. But I'm just trying to really vary it up. I'm trying to go up into the upper channels now, like Vision TV, Oxygen, things like that, like just a lot more of the like public access. It's way more interesting and uh, pretty unloved so given it some love

So you're actively sort of trying to explore your cable package?

Yeah, I'm trying to break certain patterns that I have of like, I know that, you know, the first five channels I go to, I know what they are. And so I'm trying to like, yeah, break a pattern like, okay, I'm just going to watch channel 14. Okay. What is, what is CFTO all about? What is APTN? You know, just finding all these different channels or watching something I normally wouldn't and seeing what kind of reaction I get. usually pretty vile, like watching like Everybody loves Raymond or you know like a home decorating shows drive me insane but I know I'm gonna have to kind of give in sooner or later.

And are you, is it affecting your relationship with others or is your conversation changing?

Well, by having the TV, I've basically, with this project in particular, I wanted to talk about it with people, I wanted to dialogue with people, so I'm having TV watching parties with people who I'm good peanut gallery friends with, who I enjoy watching TV with, because I do have a lot of friends who don't, you know, they're just like, uh, or they just don't get the same kind of kitsch value out of it sometimes, So I'm trying to just surround myself with people who I know have a good time watching television and just dissecting it. It really is everywhere and you have to kind of deal with it. So we're just trying to have fun with it.

And I guess, finally, you were describing to me earlier your intended project with cable TV. Can you just start by that?

Yeah, sure. So for six months, I'm going to I had a nice I had like these two sit Well for six months I'm going to document my body's changes From doing exercises based on certain patterns I see in television so for instance If you see, let's say you see a reality participant in tears, then I will do a certain exercise, like I'll do 50 jumping jacks. So basically certain parts of TV are going to give me certain exercises to do and I'm going to document my body and how it has changed. Fuck.

Have you started already?

Oh, I'm just, right now I'm just getting it together. my mom was like she's like well that sounds good you know doing exercises sounds great but like you need to do some when you're lying down she's like you know do some kegel exercises and i was like oh yeah i could i could like squint i could do like five you know ass squint is every time there's a reported death on cnn and she's like oh god your asshole would be the size of a volkswagen you know it's just so we're just like it's a good time but it's uh... Um, fuck, what was I gonna say? God damn it!

This sounds like it has potential for, like, a new...

Reality show? Well, not really a reality show, but like exercise regime. Well that's why, okay, so yeah, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set this video camera on the TV and it's gonna, I'm just gonna shoot myself in like, um, basically probably taking like three hours a day, um, either in a whole three hour chunk or separate throughout the day, You know, I'm gonna be watching TV, I'll give myself a list of the things that I'll be looking for. Maybe like five things. And then I'll just watch TV and when those things happen, I will just do the exercises. So, you know, I'll probably get, within three hours, I'll probably get a good, let's say, hour workout. And then I'll just change it up so then the next week will be, in that three hours of TV, a whole different set of exercises and a whole different set of visual cues. And so then I'll be taking photographs of my body and certain body parts. It's all about the charts in the end because I'll be using before and after photo, different measurements, bar graphs and things like that. And yeah, just documenting how the process is. And so I'm attaching weights to my remote control, having little chips and snacks, having an outfit, you know, the whole thing. Like it's, yeah, it's just kind of like a TV Olympics, basically. Yeah.

Cool. Great.

I think that's a good start.