Transcript of Interview with Timothy Comeau for The Cable Project, December 2 2004

Conducted by Louis Marrone for The Cable Project

Okay, so back to

...the artists.

You know what, the oven's going to ding at some point and I'm going to go and set it, don't worry about it.

Okay. So the artists involved are in alphabetical order: Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, who's a video artist who spent quite a few years...

Sorry, sorry, I'm going to have to hold it a bit closer.

The artists involved are Benny Nemirovsky-Ramsey, who's a video artist who spent some years in Berlin recently. I sort of heard about him while he was still in Berlin, but he recently moved back to town and I like his work. So he got it. The artists I gave it to are the ones who sort of accepted because there were some that who weren't interested and he said that his work was sort of like as he said his work is sort of related to music videos but he didn't have like Much Music so made a lot of sense to give it to him and then after that was Dave Dyment who's a co-director at Mercer Union and before that he was like the co-director of Art Metropole and there is sort of I had six invitations and I reserved some spaces for for submissions. So Dave was one of the people who submitted and I was really impressed by his application so he got it and the other person who submitted was Kotama and I really liked his application so I gave it to him.

Why did you like their applications?

Because Dave, well Dave is sort of,I always knew Dave as the co-director of Art Metropole and I wasn't really aware of what his work was as an artist but then he sent me this great present this great application and he started to like you know my work is about TV so it made a lot of sense to give it to him I mean I was I really liked his application and it sort of it was really good and then Kotama - Kotama's was he wanted to do a project on the screaming at the end of home renovation shows those home decorating shows my mother watches those all the time and I hate them like so hate them and but he wanted you know he had this whole project where he wants to like you know do a sound piece based on their screaming and so he needed the access and and his application was like I was impressed by it and I sort of was impressed by the sort of the criticism implied in those shows so I gave it to him.

Did you get a lot of applications?

No, I didn't. I only got like six or so. And then after, then I gave it to Heather Keung based on a recommendation from the committee. And the other person was Jeremy Bailey who was, who's part of the 640-480 collective and he was one of the committee recommendations. Keith Cole is somebody I sort of, he's sort of a friend of a friend and he's you know a performer I've seen a lot of his performances I don't really know him personally but he was you know he's so outrageous that everybody thought like oh we have to give it to Keith Cole like he could really use it so and then there's Lex Vaughn who's another performer Lex Vaughn, who's another performer and somebody who's really interested in pop culture and she was a committee recommendation so really had no problem giving it to her. And then Zoe Stonick, who was a committee recommendation and somebody I sort of know around. All of the artists really aren't people, they're not friends, they're colleagues, they're people I've talked to before. But actually when I gave it to Zoe, she didn't know who I was and it was really interesting because I was in the market at a coffee shop and she walked by and I've been meaning to get in touch with her. I said, oh you're Zoe, aren't you? And she's like, yes. And it's like, I wanna give you a cable. And she was really shocked. She was like, really, it was rather surprising. And that was kind of part of the fun for me was to just sort of make people these offers of the blue and to see what their reactions would be. So yeah, I enjoyed that aspect of it.

So for you, is the beginning and the end of the cable project giving the cable?

Not for me, no. For me, I'm sort of enjoying the whole, the bureaucracy, because I'm getting these, you know, bills in the mail and sort of like there's a ritual of of like, you know, paying them, sort of, you know, when you turn anything into art, it suddenly becomes, you become self-conscious of what you're doing. So it's become like a ritual to pay the bills, to walk to the video store. And I'm, but I mean, I'm in this, there's Roger's system, like six, well, seven times, because I have like these seven accounts. So I'm getting seven times as many phone calls from them offering me the internet and the cell phones. And so at this point, I know the number, so I can just ignore it. But that sort of, like there's this whole, what I'm enjoying about it is exposing myself to the whole system and learning the system and working within the system of the phone calls and having to talk to them. Because when I started it, I thought, oh, I'll just form a personal relationship with Rogers. I'll talk to somebody and I'll be a valued customer and all these. And of course, that's not true. I mean, I call every time I've called to talk to somebody, it's a different person and they're like in Moncton or in BC or some other part of Canada and one of their call centers. And it's like, I have to go through the same story all over again. And I was once on the phone with a fellow in Moncton for like an hour. And because I was trying to set up one of the accounts and I had like a lot of problems setting up this account for like a variety of reasons. simple like misunderstandings and you know I explained to him like what can I do to form a personal relationship with you guys or like what can I do to like you know let you guys at least know that I'm doing this and you could use it for your promotions or whatever and he said well you should maybe try to get a business account so I called to get a business account and they said no you're not a business we can't help you and you only have like seven accounts that's not a lot that's not a reasonable number so yeah so I was basically left with the whole like you know system as it is

Is this something that this whole experience something that might be fodder for a new type of artistic expression from your perspective?

From my perspective? Sort of. I mean I've been sort of thinking how I'm becoming an artist of information of get I'm becoming this like artist who gives away information because it's sort of connected to my Goodreads project that way. And it's all kind of unintentional. I mean, I didn't like form a plan, but that's what's sort of interesting about being an artist is that you go to art school for a specific reason and then you graduate and then you work in a certain medium. But like anything, you end up doing stuff that you had no idea that you would do. And personally, I've been a little frustrated because I sort of my ambitions as an artist or what I would really like to explore are issues about time. I would like to be a time travel artist, but of course there's no time machines yet. And the technology, I would like to work with holograms. The sort of work that I envision is impossible and sort of based upon a lifetime of science fiction. And so personally, I'm a little frustrated by the idea that I'm like this information artist, but I wanna be this time travel artist. And I'm just, you know, I'm starting that out, so...

And when this cable project's all over, what is your best hope, or your greatest hope for some sort of outcome that you have in mind?

Would be this interview, to be honest. Because I sort of, the whole, I mean, one of the things I'm attracted to by the project is the sort of, the opportunity to work with rumor and legend because it doesnt have standard documentation, the projec is to just pay somebody's cable bills, expose them to this source, and as you once said when we were talking about this, like create a installation in their homes. So I'm sort of like, it was important for me to get the bills in the mail, even though I had the option of like giving them email and doing everything electronic, because I'm interested in like the documentation that's gonna build up around this and the paper. And so, and even like this interview and this sort of thing that you're doing is part of the documentation for me, because otherwise it would sort of just, It has no traditional commodity value in terms of what I could sell in a gallery except for the bills or something. But yeah, so I'm sort of, and I'm interested in the idea that people could one day talk about how this guy gave away cable as an art project.

So you see it as sort of a larger movement then?

A larger movement? Yes and no. I mean, my favorite sort of art theorist is a French critic named Nicolas Bouriaud. And he wrote the book on relational aesthetics as being the art form of the 1990s. And he sort of used people like Rirkrit Tiravanija, who I'm not sure if I said that right, but Rirkrit was an artist who actually graduated from OCAD and then went to New York and got famous for making rice in galleries. And he gave a really great presentation last year at The Power Plant. And I knew that when I was applying for it, I would probably have to reference this so that people could take it seriously. So I referenced relational aesthetics. And even when I was part of Instant Coffee, we sort of talked about relational aesthetics a lot in terms of defining Instant Coffee's practice. But I'm sort of like I'm uncomfortable by the idea that it was like the 90s art form. And so yeah, it makes sense that as a Canadian, I'm like, you know, I'm doing it now. And so I'm uncomfortable by the perceived or the seeming provincialism of Canada and the Canadian art scene. So once something's been established in Europe and been written about by a French critic, then it becomes okay for an artist to do it here. So yeah, I'm so personally, I'm a little bothered by that, that I'm doing something that's sort of not so cutting edge. But in terms of my future practice, I'm not really sure because it's sort of, well, I mean, it's sort of like, how can you, what else could I do in terms of giving people stuff? But I do have some ideas, but it just sort of ... I guess, you know, as an artist, I want to make a living with my art and sort of getting grants to give the money away essentially isn't really sensible. So there's I don't think there's much of there's a real future in it. That it? Yeah. OK.