“...There is this idea of American culture, of being
a nomad, this freewheeling attitude. And real nomadic culture,
I feel, it's more about survival, visible survival.”
“I always describe art as a catalytic structure that
actually creates the possibility for languages to be formed,
or the place where language is to be formed.”
I was interested in the maps
that are not written down but created in the mind. And where
do they occur? In contemporary
culture, they occur with eleven year-olds, ten year-olds,
playing video games and winning or getting the prizes or whatever
they do, slashing or slaying the beast. And they memorize
their path because that's the one way—it's the start
of memory—and that intrigued me. How can we create this
kind of mapping? I've been interested in arcade games and
in all these things, not necessarily as a player, and not
necessarily as one who participates in that, but as it has
a profound effect on culture. How do ideas survive in culture?
Not necessarily my ideas or anybody's ideas, but how do ideas
stay around long enough to have a conversation? From a conceptual
standpoint, I'm interested in that. And knowing that video
games probably equal or better Hollywood in their volume of
intake of money shows you how much influence it have in the
world. And then where is the art? Where is the cultural aspect
involved with it?
ART:21:
The map in the mind and a kid
memorizing the path - could you talk about that a little more?
CHIN:
Other people who, I feel, probably
don't have maps that are written down are nomads. And that's
the third factor—artists, the world of art—are also
people who roam in the mind. You travel and come upon things
and places. In some places, I feel like being an artist is
about this idea of survival, let's say, or this concept about
the survival of ideas to what you do—your own ideas,
or others, or things that you have stumbled upon. In terms
of nomadic culture, I feel it's not so romantic as we would
have it—a Jack
Kerouac, Darhma Bum attitude about it—that has been
infused, of course. And Kerouac's a little more complicated
than that, but there is this idea of American culture, of
being a nomad, this freewheeling attitude. And real nomadic
culture, I feel, it's more about survival, visible survival.
This idea of these mappings of the mind—I feel that there
are parallels. Think about the artifacts of a culture, like
travel culture, where creativity is kind of woven into the
fabric. And what's roaming around are these beautiful objects
that portrayed it for capital, or whatever, to survive. So
there are meaningful things that were created in travel culture
that are being lost in those parts of the world. And with
it, we lost this method of transmission of ideas.
ART:21:
What kinds of ideas get transmitted
in tribal rugs? Some of the patterns are maps to meditation—they're
used for prayer purposes.
CHIN:
Well, certain prayer rugs are
very specific - we know what they are for. But tribal weavings
don't have that. They're more secular, and were made for—my
knowledge of them—they were made for trading and giving,
for warmth, and also for comfortability. So their value is
there within the tent, or within what you're living in. But
anyway, I think that what you see from place to place is that
there are repeated patterns, but they are different. And this
is a way of people being able to express themselves in a very
sincere and difficult way. It's not easy to create those things,
knot by knot.
ART:21:
Isn't there another element there
- that nomadic people don't exist on a map?
CHIN:
Well, yes, because of the political
issues. The Kurds don't have a nation. There's no Kurdistan
anymore, and they're not recognized. In some parts of Turkey
they can't even speak Kurdish. And when the Shah of Iran came
to power, one of the projects was the destruction of tribal
culture, of its political impact, so there was active engagement
in the removal of these associations. There is a constant
remapping in the real world. But I guess the whole project
itself is about creating the possibilities for the player
or the person in the game to travel from the cathode ray version
to the wool version, and back and forth, and see associations
that are not always in front of you. So if you never had any
knowledge of either one, you would walk away with this possibility
of knowing more about both, you know?
ART:21:
And the sense of knowing would
be a visual knowing?
CHIN:
It's visual, and I feel that
this is where it can begin. This visual knowing begins with
a recognition that first you recognize that this game is created,
these fantastic worlds that were created by the KNOWMAD Confederacy,
came from a source that was equally fascinating. So this project
is sort of a homage to both, to the gaming culture, what it
can offer in association with art or conceptual
art, and what tribal culture has offered, not just these
objects and artifacts that come from real people. If you look
into them, beyond their pattern and beyond their beauty, they
came from women who have woven these rugs for thousands of
years, that may no longer exist.
ART:21:
Is there a goal?
CHIN:
I don't think the goal of art
is just this travel of the mind, the travel of the passion
to discover more. I always describe art as a catalytic structure
that actually creates the possibility for languages to be
formed, or the place where language is to be formed. And I
keep saying that because I want to be clear that art can have
an effect, a movement. And this movement from place to place
creates options and perhaps the only vestiges of freedom and
thinking that we have. Because I feel that—and I can
only speak for myself—but I think we're full of, or I'm
full of, delusions about what things are, and I'm not so sure.
The job description is to create the paths or the methods
to enlarge on that, and to create options to the activities
that you do. So there is some free thinking. The question
is: Can you be responsible in ignorance? I think you can play
the game and not have the direct associations of "Oh, now
I'm going to find out about travel culture," but play the
game and say, "Wow, video games can be more than the dungeons
and slashing projects that I've seen before, games before."
They can be more about a visual reward and that's okay, too.
So I think it's about creating flexible space, conceptually
and personally.
