Six Degrees of Separation

The first of six short interviews with artists in, or with a connection to Nottingham

NVA EDITOR JENNIE SYSON TALKS TO MAT TRIVETT

      1. When and under what circumstances did you first refer to yourself as an "Artist"?

I was filling out a tax form to register as self-employed.  I had to fill in that box asking for your 'Occupation' at that moment I decided that was what I was occupying most of my time doing, thinking about or making attempts at making.  Although I have tried to describe my practice in lots of different ways previous to this, I enjoy the ambiguity of the term 'Artist', it offers you a lot flexibility as a job titles go.

         2. What is the most important idea, issue, dilemma or thing that you want to address in your art?

Throughout my practice, I am interested in the ways we construct knowledge, identity and place (the vernacular) also the relationships between these things.  The amateur is a constantly fascinating idea to me; that we create this secondary class for an action, role or skill.  I keep imagining an amateur government or an amateur banking sector or myself as an amateur artist no matter what my tax statement says.

Increasingly my work has stronger links to the Internet and communication networks and how these processes occur in the fuzzy worlds between electronic space and real space.  I am interested in how networks and distributed processes behave as models for collaboration, living or imagined alterities, I suppose I think about systems a lot and how we might make adaptations to those systems in order to view them, be in them or travel through them in different ways.

         3. If you could own any piece of art in the world, what would you have in your house?

That is a difficult question, inside anything by Raymond Pettibon.  I am really enjoying Huang Yong Ping's Bat Project IV shown at Nottingham Contemporary recently, I would maybe crash that in my back garden.

         4. What are you reading at the moment? (Fiction or non-fiction.)

I am currently reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac, this spiralling autographical account of Kerouac's 'life on the road'.  Next on my reading list is High Rise by J.G. Ballard, although I always have a few books on the go, I don't read as much as I would like to.  I read emails a lot, perhaps too much!  I tend to read non-fiction more than fiction, in the form of manuals sometimes or practical guides.

         5. Do you think that creativity is universal to the human condition, and if so what sets artists apart in being creative?

I think creativity is a universal human trait, the ability and the desire to create, modify and respond to our environment; to try and understand through doing.  I don't know if there is such a clear separation between artists in their creativity and those who don't describe themselves as artists.

         6. What do you think are the most positive things about being a working artist in today's cultural climate?

There is a massive shift currently happening within the support structures for the production of art that will no doubt have an impact on the ways artists carry out research and make work.  I feel like its very difficult to grasp how this might play out and filter through in the months and years to come.  This has predominantly come from an EU report that outlined that the 'creative industries' have the most potential for growth and are hotbeds of innovation.  I think its damaging to confuse art and industry, being told to be more industrious vastly misunderstands the role and value of art in a society.

Within this climate of uncertainty, there appears to be a sensation of people coming together a lot more cohesion and opportunities for collaboration between artists, the public and other cultural entities.  This shift I don't think is isolated in the 'formalised' cultural climate, meaning what people call art.  People more generally are taking active roles in the formation of new socio-political structures, the seeding of new cultures and praxes. 

I guess living in a period of what feels like profound change or rupturing is always exciting but potentially dangerous.

Mathew Trivett is an artist and producer based in Nottingham [UK]. Often sited in public domain, his practice examines the critical relationships between humans, environment and technology.

Attempting to unpick the ways we construct identity and place in both online and offline worlds he makes playful interventions, design systems, curious objects, tools and devices as catalysts for re-imagining an unknown future.

http://mathewtrivett.net/blog/