OK Radio (recast)

“the process of working is the process of unveiling something that is already there” Pavol Liska
Nature Theater of Oklahoma directors Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska talk to artists, curators and people around the world as well as making work, being revolutionary and following their desires to ride loud motorbikes through the streets of New York! Their podcast OK Radio (iTunes link) was part of the inspiration to begin Wombat Radio.
“all i know is what art had done to me” Pavol Liska
“you have to start with faith” – Pavol Liska
“it’s still a way to feel connected to people” Kelly Copper
we talk about:
  • what is what i’m doing, doing to me and to the world
  • self medication
  • success and struggle
  • finding joy vs enjoying the pain
  • community
  • not following in your own crisis
  • only worrying about doing the work well
  • the point of diminishing returns
“what does religion do? nothing!” like art – Pavol Liska
  • the power of exposure
“I grew up in communism and believed in one thing whole heartedly and then the revolution came and the next day i believed something else just as wholeheartedly” Pavol Liska
  • living in a relative state of mind
  • philosophy being in vogue
  • everyone having questions
  • living with absolute statements vs relative truths
“It’s hard to (use art to) provoke when they must put a warning outside the theatre about anything that might provoke you” – Kelly Copper
  • the artist feeling that they need to reassure the audience that they are on the side of the angels
  • artistic pornography
“trick the audience into coming there and then staying there” – Pavol Liska
  • pandering vs elitism
  • flirting with trouble
  • conduct
“I have got in trouble for things, that I did not believe was wrong” – Pavol Liska
  • invitation, provocation, and boundaries
  • having access to embody anyone, hitler or jesus. molesters or angels
  • giving up on absolutes
“I couldn’t call myself a good guy, I know myself too well” – Pavol Liska
  • never intending harm
“I hate that there are things (politically that) we can’t touch” – Kelly Copper
“I don’t know any other way to fix it than to keep making work” – Pavol Liska
“my role models, all got in trouble” – Pavol Liska
  • the world of performance
  • what makes up your language and vocabulary
  • legacy
“the art sometimes has to behave badly” – Kelly Copper
[theatre] “It’s a place for intuition and dreaming and a space for nightmares” –  Pavol Liska
  • expanding rules
  • in art you have to push yourself past discomfort around your ideas and rules
  • sushi vs schnitzel
“as soon as you push back against the radicals, you become the conservative?” Matt Cornell
  • moving to America after your formative years
“you don’t know and you can’t know and at some point you just have to take a risk… And work on that” – Pavol Liska
“the alien perspective on any kind of problem is always useful” – Pavol Liska
  • feeling outside of it all
  • responsibilities to the craft
  • separation state and church – separate art from politics
  • when philosophy was what a normal person did
“thinking about how thoughts are formed” – Pavol Liska
“perhaps the bravest thing to do is to change your mind” – Matt Cornell
  • understanding that there is more
  • hallucinatory drugs not equaling the force and lasting impact of a discovery when you are most sober
  • making yourself available
  • heritage, identity and legacy
  • shifting ambition
  • extending pleasure
  • the unanswered
  • quitting several times
  • ambition
  • falling in love as part of the process
  • having a shared dream
  • contracts vs agreement
  • divergent dreams
  • projects responding to a specific need
  • following your passion blindly
  • following impulses to expand
  • quitting when you exhaust the relationships
  • anti intellectualism, thought, nuance, ambiguity
  • doing something and then doing it better
  • getting motorcycles and riding off into the sunset
  • being a force for gentrification
  • when artistic community moves away from your city
  • new york life
  • the narrowing force of normality
“maybe it will turn into nothing but happiness” – Pavol Liska
“professional responsibility of curiosity” – Matt Cornell
  • the art of show: trickery, con, seduction
  • the audience has a choice
  • leaving or not leaving shows
“If you’ve never made a show then you have no idea” – Pavol Liska
mentioned:
film – Jiro dreams of sushi 🍣
film – gadar
project – the gif of dance
project – the blokes project
kate harman
baldwin
tony morrison
proost
james joyce
hifi store Lismore – the audio room
links:

Published by

TheMattmosphere

Matt Cornell is based in the Asia-Pacific region and grew up in Darwin, on Larrakia land. He works through dance, choreography, sound, photography, and discussion to question the arbitrary configuration of systems, and is passionate about overcoming cognitive bias... to ask better questions… to dissolve malignant social narratives.

Leave a Reply