Artist Lecture - Clint Sleeper

I have seen and listened to a lecture by Clint Sleeper the year before in Brett Van Hoesen’s class and found his work to be quite intriguing. However, this lecture I went to earlier on in the year was by far much more interesting. I got to hear much more about his works and the messages he placed with them.

The most interesting part of his lecture was hearing about the themes he placed in store for a lot of his artistic works. Clint aimed for the themes of disappointment, optimism, and telling a joke. Most interesting of those themes was his theme on disappointment and how he broke it down. He believed there were two parts of disappointment in his philosophy: government and religion. Furthermore, he responded to this disappointment in both an optimistic manner and a gruesome manner. Just hearing about how much thought he held in his artistic themes and practices was so inspiring as I myself am still searching for the themes my art stands by even if I know a couple. 

I also thought his art practice itself was quite fascinating, and I enjoyed the fact that he used his art practice to make music. His first piece he showed was a performance piece where he used lemons on a small keyboard he had circuit bended to make these strange and obnoxious sounds. I could see how that piece focused on his views on disappointment well as I feel there’s always a certain degree of disappointment when your piece does not go your way. My favorite piece that he showed to the audience was the Midi Televisions he made. To see televisions being shown to make a musical score was by far so original and creative, and I feel like it had a very optimistic note to it. It was interesting to hear the story of how the Midi Televisions became an interactive installation for 4 days that was associated with disappointment and misery. I could definitely see myself getting a bit annoyed with how the audience reacted if that had been my piece to work with.

Overall, the lecture itself was extremely interesting to listen to and inspirational in how art can be themed and shown. I also felt like I learned and understood a bit more about the mindset of Clint after looking at this lecture, hearing his explanations, and seeing his pieces of the past. It’s something I will think on while thinking of my own art practice in the future.