Body Scaffold II (Rest), 2015. Presented at Firstdraft, NSW. Photo: Kalanjay Dhir
In this Phone Tag interview, performance artist Eugene Choi talks about her practice as an artist and as a performer in the productions of others, and the dynamic exchange between the two. We also discuss her relationship with choreography and structure, learning from others, and trusting the work. Eugene earned a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, and continues to develop her artistic practice in that city. She is currently on a residency at Artspace. Recent Phone Tag participant JD Reforma connected us for this interview.
Phone Tag is a generative interview format, where I ask each participating artist five questions (plus others as the discussion meanders). At the end, I ask him or her to introduce me to a working artist whose attitude and work they find interesting and/or inspiring, who I then interview with the same five questions.
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LW: “How do you know JD?”
EC: “Ah! I met JD through…I guess just the art scene here. The first time I met JD was when he was a director at First Draft, which is a smaller gallery here. I was still doing my undergrad.
I was young, and shy, and didn’t know who to talk to. I think JD just smiled at me, and then I said, ‘Hi.’ Then we just started there.”
LW: “Do you feel like the art scene in Sydney is a place where you see the same familiar faces, where it feels very known? Or is it bigger than that?”
EC: “I think so. Especially this month, because March is art month in Sydney and it’s just banging parties and a lot of openings. Also, the Biennale just opened. Art month is always so crazy when the Biennale is opening. Everyone comes down for it, all the international curators are here. It’s really quite sociable.”
LW: “How do you like the Biennale, have you seen a lot of it?”
EC: “I haven’t really had the time to go and focus on it. I was all over the place last weekend. I was just in a development for a performance, just a little two‑week development, and did the performance on Friday.”
LW: “Interesting, let’s circle back to that. Generally speaking, if you have to tell someone, what you do as an artist: what do you do?”
EC: “I usually say I’m a performance‑based artist who does live performance and also is a performer/dancer for other artists. I also make performance for video. I make a lot of video work, but usually the video works are constituted with these large sculptural installations. I never just make a video work. It’s always within a larger installation.
I would say I am a performance‑based artist working with installation. Multidisciplinary. I usually work with the materiality of steel. I make structures out of scaffolding, from galvanized steel pipe. I have clamps, so I make different shapes and different structures. Then there’s always a screen, mounted on the structure or next to it or something like that.”
Body Scaffold II (Rest), 2015. Presented at Firstdraft, NSW. Photo: Kalanjay Dhir
LW: “It sounds like you’re very invested in the making of these set‑ups…”
EC: “The structures. Yeah, I became interested in dance and then in choreography. I was already making smaller sculptures and structures without any performative element. Then, I started to get obsessed with movement and looking at the way the body moves and looking at habitual movement.
I was building a structure, and then, I had this realization: ‘Oh, I’m doing this without actually having to think.’ When I started working with the steel, it was actually really tough. I found it very difficult, and I had to think. It took me a long time, as well, to build things. But when I was building this particular structure, it only took me 30 minutes or something when it used to take me two hours. Suddenly, I thought, ‘I’m dancing. This is choreography.’ I felt like I found a secret language of dance, of choreography and the way the body moves. That’s what propelled me into looking at choreography with these structures.”
LW: “Have you been working with these structures for a few years now? Several years?”
EC: “I think it’s been since 2014. Upcoming to four years, yeah.”
LW: “That’s fantastic it still feels productive to be using these structures and changing them.”
EC: “Yeah, definitely. I’ve fallen in love with steel. I see it as a metaphor within all of my works. I’m obsessed with having equilibrium—having two opposing things and then making it whole. I always find that the performative side of me is very fluid and loose and kind of all over the place. Then, I see my structures as stability, weight, strength, grounding—a skeleton structure that holds me in a way.”
Biscuit Betrayal, 2018. A performance by Ivan Cheng, with Hyun Lee and Eugene Choi. Presented at Campbelltown Arts Centre for REAL REAL. Photo: Rafaela Pandolfini
LW: “I could see how the steel pipes would be the opposite of the body in a lot of ways. Could you tell me more about the performance that you did recently?”
EC: “This was me as a performer for another artist, Ivan Cheng, at Campbelltown Art Center. It’s an hour away from the city. It was launching a new program called Real Real, curated by Jess Olivieri.
The whole program is a collaboration, making a performance and having a two‑week development. Then to livestream the work rather than to bring an audience. This work was made just for the camera.
It was for Ivan Cheng. He’s an artist based in Amsterdam but he’s originally from Sydney. That’s how I know him. This was probably the fifth time I collaborated with him. We’ve got quite a great friendship/working relationship. Hyun Lee was also collaborating with us and she is a film director and as a photographer. She was doing the camera work, and doing the grading, that kind of thing. I was performing, and Ivan basically was writing, and also thought about choreography and movement and the whole thing really: costume, everything.
I struggle to explain this work. The way Ivan works is very interesting. He usually gets performers to perform as him. We’re just basically these bodies that are projecting what Ivan has to say.
He usually pre-records himself speaking. We’re wearing in‑ears during the performance and then just relaying what we’re hearing. It requires a lot of focus. It’s quite hard actually, but that was what we were working on. It was called Biscuit Betrayal.”
[laughter]
Biscuit Betrayal, 2018. A performance by Ivan Cheng, with Hyun Lee and Eugene Choi. Presented at Campbelltown Arts Centre for REAL REAL. Photo: Rafaela Pandolfini
LW: “I wonder what challenges there are for you to slip from your role as the artist-director person to a performer in somebody else’s performance. Do such experiences inspire your own practice?”
EC: “Definitely. I think I get most of my inspiration by working with others and for others. I’ve had the privilege of working with so many amazing choreographers and artists, like Xavier Le Roy. He works a lot with Tino Sehgal, and I’ve worked with Tino before. I’ve done a Marina Abramovic thing before.
I find that I learned a lot by doing, and also by experiencing these kinds of developments where you’re with a group of people or you’re with the artists. You’re just there together and you’re learning something or you’re trying to discover something.
I don’t know how to explain it. You’re just experiencing each other and experiencing the same thing. I feel that I learned a lot from that. That also inspires me. I feel that I learn a lot but then I teach others, and then they teach others and then I learn from them. It’s like this continual space of just learning and giving, giving and receiving, which is really beautiful.
I find that that informs a lot of my performative practice. I really don’t think I’d be making the work that I do if I didn’t delve into performing for others and with others.”
LW: “Your own artistic practice and acting as a performer—these are kind of parallel artistic tracks that have formed each other?”
EC: “Yes, definitely. I think so.”
Biscuit Betrayal, 2018. A performance by Ivan Cheng, with Hyun Lee and Eugene Choi. Presented at Campbelltown Arts Centre for REAL REAL. Photo: Rafaela Pandolfini
LW: “Are there specific influences or people you are thinking about that are really relevant to you in this moment?”
EC: “In this moment, yes. I really feel like I’m quite inspired by some of the artists around me at the moment in Sydney. I think my peers who are performing as well, and seeing the work that they’re making, that’s inspiring me a lot. Even just working with Ivan at Campbelltown and having that experience with him again. That’s given me a big boost and it’s so refreshing for me.”
LW: “Do you tend to look at other performance‑based practices, or do you ever look at a painter, or a photographer, or something outside of performance?”
EC: “I usually look at other performers and performance practices. I look a lot at sculptures. Artists that are working with objects.”
My mother only speaks Shanghainese when she talks to her brother on the phone (these plants are a gift for her), 2017. Presented at COMA Gallery, NSW & soon at ACE Open, ACT. Photo: Andrew Butler
LW: “Did you always want to be an artist?”
EC: “I actually used to want to be a musician. I used to want to be a singer and I played keys, and I used to want to go to music school. I used to paint and draw when I was in high school, but it was never satisfying. I was always very frustrated with myself and very confused as to how to just make art.
I studied art in high school and a few of my friends, they were wanting to continue with art. They were super confident and they would have their group. I was feeling very lost and flustered over it. Then I went through a bit of a dark period after high school, after finishing. I actually didn’t go on to study…I just had a gap year. That made me feel quite down because everyone in my year went on to study at college or Uni.
It was my dad who encouraged me. He was just like, ‘Why don’t you just go to art school?’ because he had a friend who was studying there. She was doing her master’s and she said that this art school was really great. So I made my portfolio in a month and then I applied. I got an interview, and I got through.
At this point I don’t think I considered myself as an artist. I think I only started to consider myself as one when I found the language that I can so easily speak through art, and that was through performing. I think that actually came in first year at Uni, and so it was actually quite early on in my undergraduate degree.”
LW: “Was it through a class or just being exposed to it?”
EC: “It was through a class, yeah. When I applied, I put down the Painting Studio. It was in my interview, with my portfolio of paintings, and portfolio of photographs and drawings. One of the people who were interviewing me, they questioned why I put painting as my first preference.
I was very baffled by that question because I was like, ‘Um, it’s just what I do.’ They were like, ‘I think you should maybe consider the Sculpture, Performance and Installation Studio.’ Something in me was like, ‘Oh I really trust them.’ Like, I feel like they would know. I actually started in that studio: the Sculpture, Performance and Installation Studio. The first project I did was a performance. I had never done a performance in my life; I wasn’t really that aware of performance art. Soon I delved into it. Making that first project, that was the first time I felt this kind of satisfaction or I felt this deep joy making art. That totally changed everything.”
SOLO PAUSES (amitié dans deux mondes), 2017. Presented at the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize, NSW, & WHO SPEAKS FOR A COMMUNITY? Sister Gallery, ACT. Photo: Christopher Arblaster
LW: “That’s fantastic. As a performance artist, maybe your answer to this question will be a little different to some others. What’s an ideal day in the studio? Do you have a studio‑based practice?”
EC: “Yes. I do. What I’ve been doing since coming to this studio…before this studio I was in another studio, but it was a really small shared space where there were desks. There wasn’t much room to move around. I really only wrote emails and stuff like that, or read or did research.
I like to work with loud music. I always put on some music. Since coming here, usually the first thing I do, I like to just get my body warm, and so I do stretching. Stretching to loud music is always so nice. People may say that that’s not a good combination, but I’m very used to it. I just like finding my pleasure points and making my body feel good and stretched out.
Usually I sit down and I make a game plan. I’m like, ‘What am I gonna do today? I’m gonna write this application.’ Or I’m feeling like, ‘Oh, today I’m just gonna make something with the structure, with the steel that I have.’
I walk around and pace around a lot in the studio. I used to do that a lot at Uni when I had a larger studio, and I’ve started doing that again. I think it’s just when I have space, I just like to move around and just constantly move. I like to clean the studio. I sing a lot, as well.”
LW: “I wonder when you’re preparing for a performance, whether that’s going to be recorded or live, is every movement scripted out? Do you know exactly what you’re going to do, or do you leave a lot of openness?”
EC: “It’s definitely very open. I would say that most of my performances are completely improvised. There’s always a guideline. I always know what I want to achieve, but then as soon as I turn that record button on, it just happens.
All I know is at one point in this time, you’re going to put your arm there, but I don’t know how I’m going to get there. I don’t know when I’m going to get there, but I’ll eventually get there. I really trust my body.”
LW: “I was going to say, it sounds like you trust yourself a lot.”
EC: “I think so. I never realized that but I think that I do, or I trust that something will happen. I trust in the work, maybe? I feel like a lot more happens when there’s room for that. I also trust in whatever happens, that it’s meant to be, that’s meant to be the work.”
Fortis (Small Death III), 2016. Presented at Seventh Gallery, VIC. Photo: Aaron Hoffman
LW: “You’re in Sydney, a fairly large city.”
EC: “Yes, a fairly large city, and apparently it has been voted the most expensive city in the world now.”
LW: “That’s terrible.”
EC: “It’s terrifying. I saw this list, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, like, it’s more expensive than London…’ ”
LW: “OK. You are in a fairly large city where it’s very expensive…”
EC: “Oh god!”
LW: “…but there’s a thriving art scene and chances to see art and talk with artists and have a community. So, good and bad. But then there’s also being in a smaller place, a quieter place, where maybe you can focus on making. The question is: do you think it’s more important for an artist to be in a bigger place like a Sydney, or maybe to get a little more removed from that?”
EC: “Oh gosh. I think that there just needs to be a balance. A lot of artists find that very hard and frustrating. I find that staying in a larger city where there’s a lot happening gets me moving and it keeps me motivated to just do. Maybe it does get a little bit stressful and then you think the moment you have some down time, you feel guilty and that’s so ridiculous. I find that I definitely do need time away and time alone. Quiet time, even just to focus on my mental health, and to give myself time to just relax and to catch up. For my body to catch up with my mind, for my mind to catch up with my body. Even on the emotional level, to just find that peace within the busy, busy time.”
LW: “I just have a final question for you, what’s next?”
EC: “I’ve actually got a few things lined up—a lot of performance. I’ve got a small performance that I’m doing for a friend. They’re having a show and they just invited three other performers to perform in particular songs on every Saturday, for a month. They’ve provided us with a track and then we interpret it the way that we want to. That’s the next thing that’s coming up. I think it’s quite sweet. It’s just under 20 minutes, a very nice low‑key kind of vibe.
The next thing, I go straight in for this heavy period of rehearsals in April, which is next month. It’s for a larger performance that will be presented at Next Wave festival in Melbourne, and that’s with a cast. There are five performers and there are also lines that we have to learn, like an experimental theater vibe. I’ve never done anything like that before, so that looks very interesting. It’s really been amazing working with actors. I’ve worked with dancers and other performance artists and performers, but never actors. That’s in May, but in May I will be showing an old video installation in a group show in Adelaide.
After that, there are some small, low‑key performances that are looking at documentation and how performance is documented. They’re very far away at the moment, so I haven’t given them much thought, but they’re there. I’m looking forward to actually making performance again, because I feel like I went through quite a long stint of just performing for others. Now I’m ready to make performances again for myself.”
LW: “That’s amazing. It sounds like a busy couple months coming up.”
EC: “Yeah, it feels busy. It looks busy in the calendar. I’m very grateful and thankful. I think having the studio space here is definitely going to help me.”
LW: “Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure speaking with you.”
EC: “Of course. Thank you.”
