ARTIST’S STATEMENT
John Sturgeon
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
… my perception is that Sturgeon is a reluctant video artist. His attraction to the medium emerges out of sheer perversity; out of a joy in making a tool do that which it is not supposed to do. He has no interest in capturing the concretely “real” within a cathode frame, nor does he care about exploring the technical limits of the medium; rather, he demonstrates that he can take a functional technology and make it magical, or that he can take a medium residing unashamedly in the matrix of the explicit and the immediate and make it a means to express that which can only be suggested. Sturgeon’s work is clearly about transformation, and this theme begins with the video witness becoming visual poet.
(excerpt: “Radical Mysticality: The Work of John Sturgeon”, by Steven Kurtz, ©2000)
My video, installation, performance and interactive work continue to display a deep commitment to personal, social and spiritual concerns. It is precisely this synergistic blend of metaphysical, humanistic and political content at times with "primitive" imagery, which is informed and stimulated by the tools of technology; this forms the distinguishing mark of my work.
Yet, the rapid, sometimes unpredictable evolution of these tools, and increasingly the more prevalent distribution means, are often influenced by corporate agendas featuring market and political ends. There is an odd dilemma presented the artist who chooses to participate in these exhibition arenas and create with such devices, while loving the labor afforded from opportunities forged by the same entities one wishes to critique. This quandary often leaves me feeling in an anguished struggle between participation and desire for escape, from within the "belly of the beast".
Perhaps the seemingly irresolvable friction (between the personal appropriateness of the means and my opposition to some of the broader social applications) sustains the dynamic so critical to the investigation of any content or medium. Continuing to court self-expression with humanistic and spiritual goals, that are frequently at odds with a presentation arena fraught with global economic, social and political agendas, is a statement of belief in the validity and persuasiveness of artistic practice. Global communications technologies can provide the artist with the means for an inventive investigation of our human potential. By approaching technology's myriad agendas with conscious recognition of their hydra-like complexities, the tools may serve the artist as appropriate means for social/political critique and aid in the reevaluation and rediscovery of our human heritage within contemporary culture.
© John Sturgeon, 2003