A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (A 100% Serious Interview)

The renowned and definitely real interviewer Curtis Chesterfield III sits down with Brighton Grace to have a very serious and organic discussion…

CCIII: Firstly, thanks so much for finding time in what I can only imagine is an incredibly busy schedule.

BG: No problem. I actually happened to have this entire month free in my diary, which I can assure you is something of an aberration, so your offer to interview me was quite serendipitous.

CIII: Now, before we formally begin the interview, I would just like to address a minor controversy raised by one of the many attendees in this converted garage. Apparently, some of them think that this whole interview is a fictional puff piece set up by you and that I, Curtis Chesterfield III, the renowned and definitely real interviewer, is an invention. This wouldn’t be true, would it?

BG: Of course not, Curtis—I can call you that, can’t I? That would be a pathetic act of self-promotion and/or egotism that no self-respecting artist would stoop to.

CCIII: Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. On to the interview then. First question: do you consider yourself a self-respecting artist?

BG: No.

CCIII: What concerns or ideas do you have about the modern, digital world? Do they inform your writing/music/filmmaking?

BG: I think that there has been a very pernicious, recent trend where people are seeking identity from a collective source and opting to exist externally rather than confront the void within and acknowledge the truth of our innate subjectivity/fragility; the latter doesn’t offer much in the way of immediate consumer satisfaction or contentment. They don’t see the liberation or wonder offered through the fluid, unsteady ontology continuously generated by philosophy or critical art. Due to “self-reflection” being misdefined on social media, independence being offered in commercial and popular models, and happiness being legislated as the normal mode of existence, a lot of young people seem to be mistaking an inward turn for an outwards and ultimately ruinous one. We really seem to be practising self-possession in all the wrong ways. It’s just another example of widespread market failure in our late-capitalist, increasingly absurd world. At the end of the day, these are really the main concerns or philosophical ideas that underpin all of my art.

CCIII: You’ve mentioned that poetry and short stories are you main creative areas of focus, who are the poets and writers that have influenced you most?

BG: Despite the problematic dimensions of some of her work, Sylvia Plath is probably the greatest influence on my poetry along with Wallace Stevens, though I am also heavily influenced by more contemporary poets like Thylias Moss, Ron Padgett, Sarah Holland-Batt, and Claudia Rankine. Rainer Maria Rilke, Emily Dickinson, and Shakespeare are my other favourites, and although not really a poet per se, I consider Georges Bataille to be a master of critical verse. In terms of short stories, I adore the works of J.D. Salinger, James Joyce, George Saunders, and Flannery O’Conner. Although I have no plans to undertake a novel or a play anytime soon, my favourite novel is The Plains by the eternally underrated Gerald Murnane, and novelists like Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, Albert Camus, and Cormac McCarthy, or playwrights like Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre have served as muses for my prose, thematic concerns, and dialogue. Carmen Maria Machado’s “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law and Order SVU” is one of the most innovative and effective pieces of modern satire and postmodern writing I’ve encountered and has also proved to be extremely formative on my approach.

CCIII: Are there any other sources of inspiration in different mediums of art?

BG: Surprisingly enough, I tend to find physical art or film to have been very formative on my writing and poetry, just as much—if not more—than actual writers or poets. I often find myself thinking like a director when writing a scene, such as how I should light, block, score, and frame it. All of my art can really be traced back to the distancing principles of Michael Haneke and Bertolt Brecht (Haneke may be the most influential creative figure on my art). The film work of Charlie Kaufman also proved to be very important for me since I found that his approach of zooming into the horror and melancholy underneath the satirical target strongly resonated with me. It’s almost like a living demonstration of the Charlie Chaplin quote that comedy is simply tragedy filmed via long shot. I think a lot of my works follow the same pattern of starting with that long shot and zooming in or simply starting with a close-up and then zooming or pushing in to a microscopic/atomic level.

CCIII: Who are some artists who have influenced your creative pursuits?

There’s too many to name, really. Francis Bacon, Andrew Wyeth, Tetsuya Ishida, Gerhard Richter, René Magritte, Salvador Dali, Tala Madani, Arthur Boyd, Weegee, Francisco Goya, Oliver de Sagazan, Henri Matisse, Ryoji Ikeda, James Turrell, Arthur Streeton, Walker Evans, Edward Hopper, Tehching Hsieh, Andres Serrano, Gordon Parks, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Mike Parr, Jeffrey Smart, Susanna Majuri, Tracey Moffatt, Robert Mapplethorpe, Zdzisław Beksiński, Rachel Whiteread, and Do Ho Suh will probably always be my favourites.

CCIII: Do have any favourite TV Shows?

BG: Wow, another curveball! I didn’t know that you were of the “ambush” school of interviews. Anyway, I would have to say that I’m not the biggest fan of tv shows generally due to the time commitment they require, but I think Twin Peaks and Breaking Bad are both brilliant drama series. Twin Peaks: The Return, with its themes around the pitfalls of media and nostalgia really opened my eyes. In the realm of comedy, I don’t think you can do much better than the Holy Trinity of The Simpsons (Seasons 2–9), Seinfeld (Season 3 and onward), or Arrested Development (excluding Season 5). The golden age of The Onion (circa 2012) also produced what is in my view some of the most sophisticated and ingenious satire ever made, particularly with many of their jet-black comedy-horror series. We desperately need more satire today that commits to the jugular. Anything Chris Morris (especially his groundbreaking horror-comedy show of Jam), Limmy, Alan Partridge, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, or Armando Iannucci related is usually gold as well. The early seasons of the Eric Andre Show are quite solid as well.

Mum (opening door to “the auditorium”, aka garage): Brighton, did you remember to take out the rubbish?

BG: Uh, we’re kind of in the middle of a super important interview here, Mum.

Mum (closing door to garage): Oh, sorry, I forgot.

BG (embarrassedly chuckles): Well, that was embarrassing. Sorry for the disruption. You’ll edit that out, right?

CCIII: Oh, of course I shall. I’ll make a mental note to excise it from the transcript. Anyway, back to the interview: it says in the bio that you sent me that you are from Australia, are there any Australian shows or movies that you like?

BG: Shaun Micallef’s stuff is great, and Review with Myles Barlow remains a criminally obscure dark comedy series. Noise, The Tracker, and Goldstone are some excellent modern Australian films. Although there is a veritable wellspring of creative talent in Australia, I find that a lot of our creatives from film or tv usually have to pick between making watered-down, easily digestible content or flee to overseas markets. It’s a chimera, but I really do wish that we could return to our New-Wave era where we were more open to independent and experimental films and embraced/confronted our problematic and unique geography, cultures, and history rather than screen a stereotyped and indistinct “Australia” that so many high-budget Australian films do today.

203: Do you have a favourite stand-up comedian?

BG: In terms of current ones, Stewart Lee. He’s a huge influence on my sense of humour, and he’s the only comedian I know to really be transfiguring his material into amazing, postmodern art (well, perhaps Tim Heidecker could be said to be doing this as well). It’s also nice that he has stuck to his progressive roots rather than begun pandering to conservatives. Norm MacDonald will also always be a legend and comedic muse to me.

CCIII: Well, that’s about all we have time for today/that’s about as far as their politeness extends. Thanks again for your time, and good luck on your upcoming, 100%-real book tour, which if I have heard correctly, is sold out.

BG: Admittedly, it’s quite easy to sell out a tour when you exclusively play one-seat venues and you pay for the one audience member’s ticket. It’s an old trick I picked up from a buddy of mine in marketing.