Goat in the Basment

MAP : What was your working day like?

Dillemuth: I left one security system in the morning, walked through a CCTV monitored shopping district and entered another security system. I spent each
day and evening in the basement of the gallery and went back through the same routine at night.

MAP: What will the outcome of the project be?

Dillemuth: An installation consisting of a painter’s studio as a barn, as a prison, a couple of paintings and a film—all produced down in the basement. Right now the installation is multipurpose for the film—but I’m keeping my options open until the end of the process. I’m getting used to the situation as it is, the basement looks and smells like a barn; we had three days of shooting a video there with a goat.

The film is based on a talk that I gave on various occasions about bohemia, artistic research, knowledge economy and the privatisation of education as it happens right now. The installation is the set for a film in which a painter, an allegedly free subject, talks to a prisoner, obviously not a free subject. While the artist is working on a painting of the prisoner (as a political subject, the prisoner is the artists’ object) a goat moves in the space, between the two narratives. I’m trying out new things—it’s the first time I have worked with a goat actor.

MAP: And the work relates to the city?

Dillemuth: No, the city relates to the work, since Glasgow is a forerunner
in using culture in order to brand and regenerate the city—creativity and liveliness became the main assets for a new kind of capitalism.

MAP: A new kind of capitalism? What do you mean?

Dillemuth: It seems to be a relatively new trend to focus on how much money one can generate through branding and image making, through privatisation
of knowledge, education and social services, through copyright, patents and other legal issues, through financial, social and cultural speculation.

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