2:00

He lay on a table in Bangkok for

2:02

eight hours a day, for eight days. This

2:04

was one for his piece Embrace. He

2:07

and another performer met for the first

2:09

time, blinded and naked, and then held

2:11

each other in a glass cube for

2:13

six or so hours. He did that

2:15

every day for four days. At

2:17

the Louvre, as part of the Venice

2:19

Biennale, Miles pierced his body with arrows

2:21

and perched for eight hours on a

2:23

small rock for his work, Sebastian. So

2:26

why? Why does Miles Greenberg

2:28

do this? Who inspired him to do

2:30

this? What does it give him? What

2:32

does he hope it gives the audience?

2:35

If you've ever wondered why did these

2:37

performance artists put themselves through this kind

2:39

of thing, I actually think he can

2:41

give you a good answer. But

2:43

we started by talking about Sebastian, which I

2:45

kind of thought might be about Saint Sebastian,

2:47

who I remembered from my childhood picture, Book

2:49

of Saints. Anyway, here's my conversation with Miles

2:51

Greenberg. How are you? I'm well, thanks, how

2:53

are you? I'm good, am I on to

2:55

something with Saint Sebastian? Yeah, you are, yeah,

2:58

100%. That was based on Saint

3:00

Sebastian. It was like sort of

3:02

the second time I had done that particular character.

3:04

The first time was at the Louvre. And

3:08

so I was like, well, when the Louvre calls

3:10

you, you go kind of hard. So. I've

3:13

heard that before, yeah. Yeah, well, so I

3:16

came up with this idea, this whole piece

3:18

around Saint Sebastian, and it wasn't like the

3:20

full Monty that we did in Venice. That

3:23

was like a little ambitious for the context, but I decided

3:25

to make it like a study for Sebastian. First

3:28

time getting pierced, all of those things. And

3:33

as a five hour piece, very

3:35

difficult. I'm actually the reason,

3:37

by the way, that there's now a rule at the Louvre

3:39

that you're not allowed to stab yourself in the museum. So

3:43

that's new because of me. So that is me

3:45

making my mind. I hope you don't mind me

3:47

laughing there. No, not at all. People have always

3:50

told me that if someone can create a rule

3:52

based on you, it's a good sign for how

3:54

you're living your life. And excuse me, one of

3:56

the oldest museums in the world. I'll take it.

3:58

Thank you. It's not bad. you

4:00

before we get into this work to respond. So

4:03

it hasn't been quite a week. How's your body feeling?

4:05

It's actually okay. Today's like the first day where I

4:08

feel a little less sore. I can put

4:10

my hands all the way above my head. You

4:12

know? Because my

4:14

triceps were messed up. How were you

4:16

feeling the day after? Kind

4:19

of hard to sit and stand, but it was okay. I

4:21

mean, I went out the night off. Really?

4:23

Yeah. You

4:27

see why that might be a bit surprising to me. Yeah, but

4:29

then I think... So I

4:35

came up under Marina Abramovich. She's sort

4:37

of been my art

4:40

kind of auntie for the last, close to

4:42

a decade, I guess. And

4:44

she calls it body drama. When

4:47

you step off stage or you

4:49

step off of a performance and

4:51

you just have so many people's gaze on

4:54

you and so many people projecting energy

4:56

into your body, it is very, very

4:58

hard to kind of just sit

5:01

and do nothing and swallow it back into

5:04

yourself. You somehow have to exude more.

5:06

So right after the Venice

5:09

piece, I went

5:11

home, showered three times, ate one hard-boiled

5:13

egg and then ran out to Bjork's

5:15

DJ set until eight in the morning.

5:18

Is there a crash eventually? Yeah,

5:21

sort of. There's a little postpartum. I would say

5:23

it's an emotional crash. I'm

5:26

now feeling a little bit like the

5:28

void that once was this piece

5:31

because I've been sitting on it for the last like

5:33

three years. Well, I realize I'm putting the cart before

5:35

the horse a little bit. Would

5:37

you be able to describe, respond a little bit to the folks

5:39

listening? Sure. I

5:43

came up playing video games and Elder

5:47

Scrolls and Skyrim

5:49

and Soul Calibur and Halo and World of

5:53

Warcraft, very notably. All

5:55

these sort of games where you die, you come back.

6:00

come back often pretty much right in the same place where

6:02

you kick the bucket and you sort of kind of try

6:05

these different angles, these different configurations

6:07

of the same mission and you

6:10

somehow through all this trial and

6:12

error reach something close to perfection

6:14

and ideal. And

6:16

I was very kind of curious, almost like a little bit like

6:19

with a bit of a tongue and cheek to it, I was

6:21

like, what happens, what would happen if these bodies would just pile

6:24

up, you know, and not just kind of

6:26

like fade into black and

6:29

disappear? And so

6:31

I had this idea of like, yeah, making these, these

6:34

silicone hyper-realistic clones that would just

6:36

be sort of strewn around the

6:39

space. And then, yeah,

6:42

I had this idea of sort of fighting against

6:44

the gaze, fighting against this like robotic arm

6:46

that was pre-programmed that I would sort of

6:48

have to kind of like dodge and duck

6:50

and, you know, strike with just like

6:52

a variety of weapons. For

6:55

me, it was sort of like, you

6:58

know, I think that we often cut very violently parts

7:02

of us kind

7:05

of short, you know, or we'll kill off

7:07

parts of ourselves to get

7:10

closer and closer to a trajectory

7:12

that we find acceptable. Yeah, perfection. Yeah,

7:14

and I think that that oftentimes is

7:16

actually a very violent process, at least

7:18

it is for me, you know, internally.

7:21

So it was sort of like thinking about

7:23

making that tangible. I'm beginning to, let

7:25

me just say it back to you to make sure that

7:27

I understand it. The

7:31

metaphor, and I hesitate to use that word, or

7:33

like the- Go for it. Thank you. The

7:35

metaphor there is that in our own lives, we

7:39

make decisions that are violent to

7:42

ourselves. We make decisions, even

7:44

if it's just something like we have a path

7:46

that we've decided for ourselves and there's a violence

7:48

intimated in the elimination of all other paths, all

7:51

other parts of ourselves that had to be eliminated so

7:53

we can make that. And what

7:55

would happen if those, and symbolically,

7:57

those remnants, those dead bodies are

7:59

on the- are on the ground in

8:01

front of you, but why the violence? Well,

8:04

I think for me, when

8:06

I'm making works like this, and I think that it's

8:08

so kind of intrinsic to

8:10

the like many hour

8:12

format that I tend to use is

8:14

like things change over time. Things

8:17

change really drastically when you leave them

8:19

alone for a certain amount of time.

8:21

I'm very interested in extremes and

8:24

extreme emotions and extreme sensations, and whether

8:26

that be pleasure or pain or euphoria,

8:28

ecstasy, agony, you know. And kind of,

8:31

I think of these installations and these

8:33

performances as almost like a Petri dish

8:36

where you can kind of like insert like one

8:39

very rapid, one very sort of convulsive

8:42

like emotion or gesture

8:44

or something like that, that like

8:46

what would happen if I

8:49

were to take this and as opposed to

8:51

let it live on the scale on its natural

8:54

scale of like 30 seconds to

8:56

10 minutes to, you know, I'm thinking of

8:58

panic attack and orgasm, you know, like these

9:01

hardcore kind of sensations that

9:03

we go through very frequently. What would happen

9:05

if you just tried to hold that and

9:08

created an environment conducive to holding that

9:10

for seven consecutive hours? What happens to

9:12

violence when you push

9:14

it consistently for

9:17

nine consecutive hours, does it stay violent or does

9:20

it turn into something else? And I think the

9:22

answer often is that it turns into something else.

9:24

What did it turn into at around hour seven?

9:27

I think it became a lot more, I

9:30

should say for people who don't know, hours seven of

9:32

you stabbing and lunging

9:34

and dodging and violent

9:37

actions. What did it become? You said it

9:39

became more what? Yeah,

9:41

I think over time, you

9:45

oddly have like, you start to gain a lot

9:47

of compassion for yourself, for

9:50

these bodies. It's very weird. So

9:52

I 3D scan my body to make these

9:55

replicas. Yeah, weird. And so

9:57

unboxing them, you know, Kind

18:00

of. Yeah. Because

18:02

your lymphatic system, your circulatory

18:04

system, everything is moving and it's actually

18:06

easier. I was doing cartwheels during

18:08

my show as like a way of sort of moving

18:10

around and being like athletic and being dynamic, but it

18:13

was actually to flip against gravity for even just a

18:15

second really helped me like renew my energy and kind

18:17

of get back. You know, you

18:19

find all these little tips and tricks to kind of find

18:21

space inside your own body. Whereas when

18:23

you're sitting, it's like your ribs and everything are sort

18:25

of crushing into your organs and

18:27

it's a, sitting is a horrible

18:30

thing to do for a really long time. Okay.

18:33

Especially when you're performing or working in

18:35

that sense. So

18:37

just, it's very hard to overstate the magnitude

18:40

of the artist's presence. I hadn't thought about

18:42

that. And I've only had ever thought about

18:44

that in regards to her having to meet

18:46

someone's eye contact. I hadn't

18:48

thought about the challenge of actually sitting. We've

18:50

talked about it a lot. That's that was

18:52

the heart, you know, your whole body changes.

18:56

So you were 12 and you saw this and then

18:58

what happens? You go like that, that's it for me? So

19:00

no, it was, it was in

19:02

sort of like, you see the artist's,

19:04

you see the performance as you're walking

19:06

in to her giant retrospective of just

19:08

like all of her sort of her

19:10

legacy, her work. And

19:12

then you sort of, and there are live performers as well. And then

19:15

you sort of come back around

19:17

and at the end there's like sort of a

19:19

room of like these, what are called like transitory

19:21

objects in her practice, which are these sort of

19:23

objects that the audience can then sort of engage

19:25

with. And you know, these sort of

19:27

strategic crystals and sort

19:29

of beds of minerals and things that sort of

19:32

carry an energy to her. And

19:34

she designs them such that you sort of feel

19:36

almost like the energy of a particular

19:38

energy sort of that she's reached

19:41

through performance and a performative state to kind

19:43

of reach some level of meditation or what

19:45

have you. So I remember I was like, I

19:47

kind of saw it and I was like, I didn't really get

19:49

the context. And then, you know, when I engaged with these transitory

19:51

objects, these, you know, there was one sort of bed made of

19:54

like, I want to say

19:56

malachite or something similar. And

19:58

I laid down on it and there's like a huge. and

20:01

it's like the very last piece in the show. And I just kind

20:03

of sat there and closed

20:06

my eyes for a moment and kind of opened

20:08

them again and just went into this like

20:10

hypnosis. And I, when I kind of

20:12

came to, there was no one there. And then when I came to,

20:15

there was like 40 people in line in front of me. And I

20:17

was like, oh, I don't know what that was, but I liked it.

20:20

Did you sit with Marina? I didn't

20:22

know. The line was insane. And I

20:24

was 12. I had

20:26

to stand. I definitely, I wish I had

20:28

been a little bit more incessant

20:31

about doing it, but I did. I've sat

20:33

with her since. Okay. I

20:36

have two questions left for you that I'm

20:38

curious to know before we get going. So

20:41

one is with a piece like this,

20:44

how do you know when it's done? I

20:46

love this question. Okay. Okay.

20:52

I love a constraint and

20:55

the biggest constraint with the performance

20:58

is that it doesn't exist until you

21:00

make it in front of everyone. So

21:03

it's done when the

21:06

museum closes and you can do nothing to

21:08

change it. You can't go back and mess

21:10

around with it. You can't go

21:12

back and fiddle with your paint. You can't

21:14

go back and smudge your oils or zhush

21:16

things on Ableton. You cannot

21:19

take it back. You cannot change it. And

21:21

it just is what it is because I know

21:23

that I am the kind of artist who will

21:26

interminably putz around

21:28

with the same art

21:30

object until the cows come

21:32

home. So it's so convenient. But what about when

21:34

you're the art object? Well, that's the thing is

21:36

that you get up on stage and then when

21:38

the clock strikes nine, you're done, baby. Wow. And

21:40

you've got to go. So it's like, so you can't,

21:43

you can't, but what's so great about working over

21:45

the scale of nine, 12, 24 hours is that

21:47

you have so much time to get it right and

21:49

you just, and you reiterate

21:51

and you try things over and you know that there

21:53

are people walking in who are staying for five minutes

21:55

who will, who did not see the time that you

21:58

tripped earlier and who will not see the time that

22:00

you'll trip. later and you just know that eventually you

22:03

respond to stay on brand. But

22:07

it's great because it's like, what

22:10

you have is what you have. And I

22:13

think that being sort

22:15

of so subject to serendipity

22:18

and to sort of time constraints

22:20

like that, for me it just,

22:23

I'm really in my happy place there. Last

22:26

question, we talked a little

22:28

bit and you were very generous and

22:30

candid in what doing this work

22:32

has done for you. And when it comes to

22:34

any sort of art, but especially work that's in

22:36

galleries, I'm always loathe to ask this kind

22:38

of question, but are you thinking about what you want

22:40

us to take from it at all when people see it? I'm

22:46

not sure, I don't know

22:49

if this question would also necessarily

22:51

be asked to an abstract

22:53

painter. You

22:56

heard my hesitance because I have

22:58

been wondering whether to ask abstract

23:00

painters that too. Like

23:03

whether artists like you and abstract painters

23:05

and abstract composers don't get asked that

23:07

enough. Maybe you do have something to

23:09

say. Yeah, no, and I have to

23:11

say no, but it's a fabulous thing

23:14

to throw in now and again because it actually really depends on

23:16

the piece. Some of them I'm like, I

23:19

really don't wanna talk about it. And then some of them like this

23:21

one, I mean it's sort of like what I shared just

23:24

the idea of what responding kind of means

23:26

to me. I only figured

23:29

out during the piece and I'm happy to express

23:31

it. I

23:33

guess what I'm asking is, do you want me to think about my own,

23:35

when I watch this, do you want me to think about

23:37

responding in my own life? That's really what I'm asking. I

23:41

want people to do

23:43

whatever they want. I'm not trying to ask a

23:45

lot of the audience in that sense. I love

23:47

it. I really just, it's like if you wanna

23:49

stay for five minutes, five hours, the

23:51

whole duration thing, it started

23:53

by the

23:56

place I started from with that whole idea.

24:00

was not to do with my research

24:02

around, you know, all these

24:04

conceptual ideations around what does it do

24:06

to hold emotions for this amount of

24:08

time? What does it do? All of that, that came

24:11

later. That came once I started doing it. I started

24:13

doing it because I wanted it to be accessible to

24:15

the audience. I wanted people to walk into the performance

24:17

and see it and look at it like sculpture because

24:20

what I always responded to as a viewer

24:22

was classical sculpture at the Louvre, at the Met,

24:24

at the Air Matache, like these types of museums.

24:27

And there was something so kind of romantic about

24:29

having such a personal direct relationship

24:32

with this object that it's just

24:34

so unmoving and permanent.

24:37

So when I started making

24:39

performance, I was like, well, what if I can

24:41

somehow create that relationship with

24:44

the audience as I always had

24:46

with sculpture and people can go

24:48

and look at it like sculpture. I hate going

24:50

to performance art where I have to

24:52

stand in a concrete box for 45 minutes, really

24:55

awkwardly around something that's happening, unless

24:58

it's really, really good and

25:01

it's rarely, really, really good.

25:03

And I'm like, and immediately, and the

25:05

thing is, is like, I'm neurodivergent. I

25:07

am so much more comfortable with this

25:09

free flowing thing. So it's like five

25:13

minutes, five hours, whatever you need. If you want to

25:15

read into it with your own body, please do. If

25:17

you don't, please don't. If you want to take a

25:19

picture and eat a slice of pizza and eat a

25:21

slice of pizza while taking a picture and talking to

25:23

somebody, God bless you. If you want to sit in

25:25

silence for eight whole hours, I don't totally

25:27

recommend it, but I will not dissuade you. This

25:30

is, this is. It's just, I'm trying

25:32

to be as generous as possible with the audience and

25:34

through that, and that act of creating

25:36

that kind of a space and that kind of environment,

25:40

a lot has come out of it for me. And

25:43

I don't know, I'm just still learning from

25:45

it. And it's really, really, really fun. I

25:48

can tell. Thank you for coming in. Thank

25:50

you for having me. That

25:53

was the Canadian artist Miles Greenberg

25:55

who just completed his latest physical

25:57

piece, Respawn at the Art Gallery

25:59

of Ontario. That

26:01

is it for us today. The other conversation we have up

26:03

today is with, man, I gotta tell

26:05

you, like, past month or so,

26:08

I have, I have, it

26:10

goes in waves what people talk to me about with this show. They'll

26:12

come up to me and say like, oh, I heard your interview with,

26:14

you know, Mick Jagger,

26:16

Adele Bono. Past

26:18

couple of months, it's been all Chappell Rowan. It's

26:21

people who have never heard the show, people who

26:23

have never heard of the CBC writing me and

26:25

going like, you're the guy who interviewed Chappell Rowan.

26:27

She is having a moment in pop music right

26:29

now. So we are re-airing our conversation

26:31

with her. So if you want to get caught up and

26:33

know what the kids are talking about, you know,

26:36

you can go check that out. See you

26:38

soon. Later on. For

27:01

more CBC podcasts, go

27:03

to cbc.ca/ podcasts.