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Ric Blackshaw: First off, could you tell me a bit about your background, and what inspired you to begin making street art and street interventions? |
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Roadsworth, interviewed by Ric Blackshaw
Ric Blackshaw: First off, could you tell me a bit about your background, and what inspired you to begin making street art and street interventions?
Roadsworth: I’m actually a musician by training, but growing up I was exposed to visual art in different forms partly because my mother was an artist, and many of her friends were artists as well. One of my first babysitters for example, would take us to art galleries and get us to draw and make stuff out of clay. Throughout most of my life, my primary focus has been music, but I always took a side interest in visual art. That interest has been growing more and more since I first started painting the streets about six years ago. My initial motivations for doing street art were both activist and artistic in nature. The first stencil I ever made was that of a bicycle symbol because I’ve always been a proponent of cycling in the city particularly as an alternative to what I consider to be an absurd and generally unsound reliance on cars. Some of my earlier work in particular, was also inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, to whom the name Roadsworth is partly a homage, but also by graffiti or “post-graffiti” culture, cartoons, comics, and the notion of language in general. Roadsworth is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to the poet Wordsworth as I feel that my work functions, at least formally speaking, in a similar way to poetry.
RB: Where did the idea for the street markings come from?
Roadsworth: Street markings, like the asphalt on which they are found, are ubiquitous and universal. They represent a language to me that is very functional, dry, and almost authoritarian in tone, but simultaneously pristine and nondescript, thereby providing an irresistible opportunity for subversion and satire. I’ve always found it interesting that in most cities the walls are often saturated with graffiti, but the asphalt, which probably covers more surface area than anything else invariably remains untouched as if it were sacred in some way, untouchable. I’ve heard it said that the mall is the modern-day equivalent of the cathedral, but I would argue that the road has an equally religious aura. If capitalism is the religion of our time, then the automobile is one of its most potent relics, and the road its medium. This may seem like an exaggeration, but consider the type of language and emotion that is evoked in car commercials, for example, the promise of freedom, of near spiritual liberation that the car can provide. Or the way a president will refer to “protecting a way of life” when trying to justify war, which is another way of saying “keeping the gas pumps flowing.” Although most wouldn’t admit to it on an individual basis, there is a quasi-religious devotion to consumerism on a societal level of which car culture is the epitome. It has become so interwoven into the fabric of everyday life as to become ritualistic and therefore, unconscious to a certain extent. Consumer habits are so widespread, consistent, and well promoted that they are rarely questioned in any way that would compromise economic and/or political expedience despite the undeniably dire consequences that current levels of consumption seem to indicate.The road is therefore, representative of many things on a symbolic, psychological, and practical level. It exists in a symbiotic relationship to the automobile for example, which is in turn related to the oil industry, which has a relationship to the military industrial complex and so on. The more roads there are, the more cars there are. The more cars there are, the more need for oil there is. The more need there is for oil, the more weapons are needed. The more weapons there are… This chain could equally be read in reverse, each link the catalyst for another chain reaction, and it is hard to say, at least for someone like myself who is not well versed in history, which came first: the chicken or the egg? The car or the cruise missile? This is inevitably a simplistic assessment of the situation but the point is, the road and its particular language (i.e. street markings) is for me, loaded with significance and therefore, ripe for re-interpretation. And because the road seems to take itself so seriously it is also a tempting target for satire. Road markings are for me, a metaphor for a certain state of mind and relationship to the outside world that is endemic of our time, and is engendered by driving.
Protected in a bubble of steel and glass and immunized against the harshness of the exterior world in a comfort zone of plush interior and climate-controlled environment, the driver looks out at the outside world to the beat of his favorite driving music, experiencing space as one would experience cable television while channel surfing, detachedly registering the news and other images that register on the windshield only to disappear and be replaced by others. Effortlessly, distance is spanned, and the world becomes a virtual reality. That is the long answer, and I could go on even longer but I won’t. A shorter answer is that road markings provide a good starting point, a parameter to work within that provides opportunity for an almost subliminal type of communication that has a particular impact, and that generates a dialogue that is less likely with more blatant forms of communication like advertising.
RB: Do you identify with the label “graffiti”?
Roadsworth: Personally, I don’t feel that what I do can, in the strict sense of the word, be called “graffiti” although I haven’t checked the definition in a dictionary lately. For me the word “graffiti” conjures up a certain tradition, a style that is about lettering hence the term “graffiti writer,” but I could be wrong about that. I do identify with graffiti writers in the sense that they seem to be the main proponents of free visual expression in the public space and therefore, are concerned with some of the same things that I am concerned about, like not getting arrested for example. I don’t have a problem with people calling what I do “graffiti,” and it doesn’t surprise me that they do, but “street art” or “urban art” is probably more accurate even though these seem like pretty vague definitions themselves. I guess people will come up with better labels as time progresses, but for now “street art” (and what I do is probably a more literal interpretation of the term than most) is probably the best description.
RB: Are the road markings your sole output as an artist or just one of many projects?
Roadsworth: The stuff I’ve done on the ground whether directly on the road, in parking lots, or in other public places like parks and squares, represents the bulk of what I’ve done, but I’ve also painted a few walls, and have some canvases, collages, silk-screens, and other odds and ends to my name as well. I think when you become known for something, there’s a tendency to become typecast to a certain extent, and in my case, I’ve become the “asphalt specialist” or the “ground specialist,” and so I seem to get hired to do stuff of that nature. It doesn’t bother me that much since for me it is really just another surface, although I do like the idea of people having to walk over my work to experience it, and because there is so much asphalt in the world, there is also a lot of potential and opportunity for doing things on a large scale. I’m also aware that one of the reasons I do get hired is precisely because of this particular “specialty” of mine. I do want to try more things on different surfaces and in different mediums, and I intend to whether I’m paid to do so or not.
