Friday 18 February 2022

The Question in Bodies #37: Parasite Art (i)

“Culture keeps us alive.” I keep saying that. It's one of my saws, a truism that I live by. But as all truisms, it exists in an indeterminate state between universal truth and comforting lie, because while culture does, I think, keep us alive, it can also destroy us. Art is dangerous, precisely because it has such an elemental power to illuminate and transform who we are. And when we make art, when we practise art, it can liberate us, but we can also become lost in it. Art could be described just as easily as a parasite. It keeps us alive in order to feed from us. Art is an infestation.