Whereas art loaded with autobiographical, conceptual, pedantic, or pedagogic information is seen with a sense of authenticity, Jennifer Reeder's wordless, faintly dramatized, direct videos of Midwestern living are said to be apolitical, lost, and "passive."

They are slow, excruciatingly slow, without recognizable narrative, and truly arbitrary. Consequently, some viewers are upset that they can't make sense of two men pumping iron for an outstretched 10 minutes, or of a woman walking along the same suburban street for five minutes. But, in fact, being an observer is anything but being passive, at least in Reeder's videos. To be placed, perhaps forcibly, in an almost stationary viewers position helps one actively question situations, gestures, movements, environments. By not playing the teller, Reeder puts the classic less-is-more aesthetic to use without post-Minimalist cliches. She makes the ephemeral perennial. Although undoubtedly slow, Reeder's videos aren't excessively long, formless gunk.

Her work can, to a certain degree, be described as what a friend of mine called "acute boredom," a sensation that's ironically, exciting and eerie. Sometimes, slow isn't soporific, cool isn't louche and in Jennifer Reeder's case, entirely true. After two years since taking part in the Whitney Biennial with "Nevermind", and six years after the "White Trash Girl" series, Reeder is smack dab in global daring-do. She recently took time for an interview on Midwestern parochialism, NY snobbery, camp and collective sensibilities, irony and parody in video, digital and analogue production, and big hair.  
 
» This may seem like an outworn observation of something that's somewhat of a cliche in art nowadays but your recent videos grok something that's entirely familiar but foreign, without a klepto-kitschy slant towards some kind of a "collective conscience." Why do you think your work has this fresh but strange quality?
 
JR:  Each video, one is three minutes long, the other is six minutes long, is thought of as montage sequences from traditional film works. For instance, in films, generally teenage girls are portrayed, for the most part, as sexualized, although still innocent and really beautiful in a conventional way. Sort of the wind blowing through their long flowing hair.  
 
In their counter part, young men are portrayed, often times, in a more campy way. So, I wanted, especially in a current situation, to call those portrayals into question. Not only think about how they reflect a real situation, how my pieces in a way are real and contemporary images of young adults, but equally, how media represents young adults and how even that media representation of young adults affects how they imagine themselves.  
 
So, it seems familiar, but at the same time, I wanted to call that into question to suggest that this may seem like something I've seen before, but at the same time, not at all.  
 
» You have been known for your marked knack of mixing sound with video. When and why did you begin this approach?
 
JR:  On the one hand, I think it's a really natural marriage, sound and image, but I've been accused recently of only making music videos. Although I don't think anything I do resembles anything you would see on MTV, for instance, still that opinion has been presented to me as though my work somehow is on that level in terms of a popular sentiment as opposed to a fine-arts sentiment. I don't agree. I think that the two of them are closely linked.  
 
Video has an intense relationship to television. Contemporary video practice, especially in terms of the tools of video, is closely linked to the contemporary tools of music production, electronic music specifically. Being invested in both, I feel like the music and the image coming together is vital. I don't always think I'm putting music to video, I think I'm putting sound to video, and then later on someone tells me that it's music.  
 
Do you know what I mean? The piece that I'm working on right now, does bring in aspects of dialogue with sound that's much less recognizable as music, although the composers of those sound-pieces consider themselves contemporary electronic musicians. So I think sometimes, in some ways it's how I define this marriage of image and sound as opposed to how other people define a music video. But for me it's a really organic combination, so I'll continue with that combination.  
 
I've done two silent pieces. Once of the pieces is 18 minutes of scrolling text. So there was no need to put sound to that image. The second piece that was silent, also was part of a two part installation. The sound of the first part was overwhelming in the space, so I didn't want the second piece to overwhelm it. In "A Double Image Both in Focus Simultaneously", both pieces occupied the same space, and both pieces had sound. Although the sounds were different, they were both done by the same people. So, there was a way, actually, that when they were played simultaneously, one didn't distract from the other. 
 
» Your recent soundtracks, unlike your earlier ones, lack jag and juke, and are excruciatingly slow, droney, sullen, and quirky, but surely aren't the work of overrated and inkhorn artists of the "glitchcore" genre. Why have you chosen the music that you have to accompany your videos?
 
JR:  Well, the trio of tapes that I did with that, where the sounds were manipulated from pop-songs, "Lullabye" and "Nevermind", and the other one...  
 
A sense of that sound, I feel is closely related to the contemporary clickers and clackers, as I call them. You take what are the defects, literally the gliches, and you distill them to perfection. I even think that those three videos that accompany those soundtracks are also full of video glitches. To me, those were produced right at that turn from analogue to digital, when analogue was obliterated by digital. Yet to isolate analogue glitches, I used digital tools. So in a way those tapes, both in terms of their soundtracks and images, were about that transition from analogue to digital. Right now so much of the music produced by the clickers and glitchers, which I love, feels close to me in the same way that we can consider contemporary digital image production and the way that all that noise had to move through that really messy period between analogue and digital to pull out what we have now, this really exciting image and sound production. 
 
» So in "Nevermind", is a pop-song made into a glitch?
 
JR:  Well sure, because "Nevermind" is just the original "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with the tempo slowed almost three times but the pitch hasn't changed. So all of the analogue instruments of the last of the punk-grunge heroes, i.e. Nirvana, get turned into this electronic grind, not the kind of clear and minimal clicks and beeps that are used right now. But it's still sending that cultural sentiment through a kind of electronic meat-grinder. In a way, aspects of popular culture are glitches, blips if you think about it. It's not a note that's sustained, it's a moment that comes and goes quickly. 
 
» Speaking of culturally specific sensibilities, how has your work crossed over internationally?
 
JR:  Actually I've had tremendous cross-over. I think part of it has to do with my older work having a lot to do with American popular culture, especially a Western-European fascination with American pop-culture. The narrations of the early pieces were in English without subtitles and the lyrics were in English, but of course popular music travels very easily between the U.S. and Europe. But even with the more recent work, because there's no dialogue whatsoever, and there are no lyrics and a lot of the musicians that I'm using actually are European, then I think it's also a really natural crossover. I've been compelled and didn't operate under any restraints of language. Even if they were images of American suburbs, it could be suggested that those are also suburbs of large European cities, or just a sentiment of people in general, or there could be a way for audiences to watch the images and listen to the sound and not get distracted by a second language or even subtitles. I've had some success in Asia, although not as much, but I've never been anywhere in Asia. I'm dying to go visit. 
 
» You're an out-on-out Midwesterner, as you've said yourself. Has this had an influence on your video-making? What does it mean to be a Midwesterner in the first place?
 
JR:  Well, I think that there's a sense of having grown up in the middle of the middle of the middle. Culturally, this country values what comes from the extreme coasts, or we look at the coasts as the purveyors of culture, or we look outside of this country before we look into to the middle of the country. I actually contend that. There's something much more interesting to me about everything that's happening between the coasts. That's complicated.  
 
Being in the middle is not the same as being mediocre. Being in the middle is not the same as being, medium, let's say. And the landscape and the architecture of certain areas of the two coasts are extra-ordinary, and also personalities are extreme. 
 
» Personalities?
 
JR:  In a really genuine sense eccentric. I'm still in the Midwest. I feel comfortable here, that's not to say I don't feel comfortable outside of this country, or I don't feel comfortable when I go to visit either coasts by any means. But there's also a sense of comradery amongst other people of the Midwest, especially women, I think, because we all remember at some point in high school having hair that was about as close to God as you could get in terms of height, and that's still the case in certain areas. I'll tell you that even though I've lived in the city for the past seven years, my secret tendency is still to want to get my hair as far away from my head as possible. That's a superficial manifestation of the Midwest. 
 
» Are you talking about bouffant afros?
 
JR:  See now, because you're not from the Midwest I think you don't understand it. You'd just have to know it. You'd just have to have a sense of it. 
 
» Would you call it a bouffant though?
 
JR: No, never. It doesn't have a name. It's just big hair. 
 
» Some of your work seems to portray ordinary, rueful characters apparently ignored or forsaken. If this isn't a parody or criticism, what is it?
 
JR:  There's also a sense of the Midwest that's boring. There's something very tense about that. The piece that I shot last summer that was all shot in central Ohio, the whole thing's 35 minutes long, it begins basically in the morning and ends at night. In it, no one's where they're supposed to be. It begins in the morning with this june bug turned over in a pool. This very banal situation, the bug being turned on its back and kicking, to me indicates a really blunt tension that I intended to be maintained throughout the whole tape. So we follow kids at swim team practice, endless flows of cars, a young girl who takes 8 minutes to walk her subdivision, and by the end you just see this group of people filing into an all-night supermarket.  
 
Everyone's in this middle period, no one's where they're supposed to be. I wanted a tension in that waiting, in that transitory period, which to me has a sense of the Midwest, but I didn't want to present it as sinister, or with hyperbole. Take Gummo, that's kind of an explicit Midwestern-ness. It's like explicit normalness in a way. I actually wanted to present normal as normal and boring as boring. But I wanted to present the Midwest in way that's actually loving and lovely, but still with a certain amount of tension. With this track by the Stars of the Lid, which I wouldn't describe as droney, but it's not dramatic in an obvious way. I think the same thing can be said about "A Double Image Both in Focus Simultaneously", in that same sense. One of the same sequences was shot in Ohio and the other in Chicago.  
 
I wanted both of them to take very normal events, in the sense of normalcy, waiting, walking, or just existing, and be able to examine that, or scrutinize it, but not in a way that seems obvious. It's not ironic. I have zero interest in presenting irony, I'm really interested in being genuine. 
 
» Do you ever worry that the very people that your videos are about are excluded as audiences?
 
JR:  The Ohio piece was commissioned by the Institute of Visual Arts, which is a contemporary arts facility associated with the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. When I was talking to Peter Dreshenko, who's director of that space, about doing a piece for the solo shows that were opening a year ago in September, we both talked about the need for work that addressed the Midwest. I felt excited by that idea. To a degree, I had always felt that I addressed the Midwest, but not in a very specific way, like that's the take that I brought to my work, that's who I was the minute I first picked up a camera. The same can be said about being a female. I don't necessarily think that what I do is feminist work or is girl-made-work, but it's implicit in the work because I'm female. So that piece premiered in Milwaukee. It screened here, and although I haven't had a screening in Ohio, I certainly sent multiple copies to everyone in my own family, you know? I would hate to think that anything that anybody would do would be excluded from anyone anywhere in the country. I feel like art sometimes has that way of not reaching certain audiences just because there aren't the same kind of facilities in every city. I think that art is accessible and should be accessible not just physically but intellectually. Realistically, the audiences of museums and galleries are low, in terms of the rest of the population. 
 
» "White Trash Girl" can be bought online for about $20,00, but your recent work probably can't, at least while galleries are showing them. Does the accessibility of art subtract from how highbrow (or even high-flown in some cases) it can be?
 
JR:  That debate, in terms of contemporary video, is tough. We think of video as an infinitely reproducible medium that was born out of a sense of radicalism, that was born out of a need to decommodify art to rethink the art-object. All of those things are totally thrilling to me. On the one hand I love being able to have hundreds and hundreds of copies circling the globe in the hands of galleries and dealers or just in the hands of someone not so specifically involved in art. I like to think of the situation in a complicated way, because it is complicated, but not in a way that's hypocritical. There are pieces that I sell in unlimited edition for a very reasonable price, and then there are pieces that are produced for collectors in a limited edition. For instance two pieces in DIBFS, the three-minute section is sold with a 6ft. x 8ft. hand built screen. 
 
» Does it come with a parking lot?
 
JR:  And the other piece comes with a parking lot. So I can't make an unlimited amount of parking lot just anyone who wants one of those, right? 
 
» So do collectors decorate their houses with parking lots and streaming video?
 
JR:  As strange as that sounds, I think collectors who are realizing that video is a really vital contemporary art making tool, are realizing that collecting video is essential and are reconfiguring their houses to accommodate installations, or screening rooms, or plasma screens, etc. 
 
» I guess I have a hard time imagining videos running incessantly in private houses.
 
JR:  I find that hard to believe that too. Because I think video is democratic, it's suppose to be everywhere, not just in the hands of the people who can afford it. It can be broadcast on television and on the Web, it can be sent in a hundred different directions and retain it's original format and quality. There's a conflict, and it's complicated. But I feel compelled to pick my battles, and at some point put bread on my table. Because we're a world still interested in art objects, then the object of video becomes very elusive. Although I find that fascinating, when comes down to your bill of sale, it's tough. 
 
» Some of your work, like "Twin Decks" is purposefully antic I think, but does, at the same time, have serious, staid, and immobile overtones. Is all art meant to be ambiguous?
 
JR:  Well, I think my newer work has more of a sense of ambiguity than my early work. My earlier work had a very strict agenda. If you think about "White Trash Girl", I was a very angry, angry girl when I produced that work. I had a specific agenda, both politically and socially. 
 
» Wasn't "WTG" like a slapstick?
 
JR:  I think of Buster Keaton when I think of slapstick, or the Three Stooges. "WTG" had a target. It took a very specific aim. I'm much less interested in that rigidness now. Thinking back to "Twin Decks", its ambiguity is really interesting to me. Basically, it's another montage sequence of two men lifting weights. Their bodies are coded, the space that they're in is coded, the gesture of lifting weights is coded, so depending on who you are, although the work itself is ambiguous, your response to that work can be really specific. You can look at these guys and want to be them, or you may want to beat them up, you may be afraid of them, you may also desire them.  
 
Equally back towards the audience, they appear to be, not overly buff but in shape, lifting weights in a confined, closed space. There's nothing to lead us to believe that they're a couple, it's called "Twin Decks" but the title actually comes from the name of the audio track (by Biosphere). So we can imagine that they're a couple, or is there something else tapped in between the two of them as they sweat and pump-up next to each other. In my recent work what I really want to do is to pack as much information, or as many possibilities in the smallest amount of evidence as I possibly can.  
 
The past year and a half I've been thinking about minimal video production, how does the contemporary aspect of Minimalism translate to video? I really want to examine very small fragments, whether it's a gesture, a curb of a hill, a movement through a space, and try to present as many possibilities either slowly or over and over again. 
 
» But "Twin Decks" is humorous.
 
JR:  Absolutely. I think the bottom line is that I always want multiple reads. And certainly I want one of those reads to be humorous. Not that kind of ironic humor per se or a kind of a knee-slapping humor necessarily, but the ability to make an audience laugh at what they're looking at, or at themselves even. I think art tends to be a little serious to me, so I always like to present that side, humor. 
 
» How would you see the Midwest's art-scene? Compared to New York's? LA's? Europe's? Strictly from an outsider's perspective, can galleries be seen as places for spruced-up cliques?
 
JR:  In central Ohio, there's the Western Center for the Arts. In Cleveland, as well as in Cincinnati there are nice spaces. In New York, all there is is the art scene, which I find completely boring and loathsome. Yeah.  
 
That's the worst part of the art scene whether you're here, in New York, or Zanesville, Ohio. It's like the worst part of high school, so much so that I find myself not interested in going to openings and participating. For instance, in New York, I'd much rather go shopping or see a good movie than go to an opening. Now in Chicago, most of the people who are involved in the art scene are my friends, people who I've been cultivating friendships with for seven years, so it's hard to understand it. I can tell you that recently with the crop-up of lots of new galleries, one of which being mine or Julia Friedman's space that actually going to openings and seeing shows and seeing new work is actually very exciting. I live in Chicago because I feel interested in showing in Chicago. I show in New York, LA. I show in Europe and it feels fine to be in cities known for their attention to the arts.  
 
But then to be able to come back to this city known for its great music, great food, a big lake, and a different way of living, much more conducive to me for art production. I find NY too crowded and conscious of it self as NY. In a way it's like the prom queen. 
 
» I thought it would be funny if I interviewed Venessa Beecroft in jest, as I practically have the same last name as her, but was told that she's too big. Isn't it unfortunate that artists, even my distant relative, can become celebrities?
 
JR:  There's a way now that artists have become celebrities. I guess that happened during the 80's for instance. Artists show up as much in the social pages of Harper's Bazaar, as they do in critical reviews. I don't have a problem with that. I'm interested in the way that those situations collapse.  
 
Fashion photography, fine art photography, TV commercials, video art, design, sculpture, they're all one big situation. I recognize that. I don't know how I feel about it, but I recognize it. I'm interested in artists as celebrities in as much as I want to think of them as cultural double agents, that they're more than just another version of a movie star walking down the red carpet.  
 
I want to think of them as makers of culture rather than the pretty vessels that carry out paltry dialogue. So in order to feel comfortable about that sense of celebrity I really imagine that they're infiltrators into that celebrity ivory tour in a way, spies for the rest of us. 
 
» What are specifically Midwestern phenomena that has caught your attention besides emo? Isn't Chicago home to that sort of things?
 
JR:  I think Chicago particularly has trapped a lot of emos. You know what I mean? But we also are the kind of the ground zero of post-rock. I feel like in terms of art, I feel I can identify Mid-western artists because they bring the story very specifically back to their own lives. I think because being in the Midwest and feeling unimportant, and as though their voice doesn't count on some level, a lot of work that comes out of Chicago is not just self-effacing but self-specific. I don't always think that's an interesting way to go, but it happens. I think that in other areas where art's recognized as much more vital, they don't feel compelled to tell their own story, they that they can tell the larger story. Even in terms of materials, here in the Midwest I think often the materials used that are used in the art-making process are indicative of that same kind of self-effacing, self-destructive sentiment. I think there's a sense of the underdog, and there's a sense of the irony, like: you think I'm the underdog, so I'll get in under the radar, using post-its in my artwork.  
 
But really, I think their intention's much larger, but I'm not sure if it ever stops being just post-its. That's not to say that it's always happening, or that's how it is, but the ambition of some Midwestern art makers are a little bit questionable. 
 
» In your latest twin-projection piece, quite literally titled "A Double Image Both In Focus Simultaneously", you portray gawky teenagers on the brink of adulthood. On the one hand a swim meet in central Ohio is shown, with prissy, embarrassed, ogling, nebbish, naive-looking girls. On the other hand, a high school senior cock-trotting down a corridor with brimming confidence. It captures adolescence accurately and naturally, yet whole parts of it are staged. How did you pull this off?
 
JR:  We're dealing with the portrayal of young women and the portrayal of young men. One sequence is just doc. photage, the other sequence is dramatized photage. In the swim meet photage, even though I didn't direct their gestures and behavior, they're still so aware of being watched by each other, that I might as well have. There's still a sense of drama in their very presence and very being. They are still under an enormous amount of direction. So I wanted to compare that to a sequence where there is specific direction. So I wanted to think about those two sequences. That sense of being aware of being watched by either a camera with a director behind it or another body with desire or contempt behind it. 
 
» So surprisingly the two were similar?
 
JR:  Right. 
 
» Why young boys and girls?
 
JR:  I wanted to portray teenagers. As an adult, thinking of that time, not my life but in everyone's life where perhaps the end of innocence has set in when you begin to realize the world's a very bad place. But there's still an abstract sense of confidence and wisdom. There's a need to take on responsibility, yet at the same time no demand of responsibility. It's really fantastic, this moment of suspension. But again, I didn't want to have that sense of exploiting young people. Because in a way I feel that  
 
I was that person once. So the trajectory is organic, concrete. Now, many years after being a teenager, I have a perspective on that situation, and at the same time a clear understanding that I'm still at, unfortunately now with the demand of responsibility. I feel like one of those teenage girls on the poolside with bills. I think as though when you're in the midst of that, you can't see how beautiful that is. I feel like even those young girls in the swim meet section are not the kind of young teen super stars that we see in magazines and on film right now, I feel like they're infinitely more beautiful and closer to superstars than the superstars themselves in terms of a kind of spirit. Equally, my speculation [for boys] is quite different but that's a really complicated scenario. Of course, these are both groups of white teenagers who we can speculate potentially on their economic.  
 
That's specific. That's not inclusive or exclusive. That's just the kind of area I felt like addressing. 
 
» Is it true that you once modeled for 17 Magazine?
 
JR:  When growing up in central Ohio I did some freelance modeling for Columbus' version of Carson Pirie Scott. I think my brother's girlfriend was modeling, so she took pictures of me with curled hair and lots of make-up. There was a situation that came up through 17 magazine, so yeah, I was in the magazine. 
 
» Were you on the cover?
 
JR:  No, I wasn't on the cover, I was on the inside. But that was a long time ago, I was probably about 15. It wasn't a whole spread, it was an ad for regional model search. So I was the spokes-model or something like that. 
 
» Does it bother you when people talk about "Nevermind" and "WTG" instead of your new work?
 
JR:  Not so much "Nevermind". I'm not as interested in the same kind of dialogue that "White Trash Girl" instigates as I used to be. I don't mind talking about "WTG" in a public situation. I understand that those debates still exist, and people want to talk that work to talk about larger issues.  
 
But I don't feel as interested in having those conversations. "Nevermind" was made in 1999 so it's not such an old piece that I can't think or talk about it. I feel like that work's all connected. I feel really grateful that people want to talk about anything that I do. Again, I feel grateful that I've been allowed to make this new work and that it's been accepted. And even though people have said that my new work is different from my older work, that doesn't mean that they don't like it or aren't interested in it. 
 
» You admittedly make slow videos. What sets apart sleepy work from keen work?
 
JR:  Patience. When I first made "Nevermind", I had never imagined that anyone would want to sit through 18 minutes of me lip-syncing very, very slowly to "Smells Like Teen Spirit", especially when the original version raucous and acute. But to my surprise and delight, audiences are much more patient than we think we are. They're ready to slow down and to contemplate and to be given that ability to think through situations. Because video is connected to all of the other moving images that we see on televisions and on the Internet, around us constantly. I wanted to offer a true alternative to the way images are brought to us in such a rapid speed that we can't even comprehend them. So I wanted to be able to offer a real alternative, not to bore my audience, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, and to allow a sentiment to unfold over a period of time rather than a half of a second. And to appeal to the intellectual and the emotional, as well as the visual.  
 
Some of the work that work has been called boring, but I don't take that as an insult. That's just a statement, not a judgement. Boring is a sensation and a really tough, complicated sensation. 
 
» Any advice for wonks, as well as loafers, at SAIC wanting to become art stars? Is simply putting your shoulder to the wheel enough?
 
JR:  Yes. Definitely. Even though you've suggested that any art student can pick up a french horn to became post-rocker nowadays. I feel like those are the blips and the clicks, and they go away. And that you have to work your ass off, and that's it, you know, and a really specific work ethic. It has nothing to do with who you know or what you wear or who's parties you go to, that's crazy. It sounds like kind of a focus-your-crystal mentality, but it's like anything, be good at what you do seriously. Don't take yourself too seriously, but take what you do seriously. 
 
» What's your most memorable life experience?
 
JR:  I don't think I've had it yet. 
 
» How do you view Makeoutclub.com, the online match-maker exclusively for hepcats?
 
JR:  Evidently, I had a friend who had his picture posted up on the website, and I guess the picture was taken I was in the background. So inadvertently I was included in a Makeoutclub.com page or photo or submission of some sort, although I haven't participated. I know of the phenomenon,but I've never participated. 
 
» But it's exclusively for the hipster set.
 
JR:  Yeah, but I think that's kind of an elusive situation. I think if it was literally makeout.com, like a way to find people to make out with I'd be all for it. 
 
» Well, it is essentially isn't it?
 
JR:  I think in reality, there's nothing better than just making out. If it involves actually making out I'm totally for it. 
 
» It's crazy to see all these girls with dyed black hair and straight bangs.
 
JR:  They look just like me? 
 
» No, like members of Sleater-Kinney or something.
 
JR:  Right. 
 
» Did you attend Ladyfest Chicago?
 
JR:  Well I was out of town. I don't know if it was subconscious, but I planned to fly out of town the weekend of Ladyfest and the Chicago Underground Film Festival. I think that that's very telling. 
 
» So is it franchised feminism?
 
JR:  You know I'll tell you. I'm totally in support of all things female-made. But I'm interested in a rebirth of the kind of gender democracy and not excluding or naming. So to a degree I agree. 
 
» Ladyfest Olympia, Ladyfest UK, Ladyfest Chicago, Ladyfest Scotland, what's next?
 
JR:  Yeah, exactly. I do find that bothersome. I can't tell you exactly why, but I don't feel totally in support. But yes, as I was taking off, it was in such a pathetic way, really telling that somehow I had unconsciously scheduled a trip out of town during those two events. 
 
» How do you view today's youngsters? Especially the one's with schlocky taste in tattoos and piercings among other things?
 
JR:  As an instructor of generally that age-group, I feel inspired. Where the rest of the world continues to bash that early twenty bracket, I look around my students and feel totally in awe. Having spent so much time at the School of the Art Institute...I definitely feel like an adult when I encounter young pie-rockers, I don't necessarily feel a kinship I feel now that my own body is incidental to my situation as a kind of professional. In terms of my students and younger art-makers, I feel that they get it, whatever "it" is.  
 
That makes me feel delighted for the future. Those are still subcultures.  
 
I'm thinking intellectually, in terms of music or literature or their participation in the world. But subcultures are still subcultures. And I know that anyone passed the age of like twenty is immediately uncool, but I'm more than willing to embrace the uncool. 
 
» You have many tattoos. How many do you have? When did you get your first one?
 
JR:  I got my first one when I was eighteen. I have approximately ten. I don't keep count. I haven't gotten a new one in about 2 years. I generally see other tattooed people and don't get it. I feel really disconnected from the tattoo community, especially from anything Taz. 
 
» Do you recommend tattooing?
 
JR:  No.