I think of myself as a kind of reporter; I report on the nature of certain events. I think of art as a report on civilization at a certain time.
Monsters exist because we create them, through war and violence, and distortion, and the way we handle people and so on.
Artists are part of the information process... Visual history is important in providing a record of what is going on - levels of intention, levels of confidence, levels of aggression or control.
I am trying to make some kind of connection to what is going on in the world, to make some sort of contact. And I use the instruments that our modern world offers, these extraordinary instruments of photography and film and computers.
People say: But photographs are all lies. That's not the point. The lie is a truth, too. How the hell are we going to know what Kissinger looks like? Well, the photograph tells us one version; I'm trying to tell it also, but differently.
The freeze of a photographic gesture, the fix of an action, how an arm twists, how a smile gets momentarily stabilized or exaggerated - to try to get some of this is important... The photofix inflects the almost literal shaping of a figure, changes of movement or potential movement, and a sense of occurrence or event.
Over the years a photo-mania developed. At times, photographic images have signaled a way forward and gotten me out of a bind.
