David Ian Bickley is a filmmaker and musician living in Ireland. He and I collaborated on the film ‘Phosphene’ and he has kindly talked to me about how he sustains his creativity and gets work published.
You make a lot of work! How do you maintain and refresh your creativity?
There are two ways that I feed my creativity. One is that I think you have to change continuously or you end up in a kind of rut. Over the years, I’m trying to build more generative processes into the way I work so that it’s almost like you’re curating. Some of the best art is about process and process is about following the material, like Barbara Hepworth, for instance. She often worked in different materials and kept changing to different paths. I have completely changed the way I work now. I start with music because music is emotionally led and filmmaking is, for me, by contrast, a very intellectual process. You have to think very carefully about how you craft a film whereas you can play with music and come up with new material.
Recently, during lockdown, I got rid of all my synthesisers because they can make you work the same way all the time. In their place, I bought two generative computer based machines with generative programmes along with numerous separate effects units. You still have some analogue control, but the generative process allows me to be freer. If you are a painter who leaves your studio set up with your usual tools, laid out in the exact same way, every day, you will come in and do what you usually do. Then, if it isn’t working, it becomes really stressful, whereas if you are open to new things you are open to whatever happens. The generative tools mean that every time you walk into the studio, it’s as though all the paint brushes and colours have changed and appear in different places in the room. It’s fresh every time. It’s about trying to get an analogue sensitivity while working within the digital realm. Talking about generative strategies, I really recommend Brian Eno’s book Visual Music.
Another way of refreshing your work is to work collaboratively. It makes you work with different themes and forces you to find solutions to bridging work with different people. I don’t think that you can dramatically change your work in a truthful and honest way, but if you bend it towards a different outcome, there is a patina which will be added from that experience. It’s that patina which gives maturity and depth and the process of accumulating it is accelerated by collaboration.
Do you actively seek collaborations? How do you find people to collaborate with?
Yes, I am always looking for opportunities to collaborate. It just comes about from meeting people. If I like someone’s work, I just ask them if they would like to do something together, as I did with you. Sometimes it might be because they are connected to an area I want to move into, but not very often now. It doesn’t work if you are mercenary about it. I wouldn’t collaborate with a filmmaker, I want to collaborate with people who don’t do what I do.
I have got a lot of connections from Instagram. I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I tend to go on it for a bit and then withdraw. On Instagram, I met loads of interesting people, mainly working in 2d, many printmakers. If I am inspired by their work, I offer a collaboration, often animating their work into film. I want to bathe in the beauty of their work but also offer to give something. Some collaborations have led to exhibition and awards. I also know a local writer who is often interested to collaborate by adding text.
You have got to be really open to the material and where it’s going, be that text, music or image. Listening to the music is often the starting point, it talks to me. I have this conversation with my work. It feeds the creativity. Artists can get into a rut of keeping making the same work and the work stops talking to them. Creative work is like your offspring and one can believe that you are making children of your work, but through repetitive, empty work, we are just making dolls, dead eyed dolls.
Is this a problem driven by traditional, gallery representation? A pressure to make more art just like the art which has previously sold?
Yes, but its deeper than that. It comes down to curation. It’s a historical problem. I have this feeling that it’s a problem of art establishment; a tight circle of selectors, selected and money. It’s a problem that all artists are all living with.
How do you get your work out there?
I enter lots of competitions and open calls. I enter everywhere. I enter so much that recently, I got a film accepted, and I couldn’t remember which film it was that I had entered! It’s somewhat important to use speak art-speak; I have collected a long list of art words and use them in applications, always making sure that they make sense. The writing has to give the selectors a way into the work on their own terms (though I do think that the art should stand on its own without accompanying text) — as such I don’t really rate conceptual art which needs an explanation. It’s a one-line joke, over in seconds. A work should have depth that anyone can read in the work and keep reading over time.
How do you find opportunities?
I basically apply for pretty much everything unless I have to pay for it. I only pay if it’s a really important exhibition and I think that It would be worth my while. I look for opportunities through Filmfreeway and Curatorspace. I tried Behance and The-dots (a London based creative network) but with much less result. Filmfreeway doesn’t give you paid opportunities but my work has gone all around the world from applying there, including Best Short Experimental Film at the European Film Festival 2021.
Instagram also generates lots of opportunities and lots of ideas for work but I have abandoned it since it became Meta.
Do you get any financial reward through these opportunities?
Very rarely, and then only a pittance. The only real money available for film making is through funding applications. For music, there’s licensing your work for films but I don’t actively pursue that, though I did have something on a Ridley Scott film almost by accident.
When you are applying for grants, you need to present the work through the written synopsis in a way that fits the selectors artistic agenda and so unfortunately you have to employ art-speak to tick the right boxes. As I said, you have to use all the complex language but in a way that makes sense (also it appears that you mustn’t mention the words ‘story’ or ‘narrative’, if you want to be commissioned for film work).
On one application recently, I was asked for my portfolio and I realised that I didn’t have one ready. I have now sat down and made one, which was a really good exercise, though it took me three weeks. It brings together my films including documentaries, collaborative projects, music etc and has active links to work and so now I have that available for applications. Obviously, it will need keeping up to date but it will prove to be a good investment in time. Having a good profile on Curatorspace is also a worthwhile investment in time and the cost is modest. Curatorspace is really useful.
More of David’s work can been seen at davidianbickley.com
