(1) How long have you been making installations?
23 years.
(2) Why did you choose to make installations and not anything else?
a, Installations are not my sole art practice.
b, The initial concept of a work suggests whether it will be a performance, graphic work or installation.
(3) What do you think of your own works?
For the time they exist I think of them as my offspring, almost like children. I hope they have humour.
(4) What do you think the difference is between your own work and other installations?
The ideas came from me, with all my programming and conscious efforts at de-programming.
(5) What do you think of the relationship of traditional artwork and installation?
I think of installation as traditional art work.
(6) What is the size and material of an installation determined by?
The place and space generally determines the size. Materials are selected that relate to the concept of the work. Of course I have favourites, for example a, pure sound with no visible elements and b, natural materials like lava grit, flour, wood, cotton and chalk and c, tinned foods and redundant electronic components.
(7) Could you mention the installation you consider to be the largest and the smallest one?
The largest of my installations was the audio installation in the gardens of the National Pension Funds complex of Heerlen in The Netherlands for the whole of last summer. The work was titled “Audio Work of an Organized Nature (Time Machine)”. The smallest was probably the work I made for the Kassel Kunstverein where the work was a pyramid of ping-pong balls marked with the atomic element symbols with a battery driven aeroplane circling the pyramid, this work was called “The Temporary Nature of the Stability of the Cosmos”.
(8) Is there any object or idea that cannot be installed?
Well, I was thinking of putting a sweet-shop on Mars, a brothel on Venus, a thermometer on Mercury, a swimming pool on Neptune, a hound on Pluto...!
(9) How does environment affect the installation of the work?
In my installations the environment is an integral element.
(10) Do you know any fact that restricts the possibilities of installation?
No, I don't think about what might not be.
(11) Do you like making installation for order or at request?
ONLY on request or commission.
(12) What do you think of preserving an installation?
Some elements and documentation may be preserved (perhaps even recycled by the artist), but, by & large, when the period of the installation is over the physical elements should be disseminated, but I would make no strict rules on this subject.
(13) Can the value of an installation be estimated and how?
This one is very difficult, the element of time is required to assess value and in installation time is pre-determinedly limited. I have worked for fees between DM 5,000 and for material/travel costs. I have made several installations where I have had to pay everything myself but it is my intention to avoid doing this again!
(14) How does copyright apply to installations preserved only in documents?
Copyright in art is a virtual minefield, it should apply to the documentation. I have a problem with a major museum that has reproduced an installation I made for the museum in 1975 and the new version gives no credit to my original work even though the similarity is obvious and I have video and printed documentation of the original creation and placing of the installation. The question is do I bother to make a fuss?