#sparkchamber 012317 Alyce Santoro

In this week’s #sparkchamber, meet Alyce Santoro — a social surrealist, delicate empiricist, rhythmanalyst, and philosoprovocateur. Peek into her world at alycesantoro.com

1) Where do ideas come from? 

Ideas come from the subconscious, the zone, the muse...the stream best accessed when one is able to get out of one's own way. Here is an apparatus I made to help facilitate the process [see fig. 2 above].

2) What is the itch you are scratching?

I just want to learn as much as I can about this mysterious form of conscious existence we seem to be experiencing together. I am interested in the social imaginary...in how we have come to think in the ways that we do, and in the things that catalyze shifts in collective thought. If I were to hazard a self-diagnosis, I'd say the itch is symptomatic of an acute phenomenological condition.

3) Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?

A little of each. I love the quiet, undisturbed atmosphere of post-midnight, but tend to wake with the sun. Ideas often arrive quickly, but turning them into something tangible often takes months or years. 

4) How do you know when you’re done?

I'm not sure I ever think of anything as completely "done"...everything is in a state of flux, a work in progress. If something is published, exhibited, or submitted on a deadline, those externalities offer a certain kind of de facto doneness... but it doesn't necessarily keep me from thinking about the thing, or prevent it from otherwise continuing to evolve.