Jimmy Peggie Interviewed about Experimental Arizona by KJZZ Public Radio
A movie premiering this afternoon aims to highlight Arizona's art scene, specifically its experimental art scene. Experimental Arizona goes live today and includes 20 Arizona-based artists. The film was commissioned by the UK-based art collective Iklectik, which asked Scottsdale-based sound artist Jimmy Peggie to curate and put it together. Peggie joins me to talk more about the project, and Jimmy, let me ask you first off, how do you define experimental art?
"Well, experimental art, it explores different art processes and techniques and combinations. And experimental artists may invent or discover new ways or new ways of expressing themselves through experimentation. In many cases, there's no fixed roadmap about how to do things, so they have to find their own way."
Yeah, I guess kind of the nature of experimental is you can't follow what somebody else has done before, right?
"Exactly, yeah. You may be influenced by other people, but often the case is that you take that influence and you look for new ways of expanding your own work."
So what is Arizona's experimental arts community like? Like, are there a lot of people here doing this?
"Well, yes. I mean, we have world-class experimental artists. artists in many different fields here, including performance art, sound, video, installation art. And my attempt was to sort of increase exposure and get the work about them more. And I think this film shows the wide variety of work being produced at this time."
How did you go about trying to find the artists that you wanted to include in the film and then sort of narrow it down to the ones that would make the final cut?
"Well, I have worked with a lot of these individual artists in different ways through performing, through discussions, through research, different things. And I basically contacted people and asked if they were interested. And I was... amazed at the response I got, which was great."
You were surprised that people wanted to be in a movie?
"Well, you know, sometimes people can maybe be flaky, but I was happy with the response."
So for people who watch this movie, what do they learn? What do you hope they take away from it?
"Well, I I would like people to find interest in the artists that are out there in Arizona. The amazing thing for me was the wide variety of responses I got from people. I asked them basically to produce a five minute piece in whatever realm they wanted. And so when they all came in, I was like, wow, there's a great variety of different things here. And because, you know, like they're five minute pieces, then, you know, people can watch it. And if they don't like one piece, but they can hang on for the next piece and explore the different options. Um, and I just, I think it's raising awareness of, um, Arizona artists."
So we should point out that you are one of the artists in the film, which makes sense. You made the film, you should be in it. Um, I'm curious, given the way that the world has been, especially in the arts world over the last year, um, How are you doing?
"Well, a lot of this has been done online for the past year. People have moved in new ways. This film was co-produced by Iklectik, which is based in London, in the UK. And their response to the pandemic was to open an online creative platform focusing on art experimentation. And they... reached out to me to, to curate this event."
Have you noticed that your art has changed over the last year? Like, have you been doing things that are in response to the pandemic or anything else that's been going on for the last 12 plus months?
"Yes. Apart from going insane and living very quietly and working in my studio. Absolutely. You, you, Because the isolation, it makes you explore things more in your head and you try out different things. It's not a matter of getting out there. It's a matter of looking at your internal self and really re-evaluating what you're doing and how you're doing things. That's what I found most interesting about the pandemic."
How has the sound of your art changed over the last year as you've been doing some of this reflection and being in this kind of isolation?
"Well, the type of work that I do is very introspective. I work with quiet sounds. I work with location, going out and recording in different places, and then bring it back to my sound lab studio and work on things there. So in many ways, I look for smaller things, and probably because of the pandemic, I've I've gone even into more localized small areas to look at."
So you were still able to go out and find sounds. I would imagine you just had to avoid places that had lots of other people.
"Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you go out into nature, out into the desert, I did a record in a CD last year called Ghost Towns of Arizona. So that meant that I went out visited many ghost towns around the state. And often these places are pretty deserted."
All right. That is Jimmy Peggie, a sound artist based in Scottsdale. He's also the person behind the film Experimental Arizona. It goes live at 1230 this afternoon. Jimmy, nice to talk to you. Good luck with the film.
"Thank you. Thank you very much, Mark. Appreciate it!"