John Waters

As a filmmaker, artist, and provocateur, John Waters is unparalleled in his vision and range. You have seen his work in places as wide ranging as NY galleries to an unforgettable episode of The Simpsons, though he’s best known for Hairspray, Pink Flamingos and Cry Baby. What makes Waters so singular, however, is his ability to flawlessly move between cultural criticism and shock humor. In the same breath that he jokes racism could be cured through international travel, he casually reveals the fact that Dr. Dolittle 2 was scheduled to play on the planes during 9/11. Waters somehow manages to flip even that into a meditation on American culture, bad taste, and elitism, all with the confidence of someone who has spent an entire career turning discomfort into comedy.

TRANSCRIPT:

Tania Ketenjian:
Filmmaker, writer, actor, cinematographer, artist, collector, and producer John Waters has always been a performer. When he was in high school, he put on puppet shows for kids, and later, finding himself a bit bored by the cleanliness of the shows, decided to throw in some blood and guts. He knew what his calling was from early on, and he had the community and the stamina to bring his calling to fruition. His first film, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, was made when he was 18 years old. But the film that made him infamous was the one that came 8 years later, Pink Flamingos. In preparation for this interview, I watched Pink Flamingos for the first time, having heard it countlessly referenced but never really knowing what it was about. I was shocked, truly shocked. I wondered how a filmmaker who had directed a 200+ pound cross-dressing actor to bend down and eat dog feces, had become so famous and now almost, just almost, mainstream. What makes Pink Flamingos and all of John Waters' subsequent films so special is not the shock effect, one that comes naturally to Waters. One of the things that makes his work stand out is the compassion in them, the sensitivity, the sense of camaraderie. And all of this is reflected very much in his character.

The latest incarnation of John Waters is Hairspray. It was first made by him in 1988. It then turned into a huge Broadway hit, and now he has executive produced the remake of the film. Needless to say, John Waters has surely developed since his earlier films that were made on the smallest of budgets and consisted of a cast of characters that were his friends. The thing is that as much as he could, John Waters did things his way, and this, along with so many other talents, makes him one of the best filmmakers today. Recently, John Waters has had a more recent incarnation, that of artist and art collector. His new show titled Reckless Eyeballs is a reflection of some of John Waters' social fascinations. The work in the show, most of which is photography but also includes a sculpture and two sound pieces, looks at the world of film, of art, and of politics. It's pretty broad, and Waters holds no punches, and the show is irreverent and hilarious and poignant. It's at the Rena Bransten Gallery, and it's ending in two weeks, so make sure to catch it. I spoke with John Waters at the gallery when he was here for the opening of his show. This is Sight Unseen. My name is Tania Ketenjian, and here John Waters explains to me how he captures the images in his photographs. Stay tuned.


John Waters:
You know, all my work is taken mostly off the television screen. Basically, I think up every piece before I do it, and then I have to find the images that I use to think up a new narrative to tell a different kind of movie. So this one is two movies that most no one remembers, Dr. Dolittle 2 and A Knight's Tale. Big Hollywood movies that come out 2 weeks, nobody remembers them, they're videos. But what's really frightening about these movies is not that they were Hollywood movies no one remembers, but the title of this piece is 9/11, and these were the 2 movies that were playing on the planes that crashed that day. Only what's worse is they never even got to play them. They were going to be shown. So trying to be an optimist, I always think it would have been worse if you were on the planes watching Dr. Dolittle 2 when you crash into the building. So it's a terrible thought, but I'm not showing disrespect. I'm trying to think of the tiniest detail about a tragedy. And all my work is about show business and thinking about show business. And even taken out of its complete— the worst possibility of what can happen to show business, that your movie would be the one that was playing on that terrible day.


Tania Ketenjian:
I wouldn't know that, of course, without this context.


John Waters:
But I found it fairly easily online, which is amazing. When I thought, what— I wonder what movies were going to play on this plane that day. And as soon as I knew that, it didn't matter what movies were the answer. I knew that that would be the piece. But the fact that they turned out to be— I haven't seen either of those movies. I don't know if they're good or bad. I think that the kind of Hollywood movie that costs a lot of money and doesn't even enter your consciousness a week later, even if it was a hit, maybe they were a hit. I don't even know if they were hits or flops, and I'm in the business. So I think it was just the terrible macabreness of knowing that those movies were going to play that day and didn't even get to.


Tania Ketenjian:
Well, you know, you definitely bring up things that people don't normally look at or think of or talk about. Actually, it's more that they think about it, but they don't really talk about it.


John Waters:
Isn't art all supposed to make you see something in a different way after you see it in an art gallery? And that way, now every time I'm on a plane and they take out the movie, I think, well, if anything bad happens today, this is what would have been playing on it. Today on the plane, it would be that skating movie. That was a hit, you know.


Tania Ketenjian:
Oh, right, that skating movie. Yeah, exactly. Did you actually watch it?


John Waters:
I never watch movies on planes because they cut out and I like to read. So I don't think I've ever watched a movie all the way through on an airplane. Because usually it says— when it always says edited for airlines, that makes me mad.


Tania Ketenjian:
Now, you mentioned how these films could have just come into your consciousness for 2 weeks and you would completely forget about them. As a filmmaker and as making the kind of films that you make, which are really unforgettable, how would that— you know, how would you feel if someone ever said that about something you made?


John Waters:
Well, fine. You know, if somebody— well, first of all, the fact my movies will never play on airplanes. I don't think one of them has ever played on an airline, ever. So, I mean, maybe that has something to do with it. Why? Why? I notice films that play on airlines and everything. If my films had been playing on that day, I mean, I don't think these people— would they be mad that I did it? They probably don't know. The people that made these movies probably don't even know that their movie was going to be on that plane that day.


Tania Ketenjian:
Absolutely, and you also mentioned the context of the gallery. You know, it comes into the gallery space, and so it suddenly means something different.


John Waters:
Well, it's taken out of context. In a movie theater, some images mean one thing. If you isolate them, almost like you've been hunting for them, like you come home with an animal skin and hang it on the wall, that's what these images are, because I have thought up the pieces before I found them, and then I have to go out and find the images. Sometimes they don't work. Sometimes an image I have left over from 4 years ago, I'll use telling another story. They're all images that I take in storyboards and actually almost take a look at what they do in filmmaking, you know, called a storyboard, when you do the long things and you plan, you draw each drawing so you get the exact shot you need for the piece. Well, that's what I do before, too.


Tania Ketenjian:
I think I read something in which you said that these were moments where you were just isolating something, obviously. I mean, of course they are.


John Waters:
Out of context, this isolated image that I want to see that maybe is not the way the filmmaker or the actors want to ever for it to be seen, especially in the context that I'm putting it in, especially with 6 other images from different movies that are told in sequence that completely negate the original plot of whatever movie I'm taking it from.


Tania Ketenjian:
And it's not— first of all, they're generally taken off of the television.


John Waters:
In a very low-tech way. They're not even digital. It doesn't work digital. I've tried it. All my films are still with real film. I don't stop them. I take them just with all the lights out. No flash in the dark, like a fan, like a crazed fan, or a publicist that failed, really, that really just takes images that I want to show as how I remember a certain movie, even though it may not at all be how anyone else wanted to remember this movie, including the people that saw it.


Tania Ketenjian:
In that moment, when you're taking that photograph, are you feeling like a crazed fan? What are you feeling like?


John Waters:
Yes, I always feel like a crazed fan. I have to feel like a fan of any of the work that I'm beginning here. I mean, this piece here is called Bad Trip, and it's basically different images. One is from an exploitation trailer, Have You Ever Been on an LSD Trip? And it's Lana Turner on a bad trip, but I met Lana Turner and I asked her about this movie, and she said she never even knew what LSD was when she made the movie, and they kept saying, "You're having a bad trip," and she just went along with it, but she didn't know what that meant. So I also found other images from horror movies and put it in, so she was having a bad trip, really. That's a lot that I put into this movie is I love Lana Turner. I remembered, I know her daughter Cheryl Crane, who was very notorious for killing Johnny Stompanato, who was Lana's boyfriend that was beating her up. And later Cheryl came out as a gay woman and wrote a book about it, and Cheryl's my friend. And so a lot of backstory, right?

And I loved LSD when I was young, basically. And I would hate to take it now. If someone ever gave me LSD, I would think, "Oh my God, I have to go through that? It lasts so long." But I love the idea of Lana Turner on LSD. Now, but they can be one little image. Like this one here is called Reckless Eyeballs, and that's the name of the show. It's really glory holes, which if many people know what a glory hole is, well, it's in sex bars and there's holes, and I'm not gonna say on the radio, but you put a certain thing through it. It's very impersonal. But these glory holes, there's eyes looking through. People watch through glory holes or do what I just said. But those eyes are too far apart. What human would have those eyes? That was a glory hole for monsters. But reckless eyeballs is a term in prison. I taught in prison for a while. And it's a term for giving a dirty look to the guards. The guards say, "I'm gonna write you up for reckless eyeballs." It's not a joke. And you can go to the hole. I mean, on parole, they said, "You have two reckless eyeball charges." And that's really what they call it. You're not even allowed to give a dirty look to the guards in jail. I give reckless eyeballs every day of my life. That's my career.


Tania Ketenjian:
Giving dirty looks to people?


John Waters:
Well, in a way, yeah.


Tania Ketenjian:
Dirty sexual looks or just kind of a dirty look?


John Waters:
No, no, no, not that kind. I mean dirty looks meaning like, "Oh, you know, if somebody does something hideous."


Tania Ketenjian:
Well, wait, let me ask you, what are some of those things? What do you think is kind of, what doesn't—


John Waters:
I try not to be judgmental, but there are people that do their exercises at the gate in airports that really get on my nerves. Tube tops, you should never wear. No matter what time of year it is. And, you know, somebody died in one of my movies for wearing white shoes after Labor Day. You're not even supposed to wear velvet before Thanksgiving or patent leather shoes after Easter.


Tania Ketenjian:
And those are such—


John Waters:
I'm right-wing about fashion.


Tania Ketenjian:
I know it. And there's— I mean, those are such Americanisms. You know, you were saying in there, I briefly heard you say, I don't know what you were referring to, but you were saying it's so American. So what does that mean? What is so American?


John Waters:
The weirdest things that can happen, that only in America, the excess of capitalism, and I marvel at that. You know, irony, is there irony in Albania? I don't think so. In countries that are very poor and people are starving, is anything so bad it's good? I don't think so. I think that's impossible. To have that, you have to have excess income, really, for irony. And I'm an irony dealer. That's what I've done my whole life, no matter what field I'm in. This is one, this is actually, obviously Dream Lovers is just the title of some movie, I don't even remember, and it's badly photographed. But it's John Walker Lindh, you know, looking very much like a model, really so thin, so well-traveled. And in a way, it's the first lie they ever told you about the Iraq War. He didn't do anything. They made this big thing out of him, and this horrible thing, and he's in jail for 20 years. He got a bad sentence if you ask me. And he's not allowed to speak any language but English while he's in prison. What kind of sentence is that? I never heard of that in my life. He didn't do anything. His parents should be proud. He learned a whole other language and went to some other country. He wasn't in the Taliban. He was just over there. He's a Muslim, but so? So I don't know. I always felt bad for John Walker Lindh. And so I'm actually— and he was almost like Tokyo Rose. People thought that she did all the stuff that she didn't really do either. It's another wartime hysteria. But I guess the most unspoken thing is to say that also you think he's handsome. People never would say that. So I'm trying to say things that you don't always say, that there's somebody that's maybe controversial. Or I've always thought, really an interesting question to ask, is there anyone— could you sleep with somebody if they were really cute and a racist?


Tania Ketenjian:
Could you?


John Waters:
Yes, you just don't talk about politics. It depends on the night.


Tania Ketenjian:
That's probably it.


John Waters:
Well, okay, here's a good one. I'm going to because you can't hear it, but you can listen right now.


Ticket Vendor:
Hello. $16. Thank you.


John Waters:
So this is called The Sound of a Hit, and all it is is a box on the wall, but you actually hear one-hour loop inside a ticket booth opening day of Harry Potter, which is just money being made. And the people that no one knows are being recorded. So it's like, "3 adults, $26.50. 14 adults. What time does the show start?" And it's what show business is about. All the glamour, everything else, it's about this box. It's about the box office and how much people make every day. So it's taking another unspoken thing about show business and trying to isolate it, taking it outside of that ticket booth, outside of show business, and putting it in an art gallery. And actually, people have bought it that are in the film business for their office. You know, just sometimes you can inspire them. Hey, we got to make some money here. So turn it on and then you just hear, "$18.50, 3 adults, 4 children."


Tania Ketenjian:
Now, have you ever gone to one of your movies? Have you gone to the, you know, to the movie theater and just observe people going in and out?


John Waters:
Yeah, I think I always do opening night. I go and just sneak in a theater and see how it's playing. Or they don't know I'm there. Yes, I do do that. But then afterwards, once it's out, I don't really know.


Tania Ketenjian:
Because it's just, I mean, I can imagine how, you know, it's such a core part of a movie being successful is the sales.


John Waters:
But you don't talk about it. So crash, you know, it's the kind of thing in an art gallery that you would never talk about it. But in a way, that is what it's about. So we have to remember all aspects of it. It's just as ugly as being on the plane on 9/11, really. It's the downside of show business that people pretend doesn't exist.


Tania Ketenjian:
Let me ask you something about when you were a kid, 'cause I think we bring up things that are just so prevalent around us, but that we don't, we're not supposed to bring up when we're kids. We just bring them up 'cause we're uninhibited.


John Waters:
Kids aren't shocked by anything, really. I've seen kids watch Pink Flamingos, and it's just like a clown to them. Kids eat dog shit, you know, it's not like so weird, really. This piece here is a childhood Catholic memory. People always, I remember, took the number 7734 and you turn it upside down, it spells hell. Well, this one is 3MTAE, and if you put a mirror up to it, it says eat me. That's a thing I learned. I learned in Catholic high school, you know, or earlier. So each time I have one of those in a show, kind of like a dirty memory from my Catholic youth.


Tania Ketenjian:
A dirty memory from your Catholic boyhood.


John Waters:
Yeah.


Tania Ketenjian:
So when you were a kid, were you blunt? Were you, "Let's talk about this, look at that, this is crazy"?


John Waters:
I remember when I was a kid, I had puppet shows. I was a puppeteer. So I had a career really early in show business. I made $25 a puppet show. Sometimes I had 3 a week. In 1956, that was a lot of money. One time I was a counselor at camp and I wrote a horror story, and each week I said, "Okay, I'm gonna read it, I'm writing it." And then I read it to them all and they flipped out and had nightmares, and the parents called the camp and complained, and I was so happy. That's when I knew I could be a writer.


Tania Ketenjian:
Absolutely.


John Waters:
I saw the reaction to it.


Tania Ketenjian:
And I mean, you were so young when you did Pink Flamingos. I mean, you were only 26.


John Waters:
Yeah, 26, but I had made 6 movies before that. Yeah, I guess I was young. That's what I tell people now, you just go do it, you know. I walked downstairs today outside and this kid came up to me and said, "Can I pitch you a movie right now?" And I said, "Well, my lawyer always says no because I don't want you to say I stole your idea and I only make movies I like, but go ahead." And he said, "Okay, it's like The Blair Witch Project and they find all these tapes, but it's kid terrorists in San Francisco, they're gonna do this whole thing." I said, "This is a good idea. It is a good idea." I said, "But that's not a pitch. A pitch needs— that's the first sentence, but what happens, what do they learn, and how does it end?" You gotta have all 3 acts for a pitch.


Tania Ketenjian:
And it's a great idea, but I mean, you know, there's a special John Waters delivery.


John Waters:
Well, and you know, I think all my films have been about humor as terrorism, which certainly I've seen in San Francisco. The Yippies used to do that. Certainly ACT UP has done it, is using humor to humiliate the enemy. I'm for that kind of terrorism.


Tania Ketenjian:
And that was really well done in Hairspray as well, where humor was used to humiliate someone else.


John Waters:
Hairspray, was it? I'm trying to think. Well, that's against racism. Yeah. Yeah. That works. I think it's a shame because the real cure for racism is world travel. Because you can't be a racist. But what are you going to do? Have someone commit a hate crime and then instead of jail, you give them an all-expense-paid trip to 13 countries? That would cure them, though. You can't travel around the world and be a racist. It's impossible.


Tania Ketenjian:
I think that's absolutely true. I think also just talking about it, and that's, I think, one of the reasons why you're so attractive, because you talk about things that people don't talk about, and that's the only way to really resolve things.


John Waters:
Yeah, but I don't try to— people think I try to shock. I don't know I try to shock, because it's easy to shock. It's harder to use humor about subjects that maybe aren't so funny, or your fears or anything, but humor is political. It's the only way you can get people to listen. If you make them laugh, they'll listen to you.


Tania Ketenjian:
I wouldn't say you try and shock. I think because it doesn't, it doesn't seem like you're trying. You're just, you know, you're just like, this is how I see, and it's kind of crazy and wild.


John Waters:
And I'm always interested in the wrong thing, definitely.


Tania Ketenjian:
Wait, actually, actually, I wanted to try this one because this looks, this looks interesting.


John Waters:
This one is, uh, as a filmmaker, we have to test our movies. And what that means is they take you to a theater in mid-America and they recruit an audience by so many ages and sex and everything. And they come in and then they watch the movie and then they have a focus group and then they ask you many of the questions that are on these forms that say, "Which character did you like best? What didn't you like? How would you change it?" And then they make you do that. So I adapted the same forms to the art world here and picked famous artists like Cindy Sherman and Richard Serra and imagined what would happen if the art world went that bad that an artist would have to come in, show their work to collectors and dealers who would then give them notes and tell them how to change it.

This is a piece based on that fantasy, if that would happen. People write things like, "I can't flip it at auction," or, "The colors don't go with my furniture," or, "Why do people in Nan Goldin's movies have to do heroin? Can't they just do pot?" Things like that, which isn't so far in the future, maybe. We don't know that, basically. Art should make you angry. Art should make you mad. I think Ileana Sonnabend, one of the great collectors, they asked her, "How did you build this great collection?" and she said something, I'm paraphrasing, but something like, "I just bought everything I didn't like." Which is true because all art does change things and you first hate it and it terrorizes what came before. Contemporary art is the tearing down and starting over of, I guess, the old masters from then on. So, contemporary art, you know, I'm against art for the people. Complain about the elitism of the art world. I love the elitism of the art world. I think it's hilarious. It's like joining a motorcycle gang. You have to learn special language and everything. So to me, it's humorous, the art world. And the people that hate it just on sight, which is most of Mid-America, has contempt for contemporary art. And they should, because contemporary art hates them.


Tania Ketenjian:
Well, I mean, I want to talk about actually that particular point, that elitism of the art world. You like it not out of a sense of entitlement.


John Waters:
Well, I think you are entitled if you learn how to see in a different way, which is what art is about. It is a magic trick. I never understood how anybody said this thing about the Emperor's New Clothes. Well, if you can convince everybody that being naked is well-dressed, that is art, isn't it? Isn't that what art's about? Or people that said, "My kid could do this." Well, they didn't, stupid. You should have. It just sold for a million dollars. Get 'em working, idiot. So, you know, all these stupid remarks, you know, is basically, that's part of it, you know, that then you see what a child paints like, and that's why it works like that. And I think that's what always interests me. What is a new thing that can kind of make people angry in a humorous way? And that's the art I end up buying.


Tania Ketenjian:
That's the art you end up making, too.


John Waters:
Yeah, well, it's what I collect, 'cause I collect contemporary art, too. So this piece I wanna talk about here, it's called "Faux Video Room." Video art is very big now, but I have to be honest, even though it's artistically incorrect, as a filmmaker, when I go into an art gallery now, and I'm going to 30 galleries in Chelsea, and I see that black curtain in a video room, and I know it's 30 minutes long, I think, "Ugh, let's just make a movie." So this is called "Faux Video Room." It completely is the whole entrance, the doorway, the curtain, the sound and everything of a video room, but there's nothing behind it. You just walk into the wall because that way you can impress your friends that yes, we collect video art too, but you don't have to use up a whole room.


Tania Ketenjian:
I love it. Now, I do know what's playing.


John Waters:
What's playing is a terrible thing, but basically it's not really part of it. It's not turned on now because we're doing this interview, but there's noise behind it, so it sounds like something's going on in there, but what it actually is is the Jim Jones Massacre actually playing, but it doesn't matter what it is. Because you can't hear the words. It's just muffled in the background, which is terrible. You know, I know it happened here, and it's a— and talk about brainwashing and cults is always something that I've been very, very interested in. And what's sad is that people that did that that day, many of those people thought they were doing the right thing. And I understand group madness, and I'm not making fun of it even. I'm saying that I've always been kind of very, very interested in behavior like that. And, you know, that's what I've tried to be interested in. I'm not celebrating it. I always am interested in behavior that I can't quite understand.


Tania Ketenjian:
Yeah, and it is interesting for that to be here in San Francisco, because Jim Jones has so much more of a presence here. There are his descendants here.


John Waters:
It's so weird that basically Divine and I did a show called "The Misdemeanor Show" at the building that was the Peoples Temple on Geary. And that sign didn't come down for a long time, even after the tragedy.


Tania Ketenjian:
Does your Catholic background, or at least going to Catholic school—


John Waters:
I'm half Catholic, that's worse. My father would never do it, which I respect him for. But my mother's still a Catholic, but a great one. She knows it gives her great comfort. She doesn't push it on me. I don't care about people's religions at all, as long as they don't make me do it. That's usually the problem. And I went to private grade school, public junior high, and Catholic high school. So I'm a product of all three kinds of education. All failed. No, the grade school I went to actually didn't fail. They taught me to read and write, and they taught me how to write letters, and we had a good theater program there. So that was really the only school I think was good. In junior high, I learned about scary girls and stuff that I used in my movies. And in Catholic school, we had Christian Brothers, and they discouraged every interest I had and were allowed to beat me up. But you were allowed to smoke in school. That's something that's really odd. You were allowed to smoke when I went to high school. There was a smoking room you could go to smoke.


Tania Ketenjian:
I mean, it does— it sounds shocking now. Yeah, it just sounds totally shocking now, but smoking was so mainstream then. So then you were doing the puppet shows. At what point were you— I mean, I know that you picked up a camera at such a young age, having done all those films before what most people probably think is your first film, which is Pink Flamingos.


John Waters:
I did it, um, probably— I made the last puppet show maybe when I was 14, because I was embarrassed going to, you know, I was trying to be cool, and it was really uncool to be doing children's birthday parties. And I started putting blood in them and imitating William Castle, and the parents started not hiring me. And then I made a— I read about underground movies in the The Village Voice, and I just didn't even know how to make a movie or anything. My grandmother gave me this little camera, and so I just made this movie. I thought editing was in the camera. In this case, it was. There was no editing. Just what came out is what I showed once to no notice.


Tania Ketenjian:
But you loved it. Something about it caught you.


John Waters:
I liked it, and I made it with my friends. And I was at the time— underground film had just come out, and it was kind of— I was lucky. It was a period when that was very much in the news and everything. It was something you could do. You didn't need money or anything.


Tania Ketenjian:
When I was watching Pink Flamingos, I was thinking, you know, I hadn't seen it, and I would have never guessed that it was like that. I hadn't read anything about it. So I was truly— it was like I'd seen it for the first time.


John Waters:
You mean, you know, like what? I mean, you just, you just saw it?


Tania Ketenjian:
Yeah, just saw it for the first time.


John Waters:
It's not nicer than it was, and if anything, it gets worse. Although now the big difference is, in the beginning they sell babies to lesbian couples. Well, now lesbians have more children than Catholics. So that's the only thing that's not— that dates it a little bit.


Tania Ketenjian:
But when I was watching it, I was thinking, wow, the opening party for this must have just been so much fun because it was all your friends and it just seemed like such great characters.


John Waters:
Was there an opening party for that movie? Let me think. The opening of it was at the University of Baltimore and I rented their theater for a weekend and we had 3 shows, 8, 10, and midnight each night. All 3 were sold out. All 3. There was no party afterwards I remember. It was a party because it didn't get out till 2 in the morning or something, you know, and my brother ran the box office and the stars were there. Divine was there and Mary Vivian Pierce. So it was certainly not made like a real movie. No one sent me headshots or auditioned. Well, the guy with the singing anus did sort of audition. I told him he didn't have to really do it till that day.


Tania Ketenjian:
Did he do it?


John Waters:
In the movie, he did it. No, not the day in the audition. No, I said, "I believe you. I believe you." He said it's a yoga thing.


Tania Ketenjian:
A yoga thing. Yeah, I can understand that in the '70s. Those were the words of John Waters, artist, filmmaker, producer, and all-around interesting character. This is part 1 of a 2-part interview. John Waters' exhibition Reckless Eyeballs will be at the Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco. For more information, please visit renabranstengallery.com. My name is Tania Ketenjian. This is Sight Unseen. You're listening to Resonance 104.4 FM, the UK's first radio art station.