Nicholas Stronczyk

The Practice
From 2005 High Table Action: an intervention in public space

SHE:  Nicholas, is this your bio for the new SSRU website?

HE:    Yes, when I read a text, I want to get a sense of the human being behind the text. This interview form is, I think, more appropriate to achieve this.

SHE: But why can't you do it in the usual way?

HE: I wonder....what is it that you want to find out when you read a short bio?

SHE:  In a brief overview I want to know who the person is and what this person is doing.

HE: We still can talk about what I'm doing and trying to figure out who I am. It's just a different form. One has the opportunity to write a text the way one thinks best. Then the reader  is able to see different forms of writing and it might be that the chosen form is saying a lot more about the writer than what he or she is saying in the text.

SHE: I get the point. Are you always doing things the way you want to or feel you have to do them?

HE: I try to. But I don' mean it in an egotistical way. I'm responsible for what I say and how I say it. I have to shape it.

SHE: Your argument sounds as if you see this written form as creative process or an artwork.

HE: I'm not calling it art but it is a process that can be shaped. And who if not us is shaping it? In this sense I agree with Joseph Beuys and his 'expanded conception of art'. Human beings are creative beings and therefore they are able and responsible to shape themselves and the world.

SHE: Do you really believe: Every human being is an artist?

HE: Sure.

SHE: But how can you be sure?

HE: Experience and research. I did some practise-based research on Joseph Beuys and his ideas during my time as a PhD student. Parallel to the research on Beuys I came to know Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers, two German philosophers of the last century. I was able to integrate both of their theories in my research. More specifically, Hannah Arendt's understanding of 'action' and Karl Jasper's understanding of 'communication'. Through doing that it became clear to me that the three of them had a similar understanding of a human being, but also that humans, due to their ability to think, are creative beings able to shape themselves and the world around them.

SHE: So you connected the theories of Joseph Beuys, Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt... What was the result?

HE: The result is an action in public. I'm not a theorist as I said already. I practise, based on different theories and thoughts which I connect to my own artistic theory. During the research I tried out different approaches to working in public. The work entitled High Table combines all the thoughts, theories and ideas I was researching. It's a result of the question 'How should I act?' which sounds very general. But if you think of this planet and you see all the horror that we perpetrate on each other and the world, you might wonder what we can do about all this. However, if you have a different image of this world in mind, in which free human beings shape a sustainable world out of an inner necessity then you might wonder: How do I bring this image into the world? How does this image become reality? With these questions in mind, a vision of the world and a kind of theory, I had the idea of standing at a lectern, slicing bread in public. And that's what I'm still doing. A conscious action in which I stand in public, answering peoples questions about who I am, about my aims and thoughts, coming to know who that human being is, standing opposite me and what he or she thinks of the world.