Start Time: 4pm Wednesday 18th May Meeting with Paul Fournel (President of Oulipo) at La Source Bistro, Paris,

France.

James Lewis: Thank you very very much for meeting up with me, it is very kind. I am studying my Masters Degree at the Royal College of Art in London. We have to write a thesis The most productive way for me to start writing was to think about constrained writing, which naturally led me to Oulipo. Paul Fournel: Ah ha JL: I have brought images of artwork that I would like to show you and talk about. But also, I want to talk about constrained writing and how it affects the writing process. Because actually, it helps me to set a perameter within my writing. It is not inhibiting in any way PF: No, it is exactly the contrary in fact. JL: Exactly. PF: It makes writing possible. Here and now. So that is the idea. JL: There are some fantastic texts I have been reading. I read an account of the weekly Oulipo meetings you have every Thursday. You may or may not still do these now PF: Yea, we still do. (A waitress walks to our table) Waitress: PF: Un espresso, sil vous plat. JL: Can I also have an espresso? W: Uh huh. Deux espresso. (The waitress walks away from our table)

JL: There was a fantastic account where Harry Matthews was the only person who could make the Thursday meeting. So, he wrote the minutes for that meeting and it included the wines he had drunk and the appearance of the waitress that served him. It seemed reminiscent of contemporary art where an event or happening takes place and exhibited in the gallery space is a re-presentation of that occurence through documentation. (pauses) Harry Matthews minutes for that meeting seem like they were particularly funny, which may or may not always be the case. I found myself comparing that account with an artist called Robert Barry. Barry is a 1970s conceptual artist. His work often documents an event or lack of event through printed materials, ephemera. PF: Ah ha JL: I find Barrys work interesting PF: Ah ha (pauses) Ok, so let me see what you do. JL: Ok. (pauses) (gestures to the A4 print-outs that are on the table) These are images of three other peoples work and shamelessly an image of my work. My work has a constraint set up within the work. That constraint directly affects the appearance of the work and whenever the work is re-exhibited it is re-made and it changes once again. PF: Ah, it changes. JL: The specifications of the work are that, each neon sign has to depict exactly how much it costs to be made and shipped to the gallery space that it is to be exhibited within. A complicated process of mathematics is required when making each neon sign. PF: But, its not the price of the work (laughs) JL: No its not

(laughter) (Paul continues to leaf through the images on the table) Oh, I know Christian Bok. JL: That work is beautiful. PF: (Paul reads the text in the Micah Lexier/Christian Bok piece) (Pauses) W: Deux espresso (sound of espresso mugs being placed on the table) (The waitress places the bill on our table) (pauses) JL: (gestures to the image PF is now looking at) That is work by Robert Barry. Here he has released a canister of inert gas in the desert. There is only ever documentation that is presented as the work because only the artist is present at the time of releasing the gas. It is always a re-laying of an event. Which I find problematic but interesting. (pause) PF: And so, there is a photograph and a description of the event? JL: Yes a small piece of text PF: Small piece of text, ok. Thats great. (pauses) (the sound of paper rustling) JL: This artist has created a palindrome from the words mythology and etymology. He has tried on several occasions to place it into common language. Here he demonstrates the palindrome with a mirror and paper print outs. The artist is Ryan Gander. (pauses)

Micah Lexiers work has changed since his collaboration with Christian Bok. Robert Barry may be dead, Im not too sure. So, Ryan Gander is probably the most contemporary artist in this selection. I find all of these works interesting. Considering my task of writing PF: (stuttering) What would you like what do you havewhat is your requirement. What do you have to write? JL: I have to write about anything I want that is relevant to my practice PF: (nodding) uh huh JL: I have to find it interesting. (pauses) I have to write somewhere between 8000 and 10000 words PF: (nodding) uh huh JL: And they are the only requirements. PF: Ok So what did you read about Oulipo? Did you read the Oulipo Compendium by Harry Matthews? JL: I did yes. PF: Did you find something that you would be interested to work with? JL: I did yes PF: Did you see the special edition one? The translated one? JL: Yes, that is the copy I have. PF: Oh ok. JL: I love, Hundred Thousand Billion Poems. And I love Exercises in Style. I dont understand how some parts have been translated into English. PF: It has been translated into English by Barbara Wright.

JL: Perhaps, the style of writing I am interested in and this extends to the type of artwork I like, is where the form changes. (pauses) I am interested in the notion of the voice in an artwork and voice within a text. When that voice changes I find it interesting. Also, not being able to comprehend or predict the extensiveness of a text or happening. PF: Ok So what are your plans? JL: I dont know entirely. (pauses) There are three stages where we have to hand in different amounts of writing. The first deadline was 1000 words, soon I have to hand in 5000 words and then in September the final draft of 10,000 words. For the first 1000 word deadline I submitted a transcript of a seminar I gave about having to do the first 1000 words and it included the different references I had been looking at. And for the 5000 words (pauses) I dont know. I want my text to change slightly, but I am not sure yet. PF: It could be five times the first one (laughter) JL: It could be, yeah (pauses) it could be. PF: With little changes. JL: Changes in the tense maybe? PF: Yep JL: That is a beautiful idea PF: Yeah, it could be fun. JL: It could be. (laughs)

(pauses) We are surrounded by text in contemporary and conceptual art and literature. I never considered myself to be a writer, at all. I was actually diagnosed with dyslexia very recently which was a shock because I love to read and think. Having this set up where I have to write, I found myself looking at my notice board which has titles of projects on and thinking of that, as writing. So not closing down what I consider to be writing but allowing any form of text to be called writing. To overcome this I thought that the most productive methodology I have to use is setting a constraint. Perhaps the constraint is that I have to write? PF: You could do something, like an imaginary exhibition. Or a description of your pieces since you seem to have a lot of pieces in your head. Maybe do an exhibition beforehand and describe very very precisely the different pieces you want to show. Then you could write about the contrary of those pieces. Describe them after destruction, for example. Just to have something in the idea of Exercises in Style. Or having the same piece described in fifty different ways. If you have a piece you cherish for example or a piece you are very happy with, you can describe it in completely different ways. You will be able to find fifty different ways of describing the piece. Perhaps, one is about colour, one is about shape. Another can be about nothing, another is about the contrary that you see. The lies in the piece, hiding the piece. Opening the piece, obstructing the piece. It could be something like that. That could be quite challenging and quite interesting too at the same time. JL: That sounds great! (pauses) I wonder what it is that makes me interested in literature like that? PF: A good question. JL: Coming here and having been awarded this residency for three months I have realised that Paris is saturated with a very romantic sensibility. A lot of the work I see being exhibited and made in the studios is very old and traditional.

What was it like as a contemporary writer in Paris? Why do we write the things we do? In the manner we do? We have a tendency to flip things on their head. Why does no one else do this? Was there a strong rebellion against Oulipo? PF: Yes! There still is. JL: Oh really? PF: Yes. It depends on people. Traditional people still say its not a way of writing. It is unreadable. It doesnt work. It doesnt talk about the world. It doesnt talk about love or about pain. Which is a lie of course because it talks about everything. But that happens. It still happens after fifty years, so I think it will happen forever. We are quite happy with that infact. We do not care. We go ahead. I think that you can find a lot of ideas around art. You could describe a piece very very carefully that you have not made. That you will eventually make, or not. Or the day I bought that piece I was here or there and it was completely out of the blue. That can be quite interesting I think. To articulate something between text, a narration and an object that you would like to do or that you would want to follow. An object you would like to think about, that can be useful. Also think, if you want to do something like short pieces about the same thing. Or short pieces always starting with the same sentence like, I remember or The piece I bought at the flea market or The piece I bought at the Gallery You can always start with the same sentence and go ahead and do things completely different from each other. That can work very easily and I am sure you can find something. I met someone recently doing artwork. He had just completed a book which has only one sentence and he used a typing machine. He typed the sentence in all the possible ways of typing. All the mistakes you can make, everything. It is always the same sentence. It is the sentence that is not written in The Shining. The character is a writer but you never see him write. He repeats it and it repeats, repeats, repeats. In your case, I think description is key and it can be very interesting. The idea of a theoretical exhibition with a lot of details. What you drink at the opening. What kind of crisps you can have. The number of the cab you take to go there. Everything very very very very accurate. Descriptions of your pieces too, of course. I dont know. But it could be an idea that can move people. JL: I think un-made pieces could be interesting. Or, ideas that I rejected and then moved onto something else. PF: Uh hmm

JL: Maybe re-justifying those ideas, including the documentation of initial failure and describing that in great detail will form a new artwork? PF: Exactly. That you can do and I think that if you do so and write down things you will get more ideas. Your ideas will grow and they will transform and then they might do something else. It can be very very hard but it can also be a declaration. (assertively) This is what I am going to do. I am an artist and I am going to do that. It will be in my exhibition at the very end. It can be a program or an agenda, maybe that is an idea and maybe it is a dynamic one? If not, you have all the constraints that you can find in the compendium. If you fall in love with one then just go ahead. But I think that you should create an intimate link between the text and your work. It will be artificial to produce a text with a constraint without any relation to who you are, what you do and what you intend to do in the coming years. If you do this, then it will work very very well. Look again at the compendium and try and find a constraint that you are comfortable with. That is the big thing. If you can find one that rings a bell and which has some relation with your work or what you want to be and do then this is the way to be an interesting writer. JL: Is there a constraint that uses adjectives as apposed to nouns like the n+7? PF: Ah, yes. You can do adjective plus seven if you want? There is no problem for that. You can do verb plus seven, noun plus seven. Or eight, ten, twenty, four two, one. You can do whatever with that. But, it has limitations infact. JL: Oh, really? PF: Yes. You will feel that but it is good with a very short piece. It can be funny. But, if you want to do something near 10,000 words it is no little piece so it requires more than that. If you do something in the way of Exercises in Style that constraint can be applied to one part. It can be a+7 or n+7 or v+2 or whatever. That can be good for one piece. Do you think there will be a way of transposing this into an art form? JL: (pauses)

Yes. But my question is what constitutes an artwork? (pauses)

It could be presented as something so literal like a re-enactment. But text is fine within the gallery context. Perhaps text as a script would be better? PF: Uh hmm JL: I think text neednt be presented on an output like film or sound. If I enable a viewer to use their imagination. Or feel something, even if they dislike my work, my job is done. This is what I always aim to achieve. Reading allows the audience to use their imagination so just text written on a page or wall is ok. Maybe? PF: Why not. JL: Exactly PF: Why not. JL: I think it is possible that my tutors, myself and perhaps everyone has a problem with the pace of an artwork. I think everyone wants things to be quick and easy. But, artists publish books so it could be an artists book. Or a pamphlet you can take away from the gallery. PF: Yes absolutely. JL: I was thinking about other work I want to make in Paris I didnt think I would talk about this with you. Regardless, this text (gestures to an A4 printout below the other printouts) would be ideally situated in Le Monde or Le Perisien newspapers. It will be interesting for me to place this text into a newspaper and imagine the viewers reaction, if indeed they have one at all. I dont think all works have to function within the gallery space. PF: Not necessarily. (pauses)

But how does your studio work? You have a grant for three months? JL: I have been awarded a studio for three months in Paris. I had to submit a proposal including a description of the work I want to make. But I dont want to make those works anymore. That is always the way though. (laughter) PF: And where are you? JL: At Cite des Arts PF: Cite des Arts (pauses) Ah yes. Are you ok there? JL: Yes its a nice big studio. The really great thing is that I dont have to commute to the studio every day. I wake up and I am in my workspace. I am spending the whole time concentrating on my work. It is fantastic. Even, when I make a cup of tea I am still looking at my work. When seven or eight oclock comes in the evening I dont have to sit on a train for two hours to get home. It never stops in Paris. Work continues into the night whilst I am having a drink and then I get up and the cycle begins the next day. PF: Make the best out of it. JL: I hope I will PF: Please. It is fun. How long are you here? JL: I am here until the 1st July. PF: 1st July, great. Great. And so how did that happen? JL: The college I attend has a studio that they permanently rent in Paris. Every Fine Art student is invited to write a proposal for the work they want to make in Paris. The two students that write proposals they like and find the most interesting get awarded residency in Paris. PF: So, what was your proposal?

JL: I am interested in economy and value within my work. So I proposed to make a film about La Defense. PF: Uh hmm JL: Paris has a really high GDP, but doesnt have a definative industry. For example Los Angeles is known for its entertainment industry, New york and London are notorious for their banking industries. However, Paris has not adopted a specialisation. So I proposed to make a film about La Defense but its not going to happen at all now. PF: So what are you going to do instead? Do you have an idea? JL: Well, whilst walking around Paris I became very aware that I was not reading. I am not processing words or signs that I see. My work here is becoming about voice and language. I saw this word, which I dont want to know in English (gestures to writing on JLs left hand) This was the first word I saw when I walked out of the studio that I didnt know what it meant and I couldnt figure out the meaning. Now, I am writing this word on my hand everyday before I leave the studio and seeing whether I learn this word or not. I havent learnt it yet. I have had guesses. For a while I thought it meant water but it doesnt. We will see where it leads me. I dont know the outcome of this piece exactly but maybe something will come of it. I just have to keep thinking and keep accumulating. PF: Uh hmm. And when do you plan to write your thesis? JL: The whole time. As soon as I get a good idea I will start writing. PF: OK And when are you supposed to be finished with that? JL: September PF: September, ok. JL: I have ages PF: Yes so that is good. And so will it be your last year? JL: It will be my last year studying from September and then PF: And then And then

(laughter) JL: And then, Ill be a rich and famous artist! PF: Oh, for sure But if you have a six or seven month delay then what are you going to do? JL: Then I will work in a call center (laughter) It is a really good college and if I have to tutor somewhere to supplement my career then so be it. PF: That is life Do you do classical work as well? Do you have to do drawings? Or painting? JL: The school is split into a painting department, sculpture department, photography department and I am in the printmaking department. PF: Ok JL: They choose a mixture of people. Some are more classically trained and others are undefined. Some possibly dont know what they want to do. A mixture of talents is good. Personally, I like to draw and paint. But I prefer describing things to people and have them draw it PF: That is very interesting JL: I especially like commisioning wood carvers. I asked my mum to describe my appearance to a wood carver whilst he chiseled a bust from her description. My dad then did the same thing. The two busts look very different. I like using other craftsmen within my work. I am probably more ideas based. I do like to draw and I do like to paint, but I will never call myself a drawer or painter. Do you do any traditional art at all? PF: Not really. At Oulipo we write, but we do things in the city. We write texts into the city which is not information, which is not advertisement, which is text. Text for the sake of text.

So, we have to do a little art for that. For example, we have a big space in Ren which is a big city in the west of France. We have made texts. When you walk you can find big names written on the ground. You have text written on them. So you walk and you go from one sentence and story to another story. It works both ways. JL: Oh wow PF: It is quite nice. We have several paths and we have to think about that. We have made an exhibition in a very well known gallery in Paris. It was the Oulipo exhibition so we had a collection of books with numbers in the titles. 1,2,3,4,5,6 up to cent mille milliards, the poem, which was obviously the biggest. One of the English writers, Ian Monk made the Twin Towers with words and made poetic bicycles. You were racing and the fastest got to the poem and the TV screen displayed the poem. That was funny to do. There were texts written on little cards that you can read in whatever order you want. Something that is borderline with art, it always seems borderline. JL: It is such a blurry line between art and Oulipo isnt it? PF: Yep JL: But I think some of the best work lies in that grey area between art and literature. PF: That is going to happen next. It is happening now. We dont know exactly what we are doing, but we are doing. (laughs) The idea is to produce things and when those things are around you never know. JL: It seems that both you and I are producing things that are made to be put into the world. PF: Oh yes, they have to be. JL: Even beyond the gallery context. PF: Of course. JL: Perhaps because a gallery space has a very defined audience. PF: Of course, of course. We have written texts on tramway posts in Strasbourg. So when you wait for your tramway you just read a text. At every station you pass has a different text. We have been working with that, so they are texts for the city. Some funny ones and others are

not so funny ones, but that is great. I like to do that kind of work and we are now quite well known for that. We get, from time to time, a call from an architect saying we need this kind of thing and we think, yep, we can try that and lets think about that. We do things in that nature. We like that. We like to be in the city. We do a lot of public readings. We do a lot, we do a lot. The public readings act as a way of exhibiting our work. There are a lot of people in France who know Oulipo, only by our voices and they have never read a line. JL: Oh, really? PF: Yea, we are currently troubadours. (laughter) We are reading a lot. Everywhere. We read in bistros, we read in factories, wherever. JL: Are the readings planned? PF: Yes usually they are planned JL: It seems funny too that the call for public art comes from architects. PF: Its not so funny in France. They are in charge of the money and they have to spend one percent of the total cost of the building towards art. JL: Oh, really? PF: They have to. It is a requirement. Usually they find a classical artist to do a beautiful mosaic or painting. Fine, good luck to them. Some are fantastic, others less so. From time to time they think that they want to have something different and that is why we sometimes get those commissions. It is quite natural that the architect calls the creators, or writers or painters for that. The architects have the money and they are in charge. JL: Do the buildings that have your text tend to be different or innovative? PF: The buildings range. We will do it in everything. We put work in beautiful buildings but also terrible ones (laughs) JL: Would you place your work in a bank for example? PF: Yes, absolutely. JL: Maybe that would be interesting, it was a bad example.

PF: Schools, banks, everything. We dont care really. Even brothels if there are any, that would be great! They would never call us to do something ugly or in an inappropriate place. They need us to do things in a bizarre way or in bizarre places. If they have an empty space somewhere or a beautiful garden. That is fine and everything works. We have even written text on benches in a little city in the center of France. Instead of writing names or do not sit or fresh paint we made little poems. You can go from one bench to another one and build up a story of your own with all the little things you can find. It is a way of circulating into the city, it is a different way of doing things. People like that in fact because they have been stealing the text off the benches by the dozen. (laughs) JL: And that is ok? Did you replace them? PF: It is up to the architect to glue them with strong glue. If they take it home and put it on the wall it creates another art form. JL: It changes the story too PF: There are a few holes in the story(laughs) but that is nice. This is the way we work and it is always entertaining. It is often challenging because you have to find a good idea, the little thing that you make the work from. But this is like art so you know this by heart! JL: Even if the little thing is not finding that little thing or spark. But is all considered. PF: You know what, if you find a way of starting your writing work just send me something. Send it in an email and include the beginning of what you plan to do. If you have an idea of a constraint or the structure I would like to see it because it will be a very interesting idea. I would like to see it. JL: I would be more than happy to do that PF: We are very eager to work with artists and eager to share things. You know there is an equivalent of the Oulipo for painting which is the Oupeinpo. But this is more the traditional side, it is painting and it is not exactly how you work. They have published a book which you can find and its called Oupeinpo. It is very interesting and they have really funny ideas. They have made paintings with an equal amount of red and black, for example. They take the paints and they weigh them. For example you have 2lbs of red and 2lbs of black and you have to do your painting with that. They also cut up beautiful, traditional paintings and re-arrange everything. They play with a lot of things and you should have a look at that. The book will be in a library somewhere. There are a lot of pictures inside because you cannot read French? JL: I wouldnt understand it

PF: No, ok. Perhaps, you can have a few ideas in the book translated for you but you can definitely look at the pictures. It is more of the traditional side, but it can be funny too. JL: I will definitely check it out. There is an idea I have for a painting that I thought of recently. I heard about a village in China that produces a very large percentage of the worlds reproduction oil paintings from a friend at college. There are rooms, warehouses filled with painters painting exactly the same image. You can commission them to do an artwork from a photograph. I was thinking of sending them an image of the last Jackson Pollock drip painting and have them reproduce something so spontaneous. (laughter) PF: That will be fantastic! (laughs) That will be fantastic. JL: I try to consider all forms of work when thinking of an idea. PF: That work will be great. JL: I hope people dont challenge the ethics of the work. PF: It is cruel, it is funny, it is everything at the same time. It is life again. It is wonderful. I guess they make a living out of that so it is honorable, it is great. So where is this village? JL: In China and is called Dafen. D-A-F-E-N. There are large bronze sculptures of hands holding paintbrushes and easels. I think it is definitely a place to visit. PF: And are those people coming out of art schools? JL: The artists are specifically trained to reproduce imagery. Mainly they produce a painting of your dog or a portrait of your mum or a painting of a fruit bowl. Soon they will be reproducing Jackson Pollocks drip paintings. PF: That will be great. You can have one thousand Jackson Pollock reproductions. You should go and film it. JL: Perhaps there is a grant available to visit China? That will be good. PF: That will be very interesting. You can make a good movie with that.

JL: Better than the La Defense movie (laughter) PF: What was the idea for you to do there? JL: I was hoping to go there and find something to respond to. It is not the environment that I can respond to. Walking around the street I find things but there, everything is so vast. PF: There is nothing down there (gestures to the ground) JL: That isnt the scale I like to work with. I like things to have a sense of touch and feel about them. Something so big is not as personal and I dont think I like that. PF: No JL: It is not suitable for my work PF: One of our members, Herv Le Tellier, has made a collection like the way people keep and collect flowers and plants. He has made the same thing but of the city. He picked up everything that he found on the street: cigarette butts, a sheet of paper, a crushed cell phone, everything. He has displayed each thing with a little poem, a haiku, and a scientific description of the object. He keeps them and has made exhibitions with that work. He puts them in little boxes, one box for each object. It is a very nice work. The exhibition was beautiful. JL: There is a piece of artwork I saw yesterday in a magazine by Alicja Kwade. She is a polish artist based in Berlin. She walked around Berlin and picked up the first 100 pebbles she found. Then she hand carved and polished everyone into the classical facet shape. The care and value of something so PF: ordinary JL: The work is really sincere and plays with an objects plainness and beauty simeltaneously. PF: Thats great. Ok. So, send me an email when you are ready and when you have something. I would be happy to read it. I can about it with my friends and show them. It will be best when you have a little something that we can begin with and we can fid a way of helping you. JL: That will be perfect.

I really appreciate you meeting me and agreeing to help. PF: Thats fine. We are happy with that. We like that. So, if you have more questions feel free to write or to call me, whatever you want. Lets meet again and lets talk again, whenever you want. JL: I am in Paris until 1st July. I owe you a drink PF: No, that is fine do not worry. But of course I will be happy to accept! (laughter) I will be away from 6th June to 15th June. I am going to get my daughter and pick up the kiddos and bring them to Paris. But apart from this I am around. If you want to go, but of course if you do not understand French it is going to be boring, there will be a public reading of the Oulipo at the Bibliotek Nationale, which is the big national library in Paris. It will take place on the second Thursday of June, seven oclock and its free. Just turn up. JL: I will go defintely and I will try to understand. PF: It is going to be tough but you can try. It will be nice to see the Bibliotec, it is something. It is a huge building and a very strange place. Very very strange place. You know, they have four beautiful towers that open like books. In those towers there are books and reading facilities are underground. It is the stupidest thing ever. But its beautiful and costs millions to run. It is very comfortable and beautiful. JL: Definitely a place to visit. PF: Absolutely. Also there is a garden inside but you cannot walk into it because it is forbidden. There is not enough light either so all the trees are sick. They are skinny and strange and look like ghosts. Have a look! JL: I will PF: I have to go, I am sorry JL: Thank you very much again PF: You are welcome, see you soon. JL: See you soon. (PF walks away from the bistro) (JL collects together all the A4 pages on the table, turns the dictaphone off and walks back to the Metro) End time 4:54pm Wednesday 18th May