MINIMALBOOKS

PIOTR SIWECKI: Why did you start Calamari Press and Sleeping Fish? Is there any resemblance between your press and the tradition of avant- garde and underground live and art in New York?

DEREK WHITE: Starting Sleepingfish and the press were not calculated ventures. As a writer and a reader, I guess I was frustrated and bored with most of the venues for publishing texts and art that fell outside of the usual, especially in regards to mixing texts and image, or forms that disguised themselves as something else, such as poetry disguised as prose. At the time, there were a few other magazines like 3rd Bed that I aspired to, but when they folded that really increased the impetus to have an outlet for experimental writing that otherwise was falling through the cracks.

PS: What do you think about Outsider art movement? Do you consider yourself and authors you publish as Outsider artists?

DW: I don't know much about the Outsider art movement, but from the sounds of it it must be about art that falls outside of the norm. Being that I don't much about Outsider art, I guess you could say I fall outside of Outsider art! It's analogous to "Post-Modern". I don't know what post-modern means, and where you draw the line at being post-post-modern, or post-post-post-modern. I can't speak for other Calamari Press authors, but I try not to concern myself with movements, especially in regards to fitting in or being outside of something or post something which is really the same thing. I suppose
they are convenient categorizations for people on the outside to filter out stuff they otherwise might not be interested in. Like I would probably be more inclined to be interested in Outsider art than art you might find at a big museum.

PS: Being publisher, for me, is a kind of artistic activity. When I look at Calamari Press productions I see you somehow think the same, and that’s why I dare to ask: what is the most important
thing in the process of preparing Calamari Press products?

DW: The most important thing is that each book is unique and true to itself, so it's hard to define a process that would determine that. That said, I've been told Calamari Press books have a certain aesthetic to the look of them, the covers. I like the idea of them being identifiable as such, but also hope that that aesthetic continues to evolve and that they reflect the book as a whole.

PS: Your own art productions, I hope I could name it like this are, in my opinion, a kind of mix of different narrative strategies (minimalist fiction, postmodern irony, music, etc.). Well, for me your stories and pictures use the same technique of being fluid and, in the same moment, solid constructions made of what could be named as found and felt. In other words: what I found interesting in your work is that they are eclectic. What led you to such thinking about art? What is the background of your
 narrative technique in preparing art objects?

DW: Thanks for these questions and your insights. I'm not sure what led me to do what I do. My background does not have much to do with writing or making books or art. Maybe that's why you find it interesting! I have taken classes or thought about studying music or writing or art, but usually I find it takes the fun out of the creative process.

PS: Science and art meet in your life as I read from your bio. That is for me, as a reader, the fact of great importance, because most people think that art and science are of different
 directions; well, I try to get to the point: do you think that art is, as Stefan Themerson (www.themersonarchive.com) stated, a kind of science or even more: do you believe that fiction, art
could go where science could not? And: for you, as author and publisher (do not you think that theory of chaos has something to do with small press market?) what is more inspiring: art or
science or rather both simultaneously?

DW: Both science and art inspire me, and both have their weaknesses without each other. I was drawn to science for it's rigor in explaining the world we live in. But I also got frustrated at times with the lack of random spontaneity in science, being constrained to accepted methods and peer review. I
understand the need for such rigor within the sciences and soft-sciences or metaphysics do not interest me much. But it's great to do things--to create art, to write a sentence that doesn't make sense--for which there is no scientific explanation as to why we feel compelled to do such things.

PS: What do you think about Joseph Beuys’s theory that everybody is an artist and Roland Barthes talking about death of the author? I guess that as mix media artist you think about audience (readers,
 listeners, viewers), but what interests me much: do you think that  art (and products of Calamari Press) should be considered as elitists or rather egalitarian?

DW: Thanks for all these interesting recommendations of people to investigate! I feel stupid not knowing who these people are. I'm not sure what these theories say, but if art beauty is in the eye of the beholder than everybody is an artist that wants to be. As for the death of authors... I'm not sure
about that. I like to think that a lot of us write or create art to ward of mortality. A lot of dead writers and poets live on by virtue of their work, books are their memetic offspring. I cannot deny that compulsion within myself. But a writer whose book is never read or even published may not live on, so in a sense it is the readers that are keeping them alive. As they say, it takes two to Tango.

PS: One of the basic texts that helped me to find my way to new art was The State of Art; by John Barth (1996). Do you have such text, too?

DW: The books that stand out in my mind are books that were not so much well-executed books, but books that seemingly came from another place. Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford is one of those books. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola is another. Reading Raymond Carver made me want to be a writer. A more contemporary writer that has had a profound affect on me is Gary Lutz. Artwise, a contemporary artist I deeply admire and who has had an influence on my design aesthetic is Eduardo Recife.

PS: THANK YOU