Conversation with Artist in Residence (MQ) Nick Farr about first dates and the Occupy Movement

Since 2003 seven studios have been available in quartier21 to international artists who do not normally reside in Austria. The objective of this program is to expand the role of the MuseumsQuartier Wien and to promote international cultural exchange. Nick Farr, who works as an accountant back in New York City, was MQ's Artist in Residence for December 2011. On the 20th of December he presented his exhibition and dance performance “Occupy all hears” at the quartier21. “Occupy all hearts” consisted of digital photographs, collages, pencil sketches, installations and video art and was presented as an answer to the Occupy Movement. For his exhibition Nick Farr studied the online dating community in Vienna and undertook the quest to go on a whole range of first dates. He also asked people to reflect and write a love letter to their greatest enemy. But what really made him popular around the MQ were his dance moves. Whether in the metro platform or outside, in front of the Kantine, Nick Farr danced his way through this world.

Portraiting Nick Farr

Nick Farr is a short man who claims to always wear suits. Even under his white MQ jacket you can see a suit shining through. He says that he is more of an accountant than an artist and even though the suit, tie and the beard make the convincing first impression that this man is stern and analytic, everything changes when Nick Farr puts on his headphones. When we meet for the interview he dances his way into the restaurant, he doesn't seem to take any notice of the people around him who are eagerly watching and discussing his dance. When the song ends, he takes off his headphones, bows, the customers clap and whistle, the show is over and he calmly sits down at my table.

mokant.at: You do get lots of positive reviews for that.
Nick Farr: Yeah. Almost. Well, when I’m dancing, I’m just in a zone. I am only really aware of whatever my next move is. And I make sure I’m not blocking anybody. But I catch views here and there. I really like going out with some collaborators or some friends of mine and then they sort of say: “Oh, oh, there was this one lady on the train who said ‘He must be crazy! He must be schizophrenic.’” And actually the quartier 21 said I should put a logo on the back of my jacket and sort of explain what I’m doing. And I got my first tweet yesterday (excited)! One guy actually figured out who I was and was like “I saw Nick Farr dancing in the metro”. I was like “Yeees!” - Because everybody is taking pictures and videos.

mokant.at: Yes, I remember seeing this video of you on a blog the other day.
Nick Farr: The funny thing about that is that Mags’ – Mags is your colleague, right? – her roommate is kind of … this is a little weird but she’s like my Viennese not-girlfriend. She is really heartbroken. And I am really heartbroken. She started out as an OKCupid Date. That’s quite a random story. I was talking with Michael, one of my collaborators there in Vienna, who is an old old friend, and I was instant messaging him: “How do people date in Vienna?” And he said: “I don’t know.” And I was just randomly working OKCupid because I thought: “Maybe I should try to go on dates, meet people, bla bla bla … And oh, there are people in Vienna on OKCupid.” And so I just start messaging all of my top matches. “Hi, I am in Vienna for an art project. I am not looking for a relationship. Bla bla bla.” And then I’m just doing all of this and talking with Michael on another chat and then Michael says: “Oh my God, you’re not gonna believe this!” “What, what? What’s going on?” And then he copied the chat log from Claudia who is freaking out because, she was telling Michael: “Nick Farr just asked me out on a date”, having no idea that he knew who I was.

mokant.at: So was she excited?
Nick Farr: She was nervous. She’s very very shy. So she was excited, but more in a freaked out way. I think that was the initial response.

mokant.at: Were people usually freaked out when you messaged them asking them out on a first date for an art project? Did they believe you?
Nick Farr: It’s interesting to see the evolution because at first people didn’t know me, now I’m getting a lot of responses saying: “Oh, I saw you in the U-Bahn. That was really awesome. I’m going home for Christmas tomorrow. Sorry.” (laughs) You know. But that’s cool. People that I had messaged way back then, are now messaging me back saying: “You’re that guy! We thought you were bullshitting!” One girl wrote a really long message about how three times before she’d been messaged by a guy saying: “Oh, I’m an artist. I do art.” And how it was just a ruse to try and get in her pants. That date actually got weird. In the middle of the date she said: “So really, is this all just, you know, a big ruse to seduce me?” (pause) And normally I’m very concerned about coming across as creepy, normally I would be all apologetic and shy and say “No, no, no, really. Here are my artist friends, to prove that”. But this time I thought: “Why not just say: Well, I don’t know. What would your reaction be if it was?”

mokant.at: Wow, that actually sounds quite creepy.
Nick Farr: Because I was going for creepy. I was getting into the act of it. And she said: “Well, if it was, that would be totally hot.” And then I freaked out. (laughs) I just lost it. And I was like “Whooow!” The other creepy part was that we were in the apartment for the Artist in Residence. So we were in my apartment at the time and I was like: “How am I going get out of this? Am I going to be all: I’m gonna go to sleep now?” (laughs) But it turned to be all fine. She was also intentionally playing creepy.

mokant.at: What was the actual reason behind going on so many first dates in the first place?
Nick Farr: The whole reason behind it, behind that first date thing, which I am slowly concluding, was not a good thing to try to attempt in Vienna, but my theory was, on a first date, especially on an Internet dating page, you are not presenting your real self. How can you possibly represent your real self on an OKCupid profile? If it was possible then what does it say about you as a person?

mokant.at: Then again a first date doesn’t really say anything about you as a person either. On a first date you are trying to come across as someone else most of the time.
Nick Farr: Exactly. You are not really presenting your real self. Because you are more nervous than you’d normally be and at the same time you are trying to impress more. And the other person is doing the same thing. Before I got to Vienna I talked to a couple of people who are part of the generation that grew up during the Great Depression, who were kids in the 1930ies and 40ies. At the time there was no such thing as “the first blind date”. There is a whole different set of phenomenons I don’t know what happened here in Europe but at least it was like that in the United States: You’d be in a small town. You’d basically know who that other person was. You’d know their family. You’d maybe spend time with their cousins, their brother or whatever. You wouldn’t meet up with complete strangers. You’d at least have an idea who they were. You’d hear stories about them, whereas here – who knows. Total, complete strangers.

mokant.at: Might be a really nice guy. Might also turn into pretty creepy date.
Nick Farr: Yeah. Or it might be a really nice guy who thinks he has to act like a total creep because his friends told him that’s what he has to do. That happens. Now, with Facebook and everything else, people are much more used to representing themselves like a product to be marketed. They are always producing content. They are always putting things out there. You can’t just go out with a group of friends, have a night out and then have the memories of that night out just be that. No, you take pictures. You send tweets. You write down the funny things that happened. You share with other people. You comment about it later. And I think that makes it a lot harder to think about love. And I don’t think people are thinking as much about love of their fellow man. Or love of art. Or love of music. Or, and here it’s a little bit different but, you know, love of country. Where, to the Greatest Generation, people in the 1930ties, love of country was not a love of the government or love of the structure or things like that. Love of country was: “Hi, we have this beautiful country called America and yeah, it really sucks right now, but it’s beautiful, there’s a lot of potential here, and even though maybe I can’t get a job right now, I am going to do something to try to make things better.” Which goes all the way back to the Occupy Movement.

mokant.at: What does the Occupy Movement have to do with what you define as love of country?

Nick Farr: I think everybody in the Occupy Movement really loves their country but they don’t know how to express that. And that love of country comes out as a reaction to everything that went wrong. It’s all about demonizing the one percent. All of this stuff comes out as anger. And while I believe that we’ve had enough. It’s time to change things. I also believe that Occupy is about dialogue. It’s not about: “How do we coopt to the political process to our own purpose?”. It’s saying: “No, that whole process is corrupt. There’s no way to engage that way. We have to just stop, take a step back, and talk.” But what I think is missing in that dialogue is love. Not romantic love. You know, every time I bring up love to somebody who is born after, say, 1970, love is about romantic love. It’s about finding the perfect someone. It’s about sharing a life together or sharing a passionate couple of years together. Maybe, sometimes, it’s love of whatever they do. But it’s not love in a mutual way; in a we’re all in this together way. At least in the United States – in Vienna it’s totally different.