Exploiting the countless forms of communication, I conducted three interviews with artists, using three different forms of communication. These artists are not necessarily the art-stars we see posing awkwardly on the cover of magazines or hiding quietly in the corners of exclusive nightclubs. They are unique in that they all are creating and completing narratives within their artwork that confront difficult questions that we sometimes find easiest to ignore. This is interview with Nico Dios is the first of the three.

Nico Dios, born and raised in NYC, conducted this interview with me in June on his way back from the Hamptons while I sat closely to my air conditioner on the Upper East Side. Through BlackBerry Messenger, we engaged in a dialogue about his art and the inspirations within his process. His artwork once concentrated in trying to dissect and deconstruct existing fables, methodologies, and cult systems. However, now embracing the unknown, he allows systematic foundations to visually appear spontaneous in their ambiguity. Recently he was part of a group exhibition at New Image Art Gallery in Los Angeles.

Jenn Wirtz: Hey! Enjoying the summer heat?

JW: You around? Sorry, just had to restart my crackberry- ugh…the joys and frustrations of technology!

Nico Dios: Hey dude. I am on a bus coming back from Long Island

JW: Rad. Then you have a minute for me to start shooting some questions?

ND: Uh huh. Might not answer them right away but shoot

JW: Ok…well first wanted to get the conversation rolling about your fixation with cults and secret societies

ND: I have a fixation with cults and secret societies?

ND: Ha

ND: Jk

JW: Was Noble Drew Ali the first to spark the interest?

ND: No

ND: Aleister Crowley

ND: He was and is still my main man in that department

JW: An oldie, but goodie! How old were you and what text?

ND: I was probably about 16 or 17 (my sense of time is all fucked up!!) And I don’t really recall what text. It was more the photo. I walked into my friend Filippo’s (mom’s) house and on the table was a book with a black and white photo of some bald guy and I believe it said “the beast 666″ on the cover. I asked Filippo about it. He didn’t seem to know too much more. His mom had told him we weren’t to mention this guy in the house. That was enough of an endorsement for me!!

ND: I think that just helped to refine a taste that I have had all along

JW: So Crowley sparked the interest, I have to ask…did you start practicing kabalistic rituals!?

ND: I always liked mystery and the possibility of something beyond what is experienced in the everyday. I think everybody has this inclination; it’s why people lose themselves in movies books etc. Mine just happened to manifest itself in a way that promised to make those mysteries possible. Something books and movies only do for the characters inside of them.

JW: And on a more serious note, just interested in the thread that follows through your and inspirations. Because you also have referenced the surrealists, Nuwaubu, and Noble Ali

JW: Making the mysteries possible through the making of your art or finding an explanation to the mysteries?

ND: I don’t think that any ritual I have ever participated in could be termed kabalistic

ND: They have always been informed by kabala (however u wanna spell it) because it lays groundwork and a structure on which a lot of ritual magick is based

JW: Totally- aka magik, not magic- now my teenage fascination with Crowley is coming back…

ND: Can u ask me the question u want answered again please?

Jenn Wirtz: Making the mysteries possible through the making of your art or finding an explanation to the mysteries? (It was in regards to your comment on interest in the occult or cults)

ND: I am not interested in finding answers to mysteries anymore. That is what makes them beautiful, their mystery. Things are the way they are I don’t wanna spend all my time finding out why. I am also kind of disenchanted with ritual magick or its motivations. I think that its symbolism and all of the object rituals etc. are far more interesting than their goals. The symbols are sort of innocent. They arose out of a necessity to express something inexpressible and are really interesting where as for the most part the motives behind magick are pretty mundane, i.e. power over others, getting money, getting insider info into situations. I have evoked and invoked spirits and though the experience can be amazing to a person who already has a faith in a world outside of the tangible the most important aspect of these things is kinda lost (the confirmation of otherworldly things that is). I have found that the greatest magic/k is performed on a daily basis while walking around or interacting with one’s fellow human beings.

ND: Crowley is known to have said that “every act is a magikal act” or something like that. But it’s true. I am trying to wipe away the distinction between ritual and the movements I make in daily life. There is a certain degree of initiation in the Nizari Ismaili sect that the aspirant is required to interpret everything around him as a message from Allah

ND: The piece if dog shit stuck to your shoe is not only a piece of shit but a piece of god and therefore holy in some way and holds meaning

JW: Well said! I can see that belief in your film and actually in your altar project too (the altar thing I want to get back to). But in regards to your film, you mentioned that you are more relying on chance however- there is a complete dependency and severe foundation on these concrete systems that already exist and are very methodical- would you agree?

JW: Its like you’re trying to expand those notions…

JW: It is almost like a paradox because it is a controlled circumstance…

JW: Or I guess controlled chance is better way of saying it- pertaining to the film esp.

ND: Yeah well, that’s a tricky one. The fact that the making of the film supposedly relies on two rigid systems and their interaction is true and it is untrue.

ND: I think that there are infinite factors that play a role in the outcome of the film. I am one of those factors everything that is going on around me etc. It is sort of like throwing the iching

ND: Only digitally

JW: Untrue or happy aesthetic accident?

ND: I see the films as some sort of marker or some tiny indicator to be read about the totality of what was going on at that moment. It is sort of like reading tealeaves in the bottom of a cup. It is a form of divination. I adhere in my beliefs to the idea of a lack of causality in the traditional sense. I think of things as interdependent and each thing in a way is reflective of the whole. (I am sorry I am gonna have to pause for a bit but there are two people sitting ahead of me on the bus who’s existences are offending my sensibilities. I am gonna wait for them to shut up. )

ND: It is definitely impossible to walk around and constantly keep my ideals at the forefront.

ND: But yeah the films to me are like throwing the bones.

ND: Every system has its rules, gravity, or whatever forces are at work in any given circumstance. What does it mean to be completely random? I think that the reason that the films or reading tealeaves or whatever, is because randomness is illusory and just an idea. It is just how small or large the pattern may be

ND: It is whether or not we perceive meaning in things

ND: It is sort of a choice I guess to adhere to the random and chaotic or to the ordered. I guess it all comes down to perception and belief.

ND: Order is there if you want to perceive it, or if your perception of it is needed somehow to propel you forward in your thinking, life, or whatever.

ND: The same thing goes for chaos.

JW: However as much as we, as humans and participants in society try to control the chaos around our mere existence builds to the chaos- I see this in your work like continuum of conundrums- ya know? You mentioned that the start of the alter project could also lead into you possibly beginning your own fabled cult….

JW: How much truth or methodology would you rely on as you set the foundation- before letting it go to see where it leads?

ND: I do believe that the main objective of things is a forward motion or an evolution.

ND: NEW combinations!!

JW: Oh- also how much would you rely on from other systems and foundations that have been set?

JW: Like the Nuwaubu lends out the Egyptians and pyramids, Crowley with Jewish mysticism, and Catholicism with Wiccan traditions

ND: I don’t intend to start something of my own. I just want to continue a tradition that has already existed for a long time. I am working within that framework but not wholly with those symbols. The truth of the matter is that my symbols are most powerful when they are personal. I am just contributing to a tradition that existed long before me. What happens after I add my 2 cents is out of my control.

ND: It is too presumptuous to start a cult, to tell people what to do etc. I am not down with that. I want people to make their own thing. It never hurts to be informed though. And the fact that there is an underlying idea that strings these things together is cool. I kind of wanna sign my name on the underlying current like Duchamp on a urinal. I am really interested in social movement. That’s one of the reasons I find cults so interesting

JW: I think that is the perfect place to stop

ND: For now? Or you think we got enough?

JW: I think for now…maybe

JW: I am also going into a hypoglycemic attack

ND: Oh shit! Better handle that!

ND:: Handle

ND: *

ND: The two dorks in front of me r falling in love!!

ND: It is terrible to behold

JW: Hahaha- that’s what you get for taking the bus and no ipod!

JW: I am mad at my black berry and t mobile because my connection is so wack

ND: Fuck those dudes (the faceless cell phone company)

ND: Oh, I got an ipod but everything on it rocks too hard to write and listen

ND: I also have a slew of comics, which I am very excited to read!!

ND: I am gonna turn off my phone cuz my battery is gonna die.

JW: Ok- later skater!

*Several days later, I realized there were a few more things to address with Nico:

JW: Hey! Sorry trapped in a whirlwind of events, birthdays, and art openings- but have just two more questions if you are ready…

JW: Your last comment in regards to you creating a catalyst for a new cult; you mentioned Duchamp and the urinal. Like putting a pseudonym on the object submitting to an art fair- then letting it interpretations and expectations go- it became a monumental force in modernism…

JW: In former conversations, you mentioned Les Chants De Maldoror- this was a huge influence on the surrealists- how does it influence your work?

JW: It is extremely violent, unlike your other interests-, it lacks a connection to systematic methodologies, and cults- so what’s the intrigue?

ND:: How does Maldoror influence my work? Right?

JW: Sorry- a bit slow getting ready to bounce for the weekend, My sister is having a Buddhist welcoming ceremony for my niece

ND:: Sweet. I know the answer to the question just making food u will have it within 30. :u)

JW: Great! I am totally taking public transportation- I will read on bus to LGA xx.j

*Thirty minutes later Nico responded and the conversation continued:

ND:: I wouldn’t consider Les Chants De Maldoror an influence on my work, but I do find it interesting in so far as it is a beautiful piece of work that deals with a mode of being in the world that I have explored pretty extensively. I also mentioned once in conversation with you that I am starting to move away from what is calculated and rational in terms of my work. I want to let things just happen on their own. It used to be the opposite for me, in my life I let whatever happened happen and relinquished control in my thinking and in my art, there was a need to be hyper aware of what every detail meant and to have a rigid control over symbols and their meanings. Nowadays I see symbols as more things that are fluid and want to give them the freedom to do their own thing. In my life, I am exercising a bit more rigidity and discipline which conversely let’s me be a better parent to my creations and let them develop lives of their own. I guess if I had to look into the “why” of my current interest in Maldoror I could either tell you one of two things; Maldoror currently represents my new found interest in the irrational and my polar control shift, or I could tell you that Ira Cohen told me it had been a great influence on him I respect the man, I picked it up and it is cool, I enjoy reading it.

ND:: Both are equally as true.

JW: Perfect! Thanks!