4 Questions with Scotty So
Scotty So is a Melbourne-based artist who works across media, using painting, photography, sculptures, site-responsive installation, videos and performance.
Driven by the thrill of camp, he explores the often-contradictory relationship between humour and sincerity within lived experience to offer a glimpse of a future society that embraces difference.
(Scotty So, Guchi 2021. Image courtesy the artist and MARS Gallery.)
No.1
In ‘Notes on Camp’, Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay that introduced the camp sensibility to a wider audience, she writes, ‘Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”, not a woman, but a “woman”. To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.’ What does camp mean to you personally, especially when we think about camp through Asian identity?
I think that camp embodies the ability of a person or anything to be both sincere and literally stupid at the same time. To me it is the idea to do something so stupidly fun in a profound way which itself is not just stupid and not for the sake of being funny, but an act with consideration and thoughts. I think growing up I was very inspired by the nonsense type of humour in Hong Kong, especially with the humour from the movies by Stephen Chow which often reference other Hollywood movies and pop culture as a parody.
No.2
In the Hai Kot Tou series, you’re photographed dressed in all-fake items inspired by luxury brands, echoing the head-to-toe monogram trend in Asia. This reminds me of ‘shanzhai’—which I’m sure you know is loosely translated to ‘mountain camp’, to denote Chinese copycat culture. I wonder if you can speak more to this. How does the literal fakery here intersect with camp for you personally?
The style of head-to-toe logo monogram in the 2000s was often considered tasteless, and people sometimes do still think those who wear that style are wearing the fakes even if they are indeed wearing the authentic items. It is a way to show off nothing but wealth. Meanwhile, it was also the time when designers like Alexander McQueen and John Galliano et al would create collections inspired by other cultures—I often saw the silhouettes of cheongsams on the runway. To me, the works were done beautifully as a form of appreciation. And so I asked myself, wouldn’t it be fun to create cheongsams in a similar way of ‘copying’, but this time, it will be done with bad taste monogram and traditional cheongsam tailoring.
No.3
In the realm of camp aesthetics, what and who act as inspirations?
I think the inspiration really comes from daily life. Camp is really something that one cannot pursue as a purpose. It is something that comes naturally as once one wants to be camp, the characteristic of camp is no longer there. It is something unconscious. For example, the year the MET Gala had camp as the theme, the most camp people weren’t the celebrities on the red carpets covered in pearls and feathers, but the Vogue editors who were in ballgowns working with their laptop in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum, where no one could see what they were wearing. And they thought they represented Vogue, and they had to be presentable even though no one saw [what they were wearing]. That, to me, is very camp.
No.4
You often explore the relationship between humour and sincerity in your work, and this come through most strongly in Hai Kot Tou. How do you walk the line between making serious points with your performances and taking the piss out of everything?
I think the serious part comes from the attention to detail, as well as the authenticity that comes with the cheongsams I have made, all aesthetically done with a proper collar and side openings. My practice has always been about turning one idea to become something else, but to still hold its original idea—this mimicking and altering is important in my work. And to know how to mimic and alter something, I need to make it believable and I think that’s where the seriousness comes from.
For example, in a previous collection of mine, I casted some respirator masks onto porcelain incense holders. While it still has the form of a respirator mask, its function has gone from protection, from filtering smoky air to releasing incense smoke. This transformation is very stupidly funny to me; at the same time it carries the fragility and the trauma of COVID-19.
Find out more
Hai Kot Tou features the premiere of a new video work paying tribute to the Begonia Queens who were a feature of Ballarat’s Begonia Festival from 1953 to 1993. Images from So’s series Hai Kot Tou will also be exhibited for the first time in Australia, in which the artist is photographed dressed in all fake items inspired by high-fashion brands, with matching grocery trolleys, echoing the head-to-toe monogram trend in Asia.
Runs at the Art Gallery of Ballarat 23 Feb – 4 Apr 2024. More info here.