[atari 2600]

David: I seem to recall a piece that you did as a center spread in Zap, with all these really highly polished chrome characters.
Robert: Yeah. So, being psychedelic, man, I just saw all the possibilities to that shit on water, air, women-- everything. So that chrome center-spread that you're talking about was my first attempt to make everything chrome in the picture. In fact, that's a reproduction of it on a mirror up there.
David: Oh yeah, that's it.
Robert: A fellow from England sent that to me. That's the "Rosetta Stone" of Chrome there. It tells you how to handle any shape. (laughter) So, I'm talking about 67, 68. So I started doing this, and it got out in the car magazines, and before long, advertising agencies started picking up on this. I started having advertising agencies calling me. J. Walter Thompson called me, but I couldn't get along with them, and I didn't want to be bosed by them. Inside three or four years, the entire advertising thing-- all over the United States, Europe, and the world-- started having chrome lettering. The chrome lettering you see today started with me. So I netted exactly nothing out of that. There was a number of artists that made pretty good livings off of doing chrome.
David: But why is that? You didn't try to market it?
Robert: Well, I'm not a commercial artist, see.
David: Not like one of those... illustrators.
Robert: Yeah. When I got into it, and I got really deep into it. I started figuring, well this is a stylization, and I've got a language going with a whole new form of visual surface control. And if I get deeper into this, I'm going to find something even better. I started getting more abstract, and getting deeper into working with this.
David: I'm not sure what you mean by "getting deeper into this." You mean you elaborated on it more?
Robert: Yeah. Instead of making it look like chrome, I started changing the colors on it, trying to alter the language-- so it doesn't read properly as chrome, yet the language is there. It's psychedelic as hell. It's obvious that the guy who that did this has taken some drugs. (laughter )
David: Is there a deliberate attempt to shock people with your work?
Robert: Well, you know I hear this all the time. "Are you just like shocking people there? So now you have this open wound and this naked lady?" That's kind of a cold way to phrase it. The uglier way to phrase it to say I'm exploiting subject matter. But what it is is, if you do a cartoon or you do a picture, and you want attention, and you're trying to gain an audience, you have so much to compete against. You've got television, movies, music, you got so many diversities and diversions that you have to compete against, that a picture has got to have so much energy in it. One way to get the energy is to have emotional tricks.
In other words, not only is the picture composed of a composition of color and shape, but there is emotional composition in it. Like you might have a dying baby next to a dog turd. These things are just like really disturbing situations, and they're not things to win your favor-- they're things to hold you. And while you're sitting there being upset, but yet attracted, the rest of the picture is taking effect on you too. So yes, the stuff is just contrived to be shocking, but it's done in a language of it's own. It's demanding your attention. It's trying to addict you to it, but it's not necessarily trying to win your approval. What it's trying to do is to get you to go to the next painting.
David: So in other words, you're just trying to make it so fascinating, that people can't help but be interested and drawn into it.
Robert: That's right.
David: You said that you've had to compete with other mediums for people's attention. Have you experimented with other mediums for your own expression, such as animation or computers?
Robert: I've done story boards, and one thing or another like that. I've had some awful good offers, but, you know, I'm a painter, and if I really can't get off on these other things. But I've been offered some really good situations.
David: Have you tried doing any work on a computer?
Robert: No, I haven't tried that. But I've seen my work that someone else has digitized on a computer. The guys in he band Butt Hole Surfers took some of my work and did this.
David: You said that you had some good offers-- to do what?
Robert: To do all kinds stuff for television-- like movies, both animated and live-action. They want me to do a series on HBO.
David: And you don't want to do it?
Robert: It's not that I don't want to do it. It's how much are they going to do for me, and how much time am I going to absorb in doing this? I'm really in a safe position now that I've worked thirty years to get to. Things are really flowing smooth for me. I've accomplished an awful lot. And if I just set that aside and start fucking around with something that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, I'll start ending up under the dictates of someone else after awhile.
David: There seems to be a co-mingling of sex and death in your work. What's the association between the two for you?
Robert: I think a lot of what you're seeing is melodramatic. A lot of this stuff is hokum.
David: The recurring motif of corpses making love to beautiful women.
Robert: You see, if I was to pass myself off as fine arts, I would tell you that this all has religious significance. (laughter ) This is so deep, I can't explain it to you. If you don't understand it, you'll never understand it. You know what I'm saying? But I can't say that, because all that it is, is just melodramatic hokum.
David: But you do see an association between sex and death?
Robert: Of course I see that.
David: What's the association that you see then? I'm really curious about that.
Robert: Well, I see exactly what you see. There's-- fucking's fun, and you're going to die. (laughter ) You're driven by your libido, but yet death's waiting for you.
David: There's the fear of death, the promise of sex, and those two forces drive much of life.
Robert: No. The thing that overdominates the fear of death and the want of sex is the ego that wants to be gratified. The strutting of the rooster. It's not getting the pussy-- it's being able to get the pussy.
David: Are you aware that sex and death occurred simultaneously in the evolutionarily process? Billions of years ago, in the primordial soup, they arrived at the exact same moment. Before death, all organisms were asexual and cloned themselves into immortality. Mortality hit when sexual reproduction started. I think that's were the sex-death association began.
Robert: I think you're simplifying the situation there.
David: You think it's more complex than that? I especially see the motif in psychedelic artwork. You and Giger do it quite a bit.
Robert: That's just melodramatic hocum, things that go bump in the night-- things that get your interest.
David: To grab people's fascination.
Robert: Right, those are devices.
David: What do you think happens to human consciousness after death?
Robert: It's over pal.
David: You don't think that there is any continuation of consciousness?
Robert: Hey, what can I tell you? How do you want it? (laughter ) You go up to the sky and you live up there with angels, where you spend eternity not being able to use foul language (laughter ). You call that heaven? You live forever among these very stoic people with beards, and you can't fuck or say shit or anything. Would you like to spend eternity like that? Or would you rather be with the devil?
David: If I could have my preference, I wouldn't want something in the Christian framework at all, thank you.
Robert: Well, would you want to be you today, and in your next life a armadillo? (laughter )
David: I'd be interested in trying on a new body. What would you like?
Robert: I'm going with this one ticket. This is it.
David: Don't want another shot at it?
Robert: Well, I want another shot at it, but I'm not going to sit here and dream it up. I'm realistic.
David: Really? And I thought you were surrealistic all this time.
Robert: Have you ever looked into the eyes of a skull and think this guy's somewhere else now?
David: No, but when I was studying neuroscience, I held a human brain in my hands before dissecting it, and tried to imagine where the person's spirit was. I marveled at how a whole person's life all took place in this little three pound handful of grey meat. It was an extraordinary experience.
Robert: That's right. Three pounds of Jello.
David: It's just a grey blob.
Robert: Better enjoy it while you can pal. This is it.