“I Am Only What You Made Me”*

“I Am Only What You Made Me”1 “I’m nine years old watching Jurassic Park (1993) at the cinema for the third time. The velociraptor is hunting the kids in the kitchen when the edge of the scene suddenly bursts into white lava. I don’t remember this happening before. I lean forward in my seat, excited to discover a new detail. The effect blooms everywhere. Humans and dinosaurs erode into abstract bleeding blobs. Someone screams up at the dysmorphic raptor, then back at the projectionist. I look back at the booth – the fucking film is on fire. Projectionist and flames jumping around up there. House lights come on. Ushers guide us to emergency exits. Outside in the parking lot, everyone stands searching, squinting. No one knows what to do or how to behave. There were no plans to be anywhere else right now.”2 “Yes, I grew up with music; everyone did, that’s why I like it I’m sure. It’s completely across the board. I have a fascination with specific artists at times and enjoy tough music. I collect records. I grew up on hip-hop, and that was the only real art experience I had growing up, before I started making visual art. I think my relationship to music is the reason I work the way I do. The way I experience meaning and time when I’m working or listening. I envy musicians. I do make music, but I’m not trained, and keep it free. We have horns, drums, guitars, electronics. I’ve been in bands in the past — I like communicating that way. I remember when my children were younger, music was the one place we’re equal, and we would just be together and it’s like none of us are trained at all. But when you would find something together, that kind of communication with your children or someone else – it’s an incredible experience to link that way.”3 “Part of me is this poor architect dealing with the problem of existing structures in the city, part of me is this amateur dancer or performer who wants to return ideas of rhythm to the activity of building, or of re-appropriating the built environment. Building is also un-building, recycling or improvising new uses for what's already been set up in places like New York, Berlin or Stockholm, whether in a museum or in my own apartment, and the question of re-appropriating privatized, urban space always somehow begins with the body, its ways of moving and the temporalities it engages when it goes to work or opens up spaces of non-work in work. There is an idea of play that prefers not to decide what is and what isn't work, what is and what isn't useful in the activity of building. Use, most of the time, means diverting materials or spaces from their prescribed functions, inventing ways of making these things improper again. Aside from my interventions in galleries and museums, I have done things like set up a year-long, free postal service in Stockholm, built an underground house on city property in Berlin, removed advertisements from downtown areas, made music with my house keys, and moon-walked around Lower Manhattan.”4 “The last time I lived in Chelsea, there was a meth lab in the apartment below mine. There were always fumes in the stairway. I got high from walking up the stairs. Once, the building caught fire. I was home sleeping and was woken up by the sirens of 10 fire trucks outside my window. My instinct—or mood—told me to pull the sheets over my head and just wait it out. I didn’t feel like getting out of bed at all, but I was forced to when a fireman started knocking really hard on the door of my tiny studio. As I opened the door, they were already getting ready to kick it down. Five firefighters dressed in smoke gear entered my apartment. They were using some electronic device to search for heat inside the walls. They looked like they were going to knock the walls out. I just left and went to have a drink in the bar downstairs. A week later the lab was back in business.”5 “Let me say to those who seek to judge me that I can’t judge any of you. I have no malice against you and no ribbons for you. But I think that it is high time that you all start looking at yourselves, and judging the lie that you live in. I can’t dislike you, but I will say this to you: you haven’t got long before you are all going to kill yourselves, because you are all crazy. And you can project it back at me . . . but I am only what lives inside each and everyone of you. . . . I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you.”6 Footnotes 1 Leckey, Mark. Quoted in Neil Mulholland, "The Apostle of Terror: Mark Leckey as Saint-Just." Edinburg University Social Theory Blog, August 17, 2003. https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/neil-mulholland-edx/the-apostle-of-terror-mark-leckey-as-saint-just/. Note: This quote originates from Leckey's performance script for his work 'drinnen und draussen’. Courtesy: Mark Leckey, Cabinet, London; Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin and Cologne. 2 Cheng, Ian. "Future Fictions." frieze, October 1, 2013. https://www.frieze.com/article/future-fictions. Courtesy: Ian Cheng, Pilar Corrias, London; Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; and STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo. 3 Smith, Michael E. "A Conversation with Michael E. Smith." Interview by Gea Politi. Flash Art, November 25, 2016. https://flash---art.com/article/michael-smith/. Courtesy: Michael E. Smith, KOW, Berlin and Madrid; Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York; and Modern Art, London. 4 Lidén, Klara. "Klara Lidén." Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/klara-liden/. Courtesy: Klara Lidén, Sadie Coles HQ, London; Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York; and Galerie Neu, Berlin. 5 Lidén, Hanna. "Hanna Liden." Interview by Christopher Bollen. Interview Magazine, April 23, 2010. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/hanna-liden. Courtesy: Hanna Lidén, Maccarone, New York and Los Angeles, and Salon 94, New York. 6 Leckey, Mark. Quoted in Neil Mulholland, "The Apostle of Terror: Mark Leckey as Saint-Just." Edinburg University Social Theory Blog, August 17, 2003. https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/neil-mulholland-edx/the-apostle-of-terror-mark-leckey-as-saint-just/. Note: This quote originates from Leckey's performance script for his work 'drinnen und draussen’. Courtesy: Mark Leckey, Cabinet, London; Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin and Cologne.