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I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.
I think this is one of the greatest gifts of this era: Because of the Internet, we can start to type a question into Google and watch the question auto-fill. In that moment, we know someone else has asked that same question. The gift of realizing you're not alone is incredibly powerful.
I've been fascinated by the Internet from the very start. In 2001, I had made a funny black-and-white film called 'How to Dance Properly,' a short video of me dancing to a Madonna song. I sent it to 17 of my friends on a Thursday, and by Monday, one million people a day were logging on to view it.
I don't want to get too philosophical, but in a sense, you're given this gift, this sort of creative force in you, and I think everyone has it, and it's completely unique to you. And you as a person have a little bit of a responsibility as its shepherd if you choose to incorporate that into your life.
Most of us yearn for really intimate, healthy, in-person relationships. People have a deep desire to be understood, to be told that it's OK, that you're not isolated and broken, that this is part of the human challenge, and that there is hope. The capacity for online interactions to do that is powerful.
I studied neuroscience at the cellular level, so I was looking at learning and memory in the visual cortex of rats. Neuroscience mainly exposed me to a way of thinking - about experimentation, about what you believe to be true and how you could prove it - and how to approach things in a methodical manner.
I come from a painting background, and although my painting is completely different from my performances, there is something about the fundamentals of that training that transfers over to this idea of an exercise and being diligent about mapping something out in advance - even if it is just being aesthetically diligent.
When I was young, I had this feeling that there was this handbook that I had never gotten that explained how to be, how to laugh, what to wear, how to stand by yourself in the hallway. Everyone looked so natural - like they all practiced and knew exactly what to do - even the way they pushed their hair out of their face.
Now, a lot of people look for answers in spirituality or different texts, but for me this is life. This is what life is: the passage of time. It's not about how to pass the time, but about the acceptance of the time passing. I know people think of my work as spiritual, but really it's just that I consume time. That's all.
On street corners everywhere, people are looking at their cell phones, and it's easy to dismiss this as some sort of bad trend in human culture. But the truth is life is being lived there. When they smile - right, you've seen people stop - all of a sudden, life is being lived there, somewhere up in that weird, dense network.
Video has become much more social, and as a result, there are many opportunities to use video as a way to connect people, to give them opportunities to play and participate, to make things together and have a shared social experience. I think we are just at the beginning of really exploring what social video is and what we can make of it.
YouTube has become more mature, both as a platform and as a community. So much content has been added in almost every conceivable category that there are no more free passes on just getting there first. I think there are greater expectations for audience participation, the kind of participation that makes a real impact in a show's community.
I perform in art time and in real time, and you can't tell the difference - no one knows how to separate a real act from an art act in my work. When I lived on the street for a year, people only knew that I was homeless. They didn't know that I was an artist doing a piece. I have to use real time in my work. I do, however, have to find a subtle way of documenting real time, in order for people to have a response. That means punching into a work clock every hour in the case of one piece.
I know I am a human being. I can give myself to one year for a project. That is why I say I'm primitive in the way I work, especially compared to most artists. I came to New York in 1974, knowing that it is the art center of the world. But I didn't go to find people for my work. I do the work, and the people come to me, and I learn from them. That has always been my approach - to do the job first and then to respond to it after I finish and learn what people think about it. That's how I develop, and I'm more of an outsider in that way.