I had a big fight about how to make something come into the real, to make it physical. It sounds really antique, but it's a question of, how do I make this idea happen? You can't just will it into existence. You have to educate, you have to persuade, you have to seduce, you have to do all this stuff to make something three-dimensional and happen. It's not just a concept. It's actually a reality.

Moving swiftly between different arenas like politics, architecture or commercial design is what I would consider defintive of my generation. I am looking at reality and playing fast and loose with it.

With the films, it starts off with certain coordinates in the world and seeing what happens. What happens if you place yourself at an oil refinery in the Middle East? What happens if you place yourself in the White House Cabinet Room? What happens if you place yourself with Brad Pitt on the set of a film? And so on. And no matter what I capture, there is a sense of déjà vu to it, like you might have come across this visual before.

That's what I mean by this sense of erasure. You're inside some event or spectacle and you know you're complicit in it, but there really is no external.

Of course, art in and of itself gives me some feeling of elation or power and is in some way curative. But actually what's interesting at the end of the day is the various interpretations and conversations between us. Something that exists between us is probably better than you and better than me.

You can't create a work without being aware that it will change dependent upon the context or the society where it is developed or consumed.

I think the films and the paintings erase each other. The paintings are extremely slow and constantly going on in the studio - they're constantly regenerating themselves in this slow, monotonous way that's a physical struggle and can be a pain in the ass. They're all based on very specific math and diagrams. And the films, when I'm making them, are very fast, very collaborative, with a lot of improvisation.