Contributor Tobias Stretch is the featured artist for the month of August and his mad videos will make your summer all the sunnier, or demented. You decide.
THE 22 MAGAZINE: Where did you grow up and what lead you to pursue art and filmmaking?
Tobias Stretch: I grew up in the hills of northern Appalachia, northeastern Pennsylvania. I’m not sure if it was a choice that led me to art, but I feel like the world in my head had to be made real, otherwise I’d go mad. Art is like a pressure valve for me: once my head gets too full, I have to let out all the wild thoughts. It’s like opening the gate to let a pen full of acrobatic, rabid children roam about the countryside creating mayhem and beautiful chaos—much like nature.
22: You describe your work, using the words of Antonin Artaud as “a cinema which is studded with dreams.” Are many of your works dream-inspired?