RR: You were born in New York but now live in Hackney- does London feel like home? What do you miss about the States?

DF: I love living in London, though in some ways I am still a New Yorker at heart. I still think in dollars, and I know one of these days I will get run over crossing the street looking the wrong way...But Hackney feels very familiar. I grew up in Queens in NY, and Hackney feels quite similar – urban and grubby, slightly out of the center, but with a great vibe. I don't miss too much about NY outside family and friends I wish I could see more. And I still think NY food is better than London. No one can convince me otherwise.

RR: Do you think living in British culture has influenced your art?

DF: I work largely in video and performance in a style very much influenced by stand-up comedy, and which seeks to seem familiar, but outsider at the same time. Being an English speaker, but an American as opposed to a native Brit, allows me to be conceptually foreign yet completely fluent at the same time. That is a nice position to be in as a satirist, which demands a certain distance. I use some of the stereotypes Brits have of Americans, as well as some narrative tricks that would not stand out to an American audience - but very much do so here - to flavor the work and create a persona. There is an exoticness I possess here, vaguely, as a foreigner that I would not by any means enjoy in the States, and I play with this as much as I can. Mind you, my Dad was English, so I was exposed to a British sense of humour from a very early age, and I am a dual citizen, so I am more British than I let on. I am actually an aristocrat, as I recently bought a title on the internet which makes me "Lord of Wansley Manor". Not too shabby for 20 quid. But it is still really going to freak me out when my daughter starts speaking with an English accent...

Elmina. Photo by Thierry Bal

RR: What was it like starring in your film Elmina with a Ghanaian cast?

DF: Making Elmina was a great experience both personally and professionally. It was wonderful to work with a top notch creative team in Ghana, and to get to spend several weeks on set there. I was aiming to make a movie that would be intriguing to audiences in both the art world and the West African movie world, and for that to work, I needed to cede all the creative decisions to the Ghanaian team, and we came up with a really unusual way to work together where we trusted each other completely. I could not have asked for a better outcome. In fact, I am still working with my partners from Elmina now, as they have written me into a very popular TV sitcom they make in Ghana. I have an ongoing part as a gangster, which is great fun.

RR: Can you stand the sight of bananas these days or do they just remind you of 'work'?!

DF: I did my banana project a total of 6 times in different spots around the world, and I am delighted I had the chance to do it so often, but I have long since retired from it. I did not want to be typecast as the “banana man”. It might be good thing to be known as if I were a porn actor, I suppose, but not in my normal line of work. Besides, after sticking 30,000 bananas in Trafalgar Square, its hard to imagine a better spot for it, so I figured I should quite while I was ahead. I never got turned off bananas, though, despite having worked with them so much. I still eat them all the time, and we give my baby Tallulah bananas quite often too, as she loves them.

Photo by Ivan Coleman

RR: Do you think artists take themselves too seriously these days? Or do we not take them seriously enough?

DF: As with any group, you have some people who are a bit overly impressed with themselves, but I think most have a more reasonable sense of what it means to be an artist, and realize they've got a good thing going. It certainly beats working in a mine or in a sweatshop. I am a firm believer in the old saying that the only thing worse than being unemployed is having a job, and being an artist seems like a good compromise. Personally, I would prefer it if the celebrity youth-oriented obsessions of the day did not spill over into the art world. The focus on the market, and the few personalities who pop up repeatedly in the mainstream media perverts the idea of being an artist as far as I am concerned.

RR: Tell us about what you have in store for us at Nova Festival ?

DF: This is going to be great! I have put a together a special 9 hole crazy golf course for the festival, in which each hole is designed by a different artist. There are some great artists involved - David Shrigley, Jake and Dinos Chapman, to name a few - and artists were free to do whatever they wanted. We are playing with the idea of what a mini golf course can be - pushing the envelope beyond what mini-golfers might normally expect. No windmills here! My hole features a monumental statue of Saddam Hussein toppling over in front of you while you try to concentrate on your putt. Other holes feature everything from a builder's crack to the Euro crisis, and from a wildly colored tropical desert island to a black marble mausoleum - so a little something for everyone. And we are using it to raise money for ActionAid's initiatives in Haiti, so it is helping out with a good cause, as well as being really good fun.

RR: What's the best festival experience you've ever had?

DF: I attended a guitar festival in Cordoba in Spain about 20 years ago, and had the opportunity to see Vicente Amigo, one of the world's greatest flamenco guitarists, right before he became a big star. He was playing in a fantastic venue – a palace courtyard, where one of the walls of the stage was covered in fragrant red roses, and there was a full moon lighting up the church spires nearby. It was an absolutely magical moment. He invited one of Cordoba’s best singers up on stage for an impromptu duet, and it was fabulous - one of the musical highlights of my life, to be sure. I saw him this year at Sadler's Wells, and he is still phenomenal.

RR: If you were given an unlimited budget and access to anywhere in the world, what would be your dream art project?

DF: I like the idea of doing an underwater sculpture park in the South Pacific or the Caribbean. Something a bit radical, where you could even watch video art under the sea. There is a deeply meditative quality to being underwater, and I think scuba diving would be a great framework for looking at art. I want to open up an art residency programme on the beach one day, so I hope it may be possible on a more limited budget too…

Play Doug Fishbone's crazy golf at Nova Festival this weekend!