‘I burned out – and started mowing lawns’: a reality-bending chat with Harmony Korine

He rocketed to notoriety at 19 with the shocking film Kids. Now, at 51, he’s smoking two fat cigars for breakfast – and making retina-burning work with acids and infrared cameras. Our writer gets deep with the eternal enfant terrible

Have you ever wondered whether the interview you’re about to read is actually real? Are you reading it thanks to your own free will, or are you merely set on a preprogrammed course that’s entirely out of your control? Is everything just code? Are we a simulation?

These are the questions that arise when you spend an hour with director and artist Harmony Korine, who is the first interviewee I’ve ever had respond to one of my questions by wondering whether or not I actually exist.