Associação Cultural Videobrasil

During the Festival we will discuss issues such as displacement and nomad processes as images and emblematic actions of the contemporary cultural and political situation. How do you reflect this in the electronic art panel? Is it a theme of interest in your work?

Many people have noticed that the foretell about the miracle of the new economy and the communicative integration of the common man were pretty much part of a big euphoria of the fin-de-siecle than the real observation of facts. It seems that earlier it was that the perception the world was directly linked to the cultures, and therefore it was obvious that there would be numerous views of numerous realities. With the velocity of information today the perception of the world tends to be reduced to few accepted ideas, that seem to be a syntheses of fragmented opinions: "no one is patient anymore to listen to the end of the phrase. "Besides that, it seems that we shall not accept the idea of different realities anymore, after all "we all live in the same world". But Who are "we"? How do we define ourselves? Dont people still live in different worlds and realities? So if we try to see the situation from another side, looking at the desperate try to spread ONE "good" way of life to "others", it looks pretty much like schizophrenia (mental displacement). This might be applied to the understanding of the creative production. Groups need for themselves new definitions, even much better if these definitions are in constant transit. Art and Eletronic Art are not the same everywhere. Categories, norms, production ways, ideias, exhibition ideias, concepts should be more flexible. The material support of the work is not so important anymore. Artists should have the autonomie to feel and think and make. Today some of us still think: "i will make a FILM/VIDEO/CD-ROM about...". This is related to the content of the works as well. The fine cultural nuances that are present and reflected in the works, smooth and deep, sometimes do not correspond to stereotypes. Many times artists are expected to make works reflecting the social-political situation of their homeland - so if Israelis will not always speak about the Palestine conflict and brazilians will not always speak about the kids living on the streets - lets take the time to feel this fine nuances, maybe in the way of telling, in the rhythm, in the way of the light, in the humor, in the analgies, symbols etc. Both works are strongly realted to displacement, mutation, lack of control, chance, game, uncertainty, recombination. Both work play with the "format" of the works. One is a "anti" CD-ROM and the other is a Harddrive Video, a computer Video or something like this.

The relation between art and politics is at the same time rich and conflictive. How do you perceive this relation in the specific case of your work?

My work has nothing to do with politics but indeed with the reflections and consequences of political tendencies and decisions on ourselves. It has to do with the feeling of powerlessness and lack of control and autonomy. Why do we organize ourselves like this? What is biological and what is cultural?

Image and information technologies participate in control and surveillance strategies, subtle (or not) and generalized. In the face of this reality, in your view what would be the role of art in media contexts? 

This thema belongs much more to the field of development of technology and its ethical questions than to the arts. As an artist though it is possible to extend the exercise of making questions to unexpected places and giving these subjects unexpected forms, giving a intuitive voice to such questions.

In the contemporary sociopolitical and cultural context, local identities gain new configurations under stress with the global flows. Inserted into this process, electronic art participates as an open field to the experimentation and expression of new forms of subjectivity. How are these matters manifested in your work? 

These "new forms of subjectivity" drove me to experiment with the formats. I like the idea of using the video/computer in the room, with the touch screen monitor as well as conecting available technology combine with secular media (text/draws) to create new feelings. It is interesting when computer based works and games, try to create a new world, a new reality. It tells no story but makes it possible for the visitor to have a own experience. TIME and the control of it are very important parts of new ways of subjectivity. The interaction in my work is just important for the control of the multiple time dimensions programed in it. If the "Flashback" was a bombastic dramatic inovation for the film narrative, how will the real time control of computer based videos, and the radom time functions influence the audio-visual creation? This is very exciting. These experiments are not possible if we limit our creation to formats like CD-R or DVD-R, they have a physical limitation while processing/decompressing data. The physical medium of a computer based video/work is the computer itself with its processing function and not the "transport" medium.

Today local cultures face the challenge to reinvent personal and collective memories, without letting them become empty before the global communication flows. In your view, how does this challenge translates into art media experiences?

I question if the reinvention of local memory is not motivated and aimed to be part of this global communication flows. I am very worried about us, working with no criticism to fulfill stereotypes foreigners have about us. I do not see "Media Art" as an alternative for anything, I know many very conservative media artists as well as some institutions. It was something new, might have been an alternative, 30 years ago, now it is integrated to old art institutions and it has the risk to become unmovable and pasteurized.

In the context of the approach of electronic-digital means, are you interested in body issues? How does the body appear in your work?

The body is a constant variable in my work. In the last years it is impossible to think about some matters without thinking about the body. The body is a symbol of individuality and a measure instrument of hunger, love, need and pain. The configuration of groups, families, body and gender are not the same as they were hundred years ago, but our ideas of them are the same and this is an interesting paradox. Mpolis and "Unstable CD" are related to this paradox "one" and "the imagem of one". I have being working with the subject of cultural diversity and identity for some years. I have a personal motivation for it. This subject andmy approach to it has being shown in works such as Topography, a common ancestral stranger and Mpolis. This complex question about the limit between an individual (the body) and his/her culture, as well as the human presence (the group) around them, has driven me to create a new project "the one made of light stuff" Topography (2000) deals with the idea of the skin being the out limit of an individum, the relation body/self with the outer world. 'A common ancestral stranger' deals with the idea of a foreigner living in a certain cultural vacuum and Mpolis recreates my hometown Sao Paulo as a foreigner place, with contrasts and mystic. "the one make of light stuff", my new work, makes an analogy of the human skin with the territory. So it creates virtual place for a virtual "self", creates the simulation of a historical distance (so necessary for the reflection) through aprovocative, almost brutal, displacement. At the moment I am showing a work about physical and social blindness. Living as a foreigner, many things that we think they belong to us are not around anymore. To go back to the body is a strong tendency to seek for identity.

Associação Cultural Videobrasil