Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The determination to take electronic media to the edge of technical capacity-in order to realize instigating visual ideas and move indifferent viewers-is the trademark of the art of Federico Lamas from Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1979). Involving cinema, theater, graphic arts, and the pop/electronic realm, his work stems from peculiar arrangements of scenic and narrative elements, aimed at inverting expectations and giving a feel of discovery. With stated intention, the quest for the new ranges from narrative structure to visual appearance, from directing to soundtrack, from concept to reality. Altering frames' shape and limits-be it screen or stage setting-is a recurring practice, as is giving up words in favor of the eloquence of silence and image. 

Graphic artist, designer, and musician, Lamas represents the generation that adopted digital media as a vehicle for a creative process that does not separate music from image, drawing from text, idea from language. Or, in Lamas' own words, a type of medium that “allows full, independent control of the overall realization.” The need to master tools and technical resources-not for the sake of virtuosity, but in order to escape the “thousand right ways of doing things,” finding a unique way of producing the forecast result-came along with his first camera, a Hi8, in 1994. The camera's manual controls led him to make crucial decisions in his first shots, inspired by the “neorealism of friends and relatives.” 

In addition to cinema, which is his primary reference source, Lamas studied the theories of dramatic performance at the Buenos Aires Theater School, under the direction of Raúl Serrano, from 1995 to 2000. During the course, he met up with musicians and designers Pablo De Caro, Pablo Malourie, Nazareno Gil, and Maximiliano García, of the band Mataplantas, then called Barbara Feldon, and started a partnership that would unfold into an ongoing partnership involving image management, album covers, website, posters, and projections during live shows. Three years after that first meeting, when Lamas was already studying Audiovisual Design at Buenos Aires University, he directed the band's first music video, Navidad y Año Nuevo, thus making his debut in a genre that later would often call for his talents as producer, designer, and art director. 

The video is a “fake live recording,” somewhat photographic, unpretentious for an author whose first short film, Camitas (1999), was based on Bioy Casares. Inaugurating Lamas' research with the physical limits of the frame, the film is set in the outskirts of Buenos Aires and is sort of “retro and neorealist.” Whether pretentious or not, Lamas uses the elements at hand to put together aesthetic creations with uncanny ability-from his very first works. 

The short film Bienvenida a mi Mundo (2001) takes him one step further along the same road. The narrative structure, which uses a cut and an inversion to tell the story of a love triangle, is at once ingenious (due to its impact) and ironic (for it calls more attention to itself than the trivial story actually deserves). The conversations in an invented language, the oval frame, and the color filtering all help create a delightfully new and unknown location-genre, without using any reference points (despite paying tribute to the cinema of David Lynch). In addition to his production ability, Lamas' film reflects his subtle humor and his talents as stage designer and visual artist.

The formula reached state-of-the-art status with Roger (2005), for which Lamas won the Contemporary Investigations Award at the 15th Videobrasil. The film is fueled by the urgency to make a visual insight come true: the infinite setting. This concept is attained through a particular technical solution (the looping) and determines the plot: a couple fights and then breaks up against a setting. As the action unfolds, at once fast (as in comic books and cartoons) and painful, the camera pulls back to expose the limits of fiction-and of the setting-and the adhesive tape that holds together the different backgrounds, which pass by just like time, bringing wounds and precariousness to mind. A delicate amalgamation of a wide array of languages, a hybrid of silent movie and visual arts, Roger provides the overused theme of romantic love with a freshness that defies logic.

The video was screened and awarded in Europe, inaugurating a period of feverish pace for Lamas. The extremely short film Mucho (2005), which is a joke of sorts, features a fast narrative that has no use for words, explores the eloquence of silence, and leads the viewer to a surprising end. In Hawaii, a music video for Mataplantas, Lamas developed simulated 3D images, which he uses in order to create a dreamy, nostalgic atmosphere. During the same period, Lamas did Dame Pasión for the band Juana La Loca and Miss Sentimiento de Otoño for singer Sebastián Volco, music videos for artists whose music appeals to him and who allow him “freedom to do whatever I want.”

In that same year, Lamas created visual modules that he projects live during shows of the band Mataplantas, as he has been doing since 2004 at the Hey! Rave parties, promoted by DJs Pablo Font, Nicolas Zunino, Pablo De Caro, and Diego Chamorro. The party vibe also inspired Hey! (Despierto/dormido), a sequence shot that follows a young man for ninety minutes as he roams the streets of Argentina's capital city-as subtitles faithfully and poetically translate the continuous flow of his thoughts, making references to the truncated language of chats and instant messaging software. Shot with a hand-held camera, the film flirts with the direct narrative of cinema and with a format Lamas is increasingly attracted to: the feature film. Lamas' time and energy are divided between his projects, such as projections, videos, and music videos, and the advertising business, in which he works as art director.