Interview 2003
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?
I do not think that many media artists from the “high developed” countries intensively explore political and social issues in their artworks. First of all the theme of cultural nomadism does not seem for them to be a big problem. They feel at home there, where they have an Internet connection. In “less developed” countries the situation looks different: here the socially relevant topics are becoming worked over in an artistic process. However the technical possibilities and platforms, which enable a realisation of the art projects, still miss there. My project is focused on the phenomenon of migration. This phenomenon seems to me to be the key to solving the problem between the individual and the society. The alleged fact of living in a global society spreads the illusion that the world is ready to take us up, and it would therefore seem that there is every reason not to decide to go into inner emigration but to seek one’s luck elsewhere in the world. unknown zone is an artistic experiment with which I as a displaced person took four trips to the four points of the compass (in this case in Europe, as I collected material for my work during trips to Poland, London, Rome and Helsinki). The experiences that I collected from being a stranger during my travels have been documented in the form of a medial diary. In addition to the work on this project, the video ‘made of’ was created, which documents my trip to Poland, the country I emigrated from 11 years ago. The feelings that I had of being lost and strange in my former home country were decisive to the development of this project. Although it was not a trip to a completely unknown zone, this zone did turn out to be the most dismal.
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?
First I thought that my work, which in many respects represents the criticism of the Western European civilization, because of this reason would have only small chances to be shown at the different Festivals. I was nicely surprised to receive two prices in “high developed” countries (Switzerland and Canada). This is for me a kind of confirmation that inspires me to keep on working on socio-political issues in the media art.
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?
Art and first of all media art should develop a contrapuntal role, especially in relation to the mass media, which manipulate people, in order to control them. Media art should help people to develop their individuality and make them conscious of political and social situation, in which they live.
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?
I could not say that my work is differentiated from others through an experimental form of story telling. I would rather say, that its specific element is the narration, which is beyond either local or global context. To liberate oneself from the context is for me a profit of being nomad.
Associação Cultural Videobrasil