Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The issues of territory, landscape, and space have a strong presence in the construction of works such as Landscape Theory (2005), and the Outlines installation (2005). How did these concerns first come up in your work, and how does each of these works deal with them, in your opinion?

I had a strong visual arts and drawing background, therefore I felt real weird with a camera when I first started making videos. I had no previous experience with cinema, and had never engaged in significant film work. The camera was (is) a very awkward object in my hands. I felt the power of using a camera, the discomfort it brings, both to those who stand behind the camera, and those in front of it… Much of my work stems from the discomfort that the camera makes me feel.

I regard this connection with space and the landscape as a consequence of this discomfort. I am interested in the representation of space, in how a spectator perceives space through sound and image, and I am also interested in the transformation that takes place when we try to boil this spatial experience of the world down to a limited medium, such as video.

Landscape Theory focuses on the presence of the camera, on a sectioning of the landscape that happens exclusively due to the camera's transforming effect. Outlines tackles some of the same issues, but in a different way. It is an installation using animation to explore the notion of borders, the imaginary lines that divide our geographic space. It has a lot to do with the political authority for creating spaces and dividing territories, which is what I tried to do in this video.

You stated once that you stay away from turning the camera on yourself because you are not an interesting subject; nevertheless, you are often in the scene, in works such as Opaque and Tamandaré, for instance. What is the role of your physical presence in the landscapes that comprise these works?

I think my presence in the videos is important, but not because it's me, specifically. What I am interested in is the concept of an individual who places himself inside the landscape and transforms it. In works such as Opaque, I appear more as an obstacle, or maybe a thread, than as an actual person. I am not concerned with exploring my own personality in those videos. Now, the Tamandaré video is a whole different story, because it was actually done as a travel log, with no pretensions whatsoever… It is interesting, though, to see that some people have shown interest in screening Tamandaré in a gallery setting.

You claim that Landscape Theory made you think about the power of contemplation. What were your thoughts about it, and what does that experience tell us about the fear of being seen?

Landscape Theory was one of my first videos, a part of the master's degree which I am currently pursuing in Austin, Texas. The video ended up determining all the work I did there. All this discussion about landscape and space originated from my experience with Landscape, as I tried to make sense of what had actually happened in that video.

For me, the prevailing idea in the video is the notion that the simple act of looking can be effectively aggressive, political, and transforming. The fear of being seen might have something to do with that, or maybe with escaping that violence, that authoritarian thing which is the gaze.

How does your background in drawing reflect on your video and animation work?

As I said before, the way I use the camera always had more to do with my visual arts background than cinema, documentary films, and such. I never bought into the idea that in order to make videos, I necessarily had to use a camera, and despite the fact that my work deals a lot with the notion of the camera, I find it extremely liberating to be able to work with computer-generated images, for instance, or else just text, drawings…

What steps did you take to the creation of the Outlines installation?

I was intrigued with the notions of space and authority, which we have discussed above. I wanted to continue working on these issues, but in a more immaterial way. Landscape Theory is quite concrete, an interaction captured from the real world… With Outlines, I wanted to see how that would work as a spectator-oriented experience. I really enjoy the fact that this work actually features nothing but light. I believe this immateriality tells us a lot about the current policy of spaces, which is quite perverse. 

How was your participation in the Austin's Soundtrack project with Mario Ramiro?

It was a real nice surprise to me. The entire process lasted about three or four days, from the beginning of the work until the final presentation. Ramiro is a great guy, very relaxed to work with, and he made me feel very comfortable to do what I felt was best. My contribution to the project consisted of mirroring Ramiro's process of working with sound, in a way. We went out in the city searching for image fragments that would relate to the sounds he had captured. Afterwards, I prepared a sort of Live/VJ set using the images, and then I accompanied Ramiro and Skyler, a musician from Austin, in a live performance. It was a dynamic, fun work, contrasting a bit with what I am used to in my personal work, which entails some suffering.

So how is your Transmedia master's degree in Texas going? Are you working around a specific research project?

The master's degree over there in Texas is very practical, production-oriented, which really pleases me. Therefore, I haven't got a defined research project, but rather a steady output of videos and installations. Evidently, some themes and shapes stand out in this body of work, and those are questioned in a series of evaluations, as in any school. But it has been a good experience, they have great professors in the Transmedia department.

What will your upcoming audiovisual projects be about?

My next video continues on this dialogue with the camera, this time using a photographic type of approach. I am working in collaboration with a US photographer named Dave Woody. We are working with photographic camera flashes, with exploring the instant within the video environment. It has been interesting, because it is a backwards work, since there is next to nothing to be seen in images that last only one frame. The sound becomes very important in this quest for image, which takes place both inside the video and outside it, with the spectator.