Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Your first artistic actions, in your own words, consisted of using a High-8 camera to record the “Neorealism” that your family and friends had to offer. When you started out, was cinema your basic reference? What were you acquainted with back then, and which were your major influences?

Yes, the movies were my reference point. I knew that my responsibility with the camera went beyond merely recording stuff and then forgetting about it. The fact that my camera was fully manual was important then, because I had to adjust it all the time; I had to make decisions. All I remember until I was fifteen are science fiction and adventure movies, the ones which appealed to me the most. Jurassic Park had just opened and that was key to me, a turning point. I mention the film quite often in debates: technically speaking it was state of the art then, and that is important to me. The movie did not appeal to all tastes, though.

You often try to tell a story with few, if any, words, and that gave off a moment of irony when you made up a language in Bienvenida a mi Mundo. To what do you attribute this shunning away from words, and what does that provide you with?

I've always felt that it's important to seek my own identity, my own kind of poetry as an author, and I have always sought something formal, visual. I like to make my characters' intentions clear through their gestures and facial expressions. When writing the script to Bienvenida a mi Mundo, I went for universality. I wanted the subtitles and spoken words to have some sort of logic, as in an actual idiom. And I used lots of puns; I enjoy that sort of irony. Since the text did not make any sense, for me there was no need to be concerned with it. As a director, I focused on the actions, the intentions.

The act of interfering with and modifying video frames is a distinctive feature in your work, from Camitas (1999) to Roger (2005). What need of yours does it meet and what results does it yield?

Interfering with the frames is what really entertains me. I believe it has something to do with creating structures that are more faithful to my actual thinking. Frame superimposition provides the viewer with a notion of the work as a whole. You are simply viewing a fragment of the film, but as you watch it and interpret it, you are also thinking about the images that came before, and contemplating the ones that are yet to come. For me, messing around with frames is like playing a mind puzzle, by disclosing more than a single thing at once. That is how I see it. I'll usually have a graphic idea or a visual idea, and then I think about its possibilities for communication. 

You have said that you seek new things to surprise the viewers who have become passive due to the image overload to which we are subjected. As far as your video and image experience goes, what are those “new” things? What is it that surprises viewers?

Tough question. My work is an attempt to answer it. It has to do with taking people by surprise, and also with the resources that you use. It has to do with posing problems, all the while taking those resources into account: how would I do this or that? I consider it essential to pay attention to what is being produced to avoid repetition, to avoid being cliché. This is why I love festival and debates, and the reason I think it's so important for artists to be able to show their work continuously, wherever it may be. Thus, we can all update our notion of “new,” based on work by other artists. You might intend to communicate whatever, but you can never redo something that has already been done. I think it's even valid to do something that draws attention just because it's different. Some make profound discoveries, and some simply make something new like, say, a combination of colors. The excitement we feel when we see something new, when we are taken by surprise, is an important thing to create. That alone guarantees the faithfulness of the viewer, let's put it that way; the viewer, on the other hand, will put in his time, only to see where it will lead.

How can one create something new in a genre as commercial as music videos? Do you shun away from certain procedures?

The first important aspect of music videos is that they pose a problem to you; they are a starting point. It's not like starting from scratch. You are interpreting, responding, reacting. Music, when it's truly interesting, is a great stimulus. A music video can be commercially oriented, or it can be your personal response to something. I have been in both situations. If a project leaves no room for you to propose anything, expose yourself, and take risks, then it makes no sense. It is a waste of time. I find music videos interesting as long as I can leave my fingerprints on them.

You have talked about “doubting the technique.” What do you mean by that?

Doubting the technique means using your tools to the maximum, discovering all you can do with them. There are millions of right ways to do things. One can be creative using a minimum amount of tools. You don't need to be a technical virtuoso. It is most likely that you'll find a way to do what you want within your own limitations. But you must be aware of what your tools are capable of. And you must come up with your own methods. In a documentary film on the history of cinema, Martin Scorsese said something wise. For him, being talented is not some innate thing, it's not about being a genius. It's just being able to do well that which you can do well. That is why it is interesting that creation has its limitations. Those limitations force us to resolve our ideas, to have ideas based on the problem at hand. The solutions people come up with are very unique. I am interested in seeking that uniqueness.

How did the script for Roger come about, and how did you get to the video's scenic representation?

The script for Roger came from its scenic representation. That was the sequence of events. Then, I asked myself what story that specific resource would allow me to tell. The initial idea was going from one frame to another, as if zooming out in classic cinema fashion, and going where the characters go when they leave the picture-I mean, the characters, not the actors. The question was how to create that feel without tying fifty cameras together (although it would have been extremely interesting), because I could not do that. I wanted to solve the problem and accomplish that idea; I wanted to make that video. So I came up with the idea of a visual loop, which has exactly the same meaning as a musical loop. 

What's the role of music in your work? What's the difference between creating images based on a song-within the limited structure of a music video-and creating them live, while a band or a DJ is performing?

A music video is a limited work, it gives dimension to a song and interprets it. It is another work of art, the song's multisensorial version. It is more planned out and preproduced. Actually, in live image presentations I try to do the same. I have predefined plans, though they are open to change. The goal is to have a finished concept, but I leave certain structures open, so that I can feel comfortable during the live action. Sometimes I just have fun, I improvise and experiment. What I do is I keep visual ideas in store. Small modular structures that I interpret live. It's like making chords, like including additional keys to a piano keyboard. When working with bands, I try to approach things from a concert point of view, as in a live music video. I have more predefined stuff. 

What are your current projects?

I have many ideas, but they must fit into the windows of free time that my “subsistence work” allows for, and the tiredness that it produces. I work as an advertising art director and designer, and sometimes I feel creatively consumed by that work, even though I don't want to. I feel like getting into a long project, a work that will last long, a complete work. I don't know whether it will be a narrative film. But I am interested in long formats, in having enough time to expose ideas, and that requires a certain type of screening, such as a dark room that one can enter, a screen that one can dive into. It might also be something in the mold of a show. I must make my decision. I have got some music videos under way as well, involving Argentine artists who are interesting to me because of what they do musically, and also because of the freedom they give me to create whatever I want to.