Interview Eduardo de Jesus, 06/2005

interview conducted on may 1st. 2005. concluded at 18 p.m. all of these sketches are connected to this day, this time, and the way I feel right now, should it be different tomorrow, that will be normal.

1. In your “videorizomas”, duration seems like a key concept in image production and in the creation of the pieces. Is sending them to an anonymous person a way of giving back away the image that was captured from another anonymous person? How did this procedure for production and circulation of videos evolve?

my. when we say: i, we are. we are the duration. the car. the horse. the river. the street. the story. ad infinitum. in mathematics we accept fractions. thus, one second can be split into ever smaller pieces (ad infinitum)2. and time can be a political act. if we accept that. even for a short period of time. then the production and distribution process constitutes another one of these flows. there is no theorisation involved. the sun is the sun. the camera is the camera. the day is the day. the hour is the hour. the heart is the heart (if the heart would think, it would stop beating).(ad infinitum)3. the moment at which images are captured is of no greater value or importance than other actions in a never-ending process. the event. the meeting. the catalogue. the mail service. everything plays a role. what i do is create a line within a much larger process. from anonymity to anonymity by anonymity with anonymity. and that springs forth independently from any other appropriation of the project. as the more catholic may argue.

2. Your work is strongly connected to the ideas of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. How did you become interested in philosophy, and how did you go from text to image?

whenever i hear people mention deleuze. then i think. what about guattari? if i wish to discuss images (as proposed) by getting delirious with deleuze. i cannot forget guattari. the great meetings. deleuze once said. i used to imagine myself approaching an author from the back and giving him a child, that would be his own, although it would be a monster child . way before knowing about deleuze and guattari. if i had to think of people and try to play any game (initially proposed by chance). those people would be: hölderlin, kleist, nietzsche, nerval, artaud, lautreamont. to name a few brothers whom (later on) i found were also linked to a line of thought. in this case, the thoughts of deleuze and guattari. that is how i got to them. in order to better perceive the production of other people. a production that was not real, neither did it attempt to explain or clarify anything about the people i have named. solely for experimenting purposes. thus, reading deleuze and guattari meant enjoying with them, and enjoying them. when, in their deliriums, they would erase all relationships of value between distinct fields. from biology to philosophy. from music to politics. why not talk about video art or plastic arts without being an artist (since i have graduated in communication, lol) if i can talk like a dog. or like the wind. or like a camera. that might be a connection between deleuze and guattari regarding the image production process. but a connection which is open to endless other connections. to name just one: that which cannot be said must not be said.

3. How do you produce images? Is there a search for the image and the camera plane? How do they arise? From chance and by chance? 

since we are using words (to recall a few brothers who do use words) i cannot describe this production as having a common thread throughout all of its variations. there might be a search for an image and|or for a camera plane. or even an attempt at building up a picture. but that attempt is mixed up and lost in the process (viscosity of immanence). no power is vested in transcendence. there is no suppression. the pictures will produce meanings by themselves. inevitably. with no need for sublimations. that is why there is not an ideal, there are only constantly varying sensations, and subsequent productions of meaning. which are often formalistic.

4. What was the working process like with the PexbaA band when you did projections during their gigs? Did the process begin with the music? In that situation, how did the relationship between sound and image develop? Did the experimentation and improvisation of PexbaA contaminate your images?

when i mentioned great meetings. that includes my meeting with pexbaA. and everything that came along with it. pexbaA is the artistic production (not just musically speaking) that touches me the most in brazil nowadays. and, once again, when i talk about pexbaA, i am talking about gleds flely, the minas gerais school of dysfunction, holocaust, atropine. and someone with whom i have interacted a lot in later years, antônio bráulio vilhena. i have worked with pexbaA a few years ago. everything that happened during that period was very important to my image production process. even if those images have nothing to do with what pexbaA does. lately i have had more contact with antônio bráulio vilhena. we have worked in the creation of images for suely costa songs, sung by him. but the process was interrupted (bráulio has passed away). bráulio was one of the most important meetings i have had until this day. the videos in this dossier are dedicated to him.