Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Ever since Candy and Ayer, in which a girl in a wheelchair sings Luis Miguel songs, your work has this music video-karaoke aesthetic. Why does the format appeal to you? What elements does it contribute to the proposal that you wish to build up?

The music video came up naturally when I dealt with certain issues. I was a child in the 1980s and I grew up watching music videos. It is a cliché-filled world, and in order to “get past” it, I had to think about it and then rethink it. Most music videos are ultimate examples of gender stereotypes. Clear, simple ideas, a good rhythm and a short time span: a good formula to appropriate. What I did in those works was repeat the formula, changing a few chips around. Instead of the classic “music video woman,” the protagonist would be a young woman in a wheelchair, or a blond who was not blond, but wore a wig that did not quite match. They should not have been there, but they were. The “should not have been there” reveals the imposed models that we incorporate.

The female condition is another element that stands out in your work. With Candy, the goal seemed to be building truth based on appearances. Ayer creates fantasy within the fantasy: it uses the formula of music videos, featuring a female protagonist, a location, and a situation that would never be in a pop music production. Disclosing not only the aggressive and prejudiced nature of stereotypes, but also their emptiness and grotesqueness: is that the objective of those works?

Promoting awareness of stereotypes is something that has always interested me. The idea is to stop for a moment and ask: “Why are they only giving me this one option, when I can have others?” In fact, there are as many options as one can imagine, the problem is that the means of communication, and culture as a whole, often curtail this ability, by tying us up to a single way of viewing things. In most cases, this “correct” way implies inequalities. When we allow ourselves to exit those schemes, we realize that other possibilities exist. But we usually live immersed in them, without realizing that it is possible to get out. 

Feliz aunque no libre delves deeper into the issue, transposing it to the domestic realm. Why do female social roles attract you, and which aspects of that condition do you wish to highlight?

The female roles do not attract me, but rather the roles of women and men. I think that the stereotypical gender roles are equally detrimental to women and men, and it surprises me that things are not perceived in that way. It is like saying that racial prejudice is a problem of black people, when it is really a problem of all people. Unless playing the oppressor’s role is regarded as something positive. Anyway, Feliz aunque no libre is a work that I built using comic strips from the 1970s, that were published in a local newspaper when I was little. The charming comics for children used to say things like: “Love Is… doing all the dishes,” “Love Is… letting her have silly conversations on the telephone,” “Love Is… letting him read Playboy,” “Love Is… not letting her go out in miniskirts,” “Love Is… cleaning up the tub without complaining after he takes a bath,” “Love Is… frowning when you hear about women’s lib,” “Love Is… feeling happy, although not free.” Those are alarming conceptions of love, women, and men. In my work, I try to exorcize the information that entered my mind when I was still too little to think for myself.

Karina, your partnership with Julia Castagno, has a different outlook, even though it also deals with a female situation. The work not only mirrors daily life, it also proposes a symbolic solution to the conflict that it presents. How did you come up with the idea of making a video about verbal harassment?

Besides being work colleagues and close friends, Julia Castagno and I share many common interests. Verbal harassment to women in the streets is an everyday thing in countries like ours, and it is a subject we cannot help but analyze. We did not understand how something as violent as “street pick-up lines” was accepted, but we wanted to know how other women dealt with it. So we went out in the streets to make interviews. What we found was that many answers were in line with our perspective: the “pick-up line” becomes, most of the times, a source of constant insecurity for women. We also went to the women’s police station to check if verbal aggression in the streets was something that could be reported, but nobody was able to answer. It was during this investigation that we met Karina. The symbolic solution that presents itself in the video is a materialization of our fantasy. We would often like to take radical action toward these aggressors. In our lives, even if we do not beat these men up, we will stop and reply, we tell them so many things that they do not know what to do. Maybe, the next time they want to say something, they will think twice.

Karina does not develop an activity that is commonly associated with the female universe, nor does it relate to the types that you had been exploring: she is not a singer, aspiring pop star, romantic, or naïve. She is a boxer. Has the work been molded by the character?

The character appeared by itself. After an entire night of interviews, we met this eighteen-year-old female who told us men usually did not mess with her, and she did not feel scared in any way. She was a boxer and that gave her confidence. Immediately, we knew she would be the protagonist of our video. Our work is a piece of fiction based on the experiences we collected. We realized the extent to which women are not prepared to defend themselves, let alone to attack, and the way in which this has them in a more vulnerable position, from the get-go.

Karina portrays various situations and rude pick-up lines. What was the preparation and “field investigation” work like regarding this aspect of the video?

First of all, we interviewed women in the streets of Montevideo. Then, we made a very long list of the phrases most commonly heard in the streets. Afterwards we had a selection process. The entire team working with us (production, photography, editing, make-up, costume, casting) was comprised of women, and all had, at least once, heard a phrase similar to those featured in the video. Still, my boyfriend could not believe we were told those things. In many cases, they live absent from our everyday reality. They have no idea how walking the streets is different for a man and a woman. That is why we did not want to ‘tone down’ the rudeness, so people would perceive it the way it really is.

The series Cómo sos tan lindo brings about a new change: it investigates the construction mechanisms of female beauty by transferring their codes to the male universe. Based upon which perceptions, reflections, and observations did you build the concepts for the series?

In fact, Cómo sos tan lindo does not transfer female beauty codes to the male universe. What it does is put a man in front of the camera, thus inverting the classic order (the woman is always the one who is looked at). The starting point for the work is a newspaper ad seeking “attractive men for photographs.” From then on, contents are supplied by the men who present themselves: the definition of what is attractive, the gestures, the poses, the self-perception with regard to beauty. If you perceive those as a code of the female universe, it is probably because the only referential of beauty that we are used to seeing is the female one. Whenever we see a man posing seductively, it makes us think of a woman, because we are used to seeing women in that position. This tells us a lot. The image of the “seductive man” that exists in our imaginary is an image constructed by the eyes of another man. The way in which a woman looks at the man’s body is not something that we are used to seeing. I felt that the image of man as a beauty object to women was a great absence, and that I had to seek it. When I see people watching my videos, I realize that my work touches people deeply, judging from the reactions that it elicits.

You have a project of investigation, conducted through a grant from the Uruguayan government, on the issue of gender in arts. How is that work structured, and what specific aspects will you focus on?

I received support from the Ministry of Education and Culture, through its Contestable Funds to participate in a meeting in Vienna, organized by Museum Quartier, featuring contemporary artists from various countries who deal with gender issues. Each artist develops a project and, in parallel, conferences and roundtables are held. I was invited to develop Cómo sos tan lindo in the city of Vienna. Cómo sos tan lindo was conceived as a travelling project, because it attempts to investigate how the construction of beauty varies in different cultural contexts. It has already been made in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and soon it will be made in Santiago and Valparaiso.

The pop, the film-and-television-fashion language, irony, and critique are present throughout your entire body of work. Is manipulating the tools and codes that contemporary audiences are accustomed to the best way to attract their attention to the dysfunctions in the cultural discourse of our days?
T

he thing is these codes and tools are precisely what creates contemporaneity. It is difficult to think about the reality that surrounds us without taking them into account, without making references to them.

Simulation is the filter that presents itself to reflect a world very similar to ours, only with less recurrent alternatives. To theatricalize reality, to reproduce the reproductions that we are accustomed to (through Hollywood, advertising, television, etc.), but introducing discordant notes: is that the guiding thread of your work?

I like the expression “theatricalize reality.” Yes, there is some of that. It has to do with approaching art as a way of life. Living life as a “work in process.” I seek to originate experiences in order to multiply the possibilities given to me. These are situations that would not happen in reality, but which end up becoming real through art. And from those situations, analyses and reflections emerge. I always try to include action in my work. I think it is a shame to let people contemplate artwork from a distance. It is important that they get involved, that the work becomes their reality for that moment. For example, in Cómo sos tan lindo, it seems of utmost importance for me to include, in the exhibition, an instance with the men who participated in it. That is a very rich moment.

In what other places would you like to do Cómo sos tan lindo and why?

I would love to do it in India and in China or in Japan, key countries to the Eastern culture. I understand the fact that aesthetic patterns, gestures, and poses repeat themselves in Western countries, and I wonder what the reach of globalization in that sense is. In the two cities where I did the videos so far, Brad Pitt was mentioned as an example of beauty. I find that funny. Will the same happen in China? It will certainly have an impact. I intend to do the series in Mexico and in Paraguay, two countries that are traditionally very strong and sexist. What I am interested in about this work is the fact that men themselves defeat the sexist structures with their discourse. There is no need to add anything.

In 2003, you and Julia Castagno carried out a public art project, Ciudad ideal, in which works of art occupied the place of outdoor advertisement. You said at the time that the goal was to think about the use that is made of the public space for creating “nonexistent needs.” Is that restlessness still present in your work?

Maybe not in my current work, but in me, it is. The main objective of this work was for us to become aware, as citizens and artists, that we too have the right to generate imagery in the public space, instead of just consuming it. In the last few years, the city had become covered up with lighting fixtures for outdoor advertisements that only convey commercial values. It seemed like a waste for us not to use up those spaces, so visible and lightened, for other purposes. The work consisted in managing to insert new content into those supports.

You work with advertising production. That is, you have an “inside” view of the power, techniques, languages, and idiosyncrasies of advertising, designed to elicit “nonexistent needs.” How does that activity feed your artistic creations?

They feed my creations in two different ways. On the one hand, it serves as a training process: the relationship with a crew, the time management, the systematization of work. On the other hand, it keeps alive my need for creating images that strike a balance with the advertising content. I dedicate myself specifically to art production, I am not involved with the ideas, but I cannot keep myself from questioning what is really being said in order to sell a product. It is quite terrible.

Martín Sastre is your cousin, and together with him and other artists, such as Dani Umpi, you were part of the Movimiento Sexy collective. What have you retained from that experience? Do you still use something from those days in your work?

Julia Castagno and Federico Aguirre were also members of Movimiento Sexy. I work with Julia until this day. The way we found for self-managing and projecting ourselves abroad was to unite. When we showed in New York in 2000, before we were in Movimiento Sexy, everyone would tell us that our works had a special dialogue between themselves. We had much in common. The idea of Movimiento was never to lose sight of the individual proposals. At an exhibition, we might present one group work, or five solo ones. The important thing was that, together, those works proposed something more than just the sum of the parts. Uniting made us independent from the medium. We gained strength.