Rebeca

Date: 2009
Length: 24:00 min.
Format:  4:3
Specification: Colour, Sound

How do we approach events that are beyond our comprehension? In his new short film, Gonzalo Rodriguez addresses this question by trying to understand his grandmother’s death. She died in 1993, whilst crossing an expressway. His search leads him back to Lima, Peru, the place it happened. Talking with Rebeca’s children and husband, he tries to draw a mental picture of his grandmother and her motives. This line of questioning remains unsatisfying, fragmentary and subjective, just like every other form of memory. In loose associations, pictures follow narratives without being able to give a clear or true impression, a failing that Rodriguez doesn’t try to make up for, but rather intensifies by using techniques of photomontage and picture collage. The question of the power and the helplessness of pictures and words combined in a cinematic narrative opens up a second layer. It is the backdrop upon which Rodriguez develops his autobiographical documentary, which he finally finishes knowing that every story cannot give more than one of the many perspectives on what has happened.

TL

Interview:

► 1. Your video has been chosen among over 1700 festival entries to participate in Videonale 13. How central is the video medium to your overall artistic production? Is it complimentary to other media you use or do you work exclusively with video?

As a technical device video has become my main tool of expression. But for artistic purposes I prefer to take some distance from the technical aspects of "video", to expand the term to the wider context of motion pictures, merging it with other "kinds" of media such as film or animation. I find it especially problematic with the new digital formats - which nowadays I use the most - where the differences between audiovisual media given by its technical origin (photographic, electronic generated images, whatsoever) have practically disappeared.

► 2. Is there a particular theme, concept or problem your art addresses the most?

My work deals with audiovisual and space experimentation of the construction of identity through radical subjectivity. In this respect I am more concerned about social aspects such as cultural and sexual difference, intimacy and history.

► 3. What artists do you relate to or find significant for your own art-making?

In no order of importance: Maya Deren, Yukio Mishima, Jean Genet, Luis Buñuel, Johan van der Keuken, Gunvor Nelson, Chantal Akerman, Branda Miller, John Waters, Guy Ben-Ner, Brian Eno, Sonic Youth, etc.

► 4. Do you think the video medium can address social or political issues better than other art media?

It addresses some kind of verisimilitude to images that photography seems to have lost. It's not easy to argue about the degree of reality delivered by video compared to other media because the subject is more complex than we usually think. In my personal point of view there is a functional aspect of subjectivity being exploited by objectivity represented on/by the video format, telling us "what you are seeing now is the truth and not some constructed reality" which is, of course, a lie.

► 5. Art can be seen as a mirror that registers and reflects life or as a tool that transforms it. Which of the two positions is close to your own art-making philosophy?

Both. I also have a divided personality.

► 6. How do you understand success in an art-making career?

Success is a concept of contradictions. In capitalistic terms I understand it as a financial profit from the recognition of your work, which is important because we all live in capitalism. It can be mostly ephemeral, though. Historically, I understand it as the possibility of transmission to the next generations, even if your work was commercially catastrophic and your life was suffering. Personally, I understand it as staying alive in the constant struggle between yourself and reality.

► 7. What is the most difficult and the most rewarding thing about making art / being an artist?

To create

► 8. What are your upcoming projects?

I'm working now on a new film in collaboration with the Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf, which should be ready by August 2011. The film is about my encounter with a strange actor who plays a role which is neither real nor invented but serves as a representation of desire between the two men. The film plays with the boundaries between documentary and fiction going from a real to a constructed identity being captured on film.

► 9. What do you do when you don't make art?

I eat, sleep, make love, read, listen to music, watch movies and TV, have conversations with friends. I do a lot of things when I don't make art.