- The work was commissioned by HERMES. Did you already have the idea of making this film in mind or did it come out of the commission? Were there any guidelines, was there a theme to work on or were you free to make the work according to your own ideas/concepts?
The idea was hanging there before Hermes came with the commission. Hermes and its curator for this project Benjamin Weil gave total freedom to realise a work for the H-Box, which is a specially design viewing box that would travel to different museums in the World.
- what was the concept that stood at the origin of this work? where did you start from? was it the quotation by JG Ballard? What kind of influence is his work on Oracle (or maybe also your work in general?)
Future is something that intrigues me. It is a theme which I keep on exploring by different means on my work. I tend to break the possible or given reality of a place or era on my video/films. The way and elements of the present come together to form a parallel idea or concept of what we understand for ‘the real’. Through this transportation the works tend to create distance from our daily perception.
Oracle does a reading on the essence of things, things which are common today but that can create certain abstraction on time.
- in your work you often deal with a seemingly lost individual in the world. in this work not so much one individual seems lost, but the world itself. and the people have to come to terms with this. can you agree on this reading of your work? and is this the feeling you have about the world and the people in it today?
The image I work with is that one of the universal and timeless man. The universe surrounding the man is the unknown. When we look locally or regionally we may know where we are standing but time and diversity tell us that our understanding of things is minimal. If we would not be in that unknown territory, searching and on the move we would be certain of everything and therefore stuck on time.
- what was the way of working for this work: did you already have the footage available and you needed only to edit it? or was the footage especially shot for this work? I ask this because wat we see seems a rather random succession of images. these images act as signs, but it's not evident how we should interpret or judge these signs.
What were the choices you made in the editing process? Because somehow these images had to hold together to become a work. what was your strategy to achieve this?
Oracle is the reunion of images I recorded on several trips on the laps of approximately 10 years in different parts of the world. Different times, different places on one same timeline. The selection of images are somehow images which are difficult to place. Elements and things which subvert reality, that was the first choice. They are also this universal images that transcend the present time by means of the present image.
Once the elements were chosen everything needed to come together on the puzzle. I chose the fusion of them partly intuitively, partly following a given rhythm. Each image is a work by itself when isolated from the rest and enlarged from its extremes to their original duration. The images before and after the man looking at the sea to the horizon can also be placed on a different order. To say: is not that much the editing which is important here, is the roll and symbolism of the individual image.
- Oracle will now be shown at a major film festival. how do you see the differences in showing your work in gallery and museum spaces at the one hand and cinemas on the other? what do you prefer?
I see the work functioning as an installation and on a screening program. I also see it working as drawings on light boxes as they coexist with the video work today.
They are slightly different and the same every time. The installation introduces itself as the physical Oracle with two big screens as an open book, soundless in a first glance. The single channel is the rough version that is experienced by a bigger audience at the same time. Also motionless, like the character, and facing a point on the screen. They are different but their function is the same.
- That is the next project you will be or maybe are already working on? Is it a film or will it be an multi-channel-installation piece? Is it related to Oracle or completely different?
Im working on a feature film at the moment. Im in my home town, Comodoro Rivadavia in Patagonia. The shooting will start next week. The film has been supported by the Hubert Bals Fond. so to begging with the festival links the two works.
This movie is narrative, though the atmosphere of Oracle hangs in the air. The character seams to be lost again, though this time he knows were he goes (locationwise). The movie develops on a petroleum city and its about life in this peace. It also brings back the idea of how to interpret reality and its different layers.