Arthur Tuoto.

Mãos Mortas

Date: 2012
Length: 05:42 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Black and White, Sound, Single Channel
Courtesy the artist

At the very beginning of the video voices can be heard. Nothing can be seen. Haltingl off-screen voices discuss their relationship and the depth of their love. The black of the screen is relieved by the dialogue from the film J’entends plus la guitarre (1991, Director: Philippe Garrel). Flickering white spots break through the monochrome black of the screen, just like early cinema films. Suddenly we hear music. It looks as though a second part of the film is about to begin.  The screen still stays dark, but with the white flashes stills of Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe also appear, conjuring up a previous era of the cinema. Both the music and the editing suggest movement in the stills. A piano plays the same melody over and over again, waking an association with the musical accompaniment of silent films, strengthening the kinematic effect and lending the pulsating appearance of the images a life of its own. In fact though, the crackling sound recalls the surface noise of a record player which, just like the flickering of the black and white images, seems like interference. The film ends as abruptly as it started. The last photograph catches the kiss of two lovers. The music falls silent. It is dark again.

Christian Mertmann
 

Interview:

► 1. Your work has been chosen among over 2000 festival entries to participate in VIDEONALE.14. In which context do you prefer to present your work, festival/cinema context or exhibition? And what kind of difference does the respective mode of presentation mean for you / your work?

This particular work can be shown in both ways (cinema or exhibition), as most of my other works. Whenever I conceive a work, I like to get into a final piece that can function in this two contexts, even because most of the events that I participate deals with this kind of hybrid works. Although in some of my stuff you can see a narrative side (which at first would work better as a cinema context), one of the goals is precisely to reposition this narrative to a exhibition context.

► 2. Art can be seen as a mirror that registers and reflects life or as a tool that transforms it. Is there a particular theme, concept or problem your art addresses the most?

My work deals with a certain film and audiovisual imaginary that makes no concessions. I can appropriate both an old film or even a porn film (as I have done) to make a piece. I don't know if there's a recurring theme here, since the works deal more with a certain materiality of the image, an aesthetic that search often in the low resolution, in the detritus, a particular sensory sense. Although, in other works, I like to deal with what we can call "politics of the gaze", with appropriations of surveillance videos and other contemporary images that reflect a certain alienation in our world.

► 3. In which way is the video medium an excellent possibility to express your intended subjects, especially in contrast to other media you use? Or do you work exclusively with video?

I work primarily with video. I like the ease and flexibility of this medium. And as I work a lot with appropriation art, I really like to process certain images, to redo and do everything multiple times, and with the video technology this becomes possible.

► 4. If you have the chance to ask the visitors of the VIDEONALE.14 exhibition questions about your own work, what would be your question?

I guess the most obvious question would be: What did you feel? But as the work, somehow, deals with memory and love, I would like to know if the video brings the viewers some remembrances. And if so, what are these remembrances. I would like to have that personal perception from the audience, almost on an analytical level. Why my work reminds you that? Or who do you remember when you wach my work? What situation? And so on.