Arthur Tuoto.

Mãos Mortas

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

Unmittelbar zu Beginn des Videos ertönen Stimmen. Zu sehen ist nichts. Die Stimmen aus dem Off unterhalten sich stockend über ihre Beziehung und die Intensität ihrer Liebe.  Das Schwarz des filmischen Raumes wird von dem Dialog aus dem Film J’entends plus la guitarre (1991, Regie: Philippe Garrel) belebt. Das monochrome Schwarz der visuellen Ebene wird durch flackernde weiße Überbelichtungen, die an Lichteffekte früher Filmprojektionen erinnern, durchbrochen. Plötzlich ertönt Musik. Es entsteht der Eindruck, dass nun ein zweiter Teil des Films beginnt. Zwar bleibt die schwarze Einstellung bestimmend, doch scheinen während der hellen Einblendungen Standfotos von Hollywoodstars wie Marilyn Monroe auf, die eine vergangene Film-Ära beschwören. Verstörend und nostalgisch wirken diese Aufnahmen. Sowohl die Musik als auch die Montageästhetik suggerieren Bewegung in den Standfotos. Klavierklänge der immer wieder gleichen Melodie, die Assoziationen zur musikalischen Begleitung von Stummfilmen wecken, verstärken den kinematischen Effekt und verleihen dem rhythmischen Sichtbarwerden der Aufnahmen ein Eigenleben. Tatsächlich aber deutet das Knistern auf das Abspielgeräusch eines Schallplattenspielers, das ebenso wie das optische Flackern der schwarzen und weißen Bilder einen Störeffekt erzeugt. So plötzlich wie der Einstieg in den Film erfolgt, ist auch sein Ende. Die letzte Fotografie fängt den Kuss zweier Liebender ein. Die Musik verstummt. Es ist wieder dunkel.
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.