ST/A/R-50-54 (Seiteneindrücke)

Städteplanung/ Architektur/ Religion/ Art + ST/A/R/T 9
When it comes to the point, what l'm doing now is almost
something like revenge ...
Benedikt Ledebur in conversation with Tamuna Sirbiladze (2006)
B: Let's begin by talking about what won 't be seen in the book, that is
about your video works and in what context they stand to your other
works. When did you begin shooting videos?
T: When I was given a camera, that was 2001. I had actually never
thought about film. When I was 16, I already had quite clear ideas
about what art intere sted me, and it was neither film nor video.
For me film meant a mean s of entertainment. I liked the heavy,
black films like Pasolini and Godard. I went to the cinema in
Tbilisi, Georgia that showed these special quality cinematographic
films, like the Filmmuseum here in Vienna. lt was called the Domkino.
B: When you came to Vi.enna, did experimental.films also interest you
-for exan1ple, what Kubelka did, or the .filn1s documenting the Aktio ­
nists, Kurt Kren 's .filn1s etc.?
T: What I saw impressed me very much as actions, also shocked
me, but it didn 't suggest film to me as a medium for my own
artistic work. lt was reall y like I said, it was only when I got the
camera that I also begin to explore the se possibilities. Firstl y I
started to film something or other totall y mechanically, everything
that intere sted me, that was happening around me. At the time I
was travelling a lot and then I filmed everything , f or example the
view from the taxi of the skyscrapers in New York or whatever.
Of cour se that still had no artistic value but I trained myself as an
observer. Ifyou want to make art you don ' t need a lot of technical
support at the outset. At the time pencil and paper was enough f or
me, with film or video it's somewhat different.
B: How did video then develop for you as a means of artistic presen ­
tation? What do you show in the videos that can now be seen at your
e.,---chibitions? I don 't yet know them . Could we watch something and do
you want to show videos at the exhibition at the Wittgenstein hause?
T· No, I won 't show anything -1 n1ean at the Wittgensteinhaus, for you
yes - because I prefer to show my latest pictures at the Ficker exhibi ­
tion . My film works are not really video works, they are the expanded
footnotes to n1y work processes and n1y work situation. I use the videos
as documentation and I n1ostly work with.film when I don 't have n1y
studio available.
T: We watch two videos. In the first one - the subject is the visit of
the American pre sident to Tbilisi - the picture is divided. On one
side we see f olklore dances on a stage in the street taking place in
the president 's honour , on the other side we see how the politicians,
Bush and Saakashvili move, the ritual of greeting , rhythmic
(Bush) and unrhythmic (Saakashvili) clapping along with the dances,
how they allow them selves to be photographed with the dancer
s, shaking hand s and so on. The second video shows a public
event in Rome, an experimental duet improvising on a keyboard
and a drum set to Tamuna 's picture „Benedetta al Mare " that
schematicall y shows a half-naked swim ming woman figure from
above, her head at the lower edge of the picture.
B : What you 're saying here about your criteria when you 're.filming
also seems to have something to say about your decisions while pain ­
ting. l t 's noticeable in your pictures that you don 't lookfor perspec ­
tive effects . On the contrary, it often seems you want to emphasise the
two-dimensionality of the canvas through the apparitional -like nature
of your .figures. And the lines, for example in the worked -in geome ­
trical patterns that could serve to lead into a perspective, serve you
much n1ore to isolate the pattern in the picture space, they rather have
the effect of foreign bodies. Of course, the „ raw n1ateria l" that you
lookfor when painting n1ust lie son1ewhere else. Where is it located?
Do you want to suggest a kind of spontaneity?
T: What now shows itself in my pictures are figures from my imagination
which, as such, I want to leave as unworked as possible.
Naturally they are not pure visions or fantasy figures but nourish
themselve s from external impressions that have established them ­
selves in me. So they almo st stand before my eyes before I paint
them.
B: As in1aginary pictures that are difficult to locate? L ike your lines
that border the .figures, they also have son1ething abstract . On the
other hand your washy colouring has something picturesque en1phasising
the fiuidity that appears to syn1bolise the characteristics of
irnaginary pictures rather than portray them as realistic . D o you see
your pictures as representations?
T: They do have a basis. They are founded on basic concept s or prior
decisions, like it always is with naked or half nak ed women 's bodies,
mostly they have something else on like socks. In China people who still
have their socks on are not regardecl as naked. In some cultures th e legs
are most taboo. For a long time I ,vas only intere sted in abstract painting
, in colour theori es, in the structt1re of paint on canvas , in „expressive"
brush strokes and so on. They were almost experiments , the quest
for a „tran scendental " colour. I believe in these thing s. But at so1ne point
it became routine , I got into a kind of circt1lar motion that bored me.
At the age of t,venty I could still connect feelings with pt1re colour and
it satisfied me. Then eventuall y the rest1lt couldn 't satisfy me anymore
even when it was technicall y successful and ft1lfilled my original crit e­
ria. Lat er I didn't even manage the technical side of things; two years
after my arrival in Vienna I completely stopp ed painting and began for
example , as we talked about , ,vith filming.
B : Beforehand in the studio you shol ved me a couple of older pictures , with
,vriting, lVith 1vords in the picture. Did you make these pictures after you
turned a,vay from abstract Expressionisrn?
T: Yes, at that time I was looking for something for my art and I
also played around with the computer a lot and I came across the
Google search engine. Then I simply put in words like „housewif
e" or „sublime " and when you clicked on the „images " button
you got picture s about the se words or about their meaning. I
then painted new picture s from variou s elements of these pictures.
Sometime s the search words were the titles of my picture s,
sometime s only the search words appeared on white canva s, f or
example „Sublime " with a painted red frame.
B : With the videos you have thefeeling that it's about more than only
a docun1entary, which with regard to „ objective presentation " would
also be just as debatable . With the .first one, because of the Juxtapositi ­
on of dancing and political dancing, there 's the ten1ptation to assume
something like a political statement. With the second, because of the
length of the video but also because of the way it 's .filmed, with very
quick camera n1oven1ents and changes of focus, it immediately comes
to n1ind that the impression of being unprocessed and of arbitrary
can1era work is consciously being evoked, so a particular aesthetic is
preferred.
T: That 's right. In the second video the camera almost follows the
rhythm of the music. I really try to leave the raw material itself
unprocessed. I do edit and select but I don 't rework the material.
I try to show only the impres sion of the subject matter itself, as it
pre sents itself in the camera setting. What I don 't like at all with
videos is special eff ects made thank s to high-tech post-proces sing,
f or example three-dimensional eff ects, distortion s, oversizing ,
all tho se King Kong jokes aimed at a ma ss public, the synthetic
make-up intended to make the films more impre ssive. Then people
are more interested in how it's made than in the subject matter itself.
l ' m interested in what the subject matter means to mein itself.
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