-What and who has inspired you the most in your artistic career?

As a multimedia artist and composer who works with photography, video, graphic art and music there are
numerous artists who have inspired me over the years. However, there are four persons and their
perspectives on art that really stand out as influences for very specific reasons.
The fact that I prefer to work in minimal, neutral studio settings with flat surfaces as a décor and texture-free human figures and faces as my subject matter is most certainly a result of my early passion for the work of Kitagawa Utamaro, the 18th century Japanese ukiyo-e artist whose work with portraiture had a major impact on my work. The flat planes of activity, human forms reduced to traces devoid of volume and the absence of photographic perspective in his woodblock prints spoke to me and left an indelible mark on my approach to spatial and textural considerations. Because I began my career as a photographic artist rather late at the age of 26 with no formal or informal experience in the field, I think my lack of baggage led me to question the conventional wisdom of my new field. Two things puzzled me. The first was why everyone seemed to be trying to make their images as three-dimensional as possible? Reality was three-dimensional and I certainly wasn’t interested in creating realistic visual interpretations of the world. I was interested in finding ways to represent my intellectual, psychological and emotional relationships with those around me (including those I would never know) and it seemed to me that the semi-abstract quality of juxtaposed flat fields of graphic, detail-free forms constituted a powerful aesthetic perspective worth exploring.
The second thing that puzzled me was that most subject matter was rather concrete in nature. It was
concerned with situations we see around us or we hear about on the news every day. It was not that such
subjects didn’t interest me, as a private citizen they obviously did, but as an artist, I wanted to explore the
states of mind responsible for our views on the world and our relationships with others. I was interested in exploring more intangible subject matter such as doubt, ambiguity, shame, wonder, satisfaction and desire.
I needed both a conceptual and aesthetic approach which promoted the development of such themes and it seemed to me that flat surfaces and traces, rather than voluminous forms and details were more apt to satisfy my ambitions for non-linear narratives. In both my recent digital new media work, including my films, the only textures I explore are those that represent veils covering the entire area of my work, semi-opaque barriers that separate the viewer from the universe I am exploring, positioning them as voyeurs regarding scenes that perhaps mirror their own lives.
When I was starting out as a photographer, there was one photographer whose work had a profound impact on me from a compositional point of view. Ralph Gibson’s early work taught me that the edges of an image were as important as the central area and that these border areas were capable of creating unique and diverse forms of tension in an image. I realized that every point in an image space has the same potential power until we define a clear objective, after which, the points in space most apt at supporting our objective reveal themselves. His work also taught me that large grain was not a problem. In fact, it was simply another textural parameter capable of provoking different sensations of visual depth unrelated to conventional notions of volume. His work continues to inspire my new media work in both digital photography and filmmaking.
I first came into contact with video art when I founded the photography department at the American Center in Paris in the early 80s. The Center was known all over Europe for its dedication to the promotion of video art as a powerful new form of artistic expression thanks to the leadership of Don Foresta, director of the institution’s Center for Media Art. It was there I discovered the works of young video artists such as Bill Viola, Gary Hill, William Wegman and Joan Logue. Joan’s work in particular, attracted me immediately. Her 30 second portraits of contemporary artists fascinated me by their power to deliver provocative messages and raise relevant questions in such a short time frame. I was hooked. I began to make my first videos in 1983.
Lastly, I am not sure that I would have been able to maintain the level of excitement and enthusiasm that
characterized my journey as a young artist during the 80s and 90s if it had not been for the ongoing inspiration provided by both the philosophy and works of John Cage. For me, there is no greater 20th century art philosopher than Cage. The ideas behind his development and use of chance techniques in musical composition, his revolutionary collaboration with choreographer Merce Cunningham and reprioritization of silence as an equal partner in the quartet of parameters that determine and define musical composition – sound frequency, timbre, duration of sound and silence – influenced every field of 20th century artistic creation. If chance continues to be an integral part of my creative process concerning the development of the non-linear storytelling that characterizes my films today, it is in large part thanks to the work of Cage. His thoughts and works remain close friends.

-Every true artist is also a revolutionary against power. Do you think there is still room today to express
one’s revolution through art?

I agree that all true artists are rebels of one form or another. We tend to be allergic to complacency and the status quo defended by the manipulative power structures present in all societies. I do not believe that we choose to be artists. In some fundamental sense, we have no choice. It is not a profession. It is a personal mission of exploration. I believe that there is a certain inevitability about the paths we take. I believe we have an obligation to express our innermost confusion, anxiety, wonder and yes, even hope, regarding those aspects of the human condition that preoccupy us, including those directly related to the seats of reactionary power. And this brings me to an important distinction: the difference between presenting solutions to relevant challenges that confront us on social and individual levels as opposed to raising relevant questions about such issues. I personally believe that one of the most important roles of contemporary art of any kind is to raise probing questions about those challenges we perceive as relevant to improving the human condition. This involves presenting new perspectives on the issues in question. There are no genuinely new subjects, only innovative perspectives on the age-old ones that often appear clothed in new contexts. When instead of raising relevant questions, we offer solutions (often overly simple ones), we can easily drift into a form of propaganda that proports to have answers to profoundly complex questions.
So, yes, artists have an obligation to promote their personal revolutionary ideas. However, I believe they are most effective when they stimulate serious reflection and debate on the subject in question rather than offering ready-made solutions about what we should think about them. I suppose what I am saying is that our art is best served when it has social, psychological and emotional relevance rather than narrow political positioning.
However, I do not mean to imply that we remain neutral. I simply suggest that our artistic objectives are best served by raising questions from perspectives that prioritize our personal positioning on issues. Nor do I mean to imply that propaganda in its many diverse forms is not relevant to social and individual evolution and change. As a private citizen, I believe in the importance of taking and defending firm, clear political positions. However, I do not see my role as an artist as one that seeks to actively convince others of my views.
As such, my work tends to suggest rather than affirm. It seeks to stimulate reflection and conversation on
specific aspects of the contemporary human condition as I perceive them.

-We live in a world where, unfortunately, war still exists. Do you believe that if there were more dissemination of art through the media and social networks, the world would be a more peaceful place?

No, sadly, I do not believe that, in general, the increased dissemination of art through the media and social networks can make the world a more peaceful place. Although I do believe that creative work of a more commercial or accessible variety (for example graffiti artwork, well-crafted commercial movies, progressive television programs, …) can sway opinion on many issues, the people directly affected by such work are not necessarily those responsible for the decisions to engage in violent and/or anti-social behaviour.
I do not believe that the general public is responsible for the types of decisions that involve a perceived need to resort to forms of physical or psychological violence on local, national and/or international levels. Perhaps over time, a shift in public positioning brought about in part by the increased dissemination of art to the general public may have a marginal impact on the outcomes of a given democratic process (on both individual and social levels), but this impact will almost inevitably be countered by the powers that require violence in some form as a tool to achieve their ends. Sadly, on a societal level, these powers tend to be made up of persons or groups whose insider political power far outreaches that of the general public, both locally and/or nationally.
Does this mean we should do nothing? No, most certainly not. As I said earlier, we are not artists by chance. It is not a choice. Artists will continue to promote the exploration of challenging questions, including those relevant to peaceful co-existence. However, I think it is perhaps naïve to think that our art can, at a societal level, effectively combat the powerful disinformation machines controlled by those who ultimately pull the strings in the societies in which we live.
I studied to become a development economist at some of the best universities in the world and I left my doctoral studies to become an artist because I realized that, at least for me, my ambition to affect people’s lives in a positive sense was best served by making artwork that had the power to affect society one person at a time.
Some may see this as a lack of ambition. I see it as a powerful privilege.

-Are you working on a new project? If so, can you give us a sneak peek?

Yes, for the past several months I have been working on a new interactive video installation project entitled the Choir of Discontent. The theme is the illusion of social media’s capacity to serve as an effective messaging platform to help alleviate personal grievances and complaints about our daily lives.
We live in a world in which expressing individual grievances about the challenges we face has perhaps never been easier and yet, it is increasingly difficult to be heard and understood because of the level of “message noise” generated by the quantity of thoughts being simultaneously expressed as a result of such ease.
In today’s world of social media, literally hundreds of millions of individuals are expressing their grievances and points of view simultaneously every minute of every day. Often time, personal grievances compete online for priority treatment and it is little wonder that we sometimes feel overwhelmed by the general level of “noise” the simultaneity of our messages generates. It could be argued that never in human history have more people expressed themselves freely and publicly without being truly heard. In fact, no one is really paying attention.
The Choir of Discontent aims to recontextualize this situation in the form of a multi-cultural, multilingual interactive video installation/exhibition and a single-channel video. The project involves the collaboration of artists in several countries charged with filming the grievances of citizens representing a large spectrum of socioeconomic profiles that will be presented in a multiscreen format capable of simulating the simultaneity of messaging on social media platforms. The project will involve the possibility of installation visitors to participate by airing their grievances in real time. I have already received over 20 videos from artists in four countries and am working on obtaining the results from two more countries.

I expect the project to be completed before mid-2025.