From 2011, culturia used to record interview sessions inviting artists to talk about their work with curators. Since the beginning of 2014, culturia changed perspectives and decided to initiate discussions between two or more artists.
Within the fleetingness of an oral discourse statements are formed by and shared between two or more persons. Often those exchanges are ephemeral and remain only in one´s single memory as they are asserted within confined spaces.
culturia sees the inherent power of the « speaking language[1] » in an discourse, not to only reproduce and consolid institutionalized meanings but to create a space where new meanings are being formed. culturia is convinced of how fertile exchanges, debates, discussions could be for the creative process and the construction of an individual and collective mind. Through the expressivity of the body while writing or talking the mind is engaged in the development of unique and specific connections to unfold thoughts and and create explicit sense.
Therefore culturia intends to ease this process by inviting artists, which known each other. One advantage of this idea is to keep the balance between an instructive, recorded situation and the « natural » and spontaneous discussion enabled by closeness.
Further culturia´s procedure is motivated by the avoidance of hierarchic system within discussion process. First and foremost culturia dismissed the term ‘’interview’’ as it´s straightaway problematic. An interview is defined by a one-way system where the duo interviewee / interviewer is predefined. Then as Jean-Marc Poinsot states « in the frame of an interview, the interlocutor or addressee only occupy one position when the artist in her/his replies, speaks to every addressee[2] ». culturia´s choice to invite two or more artists to discuss in front of the camera shows the avoidance of this dyad present in the interview format.
By mirroring themselves in the questions and replies of their partner, participants discover new points of view on their artistic practice. Through the discussion equal to equal culturia aims to visibilize and distinguish the individual creative procedures and attitudes as if each artist undergoes a self-reflection during the collective discussion and by the questions being asked. This intersubjectivity includes the tierce person who watches the video. Being part of a reflection process framed by a dynamic discourse between friends is a profound feeling and is giving insight of what is more personal than formal. It enhances the approachability of what artistic practice consists of – again starting from subjectivity to reach broader knowledge.
The recordings should not last more than 20 minutes, thus meetings are organized to settle axes, get to know common or convergent points which can bring interesting issues and then spares the five W’s.
(Text by Gwen Lesmeister and Gauthier Lesturgie)
[1] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, La Prose du Monde, Paris: Gallimard, 1969.
[2] Jean-Marc Poinsot, Quand l’oeuvre a lieu – l’art exposé et ses récits autorisés, Les Presses du Réel, Dijon, 2008.