I know you are working on “Bed & Breakfast”, which you are post-producing at the moment. Your description says: “Four paralysed dreamers accidentally awake while sunken deep into their sleep. Each are reshaped by sleep as their kitchen begins to refract their illnesses and thoughts which trap them in a vicious cycle, purging them deeper into the feverish madness of ill abstractions.” How did you come up with the concept? Could you tell us a bit more about the project?
To prevent the film from being spoiled, I will not delve further into the plot, there’s still a lot of discovering which I am excited to explore in post-production, which for me is like making a second film, who knows what will change, certainly a lot may evolve from what I will say in the time this is published, so I speak with only the shooting complete. I am not sure even if ‘Bed & Breakfast’ may remain as the title, but certainly that is my crew’s favourite title, so it may remain. This title is a reference to the films’ morning and kitchen setting which is not at all what it seems. Shooting and conceiving ‘B&B’ has so far been very shapeful, it’s the first film in which I am working entirely from a script and shot list. My previous films were made without storyboards and worked off loose outlines and process serendipity. As you have read, the film explores sleep, dreams, and beyond which are inspired by my personal experiences with time and inertia. The film is a surreal mirage of experiences, fusing the psychological with the otherworldly. Given the abstract nature of the films’ subject, the films’ form is inherently rooted within a sensorial audio-visual narrative, where ambience speaks more than characters, and in the case of paralysed dreamers, this language is particularly intense. This was my first time working with actors, we shot the film off and on throughout three months in my bedroom which we transformed into a decaying set, this gave me a lot of pleasure in forcing my overly minimalistic bedroom into a desolate room of rot, it was a joy to wake up every morning with the smell of coffee leaking through the walls which we used to paint the walls in. A lot of great findings and nourishing experiences came from the shoot. There have so far been huge learning curves for me, which I feel have matured and made me more disciplined since shooting this short.
All your art is very triggering and disturbing in a sense. I think it touches some parts of the brain that are not usually stimulated by the world that surrounds us on a daily basis. What’s your intent towards the reaction of the audience?
If my work resonates with unusual parts of the brain, that is music for what I like creating and what I enjoy feeling in art. While the process is always my main concern, as it is the first in creation. I do hope that audiences are free to receive what resonates with them, especially when dealing with dreamscapes, we are always creating narratives in where we are attracted. For me, the process is first and foremostly the focus, because that is the most crucial element of creating, being free to receive, question, make, and intuit. There is a second voice for how I feel some may receive my work, but I only set out to create what I feel is truthful to the world of my creation rather than to create for what I think will cause a reaction, because that can never be predicted and limits your range when you think about an invisible audience. I find that when centering on worlds that exist within abstract spaces, there is an inherent trust with the unconsciousness of a space, which an audience accepts in a work of pure sensorial creation, which allows people to receive more internal and metaphysical narratives essential to the material of the forms’ construction which for me is always important in the stories I tell. I do it first and foremostly for what I feel best accentuates the idea. I try to respect the journey of the expression and idea, and accept whatever is organic to the emotion of the piece. That being said, if my work does provoke, that is always a positive for me, because provocation always motivates evolution and change which we need to survive and adapt.
Conversely, what does your work stimulate in you? I feel performance is a way of reconciliation with the body of the performer, a sort of inner journey through movement. Do you resonate with that?
The stimulation of seeing shapes, sounds, and movements aligning when a project materialises is the music which evokes the most magic in me. The ideas tempt you to discover them through the journey of the process.F. Film and performance deal with live elements, which are sometimes only understood in the raw materialisation of the moment you put camera-to-subject, both gesture and movement are sensitive languages for me, so sometimes I never truly know how a piece will come together until the edit, when the materials are altogether. In performance, I am stimulated by the connection in re-vitalising and unlocking new areas of the body through engaging with otherworldly settings. Spaces which are inherently unreal stir my imagination and body – I look for a way to make them real for me. When performing, I try to distance myself as a person, because I am letting the materials and energies create in that space – as my body is a part of the live construction, it too is a material. I believe there is truth to the idea of a performance enabling one to engage with the elemental properties which shape identities in our day-to-day life – one uses elements of their own experience to draw new experiences through abstraction. My body for me is a vessel I want to expand, and I hope that I can inspire that journey in others. I have two recurring modes of performance in the 9 performances I have created. I find myself mixing between spontaneous and staged modes of movement: one is freer, reactive, and the other is more pictorial and precise – I enjoy both. In the more internal and improvised performances, I am responding to and sometimes creating new associations and textures, either from lived experience or from the blind spaces that confront me in performing live in the space. Mnemonics play a large role when sculpting my response, an internal performance is needed for improvisation, the body has many unknown margins. I find that you train your shape through creating, sometimes my body takes on different processes of weight when picturing a different image. You create these as mental tools which help guide your performance and immerse you into otherworlds. It’s like life-drawing. I think performance shapes autonomy and anatomy. It’s one of the most accessible forms of creation, because it is involved in every activity of life. It’s a process which I think is most in touch with translating the raw invisible and the functions of the body.
It is relevant to think about materials that you use such as the cast in Bed and Breakfast or milk in Keratin. What is your relationship with materials?
Materials are equally tools as they are symbols. In ‘Keratin’, we were fascinated by a spiritual setting told through molecules of the body – keratin. We played with the connection between the elements of fluids and flesh, this was our symbolic material, which we used to tell a story of materials, which a film inherently is through the story of the semiotics. I am fascinated by the narrative of what has passed down from the touch and memories of materials, we tried to communicate that in our use of hair, and braiding. When it comes to setting up the shot, the material takes on an intuitive role. My relationship with materials has increased since shooting ‘Bed & Breakfast’, and in the case of my recent film has reshaped how I shot the film due to the added dimension in the material. This was my first time making prosthetics, I used dry flour on wet flour mixed with latex for the skin prosthetics which we combined with Modroc casts, a prosthetic I have also recently used in HMLTD’s ‘Wyrmland’ which I also acted in. Modroc has been prominently used in my art. I love that it’s cheap and flexible in use, you can easily cast onto any surface. Modroc rewarded my interest in the liminality of shapes, you don’t get a complete capture, like you do with silicone, but you do find the emotion of the shape, a capture which reminded me of Pompeii carcasses. The material already has a clinical feel due to its use on broken limbs. I am looking forward to using silicone in future projects, and am excited to explore and expand my experience in prosthetics in future pictures and films. Tactility I think is more pronounced in my later work, I have Jan Svankmajer to thank for that! This interest in tactility is also a retaliation to my earlier work, because I used to primarily create on a computer, I do appreciate the benefit of artificialities, but I find that the tactile process is involving me more as a creator, and in a way are their own micro performances. I started growing more by using my body to create, aesthetically I always feel that texture makes for a more evocative and memorable experience, as texture has memory. I generally look for objects and materials which have a plasticity or manifest an element of memory crucial to the setting and ambience.
In ‘Hydra’ particularly – but in all your other works as well- the costumes play an important role. As well, you are not afraid of nudity. Could you talk about binomial nudity/costume?
Costumes paint a body, they’re as much landscapes as the composition, the naked body has been predominantly viewed as a landscape in images, I see them as vessels. In a purely visual realm bodies are worlds, it’s the skin of the character, and the skin of the frame. In my performances and films, there is an attraction to clothing with a sense of past, more an anemoia than an accurate memory, which is how I generally feel about memory. Costumes and the naked bodies are narratives, because we are always using the body as a vessel for communication. They are often primary semiotics, I am drawn to seeing pareidolia in my life, I am attracted to the face and how a body is created without one. Masks show up a lot in my work due to this, as masks resonate with me sensorially. A mask engages with the body as a shape and spirit, some relations only my mind can make before any word arrives, which in any process always inspires me. A mask is both concealing and revealing, because of its flexibility to function as both a place and a face. When you change a face, you re-work the visual anatomy of a body, in rituals, shamans would wear masks to invoke spirits. Masks are magical, often imbuing secret emotions into visual universes. In Greek Tragedy they are used to invoke the material of emotions, I think that masks manifest a cosmos for the human body. They are artefacts of the face, which reveal the artifice of the human form. I am inspired by the artifice of the body in my art. The abstraction of the body interests me, the body can be a plasticity. I look at the body in the same way that I look at colours and shapes, because the body is also capable of re-shaping based on the identity, perhaps fishes more than humans at this stage, but emotions erupt our form, if one is stressed, they bleed, the body is an emotional entity. There are inherently aesthetical attractions, I am attracted to the naked body as an alchemical force, in middle-century alchemical engravings, which was an inspiration for Hydra. Nudity is essential because the body is a narrative, it is our form. For me there has never been anything unusual due to this. One needs to accept the fact that they are naked, why should many censor what they inherently are encased for life in? Censorship is a big problem for the image of the body, but I am very hopeful that platforms will with time understand the value of the body uncensored. The human body is capable of so much transformation, there are so many secret anatomies to be unlocked in our experience, some of which never get verbalised. I believe the abstraction of the body is already and will become an even more explored subject with time. I have been highly inspired and changed personally and artistically by notions of post-humanism, I am always curious about transformation, and have a desire to hopefully be able to transition at some point in my life to understand more about my body.
Could you tell us about your upcoming projects?
Aside from my short film, I am currently editing a photo series I made with Salvia. On March 31st and April 1st, I am co-organising a film, and live performance event – ‘Mythopoetics – Folk Fauna’ where I will be screening ‘Keratin’ and staging a new performance with Damsel Elysium and Sophie Chinner at the Horse Hospital. On May 7th, I am going to be exhibiting work and performing for ‘L’age D’or’ at the Crypt Gallery, and the rest for the meantime will remain quiet as they grow in the womb of discovery, process and creation! I am very excited to be a part of Ken Nakajima’s upcoming performance ‘I’m Going Away Now’ which will be playing in Slovenia, July 5th – 9th. I have hopes that this year will welcome some exciting process in films and performances. I have plans to hopefully re-stage Hydra into a bigger piece, and the rest for the meantime will remain quiet as they grow in the womb of discovery, process and creation! I want to thank you so much for probing me with these questions, I never get asked to talk about my work. So for me this has been an incredibly insightful and nourishing moment to evaluate and discover my work from a verbal point of view, while I admit it is distant from the process, it’s discussions like these that help creators sometimes understand their work from different levels. But now I shall resume.