THINGS OF DESIRE
Canada’s Alternative Art Weekly
Volume 1, nr 30, April 9-15, 2009

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Interview:

As part of the Toronto’s Images Festival, video artist Gunilla Josephson is presenting her new work E.V.E Absolute Matrix. The 48-minute looping video installation is Josephson’s latest collaboration with musician/pianist Eve Egoyan.

Josephson kindly answered some questions for us here at ToD, and we now present them to you blogling.

E.V.E Absolute Matrix will be on display until Sat May 2 at Trinity Square Video in Toronto.—How was the residency at TSV? Did anything interesting come out of it, or was it just work on E.V.E?

GJ: A month’s residency at TSV was much more than working on E.V.E. Absolute Matrix. Working in a place that has art as its raison d’etre was a very affirming experience and reminded me that I wasn’t alone in my hopes and dreams.

—How did you first get involved with Eve Egoyan?

GJ: She was my piano teacher briefly. Then we moved on to making sound together.

—What was Eve’s response to the video?

GJ: Eve generously gave me full license to create the work after we had shot the performance, a year ago now. She is interested in the video solely as one of my art works and we have not seen it together or talked about it.

—Was there any reason to capture the performance of “Inner Cities”?

GJ: No more reason than any other sense of ‘urgency’ which triggers my interest in pursuing the idea for an art work. I attended five extraordinary hours of Eve performing “Inner Cities” at Glenn Gould Studio in the fall of 2007 and the perspective I had of Eve’s head and the piano only, triggered all kinds of thoughts and images of what was going on in Eve’s mind through a marathon performance such as this one

Also the general disinclination of the Toronto public to commit to a few hours of a Saturday afternoon to attend a major music event such as this one, made me think that Eve’s generosity and huge talent has no real place in the world. That in itself provoked me to make this work.

—”Inner Cities” is 5-hours long, but E.V.E is only 60 minutes. What happened to the other 4 hours?

GJ: The distillation of an art work demands reduction and concentration to reach the intended conceptual and aesthetic goal. I’m not at all interested in making a documentary of Eve Egoyan playing the piano. She is the medium through which I’ve articulated my ideas.

—I am really interested in your dissection of the emotional and intellectual impact of music on the performer. This is often not considered. What got you thinking about it?

GJ: Ideally, and this will be the case when viewers don’t know who Eve is or what she is doing, one should not know that the woman in the video is playing the piano. So there isn’t really supposed to be a correlation between what you see and any notions of the effect of music on the musician. I was prompted by Eve’s performance to make a statement about emotions, not about music.

—Does your interest in this emotional impact have to do with an ability to commiserate with the mental fatigue of being an artist?

GJ: It is IN the work, it IS the work, so by visiting the video at TSV you will find my answer or at least my proposition. I would say that more than commiserate it is the personal recognition of and empathy with the complex process to achieve at least an approximation of an art work.

—The camera is described as “insisting,” what does this mean exactly and how/why do you accomplish this?

GJ: There are very few of the usual tropes of cinema, i.e. zooms, cuts, pans. There is only the closeup. The camera insists that we see what it sees, and it doesn’t allow us to ever escape outside the frame. You are not released into the fantasy or escapism that comes with watching commercial manifestations of moving image.

—What attracts you to the “extremes of de-contextualized emotional states?”

GJ: Just as I am not interested in the commercial language of cinema, I am bored by the representations of emotion in movies and TV. Emotional gestures viewed outside of the usual contexts allow us to see again with fresh eyes.

—Does this interest have any political aspect to it, like are you making a comment about our emotional states?

GJ: I am making statements about representations of women, and my politics is in opposition to the misrepresentations and basic dishonesty presented by consumer culture.

—The character Hedda is liberated yet tormented, also your work captures both ecstasy and despair. I have to wonder if you feel liberation is ever possible, or does our torment come from having the hope/fantasy of liberation?

GJ: Art allows us to consider liberation, and perhaps even to achieve it.

—What was the most challenging part of the work, and did you do anything particularly new or different for the work?

GJ: The technical aspects of working with HighDefinition technology and Terrabytes of information presented extreme challenges.

—Do you think the general public can handle bare emotion like in E.V.E?

GJ: Artist should never underestimate the general public. In fact, we should make our work for them.

—Is there anything else you want to share with the readers about yourself, work, or the exhibition?

GJ: This work is in some ways a synthesis of my earlier videos and I am pleased to present it in the Images Festival context.