Interview with Gary Hill |
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Gianni Romano: Where did Gary Hill start from? Gary Hill: I made sculpture for quite a while, since I was 16, I didn't go to art school, a friend of mine whose brother was into sculpture drew me to it. More than traditional sculpture I was involved in material process, very much like "How far can I take this material?". Then in 1973, I lived in Woodstock, and there was a community called “People's Video Theatre” that was more social politically inclined, having to do with the cable revolution, independent videos, decentralization of television, intercommunication about community people and so on... the climate of the 70's. So, maybe, I was ready for a change. I started to play with cameras, tape recorders, sound, to improvise complex works in rooms, the "real time" aspect of video really jolted me. Video art doesn't mean anything to me, it's just a label out there. Although it is something different from sculpture, to me there was a continuity with my previous practice, I felt like I was still able to sculpt in a different medium, because I was open to these conceptual possibilities which, themselves, were open to a wide range of visceral responses, like something I could touch inside (very different from conceptual art). I was completely seduced by technological possibilities, they changed my head inside out in a way, I got into a kind of electronic mood. GR: Did you have models at that time, artists whose work had already gone through that phase of experimentation? GH: No, not really. I would appreciate few video artists, but I would preferably back myself in my hidden corner and keep on working. GR: So, how did you develop your idea of video practice? GH: Dialectically. I was aware there was some type of pre-existing video-grammar already in use to take into account and I tried to interact with it as well as with other kind of grammars surrounding me, to pull them in; body, language, speech, text... GR: Editing? GH: I've done a lot of work that virtually has no editing and I'm working on a video that will be a single shot, whereas other works, because of the nature of the pieces, are very planned out. I really don't have a methodology in that sense, it's not easily defined.... I try to find my way out according to the piece I'm working on. GR: Was “Disturbance” , the work included in the show “Passages de l'image” at Centre Pompidou, very planned out? GH: “Disturbance” was a curious combination in that sense; the text comes from a collaboration with the poet George Quasha. We selected the gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi library found in Egypt, texts concerning the origins of logo and thought. Quasha ended up being a sort of catalyst for people like Jacques Derrida, Bernard Heidsieck and many others, to participate to the work. I took care of the initial structure I was going to use and the installation aspects of the work. The whole sequence with the actors-readers reading the texts was completely developed in editing in order to maintain, while shooting, an improvisational performance aspect. There was no script and I gave no directions, the poets didn't know at all how to move, how to behave, there were just individual texts that each reader responded to in a personal manner. GR: Do the Gnostics texts in “Disturbance” provide information or confusion? GH: The readers in “Disturbance” are trying to open their texts to a fresh hearing, from different angles, and the way they are woven together creates still other angles. But it is not so much about confusion, it is more about creating multiple point of views. Their reading is full of contradictions, overlapping, responses, collapsing..., I'm not interested in providing meaning per se, the experience of language in my work deals more with how we approach to meaning or how meaning fades away. My experience with the nature of language doesn't produce information nor confusion, but stands as an exploration of the realm between sense and nonsense. My work doesn't stand out as a strict philosophical look at language, as it was in conceptual art, it has more to do with a relation of language and image. One tends to question the other. In the last couple of years I've done works where there is not much language in them, but, still, it's about that absence, the absence of language. Most times my use of language is not concerned with meaning per se, while it really has to point the physicality of language out. It's not so much about duality, but about what happens in the middle. This is possible because of the electronic media, it really allows that reflexive space wherein both absence and presence take place. GR: What about that white wide space wherein “Disturbance” takes place? GH: I wanted it very different from usual video performances, it's an installation that involves a particular space, not necessarily a site-specific-work, but a work whose space has been explored. The white space is the contrary of the traditional dark room. In this way the viewer operates a selection, having the monitors in the bright light he's not forced to look the screens. At the same time the distance, the separation among the viewers and the monitors, calls forth attention, it's a request more than a challenge. GR: How did your earlier experimentation developed through the years? GH: With my earlier pieces I was very much involved with the electronic production of images. When I began to speak... the speaking, the body, the camera, the given image, the sense of place, they allowed me to re-enter the world. I think my work is still involved with what we generally define as experimental while, in a certain way, the maturity of media-art has slowly dropped out the word "experimental". But the language of the medium continues to develop in my work. Until things are really happening I still feel into an experimental mood, it's important to keep the same energy that it occurs. Essentially I feel that experimental means to maintain the same kind of openness when something is occurring. I don't experiment something to store it in some private archives. GR: In some of your videos you've been both author and model. Is that casual? GH: It's not. Of course, there's a different relationship, but I don't see a discrepancy whether it's me or an actor on the screen, it's a cyclic performance which is part of the same making. Sometimes I would prefer to walk in the streets, run into someone and say "This is the person!". I'm not looking for professional acting. In “Why Do Things Get In A Muddle? “(1984) two actors speak and move backwards for the most part. It's about Bateson's theory of the double bind: one can't speak for fear of being punished but, at the same time, he's forced to speak or else he'll be punished. In that sense they perform an incredible struggle on the spot, but it has nothing to do with an acted emotion. GR: Is there a difference to you between video-making and installations? GH: In terms of the making, there's a different kind of concentration and mental process. A tape needs more planning, the focus is linear, things are much more scheduled, there's a lot of playing before you approach a certain accomplishment of the original idea, whereas with installations the process is much more physical, visceral, they are much more theatrical and you are producing an inter-activity that involves the viewer. There's also been a lot of talking about the difference between video and cinema. The real difference with cinema is the "real time", nothing to do with the tradition of cinema, of course there's a relation that comes through, but this feedback you get with video is something really peculiar of this medium and it is something particularly suitable for my work. That feedback brings about quick accessibility to the space of image as well as in sculpture you get quick access to physical quality. GR: In “Incidence of Catastrophe” (1987-88) a stick was attached to the camera and it was filmed by the camera itself thus appearing into the screen. Was that stick a prosthesis of the camera? A way to let the camera get into action? GH: “Incidence of Catastrophe” was the first work in which I used Blanchot's texts. It had very much to do with pushing to the forefront the physicality of consciousness. The clash between sight and words is very important, I really think it sort of analyzes the crisis of everything. Yes, as you said, basically the stick stands for a prosthesis; the world, the eye prodding and poking and still invading everything. GR: This brings to mind the installation you made in March 1990 at Galerie des Archives in Paris, “And Sat Down Beside Her”. It reminded me of medical cameras used in surgery to explore the body. GH: And actually that's what I wanted to do. I tried to insert a surgery camera inside my mouth, behind my lips, but technical complications came out. The intention was to show how the mouth see the world while we speak. GR: How do you feel when you see a very young painter selling a painting for as much as you sell an installation you took some months to accomplish? GH: (laughs) See, Gianni, everything concerning prices in the art world is completely ridiculous and out of reality. I consider myself to be an artist before being a video artist, but working in this kind of ghetto also allows me a certain freedom from the art market struggle. Probably the marketplace will find a way to see video as a saleable commodity, but I'm sure I'll be able to keep on working and save my own freedom. GR: So, what does it happen when you switch the camera off? GH: I make interviews. (laughs) I know, it seems a paradox, although I work a lot with language issues I really have problems to define what I'm doing. Actually I know few artists able to do that, maybe Jeff Koons, you should interview him... (laughs), he is one of the few that seems to know what he thinks he's doing. This interview
was published by the art magazine Lapiz (Madrid) #80,
October 1991. |
Wall Piece, 2000 Video presented at the 49th Venice Biennale. Single-channel video/sound installation. Edition of six and one Artist's Proof. Click to view Wall Piece @ Donald Young Gallery website (939k) Born: 1951, Santa Monica, California, lives in Seattle, Washington |
