#mdny

ABOUT KEMPINSKI (2007): Shot in Mali, Kempinski (2007) features local residents interviewed at night, eerily illuminated by a neon tube. Throughout the film, the interviewees ruminate on the future, creating a fantastical and absurd narrative where cars speak, men move through sound, and buildings are made of light. To further confuse the concepts of fact and fiction, the residents speak of the future in the present tense, delivering a science fiction documentary that sketches the idea of a world with no distinction between humans, animals, and things, while reflecting on the metaphorical effects of climate change.

Q&A:

Cecilia Alemani: How did you come up with the narrative behind “Kempinski”?

Neïl Beloufa: I was a student, and I was sent with other students to Mali to produce a documentary. There was a partnership with a bank to do something with a hospital. I felt at that moment that there was a paternalist or exotic expectation for what we were doing. I wanted to be a rebel, to shift the rules of the game in order to not “take” anything from the people I would film and to reverse western post-colonial representations. As a basic parameter, I simply asked Malian people that I met to talk about the future in the present tense. Out of that one grammatical mistake I created a science fiction movie that could undermine Western viewers’ expectations of Africa, while still being “real.”  In the end it was not rebellious at all, they were happy with it…

CA: Your work often combines reality and fiction. How do these two extremes coexist?

NB: I don’t really differentiate reality and fiction. The distinction is convention, but the definition is kind of blurry – take the Shroud of Turin for example.

CA: You often work with non-professional actors. How much room is left for improvisation and how much of your work is scripted?

NB: I like to let my subjects surprise me, so I converse with them and work with them as I push the video in the direction I want. It’s generally all improvised, but as I’m talking with the interviewee, and as I’m asking them to develop the subject that interests me until I find good material, it’s not all free.  At the end, the editing is the tool I use to structure the material. Kempinski respects “official” documentary rules as nothing is scripted, even though real documentaries are scripted.

CA: Your videos are often shown in immersive sculptural installations. Can you talk about the relationship between sculptures and moving images in your work?

NB: My work is about the relationship to the viewer. I try to have the same approach; I deploy similar strategies in terms of “improvisation” and vague control in two and three dimensions. I’m not interested in the displacement of fields – if something is better written, then it should be written. The same applies with the different media I use. I try to avoid theater display in a gallery, but I like theater display in a theater.

CA: Does climate change affect your work?

NB: I want to leave Paris now that the climate is officially worse than London…or maybe it’s the other way around.

ABOUT MILLION DOLLARS POINT (2011): Million Dollars Point (2011), originally shot in Santo Island, Vanuatu in the South Pacific, surveys a unique underwater cemetery of military equipment abandoned by the U.S. Army after World War II. The title of the film echoes the name of the submerged site, which is now a popular diving spot for Australian tourists. Henrot’s film juxtaposes this underwater footage with highly stereotypical images taken from a local music video depicting a mustached man dancing and singing on a Pacific Beach, surrounded by dancing Polynesian girls. In contrasting history with popular culture, Henrot sketches a portrait of the Pacific Islands that raises issues of exoticism, foreignness and authenticity.

Q&A:

Cecilia Alemani: Your films are often set in remote locations and isolated places. What attracts you there and how do you find them?

Camille Henrot: I feel alienated in my hometown. I'm not a very pragmatic person so even a very small trip is a source of chaos and stress. It's worth experiencing this stress if the destination is far away. If I'm going to the other side of the globe I don't feel ridiculous feeling alienated and uprooted - because then it's normal. Specifically, my relationship with Pacific area feels special. I have always been very attracted to this place. Maybe just because it was very far away, but also because the information I had on this place felt so arbitrary and incomplete. There were a lot of objects from the Pacific area in the Musée des Colonies in Paris and I remember seeing them as child. I recall it being quite emotional because the sculptures were so big and powerful. The museum was often empty and had a lot of atmosphere to it (This museum is now called the Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration and all the objects have been moved to the Musée du quai Branly).

CA: How did you come across Santo Island?

CH: A friend of mine was born in Vanuatu and grew up in New Caledonia, she's a writer. I was reading Do Kamo (Maurice Leenhardt) and she suggested I go to Vanuatu. She told me about naghol (the ritual that inspired bungee jumping and later became a touristic attraction in Vanuatu). My trip was planned to go to Pentecost Island - one island of the Vanuatu Archipelago. Given that it was a three day trip from France, I thought I should try to visit another island while I was on the other side of the globe. I found images on the web of Million Dollar Point and later found a very interesting article on Operation Magic Carpet. "Million Dollar Point" refers to the legendary negotiation that never happened between American soldiers and the people of Vanuatu. Vanuatu wanted to have the equipment left behind by the US Army, but the French and British were opposed to this, fearing it would trigger colonial war – so all of the supplies, equipment, and vehicles ended up in the ocean which has become a diving spot for Australian tourists.

CA: What role does the human being play in finding/inhabiting these forgotten places?

CH: I have no idea… but there’s very interesting stories about how these islands were found. I have heard that the Melanesian people came from Paupua New Guinea. It was an extremely long route and very dangerous. It’s said that they would always have a rat and a dog in their boats. The animals were meant to be used as orientation devices. To know the direction home they would throw the dog in the water and see the direction he swam, and to know where the closest land was, they would throw in the rat.

CA: You often investigate ancient rituals that have changed over time. What role do issues of authenticity, foreignness, and exoticism play in your work?

CH: Exoticism is a question of movement between entities which involves seeing things from the other’s perspective and sharing their attributes…but the exotic is always an outside point of view. What's interesting is how this "outside” is integrated into the sexual fantasy of the “exotic dancer" for example. Old myths are used to build up a representation - like for this one the story of Salomé. It's as if otherness is so difficult to frame that it must projected onto an image or narrative that already exists in order to become "visible.”

The word "exoticism" is tainted by colonial fantasies, vulgar sexual prejudices, and devastating commercial exploitation. Being accused of having a fascination with the exotic used to be one of the worst accusations. But it feels different today. We start to accept the guilt and look at the prejudices and stereotypes - maybe because we feel it's best to acknowledge they existed than to pretend we are able to look around without our glasses.

Exoticism raises questions for which we have no answers; Why does Western culture aspire to escape itself? Is it desire for the other – which is certainly based on a misunderstanding – or perhaps it's something more than the will to dominate, or flee reality. The evolution of the word “primitive” and the various controversies that exhibitions on primitivism have raised proves just how delicate and relevant this issue is. While still marked by the history of colonialism and brought into question by post-colonial thought, these issues are constantly being re-examined because they question the model of future society.

CA: Does climate change affect your work?

CH: I feel concerned, but thinking about it makes me feel powerless and meaningless as an artist. You can see all the vanity of human culture when you see how climate change is affecting countries like Micronesia, which will disappear. The Houma tribe, the tribe that I am working with, is experiencing loss of land though erosion. The causes are complex and have to do with oil companies exploiting the site; however, most of the Houma people work for them and don't want to see them go. The human and ecological aspects are so intertwined that one has to respect the complexity of these situations when representing them.

It's disorientating because when you build an image you have to start from a previously constructed image, or an archetype image. You often go back and forth between the fantasy image and what you found in the reality. You end up having trouble drawing lines. The minute you have done it a very small sign comes up, invalidating your construction. All of these images, frames, words, and categories don't stick to the real situation anymore but you can't ignore them, they are like ghosts turning around.

These limitations and complexities make any kind of representation connected to ethnographic approaches so difficult...but they also challenge the question of the image itself in a way that I'm very interested in - even if it's risky.

Tune in next Tuesday, November 12, for the third installment of #SolarPanel featuring Basim Magdy!