Civilization by Marco Brambilla.
WHITEWALL: You began successfully working on feature films but moved to working on video projects after that. Was there anything in particular that drew you to the fine art spectrum of film or away from the feature film business?
MARCO BRAMBILLA: I found it more rewarding to express my ideas outside the construct of commercial film. Video work allows me to explore concepts in a more experimental way, and hopefully break new ground using the medium itself as a way of expressing my ideas. The technical language and craft I learned from my film background does inform my art practice where the technical component of the work is often quite complex.
Bruce Nauman’s work inspired me from an early age for its inter-disciplinary nature and the powerful emotional impact regardless of the medium he was using.
WW: What is it about video that you really enjoy as a category of fine art? Are things like the environment (gallery) or context important for your works, such as the Civilization piece being put in an elevator?
MB: A time-based medium like video is a natural way for me to communicate given my background. Video is quite relevant since it taps into the conventions of the way people absorb more and more information today.
I think it has become less compelling to experience art only in galleries and museums.
For example, the elevators in the hotel represented a kind of transitional space, which seemed ideal for the journey I was depicting in Civilization.
WW: Civilization at the Standard Hotel in NY is amazing in general – but also impressive for the hundreds and hundreds of layers of images and videos you brought together for just one piece. Can you explain the process of a piece like this?
MB: Civilization comments on the film medium itself as well as drawing from it, so in that respect, context of the work directly relates to its content. The theme is obviously epic and it is illustrated using the most dense and garish style of Hollywood filmmaking.
The video collage has about 300 channels of looped video blended into a giant moving canvas! I put together hundreds of Photoshop comps with still images before translating the material into video software called Flame where moving film loops brought the composition to life. One of my inspirations was the giant murals at the Natural History Museum.
WW: A lot of your work has feeling of collaged image and compositions that are then forced to move. Is collage something you do aside from video? Do you believe those collages might stand alone next to your videos?
MB: Collage is one of the techniques I use in my video work, in Civilization I was going for a sort of visual overload so it was an effective technique. In the Kanye West commission for Power, I wanted the moving portrait to be epic in its own way so it felt natural to me to use a video collage there as well but to shoot original imagery for the piece.
WW: Your videos are very recognizable as holding the Brambilla mark. What would you say some of the themes are or commonalities in your technique, in style, in what or how you like to shoot it?
MB: I am attracted to subjects which have a strong sense of the visual but could be interpreted as emotionally empty. This is my comment on of our culture’s love affair with technology and self. I approach these subjects in a formal way and often the technique or style of shooting is usually directly related to the subject matter itself.
For instance, for Halflife, I re-photographed hours of actual video game footage to simulate the sense of sensory overload one could have from being in that space even if you have never played a video game.
WW: Now for the Kanye video, POWER, what was it like to be commissioned by someone like Kanye West? Was it a collaboration in coming up with an idea or did you feel independent from the commissioner?
MB: The whole process was invigorating, the initial meetings were mostly about getting into the subtext of his music and me getting under his skin a little. Kanye had seen and liked the Civilization piece, so that was a natural departure point which led to me proposing shooting a neo-classical portrait of him with the Sistine chapel frescoes as a reference. At that point the element of visual spectacle I wanted and his message behind the song Power came into sync.
I then put together a few photomontages for him, once he felt comfortable with the overall direction, he was supportive and gave me total freedom to execute the concept.
WW: What was it like working with him? Did you find any changes in your process? Did you treat the video as you would one of your own art works or as a job commissioned by Kanye West?
MB: Kanye has previously collaborated with the artist, Takashi Murakami, for a video piece so this was not a first for him. I absolutely treated the commission with same passion as I would my own artwork, part of the appeal for me was to explore the idea of celebrity and feed into Kanye’s image as a way of commenting on our cultural obsession with fame and the inevitable rise and fall of our pop idols.
WW: In 2011 you will have a retrospective at Santa Monica Museum of Art. What can we expect from the show and what works are you most excited about presenting?
MB: The show is called “The Dark Lining”, and will feature nine thematically connected video works spanning my career as a video artist. I decided early on to show some of the interrelated pieces in one main room so that a visitor’s line of sight and peripheral vision would become part of the experience as much as seeing the individual pieces themselves.
I am currently working on another large-scale video collage entitled Evolution, which also uses film samples and will be presented in 3D. It’s been the most challenging work to date and I’m very excited to finish it. It will be the centerpiece of the Santa Monica show.
Power by Marco Brambilla.
Marco Brambilla and Kanye West.
