NAU NUA FEBRUARY 2011 ENGLISH EDITION

Page 1

february 2011

nau nua


NAU NUA

SUMMARY

FRONT COVER AMELIE ROSE MAY D’HENNEZEL. Public Image Unlimited

HOM NADIA ADAME. DESPEDIDAS Castaway farewells 1

NAU MARIA COMA. LINÒLEUM Skies and cats

ELENA SAHNOVA. RAPID EYE MOVEMENT Blue dream

SMOKE FAIRIES. THROUGH LOW LIGHT AND TREES Luminous trees

GRAŻYNA BIENKOWSKI. ANTICHAMBRE A room with a view


NAU NUA

SUMMARY DONIETTA ROMÉAS. ÉMERVEILLEMENT Life in silence

DAäRI. LOST IN HELL A waltz in hell

NUA ALEXANDER KLUGE The knocks of present

ENVERS THE IDEAL HUSBAND. NO BYE NO ALOHA Behind the mirror

VINCENT MOON My own adventure

KALLIOPE AMORPHOUS In her own light

2


NAU NUA

SUMMARY NATALYA SERKOVA Vital prism

ESBÓS ELENA SAHNOVA 3

Rapid Eye Movemet

KALLIOPE AMORPHOUS The everted mirror: The Conceptual Self Portrait Photographs of Kalliope Amorphous

DONIETTA ROMÉAS Émerveillement

NATALYA SERKOVA Inner spectrum

BORN SUKI EWERS

NAU NUA February 2011 Issue number 4 Published by NAU NUA ART MAGAZINE DL B-42.495-2010 ISSN 2014-0002

Bodie crow Edited and written by Juan Carlos Romero Except for “My own adventure” by Flavio Affonso All contents used under license. All rights reserved to their legal owners and signatories for all the contents in this publication.


NAU NUA

HOM

4


NAU NUA

HOM

CASTAWAY FAREWELLS Nadia Adame 5

Despedida (Farewell) is the new choreographic work of Nadia Adame, a project for five dancers emerged from a very personal experience: the death of a friend in an unexpected manner. A few years before the surreal tumult that dominated the world of art in the twenties, the Catalan poet Joan Salvat Papasseit wrote that nothing is petty and we live without giving that we need to die to be reborn. Dancer and choreographer Nadia Adame confronts us at this at once beautiful and harsh reality. We are survivors of our farewell on drifting life. Multifaceted artist, her words and works radiate a vital enthusiasm as well as a detailed view of her own interior and all of which are all part. "When a choreographer checked me the steps, I don't like repeating it more than twice because I like to keep it fresh", confessed in an interview for TVE where I discovered her and she fascinated me. Dancer from the seven years and also unique being since she was born, a car accident at age 14 which has marked her with partial paralysis but also a new and great instinct for overcoming that far from abandoning the dance on the road has led it to dancing on stages from around the world. Her mother once told her everything has solution less death and Nadia gives in each job her own life through her movements.


NAU NUA

HOM

6

The road to overcoming led her to want to leave her own environment so she finally decided to move to study in the United States. Years later, she returned to Madrid but he moved again away to London and by that time with her own company, Cia. Y, because the major part of her projects always came from out Spain. Her company creates dance works but also film and theatre, producing works for new creators and also social ones. Her light is arriving so far away because it deeply creeps inside us. She has, as always, many projects between hands and there is Despedida. “En esta obra de danza, la idea de despedida está presente y nos lleva por diversos caminos coreográficos. Dúos, tríos y solos nos muestran las diferentes despedidas del ser humano, unas tristes y otras felices. Por los caminos que nos separan naufragamos hasta lejanos horizontes, Sin decir adiós nos despedimos. Con la mirada nos besamos y con el cuerpo nos amamos. La vida nos trajo y la vida nos lleva, nos empuja a tirarnos por el abismo del destino. No seré igual sin ti, ni tú sin mí, pero el recuerdo que nos invade seguirá en todo lo que tocamos, en todo lo que miramos en todo lo que escuchamos. El temor que nace de los cambios profundos, del vacío que queda al derrumbarse los parámetros que sostienen nuestras vidas. Esta es mi despedida sin lágrimas, sin llanto, sin tristeza”. But there I am myself, far to enjoy their projects while eager to do so. Such force and talent reaches us all despite being far from her.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos in orden of appearance by Eduardo Gragera, Matt Gilmore y Paloma Parra


NAU NUA

NAU

7


NAU NUA

NAU

SKIES AND CATS Maria Coma 8

“El meu cap es ple de sons. Miri on miri, ho sento tot. El món es fa gran i jo tinc mil orelles. No pretenc morir i fer les maletes”. I’ve never heard a song of life and curiosity as beautiful as this Mil Orelles that Maria Coma delicately caresses in her first solo album, Linòleum (amniotic records, 2009). Its notes creep into our daily scheme and make it go red and surround it with skies full of juicy apples and salty desires with a treacherous and playful side. By opening our windows, we can redraw the ancient world mending all our dreams we thought broken forever. Our own sky may not wait.


NAU NUA

NAU

Maria Coma began her recording career forming a duo with Pau Vallvé called U-mä and publishing a homonym album, U-mä (Error! Lo-Fi / u_mä, 2007). They described their own music as a mix of nostalgia, nature and homemade feeling, fruit of their daily experiences. They said its sound is like a mantra and created the bases of two of the most important creators in Catalan music. Pau Vallvé also accompanied her in Linòleum playing drums and bass and directing all the production and mix process. The actual album starts Dormint (sleeping) whose sound is playful praying “please, don’t disturb my rest”. But vitality leads her music soon. Gat breaks everything because it sees life as a game and wants to share that playful view with all of us. “No et quedaràs orfe, nosaltres som bones persones”she sings to that cat that has playfully got into her life. Her music is dominated by a Cel salat (salty sky) introduced in a painful way at piano. That song is a truly beautiful tune. “Un paper ha caigut i els altres dubten, dos papers també i els altres tremolen, l’aire ja no és tan blanc i es desmunta el decorat”. Everything is fragile because it’s ephemeral but it’s deeply important to continue our dance despite of the black clouds. Maria goes on taking her piano by the hand towards her salty sky because “no podia ser per sempre el cel un decorat, ja us ho vaig dir que de paper no aguantaría gaire temps”. Our scenery is falling down but her next song Sempre és present starts full of energy and irreversible as time’s passage. Waters become calm in time for a reflexion but they return in a powerful way singing “ara què ha passat sinó el temps?”.

9


NAU NUA

NAU

10


NAU NUA

NAU

11

Ramats de pomes backs to imagination as a source of life. “Allà hi ha un os formiguer que et xucla aquelles llàgrimes si plores i et fa estar molt més content. Però amagat hi ha un rellotge molt atent i una pometa despistadeta”. All is volatile and stimulating. Life gets away but pushes you to go on living. That album is an incessant ray of poetic creativity. Mil orelles (one thousand ears) is probably the song that better resumes the artistic soul of Maria Coma singing once again to life in the opposite sense that people use to. People get ager reducing their world’s view and also their illusion so they get resigned to a grey way of life. She refuses that strongly in Placenta singing “no vull començar a morir com tothom que no en sap del tot de ser feliç”. It’s sad and raw but deeply true. Maybe her apples branch could take us to better skies. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Ibai Acevedo


NAU NUA

NAU

12


NAU NUA

NAU

BLUE DREAM Elena Sahnova 13

I understand art as a means of expression, nothing more and nothing less. I look in the art to people who express themselves as proof of its existence, consciously or unconsciously. To me an artist is a manifestation of life through his art and from which I get a different view to mine. Elena Sahnova is part of the Theater Chamber Voroznech direction but above all she has a look that brings us back a life full of nuances. The light through Elena Sahnova becomes richer thanks to her experiences and feelings turning any object into a feast for our minds. Her photography is a real empire of the senses. Rapid eye movement curiously gives me great peace, despite the speed of its title referred to the phase of sleep where our mental activity is richer. Her photographs are certainly dreamlike and make smallest and real domestic objects becoming surreal consciousness places. The colour blue dominates this world born in the dreams to make us dream beyond them.


NAU NUA

NAU

14


NAU NUA

NAU

15

If the eyes move quickly in the REM phase, the series presented by Elena makes our eyes relax and get carried away. The blue chromatic range dances between blacks and whites as if it were a real blue X-rays. She seems to capture the soul of in appearance inanimate objects and completely invisible in our everyday life beyond their usefulness. Elena is amazingly able to see that the universe is also contained in the smallest object and that the realities are different and not only that one showed us by our senses. If you do not see the blue on an object is just because it is contained in it and not returned to us. We see what is not but Elena creates new worlds presenting everything with new colours. When someone wakes up during REM does it alertness and sexually aroused. If you look to a photo of Elena Sahnova you feel in harmony with the world around you being aware that it is much more pluralistic than it’s perceived because imagination is also real and all the blues she brings makes us want to get lost in and live it again.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Elena Sahnova


NAU NUA

NAU

16


NAU NUA

NAU

LUMINOUS TREES Smoke Fairies 17

Festival Primavera Club 2010 opened again its arms to its simultaneous celebration in Barcelona and Madrid. Among its varied and extensive range, the presence of the English duo Smoke Fairies has been one of the most widely desired and then satisfying experiences of many lived in that busy week of music. After a debut EP, Frozen Heart (Music For Heroes Records, 2009), which was strongly welcome, now they present their debut album Through light and low trees (Music For Heroes Records, 2010).


NAU NUA

NAU

18

Barcelona’ Sala Apolo began in a little bit cold receiving and assistance, but it was evident throughout the concert that was more due to the busy schedule of the festival than to a lack of interest. By the third song the room was full and the heat raised by the two young songwriters was a fact. Their voices seemed to come from very remote sites with a chilling echo that frightened you feeling hosted at the same time. A dual feeling rarely experienced. And so is their dim light under the trees, a place where the devil dances for the pleasure of life. Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies have had some guest star appearances from the beginning of the recording of their EP. Drums by Andy Newmark, experienced with John Lennon and David Bowie, and bass by Al Mobbs, associate Gorillaz and many others, mainly as a result of having in production for the first track David Coulter, a renowned for his work with Tom Waits and Nick Cave. The rest of them, produced by Leo Abrahams, admired for his work with Brian Eno and David Byrne and Jarvis Cocker. If we add the quality of their compositions on the brink of another world, and voices and electric guitars that draw passages of no return, their music goes beyond exquisiteness.


NAU NUA

NAU

19


NAU NUA

NAU

20

Now their debut album continues all this golden twilight. It comes tinged with tenuous atmospheres and sharp sounds, even inviting us to dance with death as the final scene in Bergmam’s Det sjunde inseglet (1957). There are songs that have always been among us and sound like a repetition but others such as Erie Lackawanna, Summer Fades or Storm Song are leading a proposal that encourages looking at the other side and think that every moment is eternal. The drums sound because I have a Devil in my mind.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos courtesy of Primavera Sound and Smoke Fairies


NAU NUA

NAU

A ROOM WITH A VIEW GraŻyna Bienkowski 21


NAU NUA

NAU

22

"Quand tu ne sais pas où tu vas, arrête-toi et regarde d'où tu viens”. That Senegalese proverb is the sentence with which she leads her career’s information. Her album Antichambre (2010) is very faithful to that principle, opening the doors of a great composing talent. Her hands give us piano tunes that create a beautiful view on our daily windows. Classically trained in her own city, Brussels, her concern has always been to play also in the fields of jazz and contemporary music, with improvisation as an important element in her composition. In 2007 she composed live the music for a contemporary dance show in the Lefthand - Try Out Festival VCA Brussels. Later, compositional collaborations with guitarist Catherine Struys arrived within the Reine Ensemble Kameleon of which she is a founding member. Together they create music that she qualifies as a soundtrack for its literary inspiration in the novel "Music for Chameleons" by Truman Capote. Her first record Antichambre is defined by herself as “consisted of pieces for piano solo, we find a writing of a minimalist vein and tinged with a composed improvisation, the beat there is out of a classical frame many times to make itself intimist and closer”. And it is indeed, her music embraces you and takes you on dance by views that flow on within you and without you.


NAU NUA

NAU

Hospitalité starts the album drawing a landscape that you feel far but close at the same time. Our memories emerge as well as our defeats and losses which back to us locking for their lost home. All becomes nothing and then it starts our journey to the rest of our lives. Its beauty is staggering, even more direct. Grażyna is deeply sensitive composing tunes and that shows us a personality in full bloom and wide open to life. Three interludes under the title Short cut increase our desire to know more of her works. She draws on influences such as Michael Nyman, Philip Glass and a classic as Kurt Weill describing her own music as a path between the visual and musical language. Another piece, Ballade pour Harper Lee, is really touching. Its minimalist cadenza paints our landscape vital in an irremediable loneliness. We all know that’s the way it really is, the rain is always present within us, but heard in her notes becomes implacable truth. Still, the gloom can be sweet when we are able to understand it as our own, as the end of something good and a growth of our soul, as the music of Grażyna which opens for us windows with a new view where to pour our lives.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Frédéric Oszczak-SOFAM

23


NAU NUA

NAU

24


NAU NUA

NAU

LIFE IN SILENCE Donietta Roméas 25

Photographs of Donietta Romeas are gestures, lights, shadows, movements, colours, structures, ultimately, life in silence. I was struck by her sentence "une fois encore demain, moi et encore autre joins soi." So her search in photography may be better understood, capturing a spirit, a moment and its energy, as that story by Pere Calders in Cròniques de la veritat oculta in which someone took his life in a fist that would not open for fear of it escapes him forever. Life is here always but its different and ephemeral expressions have a space in Donietta Roméas sensitivity, being a refuge for all of us Her exhibition entitled Émerveillement published in the present issue is born of her admiration for the details of life sawn under different filters and approaches. She stops her camera in order to play with the image capture. She creates new movements in the movement itself and she blurs realities to recreate them enriching their spirit.


NAU NUA

NAU

26


NAU NUA

NAU

27

Eduardo Chillida said that as a point is the minimum unit of geometry having not yet a dimension, an instant is the minimum unit of time lacking dimension too. Thus, an instant cannot be measured and is, therefore, finite and infinite at the same time. This relativity of time is experienced strongly in Donietta Roméas photography where everything stops at the instant to multiply it in infinite realities depending on who’s looking at that portrait. Once captured, that instant innovatively flows in each of us. The brightness of their colours is a sign of her passion for what she is portraying always knowing that is unique and irretrievable. She is aware that even trying to capture it with her camera she will never achieve it and the pain of that powerlessness gives tremendous strength to her photographs. Simply, un émerveillement.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Donietta Roméas


NAU NUA

NAU

A WALTZ IN HELL DAäRi 28

The passage of time has become the major inferno of our society. No one wants to age and it becomes a distress that makes us unable to enjoy life’s evolution. Daäri is a duo that creates electronic music that returns us that anguish. Their album Lost in hell is place where fairy tales regain their dismal dimension. That duo is Julie KéodäRy and Majorsluices and has a large number of influences. Their references range from the metal and mainly the European electronic bands and soloists such as Joy Division and New Order, Depeche Mode, Radiohead, Múm and Björk. Based in Paris, they debut lost in hell of a society that does not know where it goes but how it will end. Their proposal has a surround and hypnotic sound accompanying the child-like Julie’s voice. Her sweetness contrasted with a haunting music is a very exciting electro pop proposal.


NAU NUA

NAU

29

Dreamer is a perfect opening to that universe of dreams that are on the verge of being broken. Echoes that come and go in a crescendo dense instrumentation with an eighties air. But the dreamer is finally lost in hell. Lost in hell, the title track, has an aura more curiously hopeful. Its melody and instrumentation give us an open space, like a sunrise full of sweetness. Trouble is a little bit sadder, like a sunset after a rainy day. The wet and empty streets give us a way to Hope, and the light beams come to us with some heat. The voice sounds scattered playing with the harmonies and whispering. The music is full of tenderness that makes us feel that the end of hell is near. To be lost in Daäri’s hell is to let dreams grow up in search of paradise in all of us. So softly let finally the album back, caressing us in order to desire becoming lost in it again, in that inferno full of beautiful feelings sung in our ear to avoid they get lost on the road.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos courtesy of DAäRi


NAU NUA

N UA

30


NAU NUA

NUA

THE KNOCKS OF PRESENT Alexander Kluge 31

"This is my idea of narrative cinema: to tell stories, and what is the story of a country but the wider area of narratives? ... Not just a history but many.� Alexander Kluge has told so many stories, mostly the less graceful, simultaneously from different prisms, always turning the social and artistic patterns and making clear that artistic freedom is necessary in order to avoid a social conventionality that is just a hungry beast. The horizon is devastating when figures such as Kluge are little appreciated by the public. There’s nothing new under the sun, with the exceptions as his work.


NAU NUA

NUA

32

He was born in Halberstadt, Germany, in 1932. Kluge has developed a career in literature, cinema and television which is deeply respected because its risks and unquestionable lucidity. He studied laws but after making some short films he became one of the signers of the Oberhausen Manifest in 1966. They were 25 young German film makers with names than became as important as Volker SchlÜndorff, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders. Their starting point was the standstill of German cinema at that time after the great creators emigration because the Nazism, but also the economic crisis after the war and the recent presence of television at German homes. Their ideas were focused in need to create a favorable condition for the production and distribution of films, non-belief in period films, the treatment of youth issues, a review of German history, etc. Within this movement, Alexander Kluge directed his first feature film A girl with no history (Abschied von gestern, 1966) for which he received the Silver Lion at the Mostra of Venice. The story of a girl in her search for a new life ends up in jail. Despite this bright start in terms of recognition, the subsequent work of Kluge has circulated very small environments. Artists under the tent of a circus: Desperate (Artist in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos, 1968), discusses the artistic independence in the metaphor of change in a circus tent by a walled enclosure. Adaptation in order to create art, but is it possible to believe in an adapted art? This question has only one answer in the Kluge’s films: no.


NAU NUA

NUA

33

His brilliant went on until one of his creative peaks, Occasional work of a slave (Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin, 1973), a deep critique of social conventions ranging from the repressive role of the family as a social unit to the subservient role awarded to women. The female protagonist's struggle against all these walls is the Kluge own fight against any formal and content limitation in artistic creation. Kluge has mixed genres, formats and story structures from his early works to our days, not forgetting his important work in television where he has reached creative heights which unfortunately are far from the public. He always says that his film is too literary and his literature is too filmic. Fortunately he has a great prestige in his own country, where in 2003 received the Georg B端chner Prize, the most important in German literature. His art is a real Attack of present to the rest of times (Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die Zeit 端brig, 1985).

Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos 1 and 4 by Markus Kirchgessner Photos 2 and 3 by Regina Schmeken


NAU NUA

NAU

34


NAU NUA

ENVERS

BEHIND THE MIRROR The Ideal Husband 35

Sandrine Collard published a splendid Je communique (Need Records, 2002) dominated by elegant arrangements based in synthesizers in which she invited us to play a Cache cache dans le noir while she expressed her deeper thoughts. Dan Lacksman, former member of Belgian band Télex, was the producer. Télex were a very important band in the European electronic music scene. Barbara Boulet and Françoiz Breut, a very good friend of Sandrine, sang the second voices in the last track of the album, Le trio des petits mots. Sandrine composed the entire album at home with her PC and sent it to Lacksman almost finished. Her sensual voice is deeply irresistible. It seems Sandrine doesn’t want to quit her creative bubble from where she gives us a luminous electronic pop although born from her personal darkness. She has directed her own videos showing a very good aesthetic taste which is the best allied for her own songs. She’s truly Le coup sensass. After leaving definitely behind the idea of a second solo album, she’s now defending The Ideal Husband by which she’s making real her dreamy obsession with Hawaiian music. She met Louise Peterhorff, a contemporary dancer, and then the sweet voice of the ideal husband Sandrine was looking for, suddenly came true. The research of musicians and arrangers for her new compositions, having Gabby Pahinui as a reference, was long and exasperating. Fortunately, she met the musician Benjamin Clément and along with the best from the musical Belgian scene, as well as Boris Gronenberger, Daan, Jacques Duvall and, again, Dan Lacksman, but also including her friend Françoiz Breut, The Ideal Husband came finally true. No bye no aloha (Strickly Confidential, 2008) and her breeze reaches us full of nocturnality.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

36

It was almost eight years ago when you published your unique solo album, Je communique (2002). Its sound it’s dominated by synthesizers and the lyrics are very melancholy and sometimes very raw. However it has a delicious sonority. Perhaps were you trying to balance your deep lyrics with a lighter music? Yes. We could say that I was living a very difficult personal period at that time. So I needed to express my deep feelings and go towards a self parody that can help a lot in that kind of sad moments. In the other hand, I always have in that periods the need of fronting live in the best spirit. I’m not an obsessed person, ha ha ha! I always try to create a positive and cheerful universe in order to guide my own feelings. That kind of music is very cosmopolitan linked to the night life in big cities. But your lyrics are also deeply personal. Do you think urban life can be too impersonal? Yes, life in big cities can be too impersonal but I like that. Brussels is a mixed city where if you want to be popular you must wish it strongly because here people always leave you alone, people is very respectful here. There’s a kind of anonymity and positive collective depression which I really love. And nobody hides it! I’ve read you composed the whole album at home with your PC and one of your songs is called La bulle. Did you really live in a bubble then? Yes, in a certain way. I’m very home-loving, I like to be at home but I can seem cold-looking. I’m not very expressive, I don’t like people come close to me. There’s a kind of security perimeter around me, ha ha ha! For all that reasons, I think there’s a bubble around me.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

37

What can you tell me about Petite maso? Petite maso is a song I wrote as a part of never published second album. Few years ago, I decided to not continue with my solo career because going on stage is not good for my character. I have nothing to demonstrate and I’m too paranoid to be happy. Stage was really making me a nervous wreck. Now? Who knows? Maybe I will return. But that second album won’t exist because I’ve just given some of its songs to a Flemish actress called Veerle Baetens. We’ve just created together a new project called Dallas! I compose the music and she writes the lyrics but sometimes our roles become intermingled, of course... She provides a new dimension that only belongs to her. I love the role of a composer in the shadows. Synthesizers remind me the music from the eighties and Dan Lacksman, former member of Télex, has contributed to your two albums. Do you like especially the music from the 80? Of course you love Télex but which are your favourite bands? I listen to a lot all the old sounds like Elo, Roxy Music, Elvis...but my revelation from new bands is MGMT! I love them. You collaborated with Amnesty International in the Pas la peine against the death penalty. What’s your opinion about the European diplomatic relations with countries with no respect for the human rights? I think Europe is not the worst. Neither is Belgium. But in fact, there’s a lot of hypocrisy in the world and in all of us. We have no theoretical lesson to give because in the end all we are just thinking of our own little comfort. I’m really touched by the last earthquake in Haiti and I think we could do more, I could do more.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

38

The Ideal Husband was born from the collaboration with the dancer Louise Peterhorff. Why did you decide he was “your ideal husband”? I’ve always been obsessed with Hawaiian music. It gives me peace an enormous peace of mind. I was looking for a sweet voice in that sense like the Louise’s voice. I wanted to respect the Hawaiian style but with a Belgian touch. So I really indulged myself. This album has also given us only positive things. Each one who has worked in has a great memory from it. As I said before, I like to create a positive universe. Some artists have done it perfectly in cinema, for example Jacques Demy. And lapsteel in the Hawaiian music gives you an instant peace of mind...It’s strange. Louise and you, are you in love with Hawaii? We’re especially in love with its sonorities but it’s true that everything linked to them is really good, ha ha ha...Flower collars, palms, sun, surf...Yeah, we’re northern people so we really need the sun. You have enjoyed illustrious collaborators. For example, Françoiz Breut who had already sung in your first album, sings Dors in the present one along with Louise. What are you looking for in her voice? Françoiz has a wonderful voice. It’s very singular too. We’re friends since a long ago. We always help and suggest each other. But talking about her voice in Dors, I have to say it’s quite magical. It’s celestial voice and gives you a lot of peace as no others can, as the ones from the old movies of Walt Disney. All I dreamed suddenly came true with her voice.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

39

How important was Benjamin Clément in the final result? Before I met Benjamin Clement, I was contacted and tested with other musicians but it was very specific instruments, and few musicians who play them. I gift some references like Gabby Pahinui. But I wasn’t convinced by the suggestions I received. When I listened to Benjamin’s arrangements rehearsals for my songs, I was thrilled. Instruments recorded on four tracks. A wonder! I had the impression that Elvis was going to appear in the studio... It was exactly what I had in mind! Without him, I would have been desperate. We can also hear some important musicians from the Belgian scene as well as Daan and Jacques Duvall. How do you see the musical scene in Belgium? I’m not very up to date. I just listen to the old sounds but I know I’m not alone, ha ha ha... Full of mew musicians and bands but there are too many things and it’s really difficult to judge. Yes, Daan and Jacques Duvall are really talented and they’re so nice. They deserve their success. We can read on your myspace you want to forget the grey. Do you thing life is so sad that we need our dreams to survive? We need above all to create a universe that makes us dream. I do not take refuge in dreams. I never think in the future but I need that universe is super. Lively, warm and fun. I am a girl whit that need because I don’t like to plan a lot, it makes me feel distressed. No bye no aloha (2008) is a musical jewel with a retro air. We can hear words as fantasy, fair, etc. Do you have a romantic view of the past?


NAU NUA

ENVERS

40

I don’t think so. I’m not a nostalgic person but it’s true that I really love the style from the fifties. And also the mix we can do today with the sixties, the seventies and eighties... Our generation has all that richness, and it’s a big thing... The music and cinema from the fifties and sixties use to be forgotten by not by me!!! They inspire me a lot The ritornello could be a good song for the Bonnie and Clyde’s movie and you have already made some videos and shorts. Are thinking on a longer film? I never thought I would become a musician but I couldn’t resist. As a child I always did music but I didn’t get fun. I wanted to make films but finally it always ended up recording an album. And yes, I’ve been writing again and I hope I will make a film with my husband in a few years. Will you come soon to Barcelona? It’s a pity No bye no aloha haven’t been published in Spain. If it was possible it would be a great pleasure to come to Spain. I use to go there very often.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

41

Is it time to say... bye or aloha? Aloha! Frightened by the objects in the mirror and always desperately looking for the moonlight in order to not get lost in the night, her poetry is a no return seduction. The ritornellos take us to a retro and dreamy atmosphere and in Dors Louise Peterhorff and Françoiz Breut whisper us all the Sandrine’s tenderness: Dors, mon petit ange, auprès de toi je resterai à chanter le temps qu’il faudra…If it could always be like this, Sandrine...

Interview by Juan Carlos Romero Photos 1, 2, 6 and 7 by Lieven van Vaelen Photos 3, 4 and 5 by Bertrand Sottiaux Photo 8 by M. Stassar


NAU NUA

ENVERS

42


NAU NUA

ENVERS

MY OWN ADVENTURE Vincent Moon 43


NAU NUA

ENVERS

44

Between his frenchglish and my spanglish, we manage to understand each other quite well. I had seen some of his videos and I like the way he makes each video a little pearl of that instant. I mailed Vincent, he was in París those days so we arranged to skype at 5PM París, 12AM Buenos Aires and we had a nice talk. I think you have a beautiful way to show the relations you make at the moment you record the videos and I’m interested in knowing the person behind the work, so I would you like to tell me Who are you? Haha, I don’t know, I’m just a guy, sort of like… I’m interested in too many things and I guess I was searching a long time what I wanted to do with this. I know you were a photographer first. Basically I was studying cinema and that was cool, but I didn’t understand anything, It seemed impossible, the way I was taught cinema is impossible to make cinema. I discover photography and I studied photography in a very special place in Paris. And that was the right thing you know, I need just to go out in the streets and shoot. And the way I shoot now is more exciting, simpler. And it’s quite visible on your work. What have you been doing before starting with this? Nothing. I studied photography, I was living in Paris at that time and I was going out all the time, going to a concert everyday, watching movies everyday, reading books, going to exhibitions, theaters, dance, everything possible. I really wanted to feed myself with a lot of different information. So I didn’t do much. I was sort of studying photography, sort of, but I was more like learning about many many things that I didn’t know.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

45

I guess when I was like 19 I had this revelation that I need to learn a lot about different thing to build myself, to become someone new. And that’s how I handle how I’m doing what I’m doing right now. I don’t see myself as a filmmaker, I think it comes from how I approach to art forms, in a very personal way. So how do you see yourself? I’m just a guy trying. This is really what it is, I’m not an artist or anything, I don’t care about that, It’s not important, what is important is to try, and I’m just a guy learning about life, learning about different issues, that’s what I’m learning through my films. And it doesn’t make me a filmmaker. So I guess you like to be doing it rather than watching it done. That’s what I say to the people I work with, I’m more interested in the process and what I’m going to learn in the process. I see the film in the end is going to be nice because it is beautiful out there. But what is important is what we share together, Have you seen the video with Tomi Lebrero in Buenos Aires? Yes, beautiful. And do you make some research about the musician before you go to shoot? Yes and no in fact, I make another research, for example when I was in Buenos Aires. I make a lot of contacts before arriving, but I didn’t plan anything before arriving. So I arrived and I spend like one week just like going out and going to concerts and learning and


NAU NUA

ENVERS

listening and talking to people about, who, what is happening, who is the people around and then, after this week I have like a video list, a clear idea on mind of who I want to film and then I shoot the films on the second week. Only two weeks. It can be pretty intense when I arrive to a new place I gather information very, very quickly. People trend to surprise about it, but it’s really my work and I like doing that. But after that I don’t do much research about, I get convinced and I say OK, let’s do it. I was in Cairo a month ago, and all I knew before arriving there was I wanted to meet a muecín. Do you know what a muecín is? I don’t. The person in the mosque who is calling for pray like: “oooaaaaaaaaguarattta”!!!! Ah, ok! In the mosque, the sound of a guy singing, I’ve been quite obsessed with this sound and I wanted to make a film about that sound, but I had no idea, no contacts. And then one day I was visiting a mosque, I was from mosque to mosque, and I arrived to one that blew my mind, a incredible mosque, beautiful, I had never seen something like that, I was really astonished by the place, really amazed, and then I heard someone singing in one of the rooms, I go there and I saw that guy and I approach him to ask him Who are you, and he says: I’m the muecín of the mosque. Ok, it was obviously I had to make a movie about him. It was a very beautiful meeting, I make a movie about that guy. There is a short bio in your site “Vincent Moon (real name Mathieu Saura) was born in Paris in 1979”… If you let me, I would like to ask you what does Vincent Moon has, that Mathieu Sara doesn’t? Ah, haha! I guess Vincent Moon has the confidence that Mathieu Saura doesn’t have to show himself, you know? I guess Vincent Moon is just like, a sort of… like to protect yourself. It’s not a very efficient way to tell you why, but you do what you can to move yourself to do what you want. It’s ok, every way to get self confidence to do what you want to do it’s ok to me. I’ve been googling you to know what people says about you, and I saw everywhere you go you are received by a WOW! This is Vincent Moon, it’s here, let’s go crazy!! Don’t you fear to become a monster? Hahaha What kind of monster? You know, a product monster. Yes, I think I know what you mean. I’m always very easy to reach, there is even my fucking phone number on the internet, I don’t care, so I guess I try to reach the distance as soon as possible when I meet people like, hey! Hi guys, what’s up, let’s get drunk together. If I take my distance from it that would make me feel weird and that would make me some problems. I’m a very simpler man than the one who appears to be on the internet you know?

46


NAU NUA

ENVERS

47


NAU NUA

ENVERS

48

When you are shooting a video, have you ever feel you can’t reach the intimacy you want with the musician? Oh, yes, maybe yes, sometimes of course and that is a sort of challenge for me to reach you further. I’m filming musicians who really, really want to be filmed by me, you know. “Oh! Let’s play a song for Vincent Moon”, that may be weird you know, because people would have too much pressure and trends to be… super tense in fact. All the people I’m filming these days don’t even know what I do, so basically when I got the camera they haven’t fucking heard about me. And I like that, that’s a challenge for me. I have to convince again the people, and it’s complicated sometimes, they say Oh, yes, fuck you. When I was in Cairo they say you have to pay if you want me to play music, because that’s the way they play music there, they wouldn’t play for free like that. And you became nomad? I became nomad more by accident but it is also because I ended up being with another home suddenly, and that was just perfect, ok, that means I have to stay on the road. And do you feel at home on the road? Yes, I’ve never felt more at home than when I’m just walking alone in a dark street at night. I’m really aggressive sometimes, but in a very good way you know, I like to be like an adventurer. When I’m searching for sounds I’m really intense and nobody can stop me, I have to push all the fucking doors, I have to get in everywhere, I love that feeling and there I feel at home, It’s kind of funny. Do you force a musician to do something you want to have recorded? Or you just let it be, and you record what happens and you never interfere?


NAU NUA

ENVERS

49

I often force musicians, in a way or another, to go in a certain direction but in a way, as soon as musicians decide to do something with me, they agree on the fact that I will push them in certain directions, challenge them in a way. It’s never a very aggressive push, often more trying to turn around the music to bring it in my own space. But of course, to make it simple, I try to be part of the action as much as possible, and to avoid an objective corner on the situation. Talking to you and having watched a lot of your films I feel you are an instant-lover. (He suddenly turned on the camera and showed me his right arm). Can you see this? It has been in my arm forever I guess now, it’s an old poem. There are four lines here (and he started to translate it from right to left). It says: “You would never know what is going to happen tomorrow. You will never understand anything in this world. Maybe one day you will, but only when you will be dead. So for now on enjoy life and drink some good wine.” Well I haven’t seen your arm before my question, I’m sure of that. Well I’m going to stop the video if it’s ok, I feel a bit cooler without it. It’s OK. It’s all about being here and now, just meeting people. But I think if you want to go further, what I want to say, basically, is how do today, the whole idea of art or form of creation of being a maker (I prefer the word of maker than creator or artist). What means to be a maker today? What is your tool, and what does your tool make to your life and how do you use your tool basically to socialize and meet people? My goal is to go as far as possible. How do I use my camera as a pretext to travel, to meet people, to meet woman, definitely. What I’m


NAU NUA

ENVERS

50

interested in any art form today is how links to society we are living in. I think this is definitely the goal of the XXI century now. So why do you talk about, some things I’ve read on your sites, about find a balance between technology and nature, do you see it as two opposite poles? No, I don’t see it as opposites, but I think we trend to oppose them a lot, unfortunately. I think this intuition I had some years ago is that the only way our society can… Can learn? Cannot be destroyed by the way we are using technology too fast and all this information era is basically to remake a link with nature. I think we are reaching that point, we need to integrate technology to re link ourselves to the bodies, to the nature. I’m fascinated by technology, in how do you use it in a very simple way. I just want you to mail me some works you have been doing, and what have you learn in the process. Let me think about it now… I learn a lot when I did the Pablo Malaurie video I guess, I really really like it, but there is some point in the movie when… You know… when there are dancing… Suddenly I realized something about our condition as a maker today, what does it mean to play music, and there is those beautiful moments, and how I love that contemplative way of being. Even if I go so fast I try to be contemplative. The big idea is that we don’t need art, the world is enough beautiful if you know how to see it. The children are dancing in turns with their parents, and laughing, and there are some many stories, so sublime, and then this guy comes and put them a little song over them and it’s sublime again. It’s a little, little thing and he makes it magical. Another one, I prefer to talk about recent


NAU NUA

ENVERS

51


NAU NUA

ENVERS

52

stuff, (it is just an extract, the film is not finished yet), I was in Barcelona and a lot of people told me about this guy, Peret, it’s like a legend in Spain, basically is the inventor of la rumba catalana, and he makes a movement with the guitar which is called, “el ventilador”, we went an hour away from Barcelona where he lives and he welcomes us, tell me what you do and I told I meet people and make videos for them, and I was with some spanish and they were “wow this is the fucking Peret!” and he says ok, it’s very nice, but I don’t have time, I’m sorry, I can’t do it. And I became so intense, that I convinced him. This is just a little extract, one moment, but the whole thing it’s going to be incredible, really nice. And la última, to me this is really next level, it’s difficult to watch, it will be online soon I think, It’s sacred music, it is not a music wich is performed for people, it’s for ill people, the person goes there and it is very very private. I went there twice and I convinced them to let me film, but I had to pay them, you are in a very very little room, there are four musicians and they play for one person wich is sick, to put you in trance, to get rid of that sickness, and that was such an incredible experience for me. I hadn’t to be filming, I had to be part of it. I was just like mind blowing I was so happy and I think the result is quite incredible. How can I with my western eyes can be part of it, it was really nice, so I hope you like it. So you are finding things you didn’t know. Yes, yes, yes, I find things but I don’t know where they are. And that is your adventure! Thank you for talking with us. Oh, a pleasure, Flavio. Interview by Flavio Affonso Photos de Vincent Moon © FIBRA AGOSTO 2010


NAU NUA

ENVERS

IN HER OWN LIGHT Kalliope Amorphous 53


NAU NUA

ENVERS

She’s an artist full of mystery that makes her research of empathy through subconscious her vital motor. She travels through the light in order to get out of herself and try to understand the others knowing that rules are nothing more than a jail fruit of our own fear of being unaccepted. I’m not a photographer or a narcissist. I’m an artist with a camera. Who is Kalliope Amorphous? That is the question that I hope is unresolved when looking at my work, because although these are self portraits, I do not view them as portraits of myself. I would like the viewer to feel the same way and often it is the case that most people do not immediately recognize my work as self-portraiture. I want to tell convincing stories through these images, which is why most of these concepts involve complete physical transformation and the blurring or eradication of my own physical look. When someone asks me who my models are, I am happy. There can be this assumption that if you are pointing the camera at yourself, then you must be a narcissist. For me, this self portraiture is the opposite of that, because I have to forget about “Kalliope”. I have to thoroughly drop the idea of myself, or at least go deeper into my subconscious, in order to get into the essence of what I ideally would like to depict. I usually do not see myself in the photographs at all. My latest series, Natsukashii, is probably the most “me” of all of my series. I think, however, that a lot of my subconscious feelings and personal affinities do come to the surface through the subjects that I am drawn to. When I look at my work objectively, I see certain themes that tend to repeat themselves and I actually learn a lot about myself through it. No matter what subject an artist is pursuing, it is inevitable that the essence of the artist will be seen somehow in the art. As for me personally, I am an artist and daydreamer. I am prone to viewing almost everything in poetic or metaphorical terms. I tend to romanticize things quite a bit and visual art is a way for me to make these visions tangible. Art is my 24-hour a day job. When I am not working on my photography, which is my primary focus, I am usually engaged in other art projects like assemblege jewelry and mixed media art. I also make perfume for Black Baccara Perfumery, which although it is a far leap from photography, is actually another way to present evocative stories. I have found that these two artforms play off of each other in interesting ways. For example, I have a perfume called “Ophelia”, which was inspired by my photo series of the same name. Our senses distort reality because they have a blind faith in visible light. Your art transforms that vision but visible light is still the essential element. What does light mean to you? This is an interesting question, because I am very fascinated by the study of consciousness and ideas of how each individual has their own “reality tunnel” as Robert Anton Wilson used to say. His theory was that we all perceive the world according to our own subconscious set of filters formed from experience and belief. This does not imply that there is no objective truth, but that our access to it is arbitrated through our senses and individual life experiences. Our perceptions of light correspond to this theory, because it is impossible to determine if individuals perceive light and colour exactly the same way. Of course, light is the entire backbone of the magic and possibilities that exist in photography. So, I view light as the ultimate alchemical tool in this artform and I enjoy playing with it and manipulating it in unique ways. When we create art, we are filtering images and ideas from our minds and trying to make them tangible and “real”, but ultimately we are creating more illusions. Light itself is an illusion, so in photography we are creating illusions by using illusion itself as a tool. I really love paradoxes like that.

54


NAU NUA

ENVERS

Portrait is your unique framework. What are you looking for in faces? It depends on the project, but usually I like to capture subtle moods and nuances that might lend something evocative to the images. I read something interesting many years back which explained that researchers have found that the human face is capable of 250,000 expressions. When I am in front of and behind the camera, much of what goes on is pretty spontaneous. Very little is planned other than a general mood and the resulting imagery is usually a surprise to me. I have no idea what I am about to look at when I sit down to review a shoot and often what I see in front of me is completely different from what I might have envisioned. The concepts are planned to a certain extent, but the element of surprise in the resulting imagery is my favorite part of the process. With 250,000 potential expressions in the face alone, nevermind the body, there will always be that element of the unexpected. The unexpected element is why I really enjoy portraiture. Circus Ghosts is a portrait series about circus artists. Where do you find a link between circuses and ghosts? While these are self portraits, it was my intent to present this series from the perspective of a documentary photographer. As the subject of these portraits, I wanted to convey the subtle emotional nuances of the characters as they began to take shape for me conceptually. As the photographer, I wanted to capture the characters from an intimate yet candid perspective. Each of the characters has a distinct personality and story to tell, which I tried to capture through creating the mood of an intimate portrait session. I wanted to convey the humanness and personality of each of the characters, giving the viewer a glimpse behind the facade of makeup and costumes and into the potential stories of each of the characters. I have always found the idea of the circus to have somewhat of a haunting quality about it. I wanted the portraits to have a timeless sort of feeling to them where it would be unclear if they were from the 1940s or more modern. So in this sense, these characters seem to be like ghosts to me, in that they are not fixed in any definite time frame. Resurrecting Ophelia. Does Ophelia symbolize something to you especially? Ophelia is a character I have always had an affinity for. On a purely visual level, there is something about the juxtaposition of beauty and death that I am attracted to. The poetic and artistic imagery of Ophelia has always seemed to encapsulate that sort of thing for me. I am very attracted to mythology and fairytales that have this sort of tragic theme yet beautiful visual quality to them. I have just started a series based on the old fairytale Frozen Charlotte, which is about a woman who froze to death. I am a strong admirer of the works of the Pre-Raphaelites and they seemed to be drawn to these sorts of themes as well. It is not so much a fixation with death, although it may appear that way. It is more about an awareness of the fragility of life coupled with my preoccupation with things that are nostalgic and wistful in some sense. I was also working through personal ideas of isolation and alienation in the Ophelia images. Though my life in general is very happy and I feel greatly blessed, the darker aspects of my personality tend to be rather melancholy. There are aspects that definitely find some sort of relation to Ophelia’s character; moments of feeling separate from the world or somehow outside of things.

55


NAU NUA

ENVERS

Light or no light, that’s the question in Valkyrie where you play with shadows. Have you a spiritual view of life? I have explored several different spiritual paths, but I don’t have any type of fixed spiritual belief system. I resonate with a lot of different spiritual ideas which run the gamut from Christian Mysticism to Haitain Vodou. I do not have any solid answers, nor do I adhere to any particular doctrine. I like to think that there are higher forces operating behind the scenes of our reality. I consider also that I may be entirely wrong about this. The brevity of life is something that I think about often and it also is something that inspires me. If I could encapsulate my “spiritual” view, it would most likely be centered around the brevity and preciousness of life and my quest to always recognize that and work within the realization of it. Persona Non Grata captures some dropout people. I was deeply impressed by the Bird Girl portrait. Does society hurt you? I would not say that any of my work deals with society harming me in particular, but I am passionate about causes regarding those whom society does truly harm and ostracize. Those types of themes will probably always be a part of my work in some way. The outcasts, the outsiders, the persecuted; these are the archetypes that I find resonance with and whose moods I am sometimes compelled toward. These themes are also part of my own life, though on a much more subtle level. That is to say, I would probably not find resonance with these larger feelings and themes of exile if I did not harbor some of them within myself. As a child, I would have definitely been considered an oddball. I learned to read and write at an unusually young age, which automatically made me a curiosity among both my peers and teachers. I was reading rather difficult texts at an early age and was always put into the curriculums of grades several years ahead of me because of this. So my youth very much ingrained within me feelings of “other”, which morphed into a very rebellious nature in my teenage years. I have always been very ambivalent about conforming to any set of rules or ideas of normalcy. What is seen in my artwork is probably a raw yet somewhat dramatized interpretation of these feelings. The Bird Girl portraits came about simply because I thought it would be an interesting visual. Some people will read into the work and some may view it as simply a visual. Both would be correct; I rarely create anything with a solid pre-conceived intention. Again, that is the kind of spontanaeity and magic that I really enjoy. Much of the Persona Non Grata series, which I am actually still working on editing, was actually made with quite a bit of dark humor behind it. I envisioned the most absurd, bizarre, troubled cast of characters possible, from old women with horrible attitudes to completely deranged looking children. Part of this was that I wanted to really push the limits of how drastically I could transform my physical appearance. Every now and then, I also like to intercept the more “pretty” series with series that are completely off the wall. Sacred is a general vision of religion icons. Is God the light are you searching for? The sacred series was one of my earliest series and the images there are probably the most personal ones for me. In various traditions, devotees dress up as their chosen deities in order to celebrate and honor them. That was the spirit in which I went into conceptualizing those images.

56


NAU NUA

ENVERS

In various spiritual or metaphysical systems, there is a term called “aspecting”. Aspecting refers to the empathic invocation of aspects of the self other than the ego. The entire range of the psyche is utilized; not just the limited ego. That is what I try to do in my art. I want to invoke aspects as empathically as possible. A lot of times, this work is a way for me to literally get outside of myself. “God “is not something that I am searching for externally, but rather internally. I believe that if the Divine does exist, it exists equally within ourselves, and I try to embrace certain virtues like compassion and empathy as much as possible in my life. I see what I would call “divinity” in the natural world and in human beings who embrace truth and deep-seated concern for other living beings. Hypnagogia is a mental state between wakefulness and sleep that includes lucid dreaming, hallucinations and out of body experiences. Is it not a contradiction to use light as a way to express experiences that go beyond our senses? When I was revising my artist statement the other day, I came across a thought that really parallels your question. The thought was: to define a feeling depreciates a feeling. In other words, attempting to define anything whether through word, visual or sound will never be able to fully express or encapsulate that idea. I find this truth rather frustrating, because it points to the limitations of all expression. In the same breath, I find it inspiring because it pushes me to try to get as close as possible to rendering a vision or emotion as I see it. Art is a way to convey the intangible in a way that is undefined and not absolute-yet at the same time tangible, as it is fixed in time and open to the interpretation of the viewer. So, as with everything, art has its limitations. Art is the process of attempting to make the intangible tangible in some way. If an artist is passionate about their work, they will continually strive to chip away at those barriers as much as possible. When I have strong emotional responses to another artists work, I immediately recognize that they have pushed the work to get it to that point where it just hits you in the chest. This is more common in music, and in fact is probably more easily acheived through music; but it can definitely be present in all artforms. I work on these sorts of ideas daily, always refining, always revising and reconsidering. I rarely consider a series finished. In fact, I had been working on Resurrcting Ophelia for years when I finally decided that she was officially finished about a month ago. One simple step; the conversion of all of the photographs to monochrome, is what told me the series was finally complete. So in answer to your question, yes I think almost everything could be considred contradictory. But, these are the tools we have. Tell me something about your love concept. Well, now you have asked a question which I do not really have an answer for! As I have said, I tend to romanticize so many things, but I think love is much more subtle than what most people think. At this point in my life, I think love is the ability to feel empathy for someone or something in the face of the most impossible despair. Compassion is probably the essence of love; the ability to get outside of oneself and truly understand what it may be like to be in the skin of another; to go beyond judgement, to get beyond assessing another human being only in relation to one self. This is very difficult, because selfishness is the plague of all of us. There is a danger in that kind of openness and vulnerability…but then, love itself tends to be beautifully dangerous. Interview by Juan Carlos Romero Photo by Kalliope Amorphous

57


NAU NUA

ENVERS

58


NAU NUA

ENVERS

VITAL PRISM Natalya Serkova 59

It seems that chance dominates her and makes her create in a compulsive way. She says she’s in a continuous research and her chromatic ranges show an apparent anarchy that is pleasantly stimulating. Her photography is rawer and it also has a certain old age aura that makes it become a timeless piece of art even they are made in the present days. Time is not important, only her attitude in front life. What are you looking for through your artistic creation? I’m defining the place I belong; it’s just a state of mind, I find pieces of it everywhere, and every piece of my work is a little materialized piece of this place.


NAU NUA

ENVERS

The mix of so many different techniques makes me think in a very curious personality. Isn’t it? Well, I think I am. I sometimes afraid I’m not enough curious. Stop being curios means become dead. I see dead people. Sometimes you use old photos to create your collages. Is it possible to create modernity from the past? There is no past, no future, just endless space of beauty. I use anything if I feel that’s the way to enter this space. When you feel that the thing you’ve made touches that space even for a little – it’s better than sex you know. No, as good as sex. I’m also deeply in love with old school, yes. But we can also see some self-portraits that you transform in something new. What’s your relation with your own image? I feel myself as an observer. So, usually, I’m not interested in images of myself. I don’t have photos of myself at all. I’m making a self-portrait when I want to scream. For me doing something with my image is a process of screaming. My nerves are quite ok, so it doesn’t happen frequently. Maybe, my attitude will change. Tomorrow. I feel a kind of anarchy in your work or a kind of need to break the rules. Do you think society is too restrictive? Your upbringing restricts you, not society. Fear restricts you. All the rules I ever wanted to brake were the rules in my own head. I love chaos and randomness. They bring unexpected things. They bring an illusion of inner freedom. One of your photo series is the one called Space for one where you use to look at the sky through city buildings and trees. Is the space you are trying to capture the symbol of a desired freedom? All photos from that series were made when I was looking for a place to hide. I just felt better making those pictures. Those buildings were very beautiful, I felt like they felt me. The world around was a fortress from inner vacuum. Useless youth is your nickname. Are you talking about youth in general or your own youth? Youth is a great condition. I don’t use it in appropriate way. My youth is quite useless indeed. I like people who know what to do with their youth.

60


NAU NUA

ENVERS

61


NAU NUA

ENVERS

62

Do you think art is useful? For what? My art is useless. Or, maybe...wait a minute. Skimming stones is a photo series focused on gems and rock crystals where you create a dreamy atmosphere again with transformation as a protagonist. Have you an optimistic view about the future? I’m an optimist at heart, I can do nothing with it. Eventually, everything that happens to me is quite funny and/or stupid. Skimming stones is a name of Boards of Canada track. Listen to Boards of Canada. You’ll get the truth. Are you an uncut diamond? Aladdin was an uncut diamond, I’m a prism. So, the best we can do is to be surprised with an innocent look by the light’s travel through the prism of Natalya Serkova. Let’s trust everything to chance and curiosity. Interview by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Natalya Serkova


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

ELENA SAHNOVA Rapid Eye Movement 63


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

64


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

65


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

66


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

67


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

68


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

69


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

70


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

71


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

72


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

73


NAU NUA

ESBĂ“S

KALLIOPE AMORPHOUS

The everted mirror: The Conceptual Self Portrait Photographs of Kalliope Amorphous

Frozen Charlotte

74


NAU NUA

ESBĂ“S Dismantled

75


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

Follow

76


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

Surrender 77


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

Currents

78


NAU NUA

ESBĂ“S

Early Mourning

79


NAU NUA

ESBĂ“S

She would wait forever

80


NAU NUA

ESBÓS La llorona

81


NAU NUA

ESBĂ“S

The dream children

82


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

DONIETTA ROMÉAS Émerveillement 83


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

84


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

85


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

86


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

87


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

88


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

89


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

90


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

91


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

92


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

93


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

NATALYA SERKOVA Inner spectrum 94


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

95


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

96


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

97


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

98


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

99


NAU NUA

ESBÓS

100


NAU NUA

SUKI EWERS

BORN

Bodie crow

101


NAU NUA

MOS

REFERENCES Nadia Adame http://www.nadiaadame.com Maria Coma http://www.mariacoma.com Elena Sahnova http://www.flickr.com/people/elenasahnova Smoke Fairies http://www.smokefairies.com GraŻyna Bienkowski http://www.myspace.com/grazynabienkowski Donietta Roméas http://www.facebook.com/Donietta DAäRi http://www.noomiz.com/daryproject Alexander Kluge http://www.kluge-alexander.de The Ideal Husband http://www.myspace.com/theidealhusbandband Vincent Moon http://www.vincentmoon.com Kalliope Amorphous http://www.kalliopeamorphous.com Natalya Serkova http://www.flickr.com/photos/natashaserkova Fibra Ediciones http://www.casafibra.com.ar

NAU NUA FEBRUARY 2011 EDITION NUMBER 4 PUBLISHED BY NAU NUA ART MAGAZINE http://naunua.blogspot.com CONTACT naunua@live.com

102


NAU NUA

MOS

103

WORLD UP ART


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.