17/02/2019
INTERVIEW (PART 1) WITH ARNAUD DEZOTEUX
OUR NEXT ARTIST IN RESIDENCY – SPRING 2019 - ARRIVING IN LAS VEGAS ON MARCH, 19 - BE READY LAS VEGANS !
Christian Mayeur and Anne Poux: What drives you in your work?
Arnaud Dezoteux: I like confronting two categories of images that may seem opposite: on the one hand the film recording process, which, in my case, is often made of improvised encounters; and on the other hand, the post-production work that involves editing, special effects, and creating digital images. My aim is to see how some digital tools, including the green inlay background, collide with a fragile way of acting and a groping way of directing. In my videos, fiction ends where improvisation begins.
CM + AP: What is your position as an artist in today’s world?
AD: This is a method more than a message. My relationship to the world is typically based on using creative tools and the specific way I use them. I prefer the use of video because it is now a common and accessible tool. Through American and French cinema, I question certain dynamics (conventions) that structure popular culture and I try to give of them a more local image. I guess that leads me to re-evaluate some of the myths and practices of the moving image.
CM + AP: We sense a certain cynicism in your production and at the same time a lot of humor. You can be almost violent. What is your vision of the world? Is it assumed?
AD: I totally agree. This violence lies maybe in the fact of confronting a fantasy imagery with a rougher cinematic observation. I accept this violence. There is some self-mockery also, because I confront a phantasmagorical world to something more trivial, or even pathetic. I grew up with entertainment, video games, the exploration of virtual worlds, for which I entertain a fascination and at the same time a critical point of view. In a way, it is this ambivalence which I try to find when I work with actors. I like seeing what my intentions and my fiction fantasies become when they are in the hands of the people with whom I film. The actors are not always sensitive to my world, and it is with no doubt better like that. As a result, they shift the boundaries, change the content of the actions, disrupt the consistency of the world I try to invent.
In that sense, my video tittled "Miroir de Haute Valnia / Mirror of Haute-Valnia " is my favorite work. The video is rather long, demanding. It shows a failure both at the level of the story and of the capacity to transport the spectator in a world supposed to be extraordinary. It is a sophisticated plan (with several sets, situations), where the characters eventually are filmed, nevertheless they do nothing.
No mercy with the camera as a tool. The violence comes probably from the medium itself, from the perversity inferred by the continuous recording. There is some violence for the people who live such an experience of the shooting, which doubles a shape of social violence.
CM + AP: What is the influence of New Mexico in your inspiration?
AD: What excites me about New Mexico, is to shoot in an unknown environment, but for which I have a distinct a priori. I’m gonna have to rethink the way I work. I have a point of view on America from a French perspective, obviously imbued with some exoticism. I am very curious to find out how my production methods will be perceived in this remote location. I am fascinated by the American West. Typically, this is what, for my film Dark Meta Reeves, led me to work around Keanu Reeves, an emblematic figure of Western culture in the years 1990-2000. For the project with Mayeur Projects, I’ll go back a century with Billy The Kid.
