0:00

I’m a independent scholar and curator I

0:04

work on film semiotics of the image and

0:11

cultural diversity issues and

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particularly that have to do with a with

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the Americas and currently working on a

0:19

project called Malaysia’s Paulo Nations

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and dislocation changing imaginary

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borders in the Americas that I have

0:27

actually been working on for quite a

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while and the focus of the project is to

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actually investigate the wain way in

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which the north and the south to use

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very simple terms are coming together or

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not and how they are doing it through

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the traffic of ideas and images

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throughout the continent well there’s a

0:55

contemporary aesthetic paradigm yeah

0:59

there is individual arts for sure

1:03

there’s the conceptual minimalist

1:08

approach which is dominant in the arts

1:13

in North America and Europe and that is

1:16

the aesthetic of what I what I think is

1:19

this studies of Empire just us it was

1:23

just as Baroque art was the aesthetic of

1:26

the Spanish Empire in the transition

1:28

from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

1:29

I think that conceptual minimalist art

1:34

today is the

1:36

aesthetics of the current Empire or

1:41

empires or this is that what is the West

1:46

they the dominant aesthetic of the West

1:50

I think that there is a counter

1:52

aesthetic that is emerging that has been

1:55

emerging over the last maybe 10 15 years

2:02

maybe a little longer and it’s it’s

2:05

emerging from the communities diverse

2:09

communities are within they the United

2:12

States mostly on the borders and it’s a

2:17

neo-baroque aesthetic which responds to

2:20

the necessity of artists and

2:24

intellectuals to to complexify to make

2:29

the the picture of a picture of reality

2:32

that is much more complex and it

2:35

requires a small tennety of independent

2:38

but related voices with innocent more

2:41

than a text which is something that the

2:44

Baroque mastered and the neo-baroque is

2:48

in the process of developing

2:52

we’ll be kind of the other the counter

2:55

static to the dominant aesthetic that is

2:58

emerging very often due to political

3:02

reasons either people have been forced

3:05

into exiled we’re not actually killed so

3:09

artists have always fallen into the

3:13

coming and fill the vacuum of knowledge

3:18

and has been created at the hands of the

3:23

dominant power and have had become their

3:26

own critics and their own intellectual

3:30

so you have the phenomenon in Latin

3:32

America of the artists artists creative

3:36

artists intellectual that is pretty

3:39

common so critical thought usually

3:43

emerges in Latin America from the

3:46

practice itself so the aesthetic that

3:49

results from that is a distancing

3:53

aesthetic and there’s a history of that

3:55

in film a way what would probably say to

4:00

a failed experiment in the seventh

4:03

degree which would be the new Latin

4:05

American cinema feeling that says that

4:07

it never managed to to reach a wider

4:10

audience and create create an

4:16

alternative worldview from within Latin

4:21

America which was its its goal and they

4:25

weren’t able to do that probably

4:28

precisely because of the our emphasis on

4:31

the critical aspect of their work on the

4:34

analytical aspect of the work and it

4:37

result where films worked which were

4:40

boring very often unfortunately but it

4:44

should be said and who the on exception

4:48

like Mario Andretti’s meconium

4:49

for example which tried to break that

4:52

that dry in you know overbearing

4:55

analytical paradigm which is very

4:57

difficult to sustain when you’re dealing

5:00

with film so is there an a study that is

5:04

a specifically Latin America I would say

5:06

it is a critical aesthetic there is a

5:11

search for representational means which

5:18

exist within a very strong political and

5:22

ideological control and obstacles how to

5:25

say which was something that artists in

5:28

the Baroque period also experienced

5:30

under under the you know the control of

5:35

the Spanish Empire so they had to find

5:37

ways of like what supplanting is Ella

5:39

Cruz who was say one of the luminaries

5:42

of Latin American literature who lived

5:45

in the 16th century called to say

5:49

without saying they see you see me seed

5:52

so there were all these baroque

5:54

rhetorical strategies that were

5:56

developed in order to be able to bypass

6:00

the censors so that’s another aspect I

6:03

would say of a Latin American aesthetic

6:05

which also makes it move to an immoral

6:09

borough formal representation and of

6:11

course there are

6:15

even within the conceptual aesthetic

6:19

that many art especially visual artists

6:24

are tribute to their their Minerva is or

6:31

almost never is merely a political I’m

6:36

sorry a formal exercise there’s always a

6:39

political element in the formal

6:45

minimalist aesthetic as well so I would

6:48

say that that distinguishes even

6:51

conceptual artists in the South from

6:55

those and the countries that actually

6:58

can afford to have the privilege of not

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having anything to say or not happy to

7:03

say anything can we engage in in the

7:09

ludecke aspect of creative of creation

7:12

and creativity so I would say that they

7:14

are both formally there’s also in Latin

7:18

Americans just to summarize as to

7:20

tendencies and but even the conceptual

7:23

minimalist tendency that is in dialogue

7:25

so they’d be an arse and and almost like

7:29

olivianelson different art exhibits has

7:35

that political component that strong

7:37

political critical component in the did

7:40

the documentary superb approach is

7:43

always a little bit more experimental as

7:45

well and and it’s also a little bit over

7:52

the Baroque and

7:54

for the very reasons of censorship and

7:57

repression as well I’d say that pretty

7:59

much summarizes it artists and

8:01

filmmakers i’ma talk about Canada right

8:03

now who are representative of what it is

8:07

a Canadian identity website so you know

8:12

universities have severely underfunded

8:14

so the discourse that’s created at

8:16

universities is unlimited because of

8:20

that and the audiences are limited to

8:23

universities and then there is also the

8:27

structures of funding in this country

8:28

I’m going to talk about Canada only

8:30

right now the structures are funding in

8:32

this country are such that they create a

8:34

division between academia and they are

8:39

and they are the arts community over all

8:42

kinds of art and because you have either

8:45

the humanities and research now so that

8:48

funds University it finds academic

8:50

thought and the Canada Council for the

8:53

Arts and all the different provincial

8:56

councils and different you know

8:58

provincial resources I find only art

9:02

practices so the funding structure in

9:05

this country separates de facto they the

9:10

practice and the theory and so which is

9:13

not which is something that does not

9:16

happen in Latin America exactly for the

9:18

very reason that I just described

9:19

earlier that theory and practice you

9:23

know are so interrelated that even the

9:25

practitioners themselves

9:27

the practitioners as are have to be

9:29

their own theorists or

9:31

coming you know to fill in those shoes

9:35

so in the north there is that separation

9:37

which in itself is a I personally

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believe counterproductive so my own

9:46

personal practice I have chosen in my

9:48

own personal Parkinson for all sorts of

9:51

reasons both personal and professional

9:54

to remain as an independent scholar and

9:57

as an independent curator because I find

10:00

that the work that I do as an academic

10:03

the research I do the historical and

10:05

theoretical basis on my research needs

10:08

to feed feeds from the practice of

10:13

artists in the community who are doing

10:18

the work and curators and community as

10:21

well in communities that I’m interested

10:28

in working with the diasporic

10:30

communities of the Americas and in turn

10:35

needs to give it give back it’s not just

10:38

for me to be a researcher that comes and

10:41

takes like anthropology has done for

10:44

many many years

10:46

takes the work and takes technologists

10:48

and practices that are they they that

10:54

make up the fiber of everyday life the

10:57

practice of our daily life and I’m using

11:00

the term and the way they share this a

11:01

thought uses it and are involved in

11:06

their articulation of institutions and

11:08

networks of knowledge and networks of

11:11

alternative powers in the society and

11:13

are like in the trenches of that it’s

11:18

and so if I’m studying what they’re

11:21

doing and I’m interested know what

11:23

they’re doing because they are actually

11:24

the forefront of the creation of this

11:27

new know my diasporic identity of the

11:30

Americas then I find it is my beauty and

11:35

I want to do this to give back to this

11:41

community the results of my findings I

11:43

mean this the least I could do and that

11:46

I have found has been really exciting

11:51

mutually beneficial and in the sense

11:57

that the work that I have done has

11:59

helped many of these young artists many

12:03

of them are very young to situate their

12:06

work in a much larger context that spans

12:09

30 years that they don’t really they

12:12

didn’t know that that was the case

12:14

because the institutions of learning in

12:17

this country still have not had been are

12:20

very much behind the times in that way

12:23

and have not been able to provide

12:28

the space for this for this for this

12:33

history to be disseminated or offered

12:37

and so the students the young

12:39

practitioners don’t have a place even

12:41

though they’re going there studying film

12:44

let’s settle my film they’re setting

12:45

film by the universities they don’t have

12:48

you know any courses on Latin American

12:51

film any courses let alone Latino

12:53

Canadian film and they are therefore

12:57

locked of a history and our context that

13:02

would make their work much much much

13:04

much better because they don’t have to

13:07

become continually be invented look

13:08

where water you know they don’t have to

13:10

be reinventing themselves they can

13:13

actually build on the work but others

13:15

before them have already done for almost

13:17

40 years actually you know that is for

13:20

film so that is not happening it hasn’t

13:26

happened in in Canada and I’m kind of a

13:29

them not only in that way but I I would

13:33

say that that’s where my pedagogical

13:35

practice lies and I think it’s I think

13:43

it’s really important for the ivory

13:45

tower to be coming to that to commune

13:47

with a with a with the streets and it’s

13:52

not enough to to talk about avant-garde

13:56

never got out and look at the tenants of

13:59

avant-garde art and

14:02

they are the vanguard and bringing life

14:04

and arts together or dissolving that the

14:08

division between the two and and do this

14:12

kind of marinating future is gesture of

14:15

you know going out on the streets and

14:17

and becoming cultural workers in the

14:25

true sense of the term so it’s not

14:28

enough to teach it to have even used to

14:30

read those manifestos and read the whole

14:33

history of avant-garde art which is

14:35

exciting it is what do you do with that

14:38

you know I gotta put that into practice

14:40

too so that has not I don’t see that

14:45

happening

14:46

so ademma logically the word I’d have to

14:51

check this but just intuitively I think

14:55

it’s even a technologically so weird way

14:58

of award because in Spanish subversion

15:02

means like a version within a version or

15:05

a version that’s below a virgin of some

15:07

reality but it really in practice means

15:10

to turn something on its head to subvert

15:15

and in terms of the unit cell

15:22

I have paradigm that I use for this

15:26

concept and it’s a paradigm that I

15:28

learned from research that I have done

15:31

on an Indian identity and of an Italian

15:38

philosophy philosophy that was actually

15:41

pre-columbian and that is continues to

15:46

be practiced in the Andes by Quechua and

15:49

Aymara communities and which is a very

15:52

bizarre thing to say I think he talked

15:58

about it in a in a kind of like academic

16:03

context I remember the first time I

16:04

spoke about this at Stanford a people

16:08

were a little bit surprised but there is

16:11

a concept that comes out in the Andes

16:15

that is that that is the word Pacheco

16:18

and Pacheco T is an Andean pre-columbian

16:26

contact the concept that that refers to

16:30

the world turning inside out you’re not

16:35

turning on its head not being not not

16:39

being completely inverted but literally

16:41

turning itself inside out and they it’s

16:50

a complex word it comes from another

16:53

word which is the Pachamama which people

16:55

translate that as the mother earth but

16:58

in reality it isn’t in the way it’s

17:01

understood in I mean it is associated

17:04

with the feminization of the earth for

17:06

sure as it isn’t any other animistic

17:08

culture but it is a

17:11

it really needs space-time it really

17:14

means cronut oh and Mama means of course

17:20

mother like in many languages are like

17:25

phonetically the letter M is associated

17:28

with mother probably because of the

17:30

suckling sound that babies the worldwide

17:32

but that’s one of those linguistic

17:36

exceptions to the rule of the complete

17:39

arbitrariness of language that semiotics

17:42

posited from linguistics positive from

17:45

beginnings but those are one of the

17:48

words that are an exception and purcha

17:53

really means place also the other way

18:02

around patch I think means time but the

18:04

cause of in itself means FaceTime and

18:06

Pecha Kucha means when that concept when

18:12

space-time the chronic help of the

18:14

moment is inverted its but not inverted

18:17

on that said it’s matter not said but

18:19

it’s actually turned inside out in such

18:21

a way that it is a complete crisis

18:26

Senate mister melodical crisis and I

18:28

thought historical crisis of enormous

18:31

magnitudes and at last 500 years so in

18:34

other words there’s a bunch of quitting

18:36

according to any and thought every 500

18:38

years there was a Pachacuti when the

18:41

Spaniards arrived in the Andes and five

18:46

hundred years later we are going through

18:48

another batch of cookie so maybe they

18:49

are right

18:51

it’s a transition between two distinct

18:57

paradigms that as again as paradigm

19:02

between the Middle Ages and the

19:03

Renaissance the period that were going

19:05

through today this major paradigmatic

19:08

change would be in the terms called

19:10

Abacha Cote so when I think about

19:13

subversion going back today to your

19:16

question I think about subversion in

19:19

that way we most of the time we tend to

19:22

think about subversion as really old in

19:25

with the new and I find that very

19:30

problematic because you can never really

19:33

do away with the old I’m much more the

19:40

radiant in that in that way I think that

19:44

there never is real closure in the

19:47

dialectic so that if you take you know

19:50

in in the dialect that you think you

19:52

have am being in constant tension power

19:55

or absence of power in intentional

19:59

stress or in or failure also called

20:04

life-and-death struggle when you turned

20:08

that on it said when you have the master

20:10

on top and you turn it on its head

20:12

you haven’t really changed anything

20:14

structurally right because there’s a

20:17

really matter who is a pop it was below

20:19

you still have someone above and someone

20:21

below but if you think about the dialect

20:24

and the way the dairy dad thinks about

20:25

it then then you think about there never

20:30

really be being true synthesis and all

20:33

you have is differences that are

20:36

deferred meanings that are deferred the

20:39

firls and if you that you can always

20:41

find synthesis are only temporary

20:47

and there’s there’s I think about the

20:50

version as the cop if I if I have if I

20:55

can say this is if I were just to say

20:57

what do I think subversion really is I

20:59

think subversion is to actually look at

21:01

reality as a constant struggle as a

21:06

constant as I’d I collected that is

21:08

never resolved and never resolved of all

21:10

and that because whatever appears to be

21:15

resolved whatever synthesis of the years

21:17

to come will always create its own

21:19

antithesis will always become a thesis

21:22

and a dominant way of seeing things and

21:25

create its own antithesis and its own

21:27

entities for creating you know the

21:29

necessary for some form of synthesis and

21:31

the apparent specification of what in

21:38

reality is constant struggle there is

21:42

every level of society a struggle for

21:46

for power and as long and they always

21:49

will be in as part of human nature it is

21:52

part of it’s part of our animal nature

21:57

and we’re always to remember that we are

22:01

by nature animal and and we carry that

22:07

into our humaneness I think that makes

22:10

us more vulnerable to remember that

22:12

because we don’t we take responsibility

22:16

for our capacity for destruction and

22:19

violence and that is what makes us human

22:23

and ethics where we look at our

22:29

that’s capable of great the greatest

22:31

good and the greatest evil each and

22:34

every one of us and by acknowledging our

22:37

capacity for destruction and we actually

22:43

acknowledge of the struggle this

22:45

struggle that I like the exhaustion of

22:47

power is they explained within ourselves

22:50

as well and that we are able that will

23:05

keep him under control and until we

23:07

learn to do that and until we stop

23:09

pretending that we are you know better

23:13

than thou or better than others or

23:16

superior l was going to continue

23:18

creating inequities which are right now

23:25

might lead us our own destruction and

23:29

unless you know it is almost kind of a

23:32

cry of desperation when you look at the

23:34

world today and how much on the brink of

23:38

self-destruction we really are we

23:41

needing that that fact is in itself

23:47

a danger you know because we are living

23:50

in time so I was absolutely

23:52

ecocidal you know we are destroying the

23:56

ground that were standing on so that’s a

23:59

so it’s a pointing finger elsewhere is

24:02

to wash your hands of a responsibility

24:04

and to negate ourselves deny ourselves

24:12

not only the responsibility but then the

24:16

power however limited it may be to do

24:20

something too about it so I would think

24:26

that the most versatile solution today

24:28

is not to take on this fundamentalist

24:30

version or that fundamentalist position

24:32

but to actually locate ourselves right

24:38

in the middle of the struggle and look

24:41

at all the contradictions and all they

24:44

are the dangers of you know not doing

24:48

that will bring to us and you know and

24:52

to others so that it’s much more

24:56

complicated what I’m saying you know

24:58

when the legalism we believe in that

25:00

let’s all go out and you know and use a

25:04

symbolic power of the strike for example

25:07

like your Sorel would say or whatever

25:10

symbolic act or let’s blow up the World

25:14

Trade Center because that is the symbol

25:16

of you know global capital power

25:21

capitalism because violence only

25:26

engenders more violence and it is

25:32

violence as a contaminant we know that

25:36

from you know I mean it’s almost it’s

25:42

definitely not the answer because all it

25:45

does is just you know engender more

25:47

violence um you look at Colombia today

25:49

you look at you know what’s been going

25:51

on in Iran and there’s the resurgence of

25:59

a form of Islam that existed in the

26:06

Middle Ages but it is you know

26:09

destroying everything that that it

26:12

purportedly stands for the resurgence of

26:15

anti-semitism worldwide I mean the

26:17

researchers of all these and pedis an

26:19

entity that which are a search for you

26:24

know which only leads and not only has

26:26

led historically to a search for a

26:29

scapegoat who is going to be the one who

26:32

will eventually be sacrificed and

26:34

immolated in the name of you know

26:37

whatever and you know scapegoat it and

26:43

immolated in order to to ritually as we

26:47

have done this is endemic to do

26:50

monotheism all all the monotheism’s to

26:53

ritually emulate our sacrificial victim

26:58

and so as to bring order into the social

27:02

into the the social body again which is

27:06

in

27:09

terrifying for for those who have been

27:14

traditionally escape goats like you know

27:17

of the violence you know the Jews blacks

27:22

Indians

27:32

you

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