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DO WITH THE GRAIN OF SAND THAT DISRUPTS THE MACHINE

Conversation with Manuel Fadat

Manuel Fadat
This conversation, François, will take place under the auspices of adventure and art history. In the course of this interview, we will plunge into the abyssal depths of your work, which I have said is “like a labyrinth whose shapes, dimensions, layering, corridor, exit and room organisation, are in perpetual motion,” a definition that might also describe the creative process in general. Because much ink has been spilt about your work, your methods, etc., we will attempt to stray off course, step off the beaten track, take our time. In a word, we will embark on a quest for complexity. François, we have met previously, during a lengthy conversation. Therefore, let us first extract you from the category of peregrination artist even though movement, the journey, the act of going “into” the motif and into the world are constants in your work. For you, “the world is a sculpture unknown to itself .” I appreciate the method you employ, I must say it over again, which consists of meticulously anticipating every last detail, with a good dose of obsession, before totally letting go. I love your willingness to reveal unsuspected layers of reality. And so, since we must begin, I will quickly say that you are interested in images, in their creation, their making and their collection, in humanity, in its constructs and resulting acts, in its persistence to generate fortuitous gestures, nonsense that makes sense; you are interested in objects, in the making of objects, and in the tools used for production; you are interested in the entanglement of the micro and the macro, but also in the many layers of suggestion created by images and objects, in vacuity, in the precise location where death mingles with life, in transformation, in the feeling of being an engaged witness, without the constraints of journalism, and, finally, in the act of creation itself taken in its whole sense, full of its utopian potential.
All these ideas, these sentences, these words strung together have obviously come a long way since our first conversation and yet it was as I watched your latest film, Aires [Areas], [1] that they came to me, or came back—which isn’t to say that this film obliterates or substitutes the others or even seeks to encapsulate them—because in my view of your work, which is entirely based on the preparation for our conversations, this film constitutes a sum total. A sum total that we can use to interpret a portion of your work, just like your film Los Sueños de Daireaux [2] is fairly indicative of your thought process. In Aires, besides from what I view as a collection of universal elements, to this we will come back later, one can really see the intertwining of the many points of interest that comprise your work, and to which I have awkwardly alluded, such as being in the motif, the observation of human activities, the intensity that you lend to construction, transformation and creation, the interest in the tools and the bodies used to shape matter and turn it into objects as well as cities, of which you capture the sculptural aspect. But also the vacuous nature of all these gestures since as spectators we can’t help but question the duration of all that is built by man, its meaning and, subsequently, the relationship between construction, permanence and obsolescence. Aires is obviously a film in which you are watching a world in constant transformation, a film which, incidentally, opens with a large area…

François Daireaux
Yes, Aires begins in an unlikely place, in Delhi, on the banks of the Yamunâ River, which is a kind of no man’s land, a wasteland, an area. The title I chose for this film was inspired by my discovery of the Brodmann Areas, which is a mapping of the human cortex. I found this drawing and its associated numbers very beautiful. On one hand, I felt like I was in motion while on the other, I could read this diagram like a map, and I felt that the drawing as it was organised corresponded perfectly to the editing of my film. As a matter of fact, two of the first people to watch my barely finished film said that they felt as though they were travelling inside my brain, inside my head.

M. F.
There exists a multitude of meanings for the word “areas” that are used differently based on the context or the subject and that, if we were to dig a little deeper, all bear some correspondence, not to mention homophonous comparisons. Basically, everywhere we look, we find areas.

F. D.
But I must first mention an anecdote. The name Daireaux originates from the French word “aireaux,” which, in the region of the Manche, refers to the vacant plots of land in front of farms that are used to store all sorts of machines and objects necessary for life and work on a farm. However, this is merely anecdotal.

M. F.
On the topic, I read somewhere that you distance yourself from the anecdotal and the exotic. So, yes, from a pejorative point of view, but in truth one could transpose the meaning given in the text I refer to and state the exact opposite, in the positive sense of the term.

F. D.
It’s true, we should reclaim the positive value of the anecdote (laughter)! In any case, I’d say that nowadays a large portion of my work, perhaps even all of it, undergoes a form of “micro-narrative,” similar to the anecdote. All to say that I think the term “micro-narrative” best describes my current work. It’s often been said that my work up until now has been an association or even a juxtaposition of fragments. But it’s far more accurate to say that I build a story based on these micro-narratives.

M. F.
Thus, the anecdotal aspect in the positive sense, but not without a kind of exoticism, cleared of any colonialist charge, and based on the principle that there is an attraction to the unknown, apart from…

F. D.
Indeed. Both the unknown and the strange. I’d add that there is also a form of derision, irony, vacuity…

M. F.
To better express this, perhaps we could evoke one of the first scenes of Aires. In it, we see a bow-legged man using his bare feet to flatten the earth in a trench only a few centimetres deep, which we suppose might be used to pour cement for the foundations of some type of building or another. You call attention to this and you patiently film this action performed with a great deal of patience and meticulousness by a man whose means are rudimentary, to say the least. Vacuity, yes, because wouldn’t machines be used to do this today? Attraction to construction and human activity, yes, because it might seem fairly crazy to “still” perform such gestures today. Important realism because we experience the raw reality and all that it infers. Surrealism too because, in our modern day and age, to watch a barefoot man preparing the earth for what we assume will be a large building, with the eyes of a denizen of a “wealthy” country of course, might seem as unlikely as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table, to loosely translate the Comte de Lautréamont.

F. D.
These gestures are archaic, they are gestures that we might perform ourselves, and this is precisely what interests me. Since we are discussing the activity of this man who is tamping down the earth with his feet, it is important to remember that he is performing these gestures as part of his job. The fact that he is digging a trench and flattening a band of earth, by carefully laying down one foot after the other, conjures up a reel of film, a story that begins and slowly unfolds, as if the machine were on its way…

M. F.
Russian dolls… Everything is significant and makes sense, everything fits together, medium, content, mechanics, rhythm, signifier, signified, he who is filming, he who is being filmed, both of whom could be the two sides of the same coin in the sense that you film something in the other that corresponds to what you yourself might do…

F. D.
But, once again, it is because of the preponderant relationship to matter. When he digs and flattens, it is obvious that there is a relationship to sculpture…

M. F.
A gesture that also inspired this conversation… But we can come back to Aires a little later on if you don’t mind… And reorient ourselves perhaps… since the objective of our discussion is to try to reveal what wasn’t apparent or what appeared differently until now… I want to take advantage of this conversation to establish a connection between Blow Bangles Production, [3] which is both an exhibition and a long-term project, full of new developments and sudden changes, your applications, your opinions, your beliefs, your methods and attitudes, and your distinctive career path, which began with Applied Arts rather than Fine Arts and was followed by a precocious experience designing and building villas in Morocco hand in hand with artistic pursuits, which for me is a determining factor…

F. D.
You really want to talk about all that (laughter)!?

M. F.
It is very interesting to me because all of this led the young man that you once were to manage large-scale projects from design to construction in a coherent manner seeing as you were judged on your results, experience, professionalism, and even more so because it allowed you to tackle all the economics, human as well as material and financial, related to this type of project. And I am not forgetting the fact that these were architectural projects or your parallel artistic pursuits, all of which help us understand a part of your work today and, in my view, shed light on its complexity.

F. D.
Can you give me a cigarette? It’s good to start with things that I didn’t expect. One mustn’t be afraid to venture forth…

M. F.
That’s the idea, to have no fear…

F. D.
The relationship with architecture is very strong. I am trained as an artist of architectural environment, I didn’t make it my specialty, but architecture in all its dimensions is very important and nourishes my work with regards to construction and content. I think you noticed how present it is in my images. My interest lies in ruins, in all types of houses, in locations straddling two lives, such as the factories that are active yet falling to pieces in the film Firozabad. [4] For years now, the global economic crisis has greatly affected the city of Firozabad, just like everywhere else for that matter, but when it comes to poor countries or regions, the results can be devastating. Glass creations made in China continue to flood the Indian market. The consequence is fairly straightforward: many factories have to shut down and large sections of the city fall into ruin.

M. F.
I didn’t want to specifically address the question of architecture as a subject or a field, but rather what your experience in architecture has led to, that is to say, the understanding of economy and management in the large and complex context of a project. However, I will build on the point you bring up about the market in order to return to the major topics of this discussion, travel, art, social and political dimensions, bearing in mind that these three major themes are distinctive yet intrinsically connected, or should I say entangled… My intention isn’t to reduce your work to these three themes by any means, but to use them as our guideposts before the rivers flow into the sea, evaporate and fall as rain to turn into streams and tributaries once again… An image that illustrates your work fairly well in my opinion. So, there is the matter of economics, in the Greek sense of the term, of project management, of construction, of travel. You confided that you were less of a peregrination artist than an adventurer who enjoys sparks and screeching tires, the sounds of motors, burning brakes, the smell of oil, the mechanics of machines, the rhythm, the movement, but also the energy, the transformation and the utopian… In short, many things that tugged at my own heartstrings and that we shall unwind…

F. D.
Since we are on the subject of machines, oil, rhythm, there is a moment in my past that I like to talk about every now and then. At fourteen years old, I was sent to a technical school before entering the Applied Arts. I was put behind a lathe, with the lubricant, the coveralls, and all the gear that went with it. I realise in hindsight that this experience deeply affected me. The atmosphere of a workshop, machine noises and manual labour, all this influenced me greatly. I might have become a manual worker… perhaps a miller-turner…

M. F.
Miller-turner… Yes… Except if we consider the famous configurations of miscellaneous objects you created as a child, on the floor, the carpet, the furniture, when you were faced with a complex situation that you were unable to verbalise, symbolic combinations that you hoped would be understood by adults and that formed a language or a technique for communicating… In my opinion, this behaviour already demonstrated your willingness to create, thereby distancing us from the scenario of you ever becoming a miller-turner, a very honourable trade may I add. Perhaps this is why you so easily switch from one medium to another, depending on the project at hand, why you so easily switch from film to photography, a single technique being insufficient for you, if I’m not mistaken. It is probably for this very reason that each and every image you capture, static or in motion, is a picture within a picture (mise en abyme), that every image is populated with other images, shapes, references, hints. We see this clearly in Los Sueños de Daireaux, in which you explore the Argentinean city that bears your surname, a film that, in my sense, provides an important key for entering your work…

F. D.
I would also choose this entry point as the basis for the publication that will feature this conversation. A sum total, fragments, all set up like a universe that can be entered from one side or the other, without a system but with guidelines… with multiple points of entry or a changeable geography… It will include pictures, workshop sketches and texts such as the one written by my friend Suneet Chopra, whom I told you about, famous anthropologist, art critic, Marxist, and joint secretary of the agricultural workers union in India. In fact, he was the one who facilitated my initial access to the glass-making factories of Firozabad. In his text “Reconstruction in life and art,” [p. 97-99] Suneet remembers the days he spent in Firozabad in the early 1970s; he writes about the workers’ strikes, the mafia-like glass industrialists, and the disappearance of independent glass artisans. When employers deprived them of their main production tool, a stone used to polish glass bangles, the latter were forced to work under terrible conditions in industrial glassworks.

M. F.
And the film is replete with all these elements that aren’t necessarily visible or legible but that lend substance and body to your images… From the macro to the micro… Once again, there is an evocation of a picture within a picture, connections, symbolic charges at multiple levels, and evidently this brings to mind the writings of Borges: abysses, levels, passages, protean places…

F. D.
Paths that branch off…

M. F.
Paths that, we must add, are at the crossroads of dream and reality, and vice versa. Paths that you travel for your collections, your archives and your fragments that are subsequently pieced together in various ways.

F. D.
I see myself as a hunter-gatherer who takes only what is available, what is present within arm’s reach.

M. F.
With regards to wandering, we have also talked about the fact that Firozabad has brought you closer to the notion of landscape, interior landscape, exterior landscape, and led you to continue exploring the work world, its gestures and their elegance with a profoundly humanistic approach. All of which is still rooted in the framework of projects, in the idea of images populated with images, in the idea of hyperreferentiality, so to speak, as well as in the act of creation since you choose to be an actor, to be in the motif, at the centre of human activity.

F. D.
What does being in the motif mean to you?

M. F.
To use a slightly pompous turn of phrase that smacks of armchair phenomenology, I am referring to the idea of being there, in the world, when it is happening and because it is happening, at the centre of human activity, as an engaged witness, in the motif, where the “in” preposition conveys the idea that you will not represent, in other words “on the motif,” but that you will “live with” and “experience.”

F. D.
To create an image is to experience. For me, this is fundamental. My relationship with images is anchored in reality. It would be impossible for me to download images from the Internet, I use this exaggeration to prove my point. It really boils down to the act of observing while being corporeally and spiritually present in the action. In other words, I am not simply filming or photographing something, I am totally present, in the act of being there.

M. F.
That being said, I attempted to assemble, at the start of this conversation, a great deal of elements in order to prepare the ground. My goal in gathering all this material is to feed our discussion, stoke it, help the reader understand that there is not one but many entry points to your work and that several doors must be opened at a time to “feel” how you make your creations and are an artist. To add to this list, I’ll also say that we discussed your interest in watching the world transform, that the world is vast, endlessly large, and life infinitely short, that the whole point is to live life breathing in the odours of the world. We quoted Thucydides who wrote “The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage.” and noted that The Human Condition [5] is one of your bedside books… Always at the back of my mind is the idea to picture your work as a dream where one is in a labyrinth composed of rooms whose shape and size are in perpetual movement.

F. D.
It’s the story of the waking dream… It is something that I practice in reality. In other words, I experience waking dreams…

M. F.
Do you practice this as a method or do they come to you…?

F. D.
I don’t have them every day and I can’t really say if I provoke them, although the occurrence of certain circumstances might prompt such a dream. On the other hand, when it does happen, there is a method. First of all, there is a kind of flash, like the beginning of a movie, and I see the whereabouts or the actions and I can either choose to watch the action unfold or take part as an actor. Let’s say that the initial flash is a door. Well, I know from experience that I must open the door to find something else. It’s the Russian doll principle, images within images, and this concurs perfectly with your description of my work.

M. F.
It must be quite exceptional… My next question might sound a little clumsy, but do you have the feeling that you are making what you are seeing based on, to put it somewhat crudely, desires, fantasies, your imagination, reality games, symbols and, basically, to see what you want to see, or do you feel that you are discovering the unexpected?

F. D.
It’s hard to say actually, but I will say that I am often surprised by what I discover. Installations such as Skizzes [6] I previewed very concretely, in a very tangible manner, in a waking dream.

M. F.
You recreate a whole universe yet it is polysensorial?

F. D.
Absolutely. To give you a clearer idea which might be easier to grasp, it’s exactly as if I were doing live editing with my camera, zooming and using tracking shots. But I can also do things that I can’t do in real life, such as going through walls…

M. F.
The man who could walk through walls. This reinforces my belief in border crossings… You live in a porous world…

F. D.
I can take off, fly over things, see and do unbelievable things…

M. F.
Can we chalk this up to the power of imagination?

F. D.
I believe so, yes. I think it’s connected to memory and imagination, joined with a capacity for concentration and serenity. I think that everyone has this capacity, in fact I’m sure of it, it’s just a matter of being aware. Don’t worry, this is far from esoteric (laughter)! It’s really down to earth.

M. F.
So as a result, when you are out in the field, on a trip, elements that you sense you have already seen and felt are the ones that call out to you…

F. D.
Yes. It’s a bit like what Bruce Chatwin refers to in The Songlines. [7] When I travel to farfetched places, specific signs appear as I scope the landscape. Some particular signs, which come to me intuitively, might cause me to suddenly change direction because I feel as though I must head off in such and such direction, or follow such and such path.

M. F.
You therefore put yourself in a particular state of predisposition… You open yourself up, body and spirit, to your environment, and this specific relationship, which you cultivate between yourself and your surroundings, results in your action…

F. D.
Exactly. At a certain moment, things become a little blurry and I start to act in some places as if I were in a waking dream. This is what happened in Firozabad, I let myself be completely guided. I drifted through the city just as I would drift through my dreams, and vice versa.

M. F.
This reminds me once again of the expression “being in the motif,” instead of simply “based on the motif.” The photographer who takes a photo based on the motif must keep a certain distance. In your case, there is no detachment but a fusion with the action, the area. It’s almost a form of yoga or somaesthetics, [8] so to say. You allow yourself to be invaded by the environment in order to be part of it and open to micro-events, to paths.

F. D.
At least, this is how I live and experience it, and how I reinvest it into my work. And this is what happens when I edit my films. I am currently editing my next film Current Temp, [9] which is based on seven years of filming over a hundred cities in China. Some would be totally overwhelmed—it’s truly a maze of rushes—but I stay calm, even passionate about having to organise all these images. The film is already intuitively built in my head. I’m not that interested in where I will arrive at the end, but all the content must be organised in terms of progression and rhythm. Bit by bit, it comes together magnetically, it creates tension, relations, and at the end a global, coherent picture appears, and I know that things are the way they should be. The film is ready. At the same time, what’s important is being available, without a specific objective in sight. To accept this took some time. I used to prepare far too much, to overly filter or select in an effort to be efficient and, say, simplify the editing process. Now I film everything, I let myself go completely, I am content to reap, and this satisfies me, instead of waiting to find something that will please me.

M. F. Something happens…

F. D. Yes, something happens. Now the simple act of receiving interests me greatly. I see myself as an image carrier, someone who might simply film and share the images he collects.

M. F.
To simply transmit images? But every image comes from editing and an intention that can’t possibly be transmitted in the purity of the event…

F. D.
This is why I spoke in the conditional form. But it is certainly my intention.

M. F.
One might assume, and I too deliberately use the conditional verb form here, that a system might have been put in place over time with a methodology for project creation, similar to a photojournalist or a news reporter who has a very specific idea of the events or facts he intends on reporting. All you have just said introduces a complete shift because you aren’t in this process at all.

F. D.
I am aware that there are systems, habits, know-hows, obviously, but I always make sure, and here I make use of my artistic license, that there is a shift… After the screening of Firozabad, someone told me that, in my films, just as the story begins to unfold, a new story begins, followed by another and another, until finally one gets caught up and hypnotised by all this, and that what one expects to happen never does, creating suspense and tension, always waiting for something to suddenly shift, or rather for a certain form of shifting, which never occurs.

M. F.
But which lives up to expectations since, in the end, we realise that we are expected to flow with the current instead of projecting, imagining, thinking of what will happen next. Once again, like a labyrinth whose shapes are in perpetual motion.

F. D.
The events are also in perpetual motion. Yet we are constantly brought back to reality, to the here and now, because the shift never leads to something unrealistic. Consequently, we don’t totally take off into the realm of hallucination, into the world of dreams, this isn’t what I want.

M. F.
Are you saying that you nonetheless make sure that we are kept in a floating state, leading us to think that things might shift into dreamland but never do…

F. D.
That’s it, there’s always a very concrete link from one image to the next, for instance, a scene in which a man is counting money and a scene with smoke. The link between the scenes is entirely deliberate, not haphazard. Money goes up in smoke… and this is exactly the problematic nature of money, which is both extremely concrete and totally abstract.

M. F.
It was in this respect that I evoked the universal nature of your images because, on the one hand, they are hyperrealistic images of active life, of people building or working while, on the other hand, they are images that show the vacuity of existence—I’m referring to the vendor who is selling soap bubble making equipment in your film Aires—one of the many faces of vanity.

F. D.
Especially since he is in a crowd. It’s his job. He basically sells soap bubbles.

M. F.
To go a little further, because one can always find something in creations that addresses the tragedy of existence, I would add that there is a constant to and fro between the forces of life and the forces of death in your films. Your films feature humanity, what it builds and what doesn’t make any sense, the gestures that create are the same gestures that destroy, the gestures that are so repetitive as to make us question their meaning. Why, I would even say that they feature what Brecht referred to as “society’s causal network.” They show the great mechanisms and the tiny gestures that compose them, which play a role in this perpetual movement between life and death.

F. D.
I totally agree. Production is a preoccupation of mine. Why do we produce? Why do we need to make new objects, to create new things when, in the end, all of this is pretty ridiculous? Well, it answers the question of humanity, the way we progress. Since the beginning of time, humans have created and thrown away, created and thrown away, and this, among other reasons, is how we have “evolved,” due to all these combined small gestures… But today we all know that overconsumption and overproduction will end up submerging us.

M. F.
We create the conditions of our own extinction… But to get back to what we see in your films, all these fortuitous gestures are also a way of existing, a reason for living and surviving…

F. D.
And they do it with much application, otherwise there is no food on the table. The man who blows soap bubbles in India does it for a living, whereas children do it for fun.

M. F.
It is the reflexive quality of your films that forces us to question our own gestures.

F. D.
Yet at the same time every element finds its meaning, from the person who makes the utensil, no matter how useless it may be, to the person who buys it for his or her child. Mystery. This is what gives meaning to the world. Amazing.

M. F.
In many scenes, or more precisely sequence shots, in the film Aires, we catch sight of a person, in a marketplace, repeatedly washing the glass of a window, with a cleaning product and a squeegee. He is demonstrating. In this polyreferential image, everything that you are showing takes shape: the steady and fortuitous gestures, this is his work, this is how he makes his living, he is forced to repeat to live, he sprays cleaning product on the glass, he artfully spreads it with his squeegee and he wipes it all away. The window washer as a paradigm?

F. D.
It’s an endless succession of new beginnings. My work effectively contains many things that are played in a loop. Systems that, at one time or another, break down, stop or are interrupted. I always make it so the loop is not a closed system. The soap bubble bursts and its molecules disperse into the world as different forms. It is recycled into something new. It’s a nice image. It illustrates something that is confined, while demonstrating that nothing is permanent.

M. F.
Is there a message?

F. D.
Yes and no. My work isn’t targeted; I’m not trying to impose my ideas but rather to reveal unsuspected layers of reality. I focus a lot on the body, it is an organism that changes as it evolves, and an organism isn’t set in stone, it transforms. This is what I’m trying to show. We live in a society in which we seek to secure, to systematise. As individuals, we often need to feel protected by systems. It is reassuring for those of us who think that happiness is at the end of it, but in reality they are confining themselves.

M. F.
People look to conventions and standards in order to feel reassured?

F. D.
Yes. But everything is changing. Just as the individual thinks he is comfortable, he is, in fact, very vulnerable when something around him changes suddenly.

M. F.
I’d like to use this idea to step off the path and head off in a new direction: the transformation of the world. This is a constant in your work. The idea of transformation is omnipresent in your films, in their content and editing… It’s as if you were observing that the world is, as a matter of fact, constantly changing. It is one of the major concerns of art, the usage and transformation of matter, of ideas, of techniques, of languages, of media, etc. I was musing over the old idea of art giving form to the formless, to organise chaos, and that we might easily connect to the description of your work as “the art of observing transformation.” This is apparent when you film in countries such as India and China, countries that have undergone profound and spectacular transformations.

F. D.
China is a country where one can observe phenomena on a global scale. It is an immense territory, like a field that is ploughed in order to be reseeded and harvested before being ploughed again. Construction is on-going, at all levels, in all strata. It’s happening at a crazy pace, it monopolises entire lives and yet, at the same time, everyone believes in it… Once again, it is about the act of doing and the firm belief that this action opens the way for building something new.

M. F.
But again, is there a sign? Does it mean anything?

F. D.
Same answer, yes and no. I begin projects wherever I am, and everything eventually falls into place, throwing light on the sense and nonsense of existence, on life and death, just as we spoke of previously. For me, the factory, the industry, the craftsman form a melting pot of questions about the world, from the soap bubble vendor and the bowler hat factory in Bolivia to the manufacturing of glass bangles in India and their sale as toras. [10] And the connections between all these actions result in a “Tout-Monde” which, to loosely translate Édouard Glissant, “defines the global nature of the chaotic world we inhabit.” I organise them in various manners, to demonstrate their complexity, with different levels of interpretation. The story of the Bolivian hats is a project that I plan on starting one day, but I’ve simply tucked it away in my chest of drawers, for later use. What I’m interested in now are all the legends and stories about the appearance of such hats in Bolivia. One of the stories tells how, at the turn of the twentieth century, British trade companies operated numerous industries in Bolivia. To imitate their masters, the Indian men took to wearing bowler hats. One day, sensing a business opportunity, a Bolivian merchant ordered 20,000 bowlers from England but, having forgotten to specify the colour, ended up with a heap of brown bowler hats that no man would buy. In a bid to avoid bankruptcy, he decorated the hats with rib-bon and sold them to the Indian women. Consequently, Bolivian women have been wearing bowlers for nearly a hundred years. This is just one version. During my stay in La Paz, I also explored the art of felting and filmed the handiwork of the craftsmen who, day in day out, make and restore hats for the local women, with the intent of diverting this know-how into a sculpture… For me, this conjures up images of the industrial revolution, the early beginnings of cinema, colonialism.

M. F.
It’s similar to translocation, a genetic mutation, the felt hat is imported and fabricated, and becomes such an integral part of the Bolivian culture that its origins have been forgotten. Is the point to explore how all this happens? The Bolivian hat thus as a central link?

F. D.
Exactly, and from that point, I want to explore all the ramifications that unfold, perhaps create new ones. It is fairly similar to the production of glass bangles and toras. There’s a whole story behind their fabrication, men, women, hardship, religious and political stories, which we spoke of before, mythology, beauty and sadness, in short, existence. I played with this concept by purchasing a load of glass bangles in Firozabad and shipping it to glass artisans in Meisenthal, France. The objective was to study what would happen. It was the first time a shipment of this kind had ever landed in France.

M. F.
You are really interested in experimentation, in creating the conditions of experience to study, make sense, scramble, complicate, invent… All things considered, is this a performance?

F. D.
Yes, I want to move objects and materials to locations where, in principle, they have no business, to create the existence of this experience… but that extends into a natural blending and interblending movement. Many artistic productions combine raw materials and components that originate elsewhere, that constitute the history of the production, its symbolic and poetic content. Right now, I am interested in a city in China, Jingdezhen, which is renowned for its porcelain factories. In fact, it was the birthplace of porcelain. While visiting the numerous factories, I learnt that the blue used by Chinese artisans comes from Fez. This connection immediately poked my interest because I have an idea of a project with ceramics workshops in Fez hidden away in another one of my drawers. Every morning, in various workshops there, a worker stomps on the clay in a circular manner. This creates a large clay disk, furrowed with the worker’s footprints. I’d like to make impressions of these disks to form a series of monochromatic ceramics, Fez blue in colour, and affix them to the ceiling, like ceiling roses, as a décor. Locating epiphenomena that relate to the gestures of work, to the bodies of workers interests me. Inverting, reversing things. Working on the transhistorical relations between Jingdezhen, Fez and Paris with the Manufacture de Sèvres. Giving Chinese artisans pictures of Chinese megalopolises to paint on porcelain instead of the traditional landscapes that have been copied over and over for generations yet are completely disconnected with modern-day China. But then again, all these ideas are in the germination phase, I’m waiting for them to sprout. During which time, I’ve already documented, filmed, recorded, and collected. I’m waiting for things to assert themselves. This is what pleases me most and where I find my freedom.

M. F.
In effect, what this knowledge has conveyed to you—in other words, that it’s as if we are in your head, in your mind as we watch your films—definitely stands out. We can feel the mental connections at work, the mechanics gearing up, the links, the focus on the infinite tininess of a gesture, a colour, and the infinite grandness of the tie with another country thousands of kilometres away from where you are, between total absorption and detachment. Yet I must ask you again about the link with the spectator, with the audience…

F. D.
It’s very simple, I am the audience, I am in the world, I am the intermediary through whom the audience gets to experience. And in exhibitions, the spectator is never forgotten, he becomes an actor.

M. F.
All this is always associated to humans and human activity… So yes, we can well imagine that there always is a question of relationship, which is amplified in the context of an exhibition since the objective is, after all, to “show” something. As a matter of course, you create situations… Situations so that you are shown techniques, situations between techniques and productions (which naturally imply intermediaries), you create situations when you ask artisans to step out of the production context, and you create situations for the audience…

F. D.
A situation creator! I like this definition (laughter)!

M. F.
And this very conversation becomes a situation that has been created.

F. D.
What’s worse is that it could become dangerous because, when you enjoy creating new situations, all kinds of things can happen and sometimes get out of hand. It can be risky in certain contexts, countries, and times of day or night.

M. F.
But in your exhibitions, which set the stage for various blended stories, you are not putting the spectators in dangerous situations, you are merely recreating the conditions of an experience inviting them to live, to understand something differently, to experience complexity and the results of this action of blending… They are the parents for whom you are organising objects so that they understand you.

F. D.
You’d have to talk to a psychoanalyst about that (laughter)! Yes, that’s what the exhibition is, it sets the stage, it makes sense, it shows signs and becomes significant. In the end, my method is non-verbal. It is fairly rare nowadays for hour-long films to have no dialog. My films use signs other than words. It’s a way of creating my own language. But this language plays out on sensorial registers and thus reaches out to a greater number of people. The films I am making now have no translation problems. I can show them anywhere in the world.

M. F.
In Los Sueños de Daireaux, isn’t there a voice-over narrating your dreams?

F. D.
Well, I obviously dream in French and I transcribe my dreams in notebooks in my native tongue. In the case of Los Sueños de Daireaux, this is what I did in the Hotel Daireaux in Daireaux in the Argentinean pampas. The voice-over was translated and narrated by an Argentinean psychoanalyst friend, before being retranslated into French or English for the subtitled versions. Who knows, there might even be a Chinese version (laughter)! But it is a particular process since, on the one hand, the film on my namesake city contains images that resemble dream sequences while, on the other, the dream is already a translation, an interpretation, a transformation.

M. F.
It is most certainly a universe that one can penetrate without necessarily grasping the translation narrated by the voice-over. Because you are in the image, in the motif and share names with this city, or vice versa, because we see you “seeing” or “observing” with the help of tracking shots, zooming, sequence shots, and panning. We step into this atmosphere and we allow ourselves to be carried away, we witness, from a certain distance, as if in a dream.

F. D.
I film day-to-day life, which can be described as mundane. But it is this mundaneness that interests me. I’m not trying to show the exceptional…

M. F.
But what of things that are real or that make sense to you, no sensationalism, no spectacular? You could film shantytowns, prostitutes, gangs, or illegal workers, but no.

F. D.
That isn’t exactly my idea of art…

M. F.
You film elements that appear fortuitous but are no less intense and that, once again, single out the tragedy of existence, the act of living together, the beauty and the misery, but in a different manner. The scenes you film are reflexive, sometimes critical, but without any shock value, which is a choice.

F. D.
Elements that at first glance seem trite but that become powerful and important when you look at them from another angle, might reveal critical situations, speak of existence, of life, etc. I position myself at different angles to film the same thing. The camera enables me to memorise this observation from a multitude of angles, to capture from the side, the top, underneath.

M. F.
A multidimensional observation, which the camera organises. It brings to mind the idea that sometimes taking a step back can allow us to gain a whole new perspective of the world and to revisit our preconceptions and convictions. It’s like we are looking at the hidden side of the prism that is right in front of our eyes. The camera shows us something different. Of course, they are images…

F. D.
The multidimensional observation provides a rhythm. This is what perception is about. This is to perceive. This is making perceptible, in the sense of “making” art. It’s the organisation of various points of view and the repetition of various views of the same object or scene. This is why I enjoy writers who use repetition, like Thomas Bernhard, because there is a rhythm to their writing. You can go a lot farther in perception. Take the example of a landscape. It must be seen from afar, from within, you must dig into it, grasp it physically. This is why I’m not satisfied with a single medium.

M. F.
The craftsman always has a box of tools at his disposal.

F. D.
Yes, I use many tools.

M. F.
To understand how “it” works?

F. D.
Yes.

M. F.
Thus, to create situations so that events emerge and to observe them from all angles in order to capture the mechanisms at work, while still attempting to influence their rhythm…

F. D.
I begin with normal situations and turn them into something “abnormal.”

M. F.
Do you make them stutter?

F. D.
There is a form of stuttering, yes. Are you referring to Deleuze?

M. F.
No, Stiegler, who might have been quoting Deleuze, but who said that language is a technique, a means, and that the task of the poet, if it may be called so, is to make this technique or, in other words, language, stutter and stammer. I’m saying this a little quickly, but the gist is that the “activity” of the creator is to knock it off track, leading to research, experimentation of new possibilities, and which brings us back to the question of utopia…

F. D.
Yes, there is some of that, as we were saying, conditions are created, a situation is set up and, just when we think we are heading in one direction, we take off in another. The possibilities are infinite since each person sees and feels things more or less differently from one scene to the next and the editing is flexible enough so that any direction can be taken. Therefore, the spectator can actually be swept away without ever wondering about the final destination because the objectives are numerous. He starts telling himself a story but then it changes direction. And he is free to follow any detour or language to create his own story. But this is one way of showing that each and every one of us views the world with our own story and our own imagination.

M. F.
And you are the demiurge orchestrating all of this (laughter)!

F. D.
We don’t know who manipulates whom… but all this is very sincere, let me reassure you (laughter)!

M. F.
One can imagine then, forgive me for insisting, that there is a specific direct message that you want to transmit, one can imagine that the message is social, political, philosophical. Well, it is, but not in a literal fashion.

F. D.
I can well imagine that, upon watching any given scene, many ideas will pop into the spectator’s head simply because that’s the way we’re made. We try to recognise, to form an idea for ourselves. So what I enjoy is leading the spectator to believe one thing but then unsettling him by suggesting that reality is far more complex.

M. F.
Reality is far more complex… This brings to mind an expression, well-worn perhaps and undoubtedly familiar to many artists today: “total work of art.” Staging, structures, architecture, lighting, films, sculptures, everything is part of an entity that appears to be perfectly “adjusted.”

F. D.
Precision, it’s all a matter of precision. The intent is to be precise. It’s about creating a configuration that, strangely, is a mechanism, an organism that I build and that rebuilds itself with precision.

M. F.
So that the spectator can live a particular aesthetic experience?

F. D.
Yes and no. We can’t premeditate everything. I compared the exhibition to an organism. The film appeared for a reason. It’s actually a configuration that fits into a greater configuration, the exhibition. The sounds, the images, the materials, the spatial work, the architecture, all abound in the same direction with no intent of ever boxing in the person.

M. F.
It’s similar to a novel in that we remain free as readers despite the hyperstructured universe. There is a storyline, language, style, inner and outer development, there is form, content, structure, it’s also a mechanism or organism, but, as readers, we always approach the novel under specific conditions based on where we are, what we are. The difference lies in the sensorial quality and grasp of the work, of course. We “hold” a book in our hands, we move it, we carry it with us, whereas we enter “into” an exhibition space, we are immersed, we are held captive by the exhibition. In short, without launching into an in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences that depend on so many parameters, the exhibition is similar to the novel and the way we approach it is very personal, connected to who we are, and it isn’t because it is perfectly adjusted, organised, defined by a trajectory that we do not have the possibility of resisting, that we aren’t “free” with regards to it.

F. D.
Absolutely, there is a difference between what I configure, the discourse, the editing, which is a proposal, and the reception. My intention isn’t to confine, merely to create possibilities. Today, many people need to be taken by the hand. We are living in austere times, which results in a return to convention. We live in a world that is increasingly fragmented, increasingly uncertain, and we think we can save it and save ourselves by delimiting, by standardising more and more, by immobilising things. By placing markers, by always providing accompaniment.

M. F.
It’s as if the world were becoming more and more “vast” and that this expanse was frightening and that, as a consequence, we had to relocate our markers, guardrails, borders, values.

F. D.
Yes, but paradoxically with “time-space compression,” to paraphrase Paul Virilio, our world has shrunk greatly. The more we try to charter the world, the more it slips through our fingers. It’s the story of the GPS. When you plug in your GPS, you are driven. You think you are heading towards a destination but, in fact, it gets you lost; you think you have arrived at your destination but, in fact, you are lost. Even if you are at the correct address. Not to mention traceability and control…

M. F.
It prevents you from finding fulfilment. The machine decides, you are not in charge of your journey.
F. D.
That’s true. You no longer decipher reality, you no longer have a reading of the landscape or the world, you are taken charge of.

M. F.
Therefore, through your exhibitions, your films, you are virtually handing us keys for taking apart the world…

F. D.
Yes, it’s like realising that you had to learn how to walk again. This is where the subtlety lies with regards to the exhibition, and it is significant to me. Of course, I want to raise awareness about certain things, who wouldn’t? Obviously, I propose a staging that creates conditions of possibility, as we’ve talked about, but I must clarify that the spectator is totally free, there is absolutely no question of trying to convince him of anything; I simply show him my way of perceiving and displaying. And in what I propose, there is the notion that one must reappropriate things, that it is important to entertain individual thoughts of the world, of reality.

M. F.
To create, to be an actor, aware, rather than being created…

F. D.
Yes, relearning how to see things as if they were new. I remember an experience I use to do as a child, which I’m sure many people did as well. I would stare at a glass until, all of a sudden, it would become deformed and turn into something else. It no longer was the glass that I had been taught to see, to hold, to understand as a glass, as an entity, and that the brain had recorded as such. This is what Merleau-Ponty expands upon in Phenomenology of Perception.

M. F.
It is the brain that sees and its system are the eyes. The same effect can be produced with words. By being continuously repeated over and over again, a word sounds distorted and we momentarily experience a strange sensation as if we had played a trick on our mind and knocked it off balance. This causes a slight phonetic confusion. Thus, we come to understand that words are processed by the brain, that the brain records, organises, stores, and that this is also a way to free up space for learning all the rest (laughter)!

F. D.
Consequently, we should force ourselves to look differently at things that the brain has already processed…The closer you are to something, the more your imagination transforms it and the more you are able to question it, relearn it… This is the vision that I want to transmit. Reality metamorphoses gradually with time and perception, and it is important, in my opinion, to learn to let reality deform itself in order to see it differently.

M. F.
For those who make themselves available to such an experience.

F. D.
Yes, for those who are available. The relationship with time has completely changed. It’s thus a form of resistance to practice this exercise. We no longer are available; we don’t have time to look at things anymore. It takes time to perceive.

M. F.
You take this time and you try to provide the spectator with an experience that might suggest that he needs to take more time to perceive.

F. D.
To go by and to come back to something, to an object, this is important. I try to make it so that, in my exhibitions, one must come back and look again from a different angle. Sometimes, people see before seeing, they take a quick look and continue on their way. There is a form of manifestation in my work. I manifest. And this manifestation is perceptible. So many people have said to me about an object, a film or an installation that they had “looked at it” but had never really “seen it” like that. And this is ultimately what interests me. In the end, it’s fairly simple, I try to summon, to show, to reveal that through art, we can see the world differently.

M. F.
“Art is what makes life more interesting than art,” is a famous statement by Filliou that concurs with what you are saying.

F. D.
Yes, this phrase is true. And sometimes, when I am creating, transforming and producing a great deal, I realise that everything is already there right in front of me and that I need only, at a certain moment, move something and call attention to it.

M. F.
Knowing “how to observe” and taking the time to observe might not only help us become aware of the world’s problems but also interrupt the course of events, the fast pace of our hyperconnected, mechanised societies, thus effectively stopping us from heading straight into the wall because, in a nutshell, problems are abundant?

F. D.
Yes, even though there will always be a need for filters or carriers, people, who, like artists, shine the spotlight on these problems. In my work, many things recur, are repeated. Water, wind, smoke, for example, are elements that provide cover while, at the same time, making visible.

M. F.
And that represent the physical manifestation of transformation, of movement, that “flow” and embody the idea that everything is in constant motion.

F. D.
And that create visibility! It’s strange, for that matter. It is what Maray did when he wanted to study movement: he used smoke. This play between static image and movement-image can also be found in my work.

M. F.
Does this mean that you use elements that conceal to better show?

F. D.
That’s right. It brings to mind the prelanguage period in childhood. A child perceives and picks up everything, he records everything, he has a heightened sensitivity, he is totally open to the world, excited by everything and captivated by everything. The adult loses this, loses the capacity of seeing everything, of being open; the adult tidies up, he selects, for him it is a waste of time.

M. F.
Children are open-minded, they have a sense of wonder, and at the same time—I say this with no first-hand knowledge of the subject—they integrate everything they perceive without being aware of the experience’s direct contribution. A child is “in” the experience but does not necessarily have any distance with regards to it. Which might be an advantage. However, yes, I do agree with what you are saying about the adult. It’s thus as adults that it become interesting, perhaps even necessary, to put ourselves in a position of openness, where we can draw constituent experiences because we have already acquired experiences, references and knowledge.

F. D.
In my opinion, a child doesn’t seek to profit from his experience as we consciously do. And this isn’t taking into consideration all that we experience unconsciously either. A child learns to experience. But he starts off with a fresh capacity to perceive, a fresh outlook… This, incidentally, is why the child will get burnt: he has no awareness of the effects and consequences… And since we are on the topic of self-awareness, I think that the Indian worker who makes thousands of glass bangles is so struck by his repetitive gestures and infernal work rhythm that he is no longer aware that he is handing over his life, burning up his life. He is ignoring himself, he makes and makes indefinitely.

M. F.
He’s going up in smoke.

F. D.
Yes, there is combustion. His body is burning and he is no longer aware of it…

M. F.
This is a critical dimension that appears in your work, you prominently display this combustion when you film and it is a way of revealing a truth… And at the same time, what we perceive is the beauty of these gestures… thus, the complex and multidimensional nature of your images.

F. D.
This ambiguity between beauty and violence makes me think of the Crucifixion. I was raised Catholic, I had to go to mass. I realised that painting for me was the image of Christ nailed to the cross that I looked at every Sunday. It was thanks to the Crucifixion that I became aware of the existence of painting and had access it. It’s a very violent scene. And there’s beauty in a violent scene. It’s a paradox. Strangely, when one experiences such scenes in reality, in a contemporary setting, one finds them horrible. This example is simply meant to illustrate the ambivalence of images. In my case, I don’t use shocking images. The world is far too complex. I look at things more from the point of view of an anthropologist-artist who shows the totality of things without focussing on the hard working conditions. In Firozabad, you see equal measures of affect, sensuality, erotic relations, gestures, sweat, and smoke wafting throughout the factory.

M. F.
It is interesting that our discussion touches upon this relationship with the willingness to be objective. It is entirely laced with subjectivity seeing as you are an engaged witness and fully “live” your images, which represent, first and foremost, real moments.

F. D.
Of course, but even when we strive to achieve the neutral objectivity of our study, even when we establish criteria for this study, we are affected by our own subjectivity. We can have an anthropologist’s point of view while remaining a subject, first and foremost.

M. F.
And what’s more, making images plays a role in determining the subject, in self-awareness, to use your own words, in subjectification. But let’s return to our first image, the Crucifixion, which seems to have had an impact on you.

F. D.
The connection with this first image? I sometimes wonder if it really was this image that made me become an artist. I approached art, for that matter, or at the very least my training, like the Stations of the Cross. It’s terrible to say but, even at a very young age, I knew that it would be a difficult initiatory journey and that I would have to overcome many obstacles and much solitude, but that it was my only salvation in order to gain a certain freedom. These were my thoughts when I was an adolescent.

M. F.
But is there no direct link between this “first image”—we’ll end up referring to it as an icon—and your decision to become an artist? Or can we go further and assume that there is indeed a direct link and that you see yourself as a Christic artist who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders (laughter)?

F. D.
I’m not sure I want the weight of the world on my shoulders (laughter)! But the fact remains that I was very influenced by my Catholic upbringing and inhabited by this idea of an initiatory journey to become an artist and a free being. Did you know that in 1987, for my very first exhibition, I presented a series of crucifixes (laughter)! They were made of various materials, lighters, bits of plastic found here and there, and suspended in mid-air to project shadows on the walls.

M. F.
Catholicism, icons, a fascination with the holy image, with the enlightening image, etc.?

F. D.
Yes, and a fascination with death as well. Dramatic art, when I think about it, is present in my work today but, once again, not in a demonstrative way. My film Firozabad shows pretty hard images, working conditions that are disgusting and terrible for the lungs. Be it as it may, human beings are fascinated with what awaits them, death. For my part, it’s necessary to build a form, so I work with materials, sounds, images, sensations, gestures, mechanisms. It’s about making a picture that most accurately portrays an experience, a territory, an environment, a mental and a real landscape. It’s true, to borrow your expression “total work of art,” that this is my objective. In fact, I make something closely resembling a performance, this is why I don’t work with any assistants. I’ve recently asked myself why that is so: why do I film alone, why do I edit alone. Why? Because from start to finish, the story has to do with me and make sense to me. Such experiences must be lived alone.

M. F.
To summarise what you have just said, it’s a quest for freedom and as a consequence, you must live and experience all the steps yourself, all these moments of creation. Do you wish to experience the whole process?

F. D.
It’s complicated. Oftentimes, I don’t know what I am going to film, what I am going to harvest, it starts with an impulse. When I come face to face with the scene or the object, many questions and contradictions float to the surface. I can be very unsettled by certain scenes: why I am there, what I am doing there. It’s more than likely that a person accompanying me would trouble this moment of creation.

M. F.
This brings to mind a painter or a writer. There is tremendous solitude in creation yet at the same time, it’s precisely because of this tremendous solitude that a work of art is born.

F. D.
And at that point, the artist gets to the bottom of things, or at least feels as if he is.

M. F.
Even if this plays into the creative genius myth, there is something of this nature, a kind of withdrawal. To withdraw to better create and better return. Of course, I’m not necessarily talking about commissioned work…

F. D.
But in my case, the commission is part of the process, I commission my own art (laughter)! It intervenes at the time of my choosing. To commission one’s work is part of the performative process, it’s, like you said, creating a situation. The idea is to see what happens. But I don’t do it systematically, once again it’s not a system. Systems become dull after a while. And it’s important to have a little fun… It allows me to feel alive, it’s good to have projects, ideas, different ways of doing things. The older I get, the more I realise that all is ripe for the taking, that all moments are good, that all is food for thought, that there is no point in over selecting. That there is no point in being scared of getting lost. I spend entire days not knowing exactly what I am doing, literally asking myself where am I going, and at the same time I trust myself completely. This confidence creates possibilities all the time. I file invention patents in my imagination to create sculptures. I can always reactivate things, I have only one life to live, I have the possibility to change from one day to the next, to change identity or to switch sides, without worrying about the past, or the future, without anxiety.

M. F.
And as a result, you are constantly in the midst of a project, imagining new forms, new possibilities, new configurations.

F. D.
New possibilities for experimentation, on a permanent basis, new projects indeed. Everything is an excuse for a new adventure. But there is coherence nevertheless. All this creates an abode since it is about inhabiting the world, inhabiting things.

M. F.
Art might be one of the languages used to express the complexity of the world and humanity.

F. D.
One of the languages…

M. F.
The presence of human beings, women and men, in your work?

F. D.
It came little by little. In the beginning, my approach was very intimist, introspective, abstract. Now it is more social, more human indeed, but without my ever really deciding it so, it just became evident. It’s a logical step for me to arrive at a point where I am interested in those who make, in the way they make, in women, in men—basically, in others.

M. F.
It seems an obvious course for you to have been so interested in the process of making, in creation, in the conditions and relations relative to such processes… Thus a social but also political approach…

F. D.
Yes. In the past, I was criticised for being overly introspective, for not showing enough interest in relationships, either human, social or political, but this didn’t bother me. It’s not that I wasn’t affected by others or by politics but I didn’t use my work to show this. My reaction was therefore to laugh it off and to say that it wasn’t the right time. I wasn’t ready. I think that the entirety of my work is a preparation. An initiation. A preparation for what? I’ll know one day. Or perhaps I’ll never know. Sometimes I think that if I do find the answers near the end, on my death bed, then perhaps I’ll be able to perceive, and I do say perhaps, a little of what I already sensed. But this preparation must be completed in stages, step by step, without going against the grain. It has to be done over time. I do not decide everything.

M. F.
Of course, there is the principle of uncertainty, what happens, others, encounters, events, the relationship with art, reflections on art, influences…

F. D.
Naturally, and I allow myself to be guided. Encounters are important. But as for exchanges with other artists, I have very few. They are not what interest me most. I find the answers to my questions in daily life, by watching others in different fields.

M. F.
The art world is only of slight interest to you?

F. D.
What artists do interests me, but this is not always where I find my answers. Even though, in fact, they are my family. What I am especially seeing nowadays is fear. And in the art world, this fear is apparent to me.

M. F.
Artists are afraid?

F. D.
Some artists—I would even go so far as to say many of them—feel the need to justify themselves, to immediately find the right references, they feel the need to reference everything, their acts, their gestures, to legitimise, to prop up reality, to bend reality to match their own, to relate their work to what already exists.

M. F.
And the fact that they draw from art history like a large dictionary, a vast directory, is what you are criticising?

F. D.
There is some of that. There is the aspect of quotation, scholarly in nature, but what I see mostly is a perpetual effort to legitimise, as if they were scared of pulling away from a world and its codes.

M. F.
This is a slight criticism of the “making” of artists, is it not? The effort to legitimise is nonetheless what is expected in art schools…

F. D.
Of course, the teaching in art schools might lend itself to criticism in some regards; besides, it’s clear to me that one should not uniquely gravitate towards the art world, it’s far too limited. The average visitor interests me just as much. This is where I hear and learn interesting things. I feel fairly detached from the world of art specialists. Many of them often give the impression that they are more interested in establishing their theories than listening. Being viewed as a foreigner who cannot be categorised or understood is what interests me.

M. F.
To be yourself. You do not want to be assimilated into a field, a system. I am voluntarily sticking my foot in my mouth now, but there are nonetheless ways of being an artist in certain eras that are not the same as in others… Despite there being some fundamentals—and what I am saying here is quite obvious—one finds different uses, applications, functions, relationships with art and the art world. And one can easily state, within the boundaries of a complex analysis, that the context, the period influence the ways of doing and being, of thinking and taking action. I had selected this quote by Nicolas Bourriaud with the intention of reading it to you later but since we are on the topic of relations between theorist and artist and of theoreticians who develop hypotheses and theses on art forms, now is the time… He writes in Postproduction: “In a universe of products for sale, pre-existing forms, signals already transmitted, buildings already constructed, paths marked out by their predecessors, artists no longer consider the artistic field… a museum containing works that must be cited or “surpassed,” as the modernist ideology of originality would have it, but so many storehouses filled with tools that should be used, stockpiles of data to manipulate and present.” What do you think?

F. D.
I’m not very familiar with the writings of Nicolas Bourriaud, nor am I sure I fully grasped the meaning seeing as this was quoted out of its context, but I would say that I am not very far from what he writes. What bothers me is that artists, and people from industrialised countries, serve themselves to things as if they were in a cafeteria, without thinking about the use or usage of things and objects. We no longer ponder the necessity of an object, we use it simply because it is there. For me, this is a reflection about the access to things. This question is always on my mind, and it’s a big chunk of my work.

M. F.
You wonder about usage, origins, function, conditions of appearance, of production?

F. D.
That’s it. But also the role that I play by buying and manipulating an object, the manner in which I use it myself. No object passes through my hands without plunging me deep into thought.

M. F.
Theoretical reflection and reverie, for that matter…

F. D.
Reverie… I like this term very much. There is something wonderful in the use of an object, and something terrible.

M. F.
Each and every object, in the course of its journey, from design and production to manipulation and usage, symbolises all that is wonderful and terrible, speaks of the tragedy of existence in essence.

F. D.
There is a wholeness in objects, and this wholeness is revealed when one sees them being made and used…

M. F.
Therefore, you are in favour of not mastering everything, of categorising, you are in favour of the principle of uncertainty…

F. D.
Of course one has to deal with the unexpected, it’s a completely logical approach to the world. Dealing with the train that broke down, with the camera that doesn’t work, with a person who missed an appointment, with a project that fell through, dealing with the grain of sand that disrupts the machine. And all of this is profoundly essential to me. Fundamental. This is why I love trains. And why the presence of trains is so important in my last films. Incidentally, there’s a train in my upcoming film Current Temp because it symbolises the possibility of failure, negligence, absence, while also symbolising travel, access, modern means of transportation, but it is also connected to movies, there’s always a train somewhere…

M. F.
Trains and cinema have been linked together from the very beginning if we look back to the movie made by the Lumière brothers, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat…

F. D.
But of course, absolutely! All these anecdotes, these references are what inhabit the imagination and naturally reappear at a turning point in life, a turning point in a film, image, vision. At a certain moment in time, these references come back and haunt you, you have to welcome them, allow them to happen. In 1896, one of the first projections of the animated images made by the Lumière brothers took place in Boulogne-sur-Mer, my birthplace… and where I saw my first movies at the Le Lumière theatre.

M. F.
They materialise suddenly, they are latent images that superimpose themselves on a perception in an m moment. This reminds me of Aby Warburg and his theory on the recurrence of images and signs throughout the prehistory and history of humanity, but also of the artist who, voluntarily or involuntarily, populates these images with signs and symbols that act as so many languages, codes, hints, giving life and dimension to the image and, incidentally, its dialectical quality… Walter Benjamin states that “image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation.” [11]

F. D.
Yes, this quotation is true. And for that matter, I can feel this effect throughout the making of the image, when I am in the field, when I see the image, when I edit it, when I expose it. But to get back to the subject of trains, which instigated these reflections, their very presence provides particular results, they lend a scansion, a rhythm, there are the tracks, the mechanical tempo of the taca taca taca that is challenged by other tempos provided by the passing countryside or city and the people journeying on the train for the duration of their book, their coffee, their bathroom break. This is very interesting to me.

M. F.
And because it says something about humanity in the greater scheme of the machine?

F. D.
It slips through the net cast by modern perception. Basically, this is what we must live with since the industrial revolution. I wouldn’t be able to show our world in the same manner if I filmed country roads.

M. F.
Especially since most people use trains to get around! Which allows me to get back to a previous question regarding the role of the artist.

F. D.
Yes, artists have a role to play but they don’t necessarily spread propaganda about such or such cause, they comprehend the world based on their culture and they render their experiences, their different points of view in their diverse productions. Production is about money as well. One might think that this is materialistic, too down to earth, out of the realm of artistic sensitivity, and yet it’s totally related. Money as an abstract concept and money as a practical concept. In my film Firozabad, the man who pays his workers—money exchanges hands—holds bills, symbols, images. These gestures also make sense, back and forth between the movement and the little images that it brandishes; therefore, it’s polysemic, polysensorial, polyreferential, etc. It says something about production and it says something about my production as an artist and of artists in general.

M. F.
This is why I sometimes see similarities between your work and that of Joan Van der Keuken…

F. D.
If you say so!

M. F.
It stands to reason that one must find a structure allowing the return to work and you depict this reality with images of everyday life. Thus, it’s the acknowledgment of the stakes and perspectives relative to production, and even the idea of production itself, that must be questioned in human societies. And the paradoxes then become evident. The material, the concrete, the factory, the useful, the use, the function, all of which foster imagination, sensitivity…

F. D.
Yes, once again the object and its material, like the glass bangles of Firozabad. We are at the heart of a complexity, caught in netting, and I want to highlight this netting. And so I film, I photograph, I analyse the entire assembly line of an object or a material. But when I think of artists who specialise in a single field, in a single material, I feel that there’s something not taking into consideration many other parts of the world.

M. F.
Because it is defined by the decorative… and this isn’t the manner in which you wish to work? But you can’t deny the importance of know-how, nor that it also creates momentum, economy, etc.

F. D.
Certainly, but I think that economic matters should be integrated into one’s work. I feel like taking risks with a more ambitious political project.

M. F.
The question of political dimensions is complex, it can be approached from very different angles.

F. D.
People with a deep-felt political agenda are the poets, not the “propagandist” artists…

M. F.
Is the political dimension in your case to be found in the very act of being a creator and a poet?

F. D.
For the most part, because there is obviously a political and social perspective in my productions. But so is the manner in which I create, produce and edit. The fact that I work alone, with no assistant and no security. I prefer putting myself on the line. Everything has a price tag, there’s no escaping this, and in terms of responsibility and authenticity, it seems to me that this choice is honest.

M. F.
“Political” attitudes are plentiful in art. There is denunciation, as we mentioned earlier, but that takes on different aspects, different forms. There is the action on the conditions of production that we observe. The method of creation itself can be perceived as political, as a life choice, a commitment. But so can raising awareness, unveiling, creating the conditions for a possible critical detachment, shedding light on the complex causality of social relations, to use one of Brecht’s favourite expressions. Sometimes, certain positions and attitudes converge, sometimes they are voluntary, other times, no.

F. D.
I position myself at an intersection, mainly because I stand at the convergence point of many things and because I see my life and my work as the fruit of this convergence. I am engaging my life, not the lives of others. And no matter what happens, I must be creative and reinvent possibilities allowing me to pursue an artist’s life that translates into an artist’s body of work. I must steer a solitary course to be able to comment on the world and, as a consequence, create the conditions of a possible critical detachment.

M. F.
Autonomy, not imposing risks, being an artist, raising awareness, but in a non-interventionist, non-propagandist manner, are political stances?

F. D.
Of course.

M. F.
It’s been said that your work concerns itself with the effects of globalisation…

F. D.
Yes, but this was said in an effort to synthesise… It’s as if you tried to synthesise everything that I have just said; it’s not untrue but it’s far from complete…

M. F.
This is where the conversation takes a critical turn and sheds light on the complexity and subtleties, the stakes that intersect…

F. D.
This is where the conversation makes sense… Let’s say that an article naturally reduces the totality of one’s words, which precisely goes against my way of doing things, even though it is important to communicate. We are creating a different temporality with this conversation, we are creating the possibilities for reflection to emerge, and this pleases me. It mustn’t come to a close. It’s the soap bubble that begs to burst and be recycled into something else. And the man who makes soap bubbles is a lovely metaphor. He symbolises a position and, of course, the intrinsic fragility of the human condition. An artist is also someone who makes soap bubbles. I strive to be at the heart of this, even it if seems utopic.

M. F.
You take responsibility for living this way. To lead an artist’s life today is taking a political, economic risk… even if it might seem pretentious to others?

F. D.
Let’s turn a deaf ear to others (laughter)! Yes, a risk as well as a political, economic and contextual choice because it depends a great deal on your position, based on your history, on constraints…

M. F.
Addressing international news, ultra-liberalism, the world crisis, the stock market, capital flow, is important?

F. D.
Certainly. I’m involved in all this and I do my work just like the guy who makes soap bubbles, constantly aware that I live in a context in which I must be careful to not have an accident, in which I must be careful to not get all my wares stolen. There are multiple contingencies that face us all. But the artist must work with these contingencies, they clear the path for discovery, and he transforms them into something new.

M. F.
In a picturesque sense.

F. D.
What I look for in others is a part of myself, just as a painter might.

M. F.
All images make up little bits of one’s self. Scenes of everyday life seem to call out to you, strike you…

F. D.
Film me, I hear them say…

M. F.
What we have lost is the sense of utopia. I think I heard this on the radio, but I can’t remember who said it. It struck me right away. I think it’s safe to say that you have a non-disillusioned, non-pessimistic view of the world, and that you believe in mankind, to say nothing of “faith,” and its utopian potential…

F. D.
The question of utopia is monumental and as you’ve said, it can be tackled from many angles. But there is effectively a trust in mankind, a way of communicating that observation awakens us to new reflections, and a utopian aspect in my work, in living as an artist and in telling stories to spectators so that they live differently.

M. F.
In other words, love thy neighbour (laughter)!

F. D.
I do have a Catholic education (laughter)!

M. F.
Art can be used as a “vehicle” to convey concrete utopia? To live better, think differently?

F. D.
Of course! I may be a drop in the ocean, but a drop nonetheless. I would even say, to use the same existential register, that this is what gives sense to my life above all. To perform microactions. It is a particle in the cosmos but its action, its efficiency cannot be ignored. But allowing that art conveys something, utopia and politics, among others, well, for me, it’s by way of music. For there is melody and rhythm, and this is how to transmit the political. The utopian and political dimensions are like smoke that penetrates everywhere, invisibly, intangibly, similar to the aesthetic emotion you experience when you hear a beautiful melody…

M. F.
As if it were perspiration, an etheric emanation in the chemical sense of the term, an aroma, a volatile substance, sublimation in the physical sense. Incidentally, this is not incompatible with the way you stage your exhibitions, which is also very sensory.

F. D.
That’s right. We could even compare it to a state of flux or energy, if this doesn’t sound too esoteric (laughter)! Mind you, this is only my opinion and I totally respect people who express this via different means such as protesting, for example, like activists. To each his own. For me, it passes through art.

M. F.
By submerging the spectators who visit your exhibitions in a distinctive atmosphere, composed of sounds, images, rhythms, lighting, it is clear that you are staging the perfect conditions for them to live an experience… Let’s say that you work in a directed perspective and that you guide spectators so that they can pick up what you “say”… rather than what you “want to say”…

F. D.
I make a proposition that only involves myself. I think this proposition is refreshing, like a pool of freshwater, and I invite people to dive into this refreshing body of water (laughter)! So while I’m not claiming to act for the greater good of humanity, I wouldn’t be totally honest if I didn’t say that these exhibitions act like a massage on me, like stepping into a hammam, it’s about passage and giving. I am offering something, this is my utopia. But once again, I ask for nothing in return and I lay claim to nothing.

M. F.
You have no expectations.

F. D.
My motivation lies more in making and proposing. A kind of utopia that I shape with my own hands and my brain. It’s very simple, it’s like musicians, they don’t question this. They play their music, they propose and perhaps traces will remain in their wake.

M. F.
Once again, it’s about creating a situation, and the type of music you are playing “may” have an impact because it creates the possibility of sharing via the exhibition.

F. D.
I am, effectively, very attentive to the impact it may have.

M. F.
But you don’t subscribe to the idea of accumulating a symbolic capital or levels of attendance…

F. D.
No, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t sensitive to attendance, I want my work to be seen. But, of course, I don’t have the same expectations as, say, an institution, whose work and very existence depend on attendance levels, nor am I trying to accumulate Facebook “friends” (laughter)! Sometimes, during projections of my films, I look at how many people are present; I sometimes say to myself that it is too few, but then, after the film and some discussion, I start to feel just how much the too little audience was affected. At the end of it all, what’s important is the quality of the event, the points of view, it’s what happened at the microscopic level, it touched a handful of people but that’s already fantastic, already an utopia. The numbers don’t count. It’s the big difference with the movie industry where numbers do matter. But I have the feeling that all this is shifting. Perhaps today we are starting to think on a different scale.

M. F.
I don’t know if things are shifting. Perhaps some artists realise the importance of sharing or exchanging with other people, which is already assuming a lot. But all the same, the greater part of the social networking culture, to say nothing of the commercial and entrepreneurial cultures among others, is really about reaching the most “friends,” seducing the most people with a certain image of one’s self, it’s about calculating and hoping for levels of attendance, occasionally in a state of frenzy, it’s the number of users you succeed in “gathering” and as is the case in many fields, on a public or private scale, the number of visitors remains a very important argument.

F. D.
Yes, but we can, or we should, extract ourselves from this notion of numbers, of groups, of masses. Some practices work solely on an individual scale, and art is one of them. I spoke of massage previously I believe. Well, a massage only works on an individual scale, or a relational scale given the relationship between the person giving the massage and the person being massaged. But it is an act of sharing that soothes, that allows one to feel good and become aware of tensions. In my opinion, the massage imagery is a pretty good metaphor for my idea of an exhibition. Of course, anything can become an industry, but let’s remain on a small scale.

M. F.
I would like to return to the topic of creation as a source of emancipation…

F. D.
Art saved me, to put it simply. Therefore, it is a hell of a source of emancipation. I realised this with age, of course. It allowed me to become a very distinct individual, to be somewhat free, to follow my own path, to make my own decisions, to be responsible. I often get the feeling that we are living in a society where there is less and less possibility of being responsible for what we undertake.

M. F.
Less autonomy? The musical scores of our lives are played by other people? This is starting to sound somewhat existentialist.

F. D.
Yes, well, in this day and age, there is an absence of autonomy. We are programmed, our decisions are made for us, all that remains is to execute. Whereas there is a kind of enjoyment, an intense pleasure in being autonomous, in being responsible for one’s acts and actions. I would go so far as to say that I experience moments of ecstasy when I feel completely free to choose and to propose to others…

M. F.
You are a “visionary” (laughter)!

F. D.
Let’s remain humble, but yes (laughter)! In our capitalistic societies, art is perhaps the last remaining channel to experience such things.

M. F.
It’s also the feeling of belonging, of having a role to play?

F. D.
Exactly. To belong somewhere, but it’s not a question of territory. It’s about owning one’s destiny.

M. F.
In the end, it’s about feeling and being conscious that you are where you want to be and doing what you “really” want to do?

F. D.
That’s a good way to put it. But curiously, when I think about all this, my references come from the field of literature. Take Mishima, for instance, who lived his life in a sensible and autonomous fashion and assumed his choices in all consciousness. We’re back to the story of paths and forks in the road. The decision to change courses, but in a thoughtful manner, not by default or by constraint, this is what is important. To make a choice. To make a decision. To be free, this is what it’s about—being able to act as you see fit and in a way that is best for you and the world. My idea of utopia, on a much smaller scale, is simple, even though at times I’ve felt that it verged on naivety. Take the image of a book. The final lines you write are the most important, you have the pleasure of saying “I’ve finished, I can close the book, I’ve done my work.” To feel fully in control of one’s means, to consciously make the decision in peace and serenity that this is the end, without having anyone else decide for you, well, this is pure ecstasy. It’s a gift to oneself. There is a kind of eroticism in this.

M. F.
Art as a gentle revolution, as an erotic revolution (laughter)?

F. D.
Gentleness effectively makes things happen. You can feel it every day. The real decisions are made very gently, they are the toughest, the most radical. When Mishima decides to commit suicide, he decides his fate in total freedom. To choose one’s destiny, this is something that I find powerful and elegant. This is what I humbly seek.

English translation by Suzanne Murray

Conversation realized in 2013 and published in Firozabad Meisenthal - Blow Bangles Production, artist book edited by Lienart Editions

Footnotes

[1] Aires, film, 54’, sound, without dialogue, 2013.

[2] Los Sueños de Daireaux, film, 55’, OV Spanish, 2012.

[3] Blow Bangles Production, presented at La Maréchalerie, centre d’art

[4] Firozabad, film, 64’, sound, without dialogue, 2013.

[5] Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.

[6] Skizzes, series of 203 skizzes positioned on the floor, silicone, floral foam, 5 × 2 000 × 600 cm, 2009, presented during the exhibition Tout commence par les pieds, Villa Tamaris Centre d’art, La Seyne-sur-Mer, January 23 to March 1, 2009.

[7] Bruce Chatwin. The Songlines. United Kingdom: Franklin Press, 1986.

[8] Richard Shusterman. Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics.

[9] Current Temp, film, 100’ (proposed length), sound, without dialogue, 2014.

[10] Phonetic translation of the Hindi term used to designate bungles of glass bangles.

[11] Walter Benjamin. The Arcades Project. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, New York: Belknap Press, 2002.