Conversation with Alexander Larson
Image taken from Hammaguir (Engl. Sub)
How was your art practice impacted by the pandemic?
I’ve sometimes thought that art making within constraint allows for broader creativity. Though a lot of prospect have cut off. Video making has given me the chance to think about my surroundings in oblique ways, and find time to reflect about what’s happening, day to day. Scaling down has also been a solution for me. Instead of waiting for validation on projects. I decided to bond on group projects with friends, pursuing current interest. May it be a web show about music, or an edit about an old artist.
What was your experience like collaborating with another artist(s)?
It’s always a pleasure working with someone else. Most of the time, when I start thinking about a project. I run a list of names of people who might be interested in the subject. As I’ve always found that working with someone else, usually brings you to unexpected places, and shows you unseen angles. In this situation, I enjoyed that all the painting that Jade send me; were all an invitation to explore my reaction, maybe feelings towards them. We had decided to let our communication free form within these exchanges, and I found myself looking through old videos of mine, recalling the moments they were taken. What I was doing then? What my life was like ?
Image taken from True Story (2015, Engl. Sub)
What was a success to come from the CoLab project?
To see a video coming out of this project would be my best answer. Or finding an excuse to work on a fun project. Just pursuing my practice in a creative way. Travelling with the painting that Jade send me. Seeing mysterious landscapes hanging on my web browser, at a certain distance, forgotten places, reveling in there own narrative possibilities.
How would you describe your work?
I’m interested in films that use a documentary aesthetic on fictional material. They are many great examples, but the one that stuck with me is Zélig by Woody Allen (1983), which plays with the codes of archival footage and news outlets. That in mind, I worked with archival footage found on internet to create nostalgia capsule telling a story of a boy who runs away from school. A story that could mine, but isn’t. More recently, during a residency at The National Centre for Space Studies , I was able to make a short movie using the Centre’s archival footage from the 50’s in their launching base in Algeria. Hammguire, the title of the movie, is a story told by a fictional character, who lived on the base. By keeping a documentary aesthetic (archival footage, voice over, actors, historical research), I wanted the spectator to dive in the protagonist’s daily life, and reveal certain realities of the time, that are lodged between fiction and fact.
Image taken from Va! 2017
When did you first begin working with this medium, media?
I highly enjoy story telling, and narrative structures. Thinking about how to tell any kind of story is a thrilling challenge. Obsessed by movies, I decided to go on with video making in my 20’s, when I was still studying for a bachelor in economics. Since then, I’ve tried out multiple types of storytelling forms, from video to illustration. I try to use different mediums, but I feel like moving images is the most effective for me. There is something vividly ghostly and melodramatic in movies, videos. I mean most things carry the footprints of someone else presence, however moving images really got that eerie vibe.
Image taken from 45 198° Nord 6 140° Est. (2014, Engl. Sub.)