Biography
Independent film video and TV maker, following a very visual and narrative experimentation, he goes beyond the traditional formats to produce audiovisual compositions by working live and also with installations. He studied filmmaking at the Film University, where he now teaches at the Film Direction professorship. He also teaches in the Bachelor of Visual Arts of the National Arts Institute (IUNA) and at the Electronic Arts degree at the Universidad Nacional Tres de Febrero (UNTREF), where he developes and directs CONTINENT (www.continentevideo.com.ar ) research and development curatorial centre dedicated to the support and dissemination of regional audiovisual creation.
With his audiovisual works he has participated in important international exhibitions and fat the most relevant festivals and exhibitions of this field, he has also been recognized with significant awards:
- Best Experimental Video Award. 15 Latin American Video Festival, Rosario, Argentina., 2008.
- Biennial of Video and New Media of Santiago. John Downey Award (1st prize). Santiago de Chile, Chile. 2007.
- Special Mention. International competitiveness. Videoex 2006. Zürich, Switzerland. 2006.
- Honorable Mention. 18th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival, Chicago 2006.
- Best video art of the year. Awards of the Association of Art Critics Argentina. Buenos Aires. 2006.
- 19th Stuttgart Filmwinter. Team-Work "Award. Stuttgart, Germany. 2005
- GOLDEN AWARD IMPAKT. Utrecht, Netherlands, 2005.
- First Prize Festival 25 FPS Internacionalni eksperimentalnogo Filoma i Videa, Croatia, 2005.
- Prize for Best Experimental Video, 12 Latin American Video Festival, Rosario, Argentina., 2005.
- Press Prize, Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, Labo Competition (experimental category), France, 2005.
- National Museum of Fine Arts. Leonardo Award - Category Video. Buenos Aires, Argentina 2002.
- Association of Art Critics Argentina: Best audiovisual work 2001, Juego de Manos (work conducted along with Matilde Marín).
He has done artist’s residencies in the U.S. (Wexner Center for the Arts, March 2005, scholarship granted by the Ohio Arts Counsil and Secretary of Culture of Argentina, Argentina), Canada (Counseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec, scholarship for the International Exchange Program of Artists, Professional and Technical Culture, 2003) and Colombia (Ya TV America, Cartagena de Indias, 2001).
In addition to his artistic production it is important to highlight his performance in the field of cultural management. Between 1997 and 2002 he coordinated the Film Video and Multimedia department of the Cultural Center Ricardo Rojas (UBA), being responsible for programming the exhibitions room and layout of the audiovisual arts courses. During those years he worked in the organization of the Euro-American Film Video and Digital Art Exhibitions, directed by Jorge La Ferla. From the CC Rojas he compiled and edited the Author Experimental Film and Video Compilations, collection of three videos dedicated to the audiovisual work of Claudio Caldini, Carlos Trilnick and Jorge La Ferla in a limited edition of 300 VSH in each case. Curator of video exhibitions to several museums, theaters and cultural centers, in 2005, along with Gabriela Golder and supported by the UNTREF creates CONTINENT. From this center numerous activities related to the visual arts are produced, among them stand the showing “memory exercises” with interactive works and generative video, lighting and sound installations that reflect on memory, thirty years after the last dictatorship of Argentina. Also highlights the production of “Lucid” TV series of 13 chapters on Latin American video art issued by Canal (á). In this area he is currently in production of “Tunes”, a project around live audiovisual works created by pairs of sound artists and video makers, and the first edition of the Spanish version of the legendary book Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood.
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
The piece that represents me the most today is my last video: Colonia. It is small and was born spontaneously. It was built from a series of photographs taken over a sunset on the banks of the Rio de la Plata in Colonia, Uruguay. No audio. It's contemplative, in the simplest sense. I feel close to it now because it reflects a calm state of uncertainty. The river runs, time passes.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
I would suggest not to read my works.
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
I think I belong to the last stage of a middle generation of the national video production. The representatives of this feature focus its work on storaged media, of which rarely deviate, they arise from training linked to the moving image and in many cases to the cinematic tradition (Gabriela Golder, Hernan Khouri, Alejandro Saens Gustavo Galuppo, Ivan Marino). Perhaps the difference with the younger generation, which emerges with the video as an institutionalized support, is that mostly come to the site from other art disciplines. I have trouble mentioning contempory references, there are so many. Thinking big and fast, I remember now the fullness I felt upon entering Doug Aiken’s installation: a fiction unfolded in about 20 screens that were associated with a surprising harmony. Chantal Akerman, and a video, presented as an installation at the MACBA, which showed a projection on a screen that was mounted in the middle of the desert, while the voice in off narrated in different language the story of a Latino immigrant in the USA. And Harun Farocki's analytical acuity to cross the images.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
Three exhibitions:
Oscar Bony (at Malba)- (where he actually showed a video of mine without my authorization)
Lucio Fontana (at Proa)
Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos (at Mamba)
