Associação Cultural Videobrasil

"Clean" Cinema: an approach to the work of Diego Lama

Because of the high cost of film production in Latin America, many artists have been working with digital video, producing original, alternative works. However, some video artists are making use of cinematic language to represent reality.

Diego Lama began to work as a video artist in 1999, when he was a student at 'Corriente Alterna' School of Arts. By analysing Diego Lama's work, a chronological evolution becomes evident: his work has become more complex over the past six years, as a result of technical and conceptual development.

Diego Lama is part of what we can call the “second generation” of young Peruvian artists who have been developing a complex work in the field of electronic art since 1998, when the Festival Internacional de Video/Arte/Electrónica (VAE - www.vae8.net) began. Thus, this second generation has been exploring different codes in relation to the former one. The most evident characteristic of his visual language is its relation with cinematic imagery and thought, which have influenced strongly his production and artistic formation. His language consists not only in the appropriation of scenes taken from films and in the eloquence of his video pieces, but also in a “cleanness” typical of commercial films, which has lately been absorbed by visual arts.

Lama's work is clearly determined by two lines of action which are not visually independent of each other: on the one hand, his interest in the globalization process within the field of mainstream art, and his confrontation with the realities of the countries and regions which are not well represented (Latin America, for instance); on the other hand, his undeniable and persistent taste for the creation of ambiguous spaces through the representation of intimate tragedies, which are related to limitrophe, almost absurd situations (sometimes making use of black humour). In both cases, we find the use of a “clean” cinematic language accompanied by popular melodies (from Frank Sinatra to Carmen Miranda) and contemporary compositions (Philip Glass).

Lama produces high budget videos (in comparison with most of Peruvian video productions), but it does not contradict itself, for, by doing it, Lama tries to give visibility to the technical level of the “cultural periphery's” productions, revealing the fact that apart from the preoccupation with the final aesthetic results, there is also a preoccupation with concept in Latin American videos.

His last works (Family, La Muerte de Eros, Chimaera) build direct connections between situations which go beyond conventional and abstract contexts, always trying to produce reflective representations. Thus, he aims at building a complex relationship with the viewer, in which the “clean” spaces reveal nothing of the local context, transforming the representation into a universal one.

According to Lama, it can help the viewer to reflect upon basic, instinctive human feelings, to the point of removing individual conscience, transforming the viewer into an accomplice of history. However, the will to contribute critical reflections to the field of art and to be incorporated into a universality also arouse interest in originality. Diego Lama offers us the formal framings of cinema combined with video's freedom, as well as an integration with other forms of art, like theatre, forming a rich, complex production in terms of “cinematic imagery”. 

Since last year, when he received sponsorship from HIVOS fund (Holland) for the production of a project which has been presented at the World Wide Video Festival and at the international festival ATA (Peru), his efforts to produce quality works in Latin America have been recognized at home and abroad. His works have been awarded many national and international prizes, what may keep him in Europe for a long time. Currently, he is in residency at the Site Gallery, England.

How did you get involved with image production? What encouraged you to do it?

What encouraged me to get involved with image production was my lack of verbal skills. The television also helped, being a kind of maternal friend. I could say that I have had an incestuous relationship with TV.

Some of your works make references to cinema, manipulating, comparing or establishing relations between significant scenes of cinema history. What is the relation between your work, cinema and those scenes? Is there a desire to change their meaning, placing them within the context of video art?

The main relation between my work and cinema is the appropriation of cinema as a starting point to the production of new meanings, not necessarily nullifying the former meaning, as, for instance, the video Schizo, which takes the post-modernity theory as a starting point to appropriate an appropriation, copying the famous scene of the shower from the film Psycho to the sound of Sinatra's I Love You, with an ironical tone. That is why this kind of image works; those images are cinematic icons with defined concepts which I do not try to change, but to use them to say something more.

In Rashomon Dance Experience (2003), a video produced with the Brazilian video artist Pedro Vilela in a workshop at the World Wide Videofest in Amsterdam, you made use of cinematic images again. Given the specificities of collective work, was it an approximation of your previous work or a new experience?

It was a very good experience for me, for the project I developed with Pedro was very similar to what I used to do until then. Moreover, I had never worked together with another video artist, and I took it naturally.

In an article on your work, Max Hernandez Calvo states that there is an oscillation between pessimism and pleasure. What do you think about it?

All my life I have been guided by this dichotomy. I do not think I could have one without the other. I was born pessimist. Pleasure comes to break my expectations.

Is there any relation between your work and your country's political and social contexts?

I believe that every work of art is a 'son' of the context in which it was created. However, I have tried to nullify all elements related to the moment of creation in my last works. A work of art can live longer this way.

Diego Lama (1980, Lima, Peru) is graduated in Fine Arts at Corriente Alterna - Fine Arts College (1998-2003). Lama is part of a generation of young Peruvian artists who use electronic art as their main means of expression.

His first video production was El Viaje (1998), which was exhibited at the 3rd Festival Internacional de Videoarte [International VideoArt Festival] (1999) in Peru. The following year, he produced “I've got you under my skin”, which was exhibited at the fourth edition of this same festival.

In 2000, he participated in the Rec Media 1, an exhibition of electronic and musical culture in Lima, with the video Beyond somewhere (2000). In this work, the sense of time is altered, emphasizing a powerful scene of a suicide which ends up dyeing the sky behind the character. This work, in a way, defines Lama's style through images full of double meanings, irony, and black humour.

In that same year he produced Estereoscopia, a video that makes use of the connections between sound and image as a generator of meanings. On the screen, divided in two, we see a soldering process at one side of the screen and, at the other side, a fish responding to the noises and movements of the process. This technique of the synchronization of the sounds and the ironical use of famous songs feature in other works, emphasizing the ambiguous character of Lama's works. In 2003, he produced No Latin Party, which shows a scene of Coppola's The Godfather II with Carmen Miranda's song South American Way as soundtrack in an ironical, critical tone.

In 2001, he produced Schizo (uncopyrighted), a video that relates Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho to Gus Van Sant's version (1998). In this video, Lama uses Frank Sinatra's I Love You as soundtrack to Hitchcock's classical shower's scene. This video was exhibited at Videoex's international competitive exhibition - Internacional Experimentalfilm and Videofest, in Zurich, Switzerland (2002); L.A. Freewaves, Los Angeles (2002); World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, Holland (2003), among others. It was also exhibited at the Festival Internacional de Videoarte, in Peru.

In 2002, he produced Family, a video which treats the tense relationships between members of a family. Its almost minimalist images emphasize the details, revealing Diego Lama's universe, its ambiguity, formal rigour, and open, non-linear narrative. Family was exhibited at the 7th Festival Internacional de Videoarte, in Peru, and also at the exhibition Pain Killers, Pain thrillers (2004), curated by Max Hernandez Calvo for the Centro Cultural of the Universidade Católica, in Lima, Peru.

In 2004, Diego Lama was selected for a three months residency at Site Gallery, an international centre for contemporary art in London.

In this section, we display a series of links to websites that provide more information about the artist and his works. In our new format, apart from the information on the artist, we are also including links to websites on electronic art - in this case, Peruvian electronic art.

Website of the Visiting Arts programme of the Site Gallery from London, where Diego Lama has been in a three months residency.

http://www.visitingarts.org.uk/training/04delcabieses.html

A text by José-Carlos Mariátegui on contemporary video art production in Peru, written for Leonardo Magazine's on-line gallery.

http://www.leonardo.info/gallery/gallery354/mariateguiintro.html

The website of ATA - Alta Tecnologia Andina, an institution directed by Mariátegui for the development of electronic art.

http://www.ata.org.pe/

Website of the 7th Festival Internacional Video Arte Eletrónica (2003), in Lima, Peru.

http://ata.org.pe/festival/