Interview

INTERVIEW: MARÍA CAÑAS, UNDERGROUND SPIRIT AWARD LAUREATE

Burst into laughter and you will reach ecstasy I started creating audiovisual works because everything fit in the seventh art: music, poetry, painting, philosophy, photography... Spanish multimedia artist María Cañas is this year’s Underground Spirit Award laureate, awarded by the Palić European Film Festival for exceptional work in the field of independent film, as well as for a unique approach to film language and an authentic author’s poetics built off the mainstream industry. This author has been creating her style since the early nineties, dealing with a kind of collage of video art, classical and experimental film, found footage technique and numerous other video resources. Conceptually, her focus is on critical discourses that question collectivity, traditions, stereotypes, genders, and other neuralgic points of Spanish society and the civilization as a whole.

You hold doctorate degrees in Aesthetics and History of Philosophy and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Seville. How did you make transition from this type of work to film and video art?

Although I started by painting and making collages by hand, due to the speed of my thinking and the need to convey diverse ideas and tell stories, I needed digital post-production and audiovisual storytelling to express myself creatively. I think I started creating audiovisual works because everything fit in the seventh art: music, poetry, painting, philosophy, photography... It was a revolution for my generation - the transition from the typewriter to the computer and the arrival of the Internet to our homes. Easy and cheap access to all kinds of digital tools, do-it-yourself philosophy, mixing, B-movie, free recycling culture, self-management, sharing economy... they gave us wings. Video cameras, the internet, and computers have allowed us to make cheap movies. I am a “cyber-quixote”, a “cyberjunky” who longs to reach the end of the Internet and download it in its entirety, but that is a mission impossible.

What inspires you most in the world of film and digital media?

I humbly use the endless archive available to all of us today to create film without cameras. My passion is creating imaginary tributes to anything or anyone, dead or living, personally or through their works, which forses me to doubt, reflect, grow and dream. I use all the cyber-dumps of audiovisual waste that surround us, video platforms and publicly available archives on the Internet.

You have often dealt with local issues and problems in Seville. Do you see the same key themes at the level of Spain?

Yes. I am fascinated by breaking stereotypes, myths and universal fanaticism. I am interested in the new meanings of iconography in Spain, nationalisms... I am fascinated by the mixing of the local with the foreign, technology and modernity with tradition; cosmopolitan with local and popular; sophisticated with rough and down-to-earth. You also address cinematic archetypes of independent women and generic aesthetic narratives. How do you approach these important topics? For me, art is universal and goes beyond gender, which is a very violent social construction. Ideally, we are human beings, persons, regardless of gender. Two seems too few to me, considering the diversity and breadth of the world. It would be nice to leave gender out of utopia. I don’t like to brag all day that I’m a woman, or that I’m a Sevillian; I’m a Sevillian, I’m a Sevillian... what a kitsch! Bragging is kitsch. Artistic freedom dominates gender issues in my work, although reflections on it are present. Maybe because of the ignoring we experienced, I practice the art of the witch, the Phoenix and the Valkyrie. Misogyny in the media and on social media is also something I have experienced.

Your video works address very serious topics, but are also very entertaining. What do you think about combining seriousness and humor in your work?

I feel that humor is a defense mechanism, a healthy bomb against stress and depression, an indomitable force that offers an alternative resistance against discomfort, questioning official discourses, authorities and fighting for a mentality changes. Burst into laughter and you will reach ecstasy. However, in general, humor is not taken seriously in our society, which is a shame. Humor strives for social changes by satirically exposing the world's contradictions and absurdities, changing the ways of thinking and feeling shaped by the dominant discourse. Laughter is redemption.

Nikola Marković