Interview with bartolomé ferrando
02.09.2014
Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I started doing actions in Barcelona, after being present at Wolf Vostell's conference in 1973. I was 22 years old. I got interested in the practice of actions as it opened myself to an enormous world which was tied to visual arts, to poetry and to music.
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
My creative process departs, normally, from the translation of a poetical idea into an action.
A poetical idea that parts, at the same time, from a poetical image.
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
My latest project is to try to get together the creation of a spoken unexpected language based on the indetermination and derivation of sonorous poetry which is performed with music which is also improvised. Multiple sonorities connected with noise and with electronics are also involved. This practice of improvisation that I carry out, is based exclusively on a responsive creative partnership with another- as the musician who performs and intervenes with me also creates in the moment.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis. Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, other expressions. How do they influence / inform each other?
My practice includes performance which I teach at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, Spain, as well as the sonorous poetry and the visual poetry that I have dedicated more than thirty years of my life to.
Q: With what kind of form / material do you express yourself and use in your work and how did you arrive at using this material?
I use common materials in the action such as ropes, newspapers, fans, wool, foam rubber and wood. I use these materials after reflecting on how I might relate to them in an unusual way. And after reflecting on how the material could be used unusually, I choose the way that seems to open up interpretations of the piece.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience / surrounding. What space / surrounding do you find interesting to work in. How does your surrounding influence your work. Do you involve the public? If so how?
From the beginning I have been attracted to the participation of others in my own actions. Sometimes, I even prepare actions destined to include the participation of the other. I consider the audience an active and integral part of the performance. On the other hand, I request an attitude removed from the passive and the very active, but requires simple actions and easy tasks. And the spaces that I am more interested in, are usually closed spaces, since a great part of my performances have a sonorous component.
Q: And in relation with the space?
The actions integrate space as matter/material. I feel joined to the space when I intervene with it and I hope that others also observe my own movement connected within this spatial materiality.
<< Back
Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I started doing actions in Barcelona, after being present at Wolf Vostell's conference in 1973. I was 22 years old. I got interested in the practice of actions as it opened myself to an enormous world which was tied to visual arts, to poetry and to music.
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
My creative process departs, normally, from the translation of a poetical idea into an action.
A poetical idea that parts, at the same time, from a poetical image.
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
My latest project is to try to get together the creation of a spoken unexpected language based on the indetermination and derivation of sonorous poetry which is performed with music which is also improvised. Multiple sonorities connected with noise and with electronics are also involved. This practice of improvisation that I carry out, is based exclusively on a responsive creative partnership with another- as the musician who performs and intervenes with me also creates in the moment.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis. Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, other expressions. How do they influence / inform each other?
My practice includes performance which I teach at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, Spain, as well as the sonorous poetry and the visual poetry that I have dedicated more than thirty years of my life to.
Q: With what kind of form / material do you express yourself and use in your work and how did you arrive at using this material?
I use common materials in the action such as ropes, newspapers, fans, wool, foam rubber and wood. I use these materials after reflecting on how I might relate to them in an unusual way. And after reflecting on how the material could be used unusually, I choose the way that seems to open up interpretations of the piece.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience / surrounding. What space / surrounding do you find interesting to work in. How does your surrounding influence your work. Do you involve the public? If so how?
From the beginning I have been attracted to the participation of others in my own actions. Sometimes, I even prepare actions destined to include the participation of the other. I consider the audience an active and integral part of the performance. On the other hand, I request an attitude removed from the passive and the very active, but requires simple actions and easy tasks. And the spaces that I am more interested in, are usually closed spaces, since a great part of my performances have a sonorous component.
Q: And in relation with the space?
The actions integrate space as matter/material. I feel joined to the space when I intervene with it and I hope that others also observe my own movement connected within this spatial materiality.
<< Back