Interview with Martine Viale
©martine viale "body and square" 2017
August 2017, Perpignan, France
Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I never studied performance art, I am not from the academy and I didn't even know that what I was doing could find its way into this art form. I always knew that I wanted to do something which involved the body and presence, something that could help me be more free, a context in which I could question my own questions. But I didn't know what it was, I didn't have a lot of models. Driven by the desire of training my body and mind to strong and diverse experiences, I studied Butoh in Japan in the mid nineties. These experiences were very useful and brought a lot of discipline into my practice. It also helped me to experience another sense of time in the body which is interesting right now in my work.
I have always been fascinated by subtle things, forgotten things, small objects, banal things and places and so. After these travels to Japan, I just started doing things on my own, experiencing, placing my body into different situations and in relation to what was there in the space. With time, these things became more and more important and I think it was at the end of the nineties, I got invited to perform at an event, I don’t even remember what it was, something very informal but anyway the point is that from that moment I knew I had to continue even with self doubts etc… it became a necessity!
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
My process is slow and it is largely connected with actions that I am doing in my everyday life or actions and interactions that I am observing from others. It is often related to physical sensations; something that left a strong impression on me like an imprint, for example, the memory of a place or a specific smell, sound or taste etc… In the first stages, I let the ideas float for a while, my process can go in different directions and I don’t try to fix it too much, too early. I sometimes write words, not a lot, mostly I make image notations and photo actions. I also draw lines or dots which are not actual drawings but again more like notations and sometimes everything can start with a found object with which I find myself engaged. I like to see all these fragments as part of a whole and the process always continues during the performance; I rarely start a performance with only resolved actions!
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
I see my work as an ongoing project and each work is a response to a different site. Sometimes it can take the form of photo-actions and other times it manifests itself through live actions either indoor or in the public space.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis? Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, and other expressions? How do they influence / inform each other?
The body in action is at the centre of my practice. Working mainly with durational actions, there is also an installation component to what I do and that could perhaps exist on its own. But again, for me, everything is connected, I activate objects and/or matter and I am activated by them; the space is resonating and my body is part of it. In the public space it is slightly different, I am infiltrating what is already there and sometimes it can be very furtive and short in duration. I observe, I wander, I collect parts of words, of sounds of images of sensations that I experience and these elements influence my actions. In this process I am also part of something bigger. Lately and more specifically since I moved from North America to Europe, I started to use photography more actively as a way to mark the time… I use it as another tool for some works that can’t be done in another way.
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 used to work with a lot of material and sometimes the material would even initiate the ideas and the actions. Right now I like to work with what I find on site including the architecture of the site itself, my body, the coming and going of the audience and very little extra material.
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?
My work is site specific so yes the surroundings and the sites are most important and I reflect a lot on these elements prior to the action. In a durational format it is quite strange to hold on to the idea of an audience, I prefer to see them as passersby and I consider that as soon as someone enters the site they are definitely part of the work. I don’t like to put people on the spot so unless the work requires some direct contact, my relationship with passersby is quite subtle and has more to do with presence and configuration in the space. The work Untitled that I did at Rapid Pulse festival in Chicago two years ago involved more directly the passersby. Prior to the action, I asked different people that were connected to the gallery neighbourhood if they would help me do simple tasks during the performance and after they agreed I would give them a specific time frame. I was there for six hours. Each person would come for ten minutes, at the time that we’d decided. In this storeroom surrounded by windows we would either hold hands, drink water, sit and wait or just face each other. After ten minutes they would leave the space and I was left to continue my process alone.
I am interested in this way of working; in this constant process of negotiation that happens naturally between two or more people in a given space and how to navigate the space alone after each encounter. I am drawn to the idea of creating a mutable space with movement of coming and going, with ephemeral perspectives of distance and proximity with momentarily interchangeability of roles.
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Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I never studied performance art, I am not from the academy and I didn't even know that what I was doing could find its way into this art form. I always knew that I wanted to do something which involved the body and presence, something that could help me be more free, a context in which I could question my own questions. But I didn't know what it was, I didn't have a lot of models. Driven by the desire of training my body and mind to strong and diverse experiences, I studied Butoh in Japan in the mid nineties. These experiences were very useful and brought a lot of discipline into my practice. It also helped me to experience another sense of time in the body which is interesting right now in my work.
I have always been fascinated by subtle things, forgotten things, small objects, banal things and places and so. After these travels to Japan, I just started doing things on my own, experiencing, placing my body into different situations and in relation to what was there in the space. With time, these things became more and more important and I think it was at the end of the nineties, I got invited to perform at an event, I don’t even remember what it was, something very informal but anyway the point is that from that moment I knew I had to continue even with self doubts etc… it became a necessity!
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
My process is slow and it is largely connected with actions that I am doing in my everyday life or actions and interactions that I am observing from others. It is often related to physical sensations; something that left a strong impression on me like an imprint, for example, the memory of a place or a specific smell, sound or taste etc… In the first stages, I let the ideas float for a while, my process can go in different directions and I don’t try to fix it too much, too early. I sometimes write words, not a lot, mostly I make image notations and photo actions. I also draw lines or dots which are not actual drawings but again more like notations and sometimes everything can start with a found object with which I find myself engaged. I like to see all these fragments as part of a whole and the process always continues during the performance; I rarely start a performance with only resolved actions!
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
I see my work as an ongoing project and each work is a response to a different site. Sometimes it can take the form of photo-actions and other times it manifests itself through live actions either indoor or in the public space.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis? Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, and other expressions? How do they influence / inform each other?
The body in action is at the centre of my practice. Working mainly with durational actions, there is also an installation component to what I do and that could perhaps exist on its own. But again, for me, everything is connected, I activate objects and/or matter and I am activated by them; the space is resonating and my body is part of it. In the public space it is slightly different, I am infiltrating what is already there and sometimes it can be very furtive and short in duration. I observe, I wander, I collect parts of words, of sounds of images of sensations that I experience and these elements influence my actions. In this process I am also part of something bigger. Lately and more specifically since I moved from North America to Europe, I started to use photography more actively as a way to mark the time… I use it as another tool for some works that can’t be done in another way.
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 used to work with a lot of material and sometimes the material would even initiate the ideas and the actions. Right now I like to work with what I find on site including the architecture of the site itself, my body, the coming and going of the audience and very little extra material.
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?
My work is site specific so yes the surroundings and the sites are most important and I reflect a lot on these elements prior to the action. In a durational format it is quite strange to hold on to the idea of an audience, I prefer to see them as passersby and I consider that as soon as someone enters the site they are definitely part of the work. I don’t like to put people on the spot so unless the work requires some direct contact, my relationship with passersby is quite subtle and has more to do with presence and configuration in the space. The work Untitled that I did at Rapid Pulse festival in Chicago two years ago involved more directly the passersby. Prior to the action, I asked different people that were connected to the gallery neighbourhood if they would help me do simple tasks during the performance and after they agreed I would give them a specific time frame. I was there for six hours. Each person would come for ten minutes, at the time that we’d decided. In this storeroom surrounded by windows we would either hold hands, drink water, sit and wait or just face each other. After ten minutes they would leave the space and I was left to continue my process alone.
I am interested in this way of working; in this constant process of negotiation that happens naturally between two or more people in a given space and how to navigate the space alone after each encounter. I am drawn to the idea of creating a mutable space with movement of coming and going, with ephemeral perspectives of distance and proximity with momentarily interchangeability of roles.
<< Back