Christophe Cherix recently interviewed Sean Dack and Liam Gillick about their fruitful collaboration by email for aanews. At the time, their OSP book only existed as a PDF fi le. This kind of thing is banal now, of course, but every once in a while it hits home again. Virtual book, virtual interview: can the virtual artist be far behind? These guys are for real, though, as you can tell here. And if virtual is good enough for you, the PDF can be downloaded at www.onestarpress.com
How did you come to collaborate with Sean Dack?
Liam Gillick: Sean and I met at Columbia University a couple of years ago, where I go in for two weeks a year to run an intensive group situation. We have been looking at each other’s work for some time, but this is our fi rst real collaboration. His interest in fi lm and photography within his art made it a functional partnership. But also he cast Lisa Rovner in the role of Anna Sanders for our clip as he is in a sophisticated position in relation to the contemporary situation in New York. His work is extremely stable in terms of its elegant execution yet deals with issues thatare inherently destabilised; the corrupted multiple image of fame; landing planes near suburban homes; urban abandonment and promotion. He manages to avoid didactic presentations without losing a certain melancholic political element within the work. We work together pretty well including work on the editing and soundtracks for the film.
How would you describe the Anna Sanders Films dentity Spot?
Sean Dack: Perhaps it is the beginning of a fi lm about the 1960’s that was probably shot in the early 1980’s for very little money. It is something you think you recall seeing on cable television late one night. It is direct but it is also slightly awkward in its execution. You wonder why she has winked at you. Then you think that she is acknowledging something that you know and is sharing that back with you. You could potentially both be “insiders” and you quite possibly you may have similar agendas. A crystalline daytime shot faded into an abstracted internal space. Then you realize that it is not the intro to a particular fi lm but that it is the intro to any fi lm. It is essentially an advertisement. But it is not that either. It is too direct and formal. It is an artwork because it hovers between all of these forms. My work is about crossing multiple paths at one time. Creating historical and formal parallels that otherwise may not be congruent or thought of within a single context. Negation between and within elements is constantly occurring, you could call this a form of alchemy, or perhaps I am setting up systems that allows for change. A good portion of my practice seems so obvious, while managing to be unique and obscure. Most of my sourceinspiration is simply, “everyday.” It could be looked at as a reworking of the banal, but then there is a process of focusing and fi ltering that makes a work seem resonant. I strive for this resonance. The slightest alteration of the normal can allow for the endless possibility of ideas.
Why make a book out of it ?
Liam Gillick: I like working in the book format for quite old reasons connected with rapid and easy distribution of ideas and escaping certain traps that might exist within the art context. In this case the book also preserves and heightens the gesture of making this super-short clip. It concretises the relationship between Sean and myself and registers that the production of the clip should also be understood within an art context, not just the cinematic context within which the clip will generally be used. Sometimes it is nice to offer a book to a fi lm company. It is a common moment of exchange that normally happens before the development of a fi lm project. We both liked the self-referentiality of offering a fi lm company a book of its own clip instead of the latest hot novel. We were also quite interested in the fact that we could produce something fast due to the way onestar press operates.
aanews.
Interview by Christophe Cherix
Liam Gillick & Sean Dack
Anna Sanders films identity spot
Published April 2004
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