Everything Near Becomes Far
by Mauricio Arango
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Dear Mauricio, Thank you for accepting our invitation to become part of HocTok. We couldn’t help noticing that you have a degree in Chemical Engineering and in a seven year time you earned a Master in Fine Arts in Minneapolis. Why the change of heart? What do you aim to achieve through your art that couldn’t be done any other way? When I had to choose a major I was too young and did not know much about anything. I was very good at basic science and math, plus most of my peers were going for engineering degrees. So it felt like a natural path to choose something like that. However, it was an experience that quickly left me feeling very unfulfilled. I earned that degree, but I never worked on the field. |
THE BODY LEARNS - 2014 |
I was drawn to art when I became aware of its potency to be reflective and critical, and when I sensed its power to change my own subjectivity –how I see, feel, and think about particular experiences. This way art was revealed to me as something that could potentially transform ways of seeing and ways of thinking.
One could argue that disciplines like philosophy, sociology, critical theory, etc., are also doing similar things, however, art does it in a way that is completely unique to it. It is subtle and there is not a rational way to describe or predict how and when this happens. But when you are lucky to come across an artwork that touches you, that speaks to you, you feel you are not the same person you were before that encounter.
To me art has an incredible transformative appeal and that is what brought me into it.
It is safe to say you live the life of a traveling artist, always on the road, in search of new experiences and new challenges. Sausalito, CA, after spending time at Haverford College near Philadelphia, and before that, it was Minneapolis and New York.
Where do you find the energy to go along with the change of scenery and everything else that is required to adapt to a new environment? What do you take from each of these experiences?
Well, this is funny, compared to many of my peers I do not think I travel as much as they do. I do go to Colombia several times a year to visit my family and produce some of my work. And I go to any other places whenever there is a chance to present my projects, develop a new idea, or participate in a residence or activity that allows me to continue fostering my practice.
I like traveling inside the States a lot because when one lives in New York it is easy to forget how large this country is and how much there is to see. It is difficult to broadly tell what one takes and leaves from each experience, but I think I am always looking for new ideas, and being alone while traveling from one place to another becomes a bit of a meditative experience that gives me space and time to think. And, obviously, meeting new people, talking about what they and I are doing, creates a conversation, a dialogue that can be meaningful and that helps me think through my own ideas.
For your film, We Will Not Always Be Hyenas, what fired up the sparkle to work on this project? How did you decide on that title?
The title is a twist on a line written by Rimbaud in A Season in Hell. The line in question says ‘You will always be a hyena.’ That sentence stuck with me since it aligned with what it was in my mind at the moment thus I decided to use it for the film I was working on. However, I changed it slightly, because I did not want such a categorical assertion. ‘You will always be a hyena’ feels too damming; a statement that does not leave room for other possibilities of being. It only allows for one thing: being a pariah, a hyena. That is how I interpreted that sentence in that poem. And I believe that through life we can be many things, it is never one thing exclusively.
The film itself is a representation of a moment of violence in Colombia and it is divided in two parts. The first one takes place in the country side. On it we see a group of men taking advantage of a couple of women and then setting their home on fire. The second part is shot in Bogotá, in the outskirts of the city, a place where many families from the country side have arrived fleeing the violence on the fields.
One could argue that disciplines like philosophy, sociology, critical theory, etc., are also doing similar things, however, art does it in a way that is completely unique to it. It is subtle and there is not a rational way to describe or predict how and when this happens. But when you are lucky to come across an artwork that touches you, that speaks to you, you feel you are not the same person you were before that encounter.
To me art has an incredible transformative appeal and that is what brought me into it.
It is safe to say you live the life of a traveling artist, always on the road, in search of new experiences and new challenges. Sausalito, CA, after spending time at Haverford College near Philadelphia, and before that, it was Minneapolis and New York.
Where do you find the energy to go along with the change of scenery and everything else that is required to adapt to a new environment? What do you take from each of these experiences?
Well, this is funny, compared to many of my peers I do not think I travel as much as they do. I do go to Colombia several times a year to visit my family and produce some of my work. And I go to any other places whenever there is a chance to present my projects, develop a new idea, or participate in a residence or activity that allows me to continue fostering my practice.
I like traveling inside the States a lot because when one lives in New York it is easy to forget how large this country is and how much there is to see. It is difficult to broadly tell what one takes and leaves from each experience, but I think I am always looking for new ideas, and being alone while traveling from one place to another becomes a bit of a meditative experience that gives me space and time to think. And, obviously, meeting new people, talking about what they and I are doing, creates a conversation, a dialogue that can be meaningful and that helps me think through my own ideas.
For your film, We Will Not Always Be Hyenas, what fired up the sparkle to work on this project? How did you decide on that title?
The title is a twist on a line written by Rimbaud in A Season in Hell. The line in question says ‘You will always be a hyena.’ That sentence stuck with me since it aligned with what it was in my mind at the moment thus I decided to use it for the film I was working on. However, I changed it slightly, because I did not want such a categorical assertion. ‘You will always be a hyena’ feels too damming; a statement that does not leave room for other possibilities of being. It only allows for one thing: being a pariah, a hyena. That is how I interpreted that sentence in that poem. And I believe that through life we can be many things, it is never one thing exclusively.
The film itself is a representation of a moment of violence in Colombia and it is divided in two parts. The first one takes place in the country side. On it we see a group of men taking advantage of a couple of women and then setting their home on fire. The second part is shot in Bogotá, in the outskirts of the city, a place where many families from the country side have arrived fleeing the violence on the fields.
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Colombia holds a special place in your body of work. What are some of the frustrations, memories, loves about Colombia that you try to work out and share with your audience?
I grew up in Colombia and left when I was in my 20’s. I departed because I was afraid of spending my entire life in a place that did not seem to change. The more I learned about the country the more I felt it was trapped in an endless cycle of violence and cronyism. At the same time, I left a place that is strikingly beautiful, intense, and full of loving people. I think the work I do explores and tries to tie together those two ends. There is always a duality: day and night; permanence and impermanence; man and nature; those who enforce trauma and those who suffer it.
The Night of the Moon Has Many Hours – what’s the story behind this title? What is the overpowering feeling that characterizes this work? What do you credit with the amazing reaction this work received in different parts of the world?
This film tells the story of a man who lives in the country side. He gets up in the middle of the night and goes to a river where he navigates and picks the dead bodies of many young men from the dark waters. After filling up his boat he wades, exhausted, to a shore where he unloads the bodies and leaves. Just before the film finishes we see some people coming from behind the bushes and approaching the cargo. It is hard to tell if they are related to the dead young men, but it is clear they care for them. They treat the bodies tenderly and some of them seem to break down at the sight of the dead faces.
The film has gotten a very positive reception in the different places where it has been shown and has won several awards in different competitions. This was the first narrative film I did, so it surprised me very much. There is something very uncanny about the story and the way it unfolds: It is mysterious, quiet, and hypnotic. At the same time there is something familiar: The act of picking those dead bodies from the water suggests a basic human act of kindness that we all could relate to. I think these two aspects, strangeness and familiarity, worked together to create a powerful affect. I was very lucky when I shoot The Night of the Moon Has Many Hours since I counted on the best team of people I could have asked for. Everybody who helped out gave so much to the project. We were like a big family making this movie, and I think that the energy and intensity of that moment also comes across in the film.
It’s easy to understand that you love the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges. When did you get introduced to Borges and what impact has his writing had on your own views of the world?
Being from a Spanish speaking country one always has Borges as a reference. However, when growing up I could not understand his writings very well. It was only until later, when I picked by chance one of his collections of poetry that I connected with what he was doing. I think that the fact that he lived the paradox of being a blind writer –he could not read his own words and he could not read anything on his own either– gave him a very unique perspective on being alive, on approaching death, on relating to words, and on seeing something for the last time. In some of his poems he writes on the finitude of human experience in a way that is irresistibly accurate, succinct, and moving.
I cannot tell exactly in what ways he has influenced me, but I believe his writing have giving me an insight in how to consider our death and the death of others, which are central themes of my work.
I grew up in Colombia and left when I was in my 20’s. I departed because I was afraid of spending my entire life in a place that did not seem to change. The more I learned about the country the more I felt it was trapped in an endless cycle of violence and cronyism. At the same time, I left a place that is strikingly beautiful, intense, and full of loving people. I think the work I do explores and tries to tie together those two ends. There is always a duality: day and night; permanence and impermanence; man and nature; those who enforce trauma and those who suffer it.
The Night of the Moon Has Many Hours – what’s the story behind this title? What is the overpowering feeling that characterizes this work? What do you credit with the amazing reaction this work received in different parts of the world?
This film tells the story of a man who lives in the country side. He gets up in the middle of the night and goes to a river where he navigates and picks the dead bodies of many young men from the dark waters. After filling up his boat he wades, exhausted, to a shore where he unloads the bodies and leaves. Just before the film finishes we see some people coming from behind the bushes and approaching the cargo. It is hard to tell if they are related to the dead young men, but it is clear they care for them. They treat the bodies tenderly and some of them seem to break down at the sight of the dead faces.
The film has gotten a very positive reception in the different places where it has been shown and has won several awards in different competitions. This was the first narrative film I did, so it surprised me very much. There is something very uncanny about the story and the way it unfolds: It is mysterious, quiet, and hypnotic. At the same time there is something familiar: The act of picking those dead bodies from the water suggests a basic human act of kindness that we all could relate to. I think these two aspects, strangeness and familiarity, worked together to create a powerful affect. I was very lucky when I shoot The Night of the Moon Has Many Hours since I counted on the best team of people I could have asked for. Everybody who helped out gave so much to the project. We were like a big family making this movie, and I think that the energy and intensity of that moment also comes across in the film.
It’s easy to understand that you love the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges. When did you get introduced to Borges and what impact has his writing had on your own views of the world?
Being from a Spanish speaking country one always has Borges as a reference. However, when growing up I could not understand his writings very well. It was only until later, when I picked by chance one of his collections of poetry that I connected with what he was doing. I think that the fact that he lived the paradox of being a blind writer –he could not read his own words and he could not read anything on his own either– gave him a very unique perspective on being alive, on approaching death, on relating to words, and on seeing something for the last time. In some of his poems he writes on the finitude of human experience in a way that is irresistibly accurate, succinct, and moving.
I cannot tell exactly in what ways he has influenced me, but I believe his writing have giving me an insight in how to consider our death and the death of others, which are central themes of my work.
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Everything Near Becomes Far – is this based on a true line of events or is it exaggerated with a certain objective? Also, do you see this in any way as a metaphor?
Everything Near Becomes Far is not based on any specific line of events. It is rather an allegory to the violence that has hit the countryside in some areas of Colombia. When I wrote it I was thinking on the loneliness of death. I was trying to imagine what is like to die alone, in a mountain, away from your dear ones. This in some ways is what happened to so many in the country side. Their deaths do not reverberate. There is a total disconnection between their plight and life for the rest of Colombians living in the cities. So yes, this film is also a metaphor for what happens there.
What’s the scariest point of The Vanishing Point?
I think to realize that the world is so big, that there are so many countries and so many things going on everywhere, and yet we only get to hear the news from a very limited number of places. If one also pays attention to the kind of news presented to us, one finds that most of them have to do with very awful things or with utterly unimportant gossips. News media frames what is important to a society, and how we see and think about other places and their people.
Thus, the world that is introduced to us through mainstream news is already very diluted and skewed. This realization is the most impactful thing of Vanishing Point because this forced reduction has many cultural and political ramifications.
For A Body Learns, you write, “We possess an extraordinary capability to wound and harm–our perpetual history of conflicts attests to that. Yet, we are particularly vulnerable beings…” Why? Or what is the question that torments you the most when you see mankind forget its vulnerability?
Right now I am typing these answers from a residence that is just 5 minutes away from San Francisco. This place, before it became a center for the arts, was a military camp. A few meters from my building there is a decommissioned missile center that was set up during the Cold War to defend the United States from any potential nuclear aggressions from the Soviet Union. The missile center was developed during the 1950’s, using the most advanced technology at the time. The guides at the center –because the site is a touristic destination now– say that dropping a single bomb was enough to trigger the total destruction of the two countries: the systems of attack and defense that each country built would ensure it. The US and USSR armies used technologies that predated the computer age, they were in the forefront of all the information technology changes that happened through the next decades.
Now, here, at present time, we have been reading for months without end about beheadings in Syria, bombs in Paris and Brussels, drone attacks in Middle Eastern and North African countries, dozens of students killed in Mexico, and so on and so on.
It is clear that there is a purposeful use of our intellectual capabilities to cause damage and harm to others and that certain men take a certain pride of these actions. The contradiction that interests me is how despite this capability to destroy and bring harm, we are also frail and weak. Our skin pierces, our bones break, we bleed, we ache, we fall, we die.
Often times I remember an ironic story about one recent US president who was shocked and fainted while eating a cracker. The man, who has the nuclear codes of this country, who has the power to declare war to other nations sending armies across oceans and skies, almost died because of a crumb.
So that’s what I was pointing to when I tried to equate our skills to harm with our very own vulnerability. Aggression and vulnerability are intrinsic aspects of our makeup. The most worrisome thing to me is when this capacity for aggression gets out of control and is used unrestrictedly by an authoritarian group (i.e., a State, a militia, the police) to dominate another group.
What are the most awe inspiring events that you’ve heard of lately and that you’re sort of using for your own work?
What I perceive from the world right now is not very inspiring. I do not like to sound cynical, but our current state of affairs feels very dispiriting to me. So I’m trying to read a lot. To forget, to understand, to enrich myself. Last year I came across James Baldwin’s work, and it has completely grabbed me. As I mentioned it, I did not grow up in the US, so his books and thoughts are quite new to me. I find in his words a mix of insight, love, and determination that is very appropriate for the time we are living. If you are in NYC ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ is a mandatory read. And for thoughts on cinema and race ‘The Devil Finds Work’ is a true jewel. I am not sure yet if these readings will manifest in any of my projects though, but they are definitely important in my life right now.
Everything Near Becomes Far is not based on any specific line of events. It is rather an allegory to the violence that has hit the countryside in some areas of Colombia. When I wrote it I was thinking on the loneliness of death. I was trying to imagine what is like to die alone, in a mountain, away from your dear ones. This in some ways is what happened to so many in the country side. Their deaths do not reverberate. There is a total disconnection between their plight and life for the rest of Colombians living in the cities. So yes, this film is also a metaphor for what happens there.
What’s the scariest point of The Vanishing Point?
I think to realize that the world is so big, that there are so many countries and so many things going on everywhere, and yet we only get to hear the news from a very limited number of places. If one also pays attention to the kind of news presented to us, one finds that most of them have to do with very awful things or with utterly unimportant gossips. News media frames what is important to a society, and how we see and think about other places and their people.
Thus, the world that is introduced to us through mainstream news is already very diluted and skewed. This realization is the most impactful thing of Vanishing Point because this forced reduction has many cultural and political ramifications.
For A Body Learns, you write, “We possess an extraordinary capability to wound and harm–our perpetual history of conflicts attests to that. Yet, we are particularly vulnerable beings…” Why? Or what is the question that torments you the most when you see mankind forget its vulnerability?
Right now I am typing these answers from a residence that is just 5 minutes away from San Francisco. This place, before it became a center for the arts, was a military camp. A few meters from my building there is a decommissioned missile center that was set up during the Cold War to defend the United States from any potential nuclear aggressions from the Soviet Union. The missile center was developed during the 1950’s, using the most advanced technology at the time. The guides at the center –because the site is a touristic destination now– say that dropping a single bomb was enough to trigger the total destruction of the two countries: the systems of attack and defense that each country built would ensure it. The US and USSR armies used technologies that predated the computer age, they were in the forefront of all the information technology changes that happened through the next decades.
Now, here, at present time, we have been reading for months without end about beheadings in Syria, bombs in Paris and Brussels, drone attacks in Middle Eastern and North African countries, dozens of students killed in Mexico, and so on and so on.
It is clear that there is a purposeful use of our intellectual capabilities to cause damage and harm to others and that certain men take a certain pride of these actions. The contradiction that interests me is how despite this capability to destroy and bring harm, we are also frail and weak. Our skin pierces, our bones break, we bleed, we ache, we fall, we die.
Often times I remember an ironic story about one recent US president who was shocked and fainted while eating a cracker. The man, who has the nuclear codes of this country, who has the power to declare war to other nations sending armies across oceans and skies, almost died because of a crumb.
So that’s what I was pointing to when I tried to equate our skills to harm with our very own vulnerability. Aggression and vulnerability are intrinsic aspects of our makeup. The most worrisome thing to me is when this capacity for aggression gets out of control and is used unrestrictedly by an authoritarian group (i.e., a State, a militia, the police) to dominate another group.
What are the most awe inspiring events that you’ve heard of lately and that you’re sort of using for your own work?
What I perceive from the world right now is not very inspiring. I do not like to sound cynical, but our current state of affairs feels very dispiriting to me. So I’m trying to read a lot. To forget, to understand, to enrich myself. Last year I came across James Baldwin’s work, and it has completely grabbed me. As I mentioned it, I did not grow up in the US, so his books and thoughts are quite new to me. I find in his words a mix of insight, love, and determination that is very appropriate for the time we are living. If you are in NYC ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ is a mandatory read. And for thoughts on cinema and race ‘The Devil Finds Work’ is a true jewel. I am not sure yet if these readings will manifest in any of my projects though, but they are definitely important in my life right now.