Audio Arts: Volume 22 No 1

Roman Signer was interviewed in St Gallen on the occasion of the Sammlung Hauser and Wirth's major Summer 2003 exhibition of his work (1971-2003). In these extracts, Signer addresses the question of continuity and development in his practice - the persistence of certain core problems, and the crucial importance of film as a working tool. He discusses the function of explosions as a means of revealing temporal qualities and the critical functions of chance and failure. He considers the issue of his physical presence in the production of his event sculptures and restates his aim of broadening the category of sculpture itself. The Sammlung Hauser and Wirth's chief curator Dr Michaela Unterdoerfer translates. Interview by Rachel Withers, 2003.

Isaac Julien - whose previous films include Looking for Langston (1989), The Long Road to Mazatlan (1999) and Vagabondia (2000) - discusses Paradise Omeros and Baltimore 2003, his two film installations at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London as well as his related photographic works. The conversation addresses 'loss and recovery - loss and re-composition' in relationship to 'creoleness' and language. He addresses his visual references to London in the 1960s and St Lucia today and the narrative influences of Derek Walcott's epic poem Omeros which phrased the African diaspora in Homeric terms. Julien wants to provoke 'identification' with the work and for spectators to have 'an experiencal relationship to the material'. He talks of the 'contamination' of the different visual strategies in his films and bringing them together in the 'language of cinema'. Julien questions cultural difference which he sees at the heart of Paradise Omeros, its hybridity and the politics of representation. Julien also discusses Baltimore 2003, his three-screen installation, which uses the Walters Art Museum, the Contemporary Museum and the Great Blacks in Wax Museum as its key locations and themes. Reference is made to Melvin Van Peebles and Blaxploitation films the 'contamination of high art and popular culture¿ to create a new language'. Julien is concerned to 'construct a space for what is absent' the question of memory being very important for his practice. Stating that he wants to think about his work as 'performing acts which are linked to cultural expression', his 'intentionality is to create a space for empathy'.Interview by Jean Wainwright, Victoria Miro Gallery, London October 2003.