iotaQuarterly 2016 V2: Blanca Rego
Barcelona,
where the origins of the Punto y Raya (Dot and Line) film festival began is home to our next featured artist Blanca Rego, or _blank as she sometimes signs her name. An artist with no limits Blanca started in the analog celluloid era and made their way through digital abstractions, data bending glitch art and recycled imagery.
Blanca has recently released her latest work, “You Blinked,” just for you. It is a complex myriad of colors and geometric shapes reminiscent of many filmmakers of a bygone era. Watching it I can hear “destroy” repeated over and over in my mind.
And just like many classic flicker films this has an intense strobing effect. You should only view this at your own risk. Just keep in mind risk is sexy. So, I say do it.
Once you’ve had a chance to view “You Blinked” or some other pieces from Blanca’s vimeo page take a moment to gain some more insight into the life and work of Blanca. We’ve asked her a few questions and you can read her responses below.
FLICKER WARNING!!! ONLY PUSH PLAY IF YOU DARE!
How do you get inspiration for your work?
I think that my inspiration comes mainly from movies. I love cinema, I’ve always loved it, and I watch a lot of movies. All kinds of movies, not only experimental or abstract movies. Some of my work is also related to electronic music and digital art, but most musicians and digital artists that I admire are clearly inspired by experimental filmmakers like Norman McLaren or the Austrian structuralists, so I think that at the end of the day all comes back to cinema.
How did you learn animation and filmmaking?
I always wanted to be a filmmaker. I’ve always been obsessed with cinema and the relationship between image and sound. Even when I was only a very small girl I spent most of my time watching movies and music videos. At some point, my parents gave me a camcorder and I started making movies, editing using the camcorder and one video player. Later I studied Film Direction at a small school, where we worked with video and 8mm and 16mm film—mainly shooting narrative short movies with actors, etc. but my movies were quite fragmented, not really mainstream. At that
time in Spain, where I am from, there was not any University in which you could study Film Direction, so people went to small schools. In those days I become really interested in experimental cinema and when I finished my three years at the film school I spent another three years in another small school learning animation (traditional and digital), new media and video. That was in the 90s, when computers were not so usual, so I learnt using some computers, but mainly VHS camcorders, U-matic editing controllers, 8mm film splitters…
Are there any artists or teachers that directly influence you and your work?
I went to a film school in which most teachers were indie filmmakers, and some of their movies were a bit poetic and abstract, but not really my cup of tea. Later, at the animation school, there was a teacher who was also an experimental filmmaker and he told me about Chris Marker, Maya Deren and other filmmakers that I didn’t know at that time. I’m from a small city and I grew up in the pre-Internet era, so I’ve never had the chance to see certain things. In any case, I think that my work is not really influenced by any of my teachers, all of them worked with narrative or documentary subjects, not abstract images, and most of my work is really abstract. My main influences are experimental filmmakers like Normal McLaren, Lis Rhodes, Paul Sharits, Peter Kubelka, Peter Tscherkassky, Guy Sherwin, etc. Also the first abstract filmmakers, obviously, Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger, Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter… I’m also a big fan of electronic musicians like Alva Noto and Ryoji Ikeda, whose work is really visual and related to structuralist cinema, and also digital artists like Kurt Hentschläger who create immersive experiences heirs to flicker films, which is a genre that I really, really love. I’ve always loved very visual and excessive filmmakers, like Douglas Sirk, Michael Powell, Peter Greenaway or Nicolas Winding Refn, and even if my work is mainly abstract I think that I am directly influenced by them.
What does “visual music” mean to you?
In my opinion, visual music is anything in which image and sound are at the same level, in which one medium has no sense without the other. In most movies—abstract or narrative–music is just an accompaniment or a trick to influence your emotions, not really as essential as images. But visual music does not always mean something with sound, there are silent movies that for me are visual music, like Serene Velocity by Ernie Gerh, Color Sequence by Dwinell Grant or a lot of the first abstract animations. I guess that when you use certain rhythms images are like music even if you’re not hearing anything.
It’s clear that Blanca has a strong understanding of the cinematic history. Influence comes from a variety of sources for her and that is exemplified in her works. There are a lot of classic filmmakers wheeling around in her brain as she’s creating video feedback loops. If you don’t care for one try another. Her vimeo page is a treasure chest of abstraction, reanimation and visual manipulation.