- camera: Cai Tomos
- edit: John Collingswood
- camera: Antonio Perales
- subtitles: María José Manzaneque & John Collingswood
CAI: the journey of Luisma and the mystery of the work… is hard to find language, it’s interesting, to speak, it’s hard to find language, it feels sometimes that language isn’t relevant when we speak of Luisma, it’s something else, so this is a challenge, but I think this feeling of the water, and the relevance of the water, which came as you discussed. Something became activated in my mind about his fascination with water and how present it was, it seems, in his life. I wondered whether the water was a personal not an artistic priority, always, and was it ok to wonder about this water being an artistic, or is it personal, and I don’t think this question is one that is gonna be solved or be, you know…
LUIS: sí, resuelta.
CAI: it’s alive, but the question of working with Luisma each time and proposing, and I remember Luis and I in the space with bottles of water, with ice, with different ways to engage the water, and this question of dialogue, how much presence did I need to have, do I do anything? do I propose some relationship? do I sit? and I remember while sitting, doing nothing, and questioning is this doing nothing supporting? or is this doing nothing just doing nothing? so began to question a proposition, like a game, or like I say this, you say this to propose some action, and then I think I noticed something around, maybe there needed to be some relational aspect, some play is not the right word, but a conversation, a dialogue in a way; and when we took Luisma to playa de Madrid with the fountains for me it was…
LUIS: la playa de Madrid, sabes lo que es, ¿no?
LOLA: sí, que hay chorros y…
CAI: I was wow! I could see somehow the water allowed, for my eyes, for me only, to see this…, to see a language, some kind of language of gesture it came through his relationship to the water and as the water gave him, in a way, something to… a resistance or a way of shaping, and we were speaking before about the wood , the wood offers another thing for the body, so for me…
LUIS: another kind of resistance, another kind of shape.
CAI: another kind of resistance, another kind of shape.
LOLA: shape qué es?
LUIS: forma.
CAI: form. So some question about Luisma has been the expending of energy necessary. And when we worked with the bottles of water it was like there wasn’t enough to meet him.
LUIS: claro.
LOLA: no era suficiente.
CAI: not enough water…
LUIS: claro, siempre falta agua.
CAI: to meet him, because this whatever artistic form it was the wood had to meet him so he can meet it back.
LUIS: so this I don’t understand. Meet back?
CAI: meet back, so he could give back to the form, ¿no?
LUIS: que puede volver a la forma.
CAI: yes, so like to press against, sí?
LUIS: sí.
CAI: so when he was shaping with the water, with his hands, I felt there was an exchange, ¿no? there was a dialogue between the body and the form being the water.
LOLA: o sea que tiene una presión más continua que él puede estar … ¿he entendido bien o no es así?
LUIS: yo creo que sí, bueno, I understand you in a context. So you speak about the two ways of the resistance that comes from each material, the fluid and solid.
CAI: yes, each material, the fluid and the solid, yes.
LUIS: and Luisma between, among this two things.
CAI: yes, and his way of responding to this form.
LUIS: sí.
CAI: so when I saw him in the playa with the water, there was something of the desire, his desire, his enjoyment, the sensation, the… because he stayed in there for two hours, ¿no?
LUIS: sí, more or less.
CAI: but for me it was the time where I could see a language, seen from the place of movement, a language of gesture, and that becoming a form in itself, you know? and Luisma as I said is the point, he’s like the gate keeper of the mystery.
LOLA: yes.
LUIS: the gate keeper, el portero, ¿no?
CAI: yes, the gate keeper of the mystery.
LOLA: eso es muy bonito.
LUIS: sí, el guarda, el guardador de…
CAI: I think for the whole project, if ever I’m lost, I come back to Luisma and he reminds me of the expansion.
LUIS: eso es muy bonito.
LOLA: he’s all with the rhythm of his body, he’s big… I like very much this question about Luisma, because all the project is supported in a very delicate point, very…
CAI: fragile, delicate.
LOLA: sí … etéreo.
LUIS: sí, vanishing, no? Evanescente, etéreo.
LOLA: de manera que tiene que ir muy libre, que cuando uno lo intenta acotar demasiado, piuf! se te va, o sea, hay que dejar las manos libres para que pase. Entonces, es verdad que lo de Luisma es expresión muy clara del título además, no?
LUIS: del título del proyecto de Cai, ¿no? Entiendes, ¿no?
CAI: Some things, from somewhere, sí. Yesterday I add “some time”.
LUIS: claro, sí, claro.
LOLA: because yesterday…
LUIS: nothing expected happened, no? eso es lo bueno.
LOLA: because this is the truth.
CAI: exactly.
LOLA: this is the truth, this project is from Debajo del Sombrero project.
CAI: nothing expected happened.
LOLA: and sostener la decepción…
LUIS: claro, to hold the disappointment.
LOLA: Is our work.
LUIS: claro, to give a space… and suddenly realizing that it’s not an disappointment but the opposite, it’s life, no?
CAI: Luisma yesterday with the engaging to the water, it was different, he was related to the water but this expectation that we had, I had, wasn’t fulfilled and in that, everything could open and I felt a great relief, a great gift from Luisma, because the idea fell down.
I think my experience when I first came to meet Debajo del Sombrero, was of the ten year history, of a culture, a culture of the space which I couldn’t put into words, it was a feeling I had, Oh the space here, the space, there’s lots of space, and that somehow there’s something really quite political about doing nothing in this culture that demands, also demands and pulls out creativity. Something that influenced very much was with this question; it’s not a question of stillness, it’s a question of space.
LUIS: give space, I understand.
CAI: I don’t know if it’s about giving. I don’t know. I am the one that’s giving space, so giving it. it’s quite about…. it’s quite an existential thing, no?
LOLA: perdón, he perdido eso de la cuestión es el espacio. Exactamente no he entendido bien.
CAI: the space.
LUIS: Cai says that…
LOLA: No, pero dímelo en español.
LUIS: ah, la primera vez notó como una percepción de espacio… espacio cualitativo.
CAI: yes, qualitative space.
LOLA: this is good because this is the first idea of the project, the first reto.
LUIS: reto no sé cómo se dice.
LOLA: the first idea.
LUIS: the first challenge.
LOLA: the first idea to make a space so elastic to receive every kind of communication.
CAI: all kinds of communication.
LOLA: that was the first idea ten years ago.
CAI: and I think I felt that, I felt it in the experience, the quality of experience of being with other people. One thing I remember about this, Keats speaks about negative capability, our ability to not act.
LOLA: ability not to act?
LUIS: nuestra capacidad para no…
CAI: not to do anything.
LOLA: ah, ok.
LUIS: para no hacer nada.
CAI: so this, in the project for me was equally as important, was the ability to not contribute as much as the ability to contribute, and knowing when, and when not.
Knowing when to offer, when not to offer and the importance of not offering but trusting something else.
LOLA: we always say that this way of expression is very important for the project because ponen al proyecto en el punto virgen, en el punto cero.
LUIS: claro, put the project in the virginal origin, no?
CAI: the point of zero, I like this.
LOLA: and this situation can be, can be for ten years, for example.
LUIS: otherwise the project becomes a factory of creativity which is completely false.
LOLA: pero en el caso de Luisma en realidad es más bonito que hacer o no hacer nada, porque en el intento nosotros y luego Cai, de establecer relación con Luisma, de encontrarnos con Luisma, de encontrar a Luisma, es como ir al encuentro de una forma en vacío, lo rodeas de agua, lo rodeas de madera, es como si rodearas al hombre invisible de alguna manera, lo estás rodeando de realidades para encontrarle forma. Eso es un problema nuestro más que de él, un problema nuestro de visibilizar a Luisma.
LUIS: ¿Tú lo entiendes? ¿Has entendido eso?
CAI: un poco, sí.
LOLA: we try to find Luisma. This is the question. We, not Luisma, we try to find Luisma, where is Luisma, who is Luisma. And in this question, in this work for us we surround Luisma with water, with wood…
LUIS: not arguments, but tools.
CAI: ways of … possible ways of communication.
LOLA: ok . Rodeas, das vueltas, to find…
LUIS: the form.
LOLA: like an anti sculpture, un vacío.
LUIS: emptiness.
LOLA: not emptiness, for us is not emptiness, for us is conocido (known) and this is the choque (impact) with the reality. When Luisma…
CAI: hits the wood.
LOLA: choca contra la realidad, this is the limit of form, another limit of form.
LUIS: ah, qué bueno, sí, sí.
LOLA: o sea, aquí hay un esfuerzo.
LUIS: sí, la resistencia offers the form.
CAI: absolutely. And as we grow as babies, the first one is the inside of the mother, it’s the first place is the resistance; it gives you back your shape, your form. And I guess what I saw for the first with the water in playa de Madrid, and with the wood, was that the wood offers a form, a way of expression.
LOLA: claro, yes, different Luismas appear in different limits. One Luisma appeared when he found the wood, another Luisma appeared when he found a lot of water, and sound…
LUIS: yes because of this it could be so, not only beautiful but interesting la relación entre…
CAI: the relationship.