Dialogue with Margarida Sardinha on HyperLightness ad absurdum, Part III

Today would typically be Wordless Wednesday, but it seems appropriate to instead complete this trilogy of blog entries, which began Monday, in one piece. At the end of today's segment will be another video clip and contact information for Margarida.

Ennyman: What is the best environment for experiencing HyperLightness ad absurdum? Do you envision it in museums, art theaters, or where?

MS: HyperLightness ad absurdum has actually been conceived in the aftermath of a period of extensive site-specific work (mainly installations). From 1996 to 2004 most of the work that I produced was indeed site-specific and therefore it was one of the main turning points in my pattern of work to form an alternative which would be completely self-contained and self-contextualized. I felt that need because the “in site” dependency of the several works was weighing too much on me and the feeling I had towards them was exactly the opposite… as soon as a piece was (or is) completed I have an enormous sense of detachment from it, as if it has a life of its own and it is simply no longer mine nor have I anything else to do with it. For that reason I felt a deep need to create a form of work that was perdurable and to some extent self-reflexive without my constant supervision – that would always preserve its meaning unchanged independently of its conceptual or physical support or location. Consequently HyperLightness ad absurdum may be exhibited everywhere in any digital or film platform, from a computer screen to a cinema projection or a gallery projection.

E: We all have many life influences that shape our art. Can you identify a few primary influences that led specifically to the conception and development of HyperLightness ad absurdum? Did you have an "Aha!" moment when you saw in advance where you wanted it to go?

MS: It is very difficult for me to detach influences in such a linear way, for of course my life’s general influences were the one’s that shaped HyperLightness ad absurdum unless I would give you here the work’s bibliography that expands over ten pages… No, relax, I am not going to do that to you. I will give you a short general one instead:
Art: John Latham, James Turrell, Sol LeWitt, Howard Hodgkin, Anish Kapoor, Tacita Dean, Michal Rovner, Daniel Buren.
Literature: Fernando Pessoa, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Goethe, W. B. Yeats, Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, J. L. Borges, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Umberto Eco.
Philosophy: Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein, Theodor Adorno, Carl Jung, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze.
Science: Euclid, Isaac Newton, Einstein, Matila Ghyka, Benoit Mandelbrot, Keith Critchlow, Henri Poincaré, Roger Penrose, Douglas Hofstadter.
Film: Terrence Malick, Jean-Luc Godard, Stanley Kubrick, Oskar Fischinger, Harry Everett Smith, James & John Whitney.
Religion (besides various sacred texts & scriptures): Robert Fludd, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Sri Aurobindo, J. Krishnamurti, Rudolf Steiner, Shri Ramakrishna.

As for the Aha moments, they constitute special personal instants that are always momentary flashes into another realm of consciousness. They shape me as a person and therefore eventually they crystallize in the work that I create, though it may not be via a conscious route.

E: Of the full list, can you suggest two or three most significant influences?

MS: Yes, of course, Plato, Plato and Plato for everything else (apart from ancient texts) is either wrong or nothing but a footnote of his complete dialogues.

E: Does the breadth of your reading and experience ever make you feel a sense of “apartness” from the culture you live in? Not in a superior way, but in the sense that the number of people you can talk with in depth about some of your thoughts and ideas must be limited…

MS: I have a few friends, with whom I spend hours, days talking, but most of my work is a solitary one and I cannot live without that seclusion. I am fully conscious of the privilege that is in current days to be in a situation where one loves what one does – like myself – and is able to do it without major restrictions, for I could not imagine myself doing anything else or in any different way. I don’t necessarily need to constantly debate ideas as some people do for I don’t believe that “Knowledge is power” and rely on my own sense of honesty and self-criticism to guide me through sometimes difficult conceptual alleyways. I know this will come as a shock, but for me knowledge is exactly the opposite of a power struggle for it can be used to be of extreme generosity towards the world instead of trying to rule it.

E: Finally, what is the status of HyperLightness ad absurdum?

MS: As of today, 17th of March 2012, HyperLightness ad absurdum is on the line up for:
Rockland Shorts, Rockland, US
Take Two by Salon Ciel in New York, US
Magmart Festival in Naples, Italy
Accolade Award of Merit in CA, US
Winner of the Indie Award of Merit in CA, U.S.

E: And most recently, as I learned Tuesday evening, HyperLightness ad absurdum received the Certificate of Merit from the Rochester International Film Festival NY, US

Margarida Sardinha’s official website and contact information can be found at: www.margaridasardinha.com

MS: I thank you Ed for your continuous interest in my work and for all your patience in considering publishing these perhaps complex ideas and notions. Although, I would like to yet say this account is still skimming the surface of an overly intricate multifaceted array of detailed considerations and analysis that I hope will be of interest to you and to the readers under the form of the upcoming book HyperLightness ad infinitum.

E: To readers here, a parting video excerpt. Thank you, Margarida.