| Photo by S. Beth Atkin |
Gilles Peress Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by S. Beth Atkin |
Page 6 of 8
This is a picture from the book on Rwanda, The Silence. It raises another interesting level which is, in the first picture we were looking at, one reacts based on one's knowledge of everyday experience. Now what struck me about this picture is that "Hutu" is written on the door, which in this context was an indication that the people in this house should not be killed. Because what we had was the Rwandan government leadership, which was Hutu, systematically killing Tutsis. Now when I look at my own reaction, this first reminded me of the Bible when Moses went to Pharaoh and asked that the children of Israel be released and the Pharaoh refused and God ordered the plagues. A mark was put on the door of the homes of the Israelites, so that God would spare them. Now what's interesting here is that this is man doing this. If God is involved, it's the 50/50 God that you were talking about earlier.
Right.
Now what I'm curious about is, I do this reading and it's a personal reading based on the knowledge that I bring having read the Bible growing up in school.
Yes, that's correct. But that's what actually happened. That's why they were writing "Hutu" on the houses.
So you're going into the situation which you have defined as confronting reality and seeing the lies and illusions, and you're attempting to create a gallery where people can bring their own personal sense of what this means.
But I'm proposing something to you and you're actually going with it at some level.
I'm proposing to you that photography is a language on its own, which is that when you look at images you do derive ideas; and I'm also proposing to you that you can derive ideas without going through words. So I'm forcing you to really look. And this process of looking, it's like a new set of ideas that are being proposed to you.
Do you have a political agenda, or is that something you're indifferent to? Is that just a by-product of what you're doing?
A by-product.
It's just a by-product, so it's not central to your art.
No, my essential rationale is to understand.
Now you are in the forefront in using new technology, not by taking the pictures but by putting your photographs up on the WorldWide Web. How do you see that tool and what is its relation to what we've just been talking about?
If you extend the notion of a no-man's-land to how images are being distributed, I do not privilege one form of distribution versus another. I will publish in magazines, I will do installations in museums in an art context, I will put billboards on the highways, and I will put pictures on the web. If I could pin pictures on your bedroom walls I would. So I see the web as a place where you can create a flow of ideas, of information, and so on. In the process of doing that, because each time you do something, whether it's with a wall or with a screen, ideas get reconfigured in a different way. You investigate new facets and new aspects of the issues. So I've learned quite a bit in terms of how narratives are being constructed, how the mind works at reconstructing narratives, from the web, from doing websites. And then I re-import those ideas in a book context, and so the book becomes not a book anymore but almost a screen, the same way I forced the screen to become almost a book, the same way I've done videos that were almost books and books that were almost videos. That's also the no-man's-land. The no-man's-land is also the form.
Is there an educational goal that you have for yourself and for your viewer? Or is that too pretentious an assumption?
To the images on the web?
In the images both on the web and elsewhere. In other words, is human enlightenment the goal?
Yes.
Your personal enlightenment and...
Yes, seeking the truth. I should do interviews with you all the time; you answer half of the questions.
This is the first time this has happened! I guess I'm trying to figure out the meaning of what you're saying for me and for my audience. But I want to go back to the earlier part of the interview and your disillusionment with political philosophy, and also pick up on something you said about the crime of silence, of not doing anything about the horrors. Is an ideal by-product of your work to mobilize people in their political consciousness in the sense that when I look at these images I am moved by them, I am frustrated by what's happening in Bosnia and Rwanda? In terms of human enlightenment and the betterment of man, an ideal would be that I'd do something about it, right?
Yes.
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