10 Questions with Juan Sebastian Diaz

His work takes viewers on a virtual journey through time, technologies, and occult forces, raising questions about contemporary relationships with the image. His body serves as the medium through which he forges connections between mysticism and technology.

He engages in a dialogue between performance and media arts, with a focus on constructing critical readings of image production and reproduction in contemporary contexts. He studied Film and Television at Universidad Manuela Beltrán and holds a Master's degree in Theater and Living Arts from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He works as a producer at Encarrete, a company he co-founded where he has developed research-creation laboratories that bring together artists and groups focused on LGBTQ+ people, street dwellers and former street dwellers, migrants, and young people who produce interdisciplinary experiences related to their local contexts. His socially impactful works, Traza tu Cuerpo (2017-2019), Imágenes en Tránsito (2019), and Atraviesa Diversa (2020) stand out.

In his work, he seeks to create spaces for dialogue that promote equity, recognition of diversity, and empowerment of specific territories, using both digital and analog media approaches. He has developed multimedia performance productions such as Poéticas de lo In_Concreto (2022), a project created in collaboration with artists and residents of the Santafé neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia, Waste of Fire (2022), his master's degree project, and other performative actions such as Matriz I, II and III, Antenna, Bio-porn, and the Fire-Readings. Additionally, he has directed theater productions like Dios te Salve (2016-2017) and Huis Clos (2017), and produced films like Inventory (2019) and Movements at a Distance (2024), a feature-length film currently in development.

@juansedigo

ARTIST STATEMENT

In this eagerness for modernization, it seems that only ocularcentrism will prevail. The forces emanating from other dimensions are only subordinate to visual experience. We can see this since everything produced in the contemporary world is designed to appeal to the gaze.

This other world, the metaverse, used to be fiction to access. Now, it seems that science fiction characters like Elon Musk propose touch will not fit in other worlds. In fact, since the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems that touch is being eliminated from the map of our lives to make it easier to control it: a virtual life that depends on sight in the first place and then on hearing, with sound sensations that excite us. During the pandemic, we were forced to stay away from each other, stop touching, and stop feeling each other. It is as if we wanted to replicate the limitations of the virtual world that they are designing for us. A limited body, only a face that appeared in front of a screen. And a fragmented body that you saw covered by masks in life as if the only reality or notion of identity that we could see were crossed by virtual experiences that go beyond our experience as individuals.

Antenna, PH Sandra Olmos - Digital Photography, 2023 © Juan Sebastian Diaz

A virtual experience manifests itself through the reinterpretation of the codes related to what we consider real until now: the voice that goes through a microphone, the camera that transforms the face into pixels, and the mediated subject in stories and live broadcasts on social media. The contact is the accessibility to the subject through the screen. This construction of identity appears from visual and sound perception, but nobody dared to touch a body, not even touch an object that could be contaminated by the virus. We became actors who could only be seen through the screen. This abstraction of the body is outside our register. The fear of touch mutates in other directions, such as the fear of being attacked by the body, which is considered antagonistic in the vital experience. The other, demonized, approaches. "Keep your distance and let me enjoy my imagination in peace because that is what is real".

The appearance of pornography, touching oneself, or seeing hegemonic bodies that reproduce in droves on TikTok and validate each other disguised as real life materialize vital impulses in these two directions: bodies that are seen, bodies that are heard but they don't touch. Now, virtualization with two clicks on a screen as a synonym for esteem is the closest approximation to touch (like, like... like) or sending a tip to stand out among an unlimited number of users who appear with each post or live stream. We will become increasingly distant bodies, losing the notion of the act and feeding our stimuli through the gaze. The tips of our fingers will never touch another body, and we will be with our fingers what we cannot touch to judge it, and whoever is capable of touching will be punished like witches.

The dimensions of touch will disappear and be subordinated to the visual and sound experience that they strive to reproduce in the metaverse. Since AI is capable of reproducing an image and configuring it in a completely original way, they will surely do it with sound and any artistic expression in the future. For now, the materialization of this acting body is not possible. You still come to the theater to see people. Will it be easier to erase touch than to produce a virtual experience to develop it? Well, life is more than the LED screen that detonates hearts and filters subordinated to an audiovisual experience.

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Who are you and how did you start experimenting with art?

Since childhood, I have been deeply involved in the theater and have always had a passion for the arts. As an undergraduate student in filmmaking, I was between my experience on stage and my work behind the camera as a director or producer. I did not want to leave behind any of these disciplines, and it was through this tension I began to discover my unique approach to art. When I got to the performance, the interdisciplinary research for the image, and its materiality, I thought it was an opportunity to ensemble these two passions. I saw it as a place to explore and develop my artistic vision.

How would you define yourself as an artist today?

I believe that my current work is an expression of my immersion in technology through my own body. I aim to deconstruct my face and transform it into something else, to be a pixelated object or a beast, to reflect on the contemporary world and its relationship with images. I see the character trapped in the mirror, a computer monitor, or a cellphone display. I consider myself an intermedial performer; I see my work as a medium that bridges technology and physical dimensions, like an antenna that connects different corporealities.

Bio-camera, Digital photography, 2021 © Juan Sebastian Diaz

And what experience helped you develop into the artist you are nowadays?

When I approached the Magister in Theater and Arts Alive, I felt a sense of failure. It occurred during Covid-19, while Colombia was undergoing one of the largest protests it had ever experienced. The stress of being unable to leave my home, with exaggerated contact with the hyperproduction of images on social media, made me feel like a soldier at war, but with my camera as my weapon. As a videogame, as a body trapped in the mirror. It was at this moment that a transvestite body has been appeared, adorned with audiovisual objects. I had the opportunity to become both a producer and reproducer of images: a camera body and a screen body. It was when I became an organic camera, and it was no longer me who was speaking.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your artistic routine when working?

I reflect on my interaction with technologies and contemplate ways to hack devices while having an intermedial connection with my body as material. I use movement, voice, and touch with sensibility while being cautious. I try to avoid dominating technology, and I need to consider my relationship with my body and materiality as it produces a unique quality in the creative experience. I approach my work as both a technology enthusiast and a physical actor.

Your work blends technologies with performance, with a great focus on the human body. How did you come up with this concept?

As someone who has worked as a camera operator, producer, and director, I always felt like I was outside of the image. I wanted to bring my body into the work, to use my gestures to say more about the context and what was happening. I realized that when a camera operator shoots, they can abstract an image of their body, but no one can recreate the performative aspect of it. To open up a whole new world that I wanted to explore further.
During times of crisis, these experiences made me want to create work that generated dialogue with audiences. I started to see my work as an "operative theater," where I used technology and performance to create a space to ask about the gesture of filming and acting in front of the camera. To be hidden in the darkness of a camera viewfinder.

Waste of fire, Maestria Interdisciplinar en teatro y artes vivas - PH. Natalia Angel, 2022 © Juan Sebastian Diaz

And what messages do you want to convey with your work?

More than a specific message, I aim to explore alternative relationships with technology and open up new ways of engaging in dialogue with it. I want to move away from the catastrophic narratives that often dominate discussions around technology, such as the idea that artificial intelligence will lead us to contemporary Luddism, or that humans will dominate technology for their desire and to have control over them. Instead, I seek to foster a dialogue that brings lighting new possibilities and midpoints, almost as a reconfiguring utopia of the intersection between technology and the human body: techno-corporal words.

How do you differentiate your work from the rest? In other words, what do you feel makes it unique and truly your own?

I'm open to new perspectives. Whenever I encounter something new, it sparks a process of thinking that crosses my body and leads to the configuration of new devices. As a result, my body is constantly undergoing a process of mutation as a techno biologic, which means that my work is changing in appearance. Additionally, my focus on technology and its role in shaping the body and its experiences in the world is a singular approach. Finally, my background in scene body training gives me a unique perspective that informs ways to approach dialogues and the creation of new proposals.

Waste of fire, Maestria Interdisciplinar en teatro y artes vivas - PH. Maria del Mar Castro, 2022 © Juan Sebastian Diaz

How do you promote your work and present it to the public? As you also focus on digital technologies, do you use the Metaverse or other online platforms?

While I consider social media, impact campaigns, and digital dialogue as potential promotions for my work, my focus has been configuring real-life experiences. I value the contact with spectators and the relationship in public, even in non-traditional places, and I use technology as an extension experience, such as through live transmissions. However, I am currently working on incorporating the Metaverse for my next project.

What do you think about the art community and market?

As an artist, I believe in exploring alternative ways of promoting our creations. It's not an isolated task and shouldn't be behind. Each artist has a unique style and approach to showcasing their work. In my case, I find it challenging to fit into a specific category to feel the need and to find a way to present my proposals through visual and performative experiences. I also believe in expanding interdisciplinary dialogues beyond the boundaries of specific disciplines. Artistic searches can transcend the devices we use to express them. For example, what would happen if I proposed a live broadcast as a play or a movie that breaks the two-dimensionality of the screen? While experimenting with new forms of artistic expression is exciting, keeping some approaches may limit your field of action. However, by pushing boundaries and exploring new mediums, artists can break free from traditional constraints and create unique and impactful works that challenge the status quo.

Finally, any projects you are looking forward to for this year?

Until now, I have been interested in the link between the body and the image, but in my next project, I will focus specifically on the role of the actor in the contemporary world: an actor's crisis today. I acknowledge how new media narratives have blurred the figure of the actor, creating a heterogeneous production of performers/influencers in social media. It has caused a profound tension between the body that is being digitalized and the body that appears on stage as a mystical apparition. This project will be a stage proposal, incorporating intermediate and visual elements and combining ancient technology.

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