Sean Peleman – Are You Still Watching?

What is the essence of graphic art for you?

SP: Unlike painting or illustration, where you usually start from nothing to build up an image, most techniques within graphic art involve regression. You work backwards. You start with the absolute and then remove matter, for example by making incisions, or with acids. I also import  that way of working into my passion for collecting. In certain periods, I feel the need to glean. To absorb. Then I go to thrift shops, among other places, looking for stimulating objects, in terms of form and aesthetics. And eventually you reach a point of saturation. My desk can then be full of layers of junk in which I start to dig. They turned out to be a kind of scale models… On the other hand, graphic art is also an impression, a print. Not only on paper, but also on a more psychological or introspective level: the impressions that are left on yourself, or that you leave on others.

Removing material, that also comes close to sculpture.

SP: Indeed. At the academy I also felt the limitation of the flat surface. Eventually, by scratching, I also went through the sheet. For me that was symbolically important too. Because if you then continue – literally and figuratively –, you arrive at sculpture, or performance, or film. The reason why I started studying graphic art is my love for old prints of flyers and magazines about music, theatre and film. I am not so much interested in graphic design, but more in the techniques that provide its tactile, plastic, almost sculptural qualities. The cinematic aspect is also very important to me. I like to view my works as compositions. I am arranging and thus creating a setting, which I want to convey to people in a powerful way. A lot of contemporary art nowadays wants to be easily digestible. I feel an agitation to leave everything open to interpretation by the public. I prefer to plaster everything shut and in that way, of course, I dish up a lot. A point of attention for myself is then precisely not to want to fill everything in myself.

So for you, a work must be more than a mirror in which the viewer reflects his or her own feelings and experiences.

SP: I like to provide something to hold on to. For me, that often involves aesthetic elements or references from broader popular culture. I am also not averse to loud references. Things that clearly come from somewhere. ‘The elephant in the room’ as they say. Something you can’t ignore. That is perhaps more typical of show business or entertainment, which is also where I come from. I am not averse to loudly shout for attention. I like to do research. But then, let’s say, ‘deep research’. For example, if I delve into punk, I don’t just want to adopt the imagery. But also the attitude, the possible shortcomings. Everything comes as a total package.

You won the Hugo Roelandt Prize with your graduation project at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Were you familiar with his work?

SP: Before I received the prize, I didn’t know Hugo Roelandt. Now that I have become acquainted with his work, I understand that one makes the connection. An obvious similarity is the self-portraits. I am not averse to depicting myself in my work. On the covers of my own publications, among other things. Contrary to what some might think, this has nothing to do with narcissism, but rather with a form of self-criticism. I portray myself precisely to raise questions. I also find the same search for identity in Hugo Roelandt’s self-portraits. Someone who tries to situate himself in the world… The exhibition at the M HKA also features a work [Post Performance Project 3] in which the artist is sitting at a desk in a suit, with large roller shutters behind it. The armchair, the coat rack, they look exactly like the setting I made for my graduation project. Almost creepy…

Roelandt and you both seem to me to be artists who like to break out of their medium.  Is that correct?

SP: Yes, I have the feeling that there is a lot of doubt in Hugo Roelandt’s practice. And that his priorities shift throughout his oeuvre. These are also things that I have to deal with. I find it difficult to label myself as one or the other. You find that same duality in Roelandt.

In the context of the Hugo Roelandt Prize, the M HKA invited you to make a presentation for INBOX. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

SP: The title is Are You Still Watching? I see it as a performative installation that also involves a lot of video work. There will be a live performance during the preview and at the finissage. I create a setting once more. Because of the museum context and the weight of the empty space, I feel less of a need to close everything up. Such a minimal set-up is a challenge for me. In essence, it is a living room with a television set on which five channels are played. All small video productions that I have directed and acted in with a group of friends. Zapping is something very unconscious. You don’t know what you’re looking for. There is never a certain logic or tempo. Because you wait and react to impulses. By pre-programming that process, an interesting interplay between intuitive and hyper-controlled arises. By the way, these are programmes tailored to flies, because the character watching television is also a fly…

Why flies?

SP: I was talking about loud references. Well, this ‘human fly’ is one of them. A ‘sci-fi celebrity’, a pure pulp icon. You can’t ignore them and you can hardly see them as anything else than a deafening reference to pop culture. I also have a great affinity with horror films. The first horror film I saw was Return of the Fly [1959] with Vincent Price. In a strange way, I immediately felt at home in this film. There is a term for that: anemoia, nostalgia for a time that you yourself did not experience. For a setting or installation, I like to work with material from the past: electronics, old junk and kitsch. That material is charged, full of life, active, almost radioactive. Very poetic in that way. I also like recognisability. You can recognise the silhouette of an old telephone from a hundred metres away. There is something caricatural about it, something naïve.

In relation to your work, it is perhaps more interesting to talk about silhouettes than references. With a reference, people will always ask: to what? While a silhouette can only refer to itself.

SP: Indeed. The first thing you will see when you enter INBOX is the silhouette of a sofa. A silhouette plays with a more personal recognition. It is recognisable on its own terms. The installation is a kind of snapshot of silhouettes that I have been able to grab and rearrange. From visual culture, cinema, advertising and the media – in all their disgust and glory. But I do not make pop art. It is not a protest against consumption. I do not want to point fingers. I am just as much of a villain myself.

Can we also approach your installation from the notion of ‘ambiguity’?

SP: Certainly. In a time when everything has to be unambiguous. I also go back to surrealism. It seems people are a bit averse to that these days. It might be too heavy or it might quickly veer towards kitsch… The television programmes that are played in the installation, for example, look recognisable and understandable at first sight. But due to the absence of any form of storyline, they tend more towards the absurd. For me, the challenge is to show something that looks like a fragment of a dream.

The ‘human fly’ is activated on the first and last day of the INBOX presentation? What is the importance of performance in your work?

SP: I have a great love for everything that has to do with performance. I like to perform myself. And I like to encourage others to perform. For this project, I made the choice not to participate in the performance myself. There doesn’t have to be someone present every day. Because a performance can also work retrospectively, or in the near future. The installation works as a kind of performative platform. I approach it more as a set with props than as a sculpture. That’s more open. And offers more possibilities, both for the maker and for the viewer.

Are You Still Watching? The title immediately is a question.

SP: It is something that could pop up when you’re watching, say, Netflix for (too) long. It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Because it is never asked when you are paying attention. The question precisely addresses disinterest and the superficial glance. And here the question is already asked before you have even had a chance to look. How do we look? What do we look at? And what have we really seen, then?