Q. What can you tell us about your academic background concerning art? Did you study art formally? Tell us about your art studies in general-- any influential instructors?
VG: I discovered myself as an artist and it has became my main focus in life when I was 8 and at this time I produced my first oil painting... Then of course, I followed my studies both in scientist university and art University.
Regarding my academic art background, I sutided 4 years Art History and then I finished in Beaux Arts de Paris where I got my master of hypermedia art. At this time my most influential instructor was a canadian artist called Tony Brown
Q. Tell us about yourself. At what point did you gain an interest in creating visual art?
Since I was very young, the farest my memory can jump in the past was when I was 3.... I always focus about visual, it was my door to understand my environment... My parent were thinking that may be I was autist when I was children because I was staying sometimes hours just focusing something by not moving or saying anything: What they didn't know that I was contemplating a light game, or the moving of shadows on an object and the environment changes regarding the light changes...
I was able to formalize these kind of feelings when I was 8 by painting and I am still painting. But I have to say that in my Last video project like the 24H00 surround shot in North pole broadcasted on Souvenirs of Earth TV on last April 12 2009, I was re-activated these kind of feeling...
Q. Can you tell us about your art? Give us some insight into the thoughts behind your art.
VG: I can say that mainly my art is focusing on time concept as I am defining 'time ready made'...
The time is the main reference of our life, it's defining our past, present and future, our memories and so on so on...
Our world has been globalzed and hypertechnologized and the relation in between time and our existence is now filtered by the global network and our hypermedia world which is defining a global 24H00 present moving from seconds to seconds. This is what I am calling cybertime...
When you are surfing on the web you're bringing screen from the past (if they are coming from the west, or from the future if they are coming from the east. In Fact this is the different temporailities for one present (the 24 Meridians)... And this is defining a global 24H00 present...
Regarding my art, I am dealing with these concepts:
For example to paint with oil on canvas Google screen it's a way to challenge the global speed of internet with the painting history and temporality and the result is a kind of an "alien" an hybrid "artwork"...
"Google koons" oil on canvas 116 cm x 89 cm 2008
By the way I am also producing figurative painting, but they are compilating and mixing our global signs issued from our recent art history and present signs we can find in any kind of media...
"Burberry painting" 90 x 116 cm 2006
Or when I am producing a 24h00 video by scanning the horizon by following the sun, I am producing a kind of time and space ready made that I can plug somewhere else, by synchronizing the video temporality with the exhbition space temporaliry:
The video started to be shot on 00h00, it will start in the exhbition at 00H00...
"Geopol": The robot scanning during 24h00 North Pole horizon
Other Paintings series are trying to define what is nature today. I am capturing by video a time and pace somewhere, them I am painting the places captured to document throught the painting media the video....
"Dioxine in Lowenbreene" Oil on canvas 110 x 81 cm 2007
And it is very interesting to see how media are hybridating and challenging each others...
Today our main challenge as an artist is to define a new kind of art ecology in our global world. How to live in this world, and not how to describe it like 100 years ago..
Q. Can you discuss your process in general? Are there any specific techniques that you utilize?
VG: It depends of the media I am using to produce my art piece. It's very different from Digital artwork to paintings...
I guess that regarding my painting practice, only my subject is new, but I am deeply classical by the way I am Painting. But the subject I am painting are not...
Regarding my internet painting, my process is very simple: I am selecting the most well know internet screen which are defining a new kind of iconology in our present world. Google is really the most iconic and well known of all of them. And what is funny, Google has started to mix their logo with modern art masterpieces... By painting them something very post-modernist is happening...
Or sometimes I can see that signs brought by past modernist masterpieces, if they are mixed in between them they can define a new hybrid artwork with its own meaning... I Like very much to mix and mutate them..
For example "Concetto nazionale" Liquitex on canvas, 130 cm x 97 cm. 2007:
Regarding for example my video installation: Before producing them I am making scientific research about the place I choosed to capture: History of this place, Political history, social history so on so on...
And I am trying always to go to our world limit border: like North Pole, Deep Amazon on the Equator line where finally we can find: Hyper occident in North Pole, and Out of Occident in Amazon
Q. What about other influences? For example, are you influenced by any specific artists?
VG: I have to say that I am influented by many artists such like Michael Snow, Jasper Jhons, Warhol, mainly from 60's, 70's artists...
Q. So what is the specific message you strive to convey to viewers? Do you adhere to a specific philosophy as far as your work is concerned?
VG: I guess that the main focus of an art production is not to produce a specific message, but to open new door and windows to our environment which is evoloving with our civilizations
May be we can say that I am talking about How to live in our world, and not to describe it, or to define a new kind of art ecology, all of that may be like this because I am a buddhist... I don't know... May be that's why I am mainly focusing on phenomenology... than topology...
Q. What are you working on at this time? Can you give our readers some insight into your current work?
VG: My main project at this time is to produce a global video capture of our world as I did in North Pole. I want to produce a video installation which is displaying our 24H00 present "Geopolis"...
TQ. What are your thoughts concerning the internet and utilizing the World Wide Web in order to gain exposure for your art? In your opinion, why is it important for artists to embrace the internet?
VG: In my case yes, just Because as an international artist I was born through internet by producing internet art on 1994 and being shown at Documenta X Kassel on 1997....
In my case Internet is a way to mediatize my studio and to define a kind of social ecology around my art
Q. Will you be involved with any upcoming exhibits?
VG: Now I am including in the "Splashback" collective show by Rhizome at New Museum in New York.
I am also included in a collective show in south of France called "Version 01.Beta" with Cory Arcangel, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huygues, Daniel Firman, Bruno Peinado, Damien Aspe, Djamel Kokene, Serge Comte, Claude CLosky...
Q. Do you have any concerns about the art world at this time?
VG: I am very curious to see how the art market will evolve in this huge depresssion Time. May be it's time to find a new energy to write new pages of our Art world
Q. There has been several stories involving copyright infringement in the mainstream press as of late. What is your stance on copyright? Do you see strong copyright as a reflection of artist rights in general? Or do you feel that copyright restricts creativity? Do you have a stance on this issue?
VG: I guess that we cannot do anything, the main point is to be honest by quoting your references, copyright is a way to feed the artists and to maintain this ethics and honesty
Q. As you know, the economy has been hard. Have you had to change-- or should I say adapt-- your practice due to the economy?
VG: I guess yes, If I am not selling my art, how can I produce it ? the equation is very simple. We need to raise money to go forward. For sure If I not getting back my investment the form of my art would evolve to be much more conceptual I guess...
Q. Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art?
I would say that to be artist is a human being. We are not becoming artist. We are artist born or not...
This is not a social position. Artist may be Chess masters like Duchamp, Engineer like Da Vinci, or architect like Corbusier...
They may be any kind of social identity, that's why being artist is a human state and being...
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