LMDid you choose the Vietnam War as an intentional social or political comment?
DLI was interested in using information relevant to everyone but not connected with art. I did not make a statement about the Vietnam War but about the way people receive information. The Venice Biennial coincided with what was probably the most critical time in the Vietnam War.
In 1967, I had won a scholarship to go to England, so after the Biennial, I went to St. Martin’s School of Art. I was very disappointed to find out that Jan Dibbets, Richard Long and Gilbert & George had been studying there the year before I arrived.
LMDid your move to England impose changes on your work?
DLOf course a move like that does change your work, but it is in terms of a different development rather than changing the basis from which you work. I was aware of what was happening in Europe and was already working with that knowledge. I had always considered London the ideal place for me to work because of what I knew about the artists working there. It was not because of the work of an individual or even a group. It had more to do with the diversity of what was taking place, the sense of freedom. For the exhibition Prospect in Dusseldorf, in 1968, I made an analysis of the elements by which information takes place [Analysis of the Elements by which the Massive Consumption of Information Takes Place]. For this work I taped the radio in London for six hours and then divided the material into three tapes of different length: firstly, News and Information; secondly, Publicity; and thirdly, Music. Next to the tapes was a table with the newspapers and magazines published in Dusseldorf during the course of Prospect.
LMDid the tapes provide a structure of information that could then be applied to the information on the exhibition?
DLThere was also a four-minute filmloop showing a close-up of someone opening a carton of milk and pouring it into a glass. The film represented an activity. People could consider spoken information, written information and visual information. The second piece I made in London was a film called Study of the Relationships between Inner and Outer Space for the Camden Arts Centre in 1968. It was also shown at the Konzeption-Conception exhibition in Leverkusen [1969].
LMWhat was the background to this piece?
DLAfter the Office of Information about the Vietnam War, I became interested in social context. I had not made any work for about five or six months. I had planned some pieces, but they were never made. This work consisted of a film and a book of stills from the film. The film analyzed the ‘inner space’ of where it was shown, the Camden Arts Centre, and the ‘outer space’ of the whole of London, showing the means by which people traveled to the Centre.
LMThe activities of people become more specific and increasingly more important in this and your later films. Why did you ask in the later part of this film about the Moon Landing?
DLThe last part of the film was about how information gets through to people, and the Moon Landing happened to be the most important piece of information in the press at the time. But the piece was about London, about the city and its people.
LMYou presented the visitors with a work which asked them to analyze their visit to the Camden Arts Centre, how they received information about the exhibition and how they traveled to it. Then they were asked to consider what effect this had on what they saw at the Centre. How did the piece differ when it was shown in another context?
DLIt became absolutely another piece. In Leverkusen it was documentation rather than the actual work.
LMWhat did you make for Prospect in 1969?
DLA film called Time as Activity. It was also shown at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp. I filmed three places in Dusseldorf – the Kunsthalle, a fountain on a main street, and a cross-roads – for four minutes each from a static position. I was consciously working with time in this piece. The concept was the structure, or deconstruction, of time in Dusseldorf, where the film was made and also shown. We very seldom stand still for four minutes to observe what is happening around us. This work also explores the difference between the real place and watching that place on film in a museum. You compare what you see in the film with your previous knowledge and experience of that place. Viewers always talk about the car breaking down or the way the swans move, neither of which I had any control over when I made the film. The play is between the time it takes to see the piece and the time of each of the sections. It is not about the images, but about getting the viewers to understand the nature of the time they spend watching the piece and the difference in time according to what the images are. Film was just the medium I chose for conveying this.
LMYour works all seem to reflect your concern with providing people with structure rather than information. They are not intended to increase the viewer’s knowledge, but to provide them with a way of looking at their own activities, for self-analysis.
DLWhat is important is that there are no barriers between the viewers’ understanding and what is happening on the screen. It should be obvious and something they are familiar with. The viewer should be able not only to understand the ideas in the film but also to be able to link the film to his own activity of watching it. What happens in the film is a comment on the situation of the person looking at it.
When it was shown at the Wide White Space Gallery, I added three large color photographs of Antwerp and three of Brussels. My next work was a Super-8 film [Gente di Milano (People from Milan)]. The movie camera was fixed in a central point in Milan for four minutes, the actual length of the film. A photograph was also taken of each person who walked in front of the movie camera. 11 photographs of 11 people.
LMThese three pieces, which were all made within two months, help us to see the development in your work over a short space of time.
DLMy following film, called ‘Interview’ with Marguerite Duras was made in Paris. The interview was conducted by Raúl Escari, whom I had instructed to ask specific questions. While the interview was taking place, I photographed her as she was dealing with particularly significant points. In the exhibition, I showed the filmed interview plus taped phrases and ten photographs to emphasize the important moments in the dialogue.
LMWhat did Marguerite Duras talk about?
DLShe spoke mostly about her writing. I thought that she was quite an interesting person to use for an interview as she personified the idea of Parisian culture at that time.
LMThe film brings out her thought structure. You filmed a person who represented a way of thinking that was expressive of a city.
You presented the viewer with the theories they would be taking with them to your exhibition?
DLOriginally I had considered having three interviews with different people. To have one with Roland Barthes was also a possibility, but I was worried about the film becoming didactic.
The next work I made was a book, Publication.
LMLanguage as art is only the subject of the book. In your pieces it is the structure not the subject that is the work. It is not just three questions; there is a syllogistic form. You made a book as an exhibition. You asked people working with language as art three questions about language as art. Their responses are changed by the context in which you collected them, which is your artwork. So your use of other people to make your work is more central to this work than the question of language as an artwork.
DLYes, exactly. But actually few people have been able to understand it that way.
LMPublication doesn’t make any distinction between the writing of critics and the writing of artists. Victor Burgin’s piece is an artwork, but Barbara Reise and Michel Claura write as critics. Artists have adopted recent forms of criticism and influenced its development through their work. Publication produced a transition in your use of language. In your subsequent film, language and action have an equal role, while more recent films have been made without language, just with visual information.
DLPersonally, it was very healthy for me to do Publication. I subsequently took a