Marco Malattia and his production company VanslaFurka
Videomalattie should be known to fans of hard and obscure underground
pornography worldwide. His films are artistic, brutal and bare to the
bone real. After the review of the astonishing NO VASELINE, his
latest output, Marco talked to me about his opinions on sex and
violence, past and future productions, and his motifs. It is with
pride that I present this extensive and interesting interview.
TM: Greetings, Marco! First of all, thanks for doing
the interview. For those who don’t already know, who are you and
what do you do?
MM: Thank you for the space you dedicate to me. I am a
photographer-filmmaker involved in a series of projects and
activities including V.L.F. Laboratories, the subject of this
interview.
With this project I explore the limits of pornography,
experimenting with its coordinates both in terms of content and
language.
This approach disrespectful of fees makes V.L.F.
Laboratories a unique project in the genre.
TM: How did you come up with the name „Vans la
Furka Videomalattie“ and what does it mean? MM: Vanslafurka is
a distorted expression from the Italian language, which means 'go to
the gallows', a way to say 'fuck you all'.
Over time the acronym V.L.F. has acquired meanings in
line with my personal development. 'videomalattie' instead recalls
the concept of disease as a deviation from an optimal situation, an
injection of entropy in the inherent order of creation that I reflect
in my visual expression. VanslaFurka Videomalattie is this in the
last analysis: arrogance, subversion, gnosis and self-gratification.
TM: I hear you are currently working on a new project.
What can be said about it?
MM: I'm constantly working on something new for V.L.F.
and my other projects. For now there is not much to say, I am
gathering material made with both my stable performer and with new
girls. The results are good for now, I'm working on the development
of new contents and different forms of montage in direct line with
the syncopated edit system that has always been one of the V.L.F.
signatures.
TM: In what way will it differ from „No Vaseline“?
Are you following the path you started with „No Vaseline“ or will
you maybe be trying out something radically new?
MM: Each realization of V.L.F. Laboratories closes a
cycle of experiments to open another one. 'No Vaseline' differs from
its predecessors as much as from the products that will follow. The
differences can be found both in content and in form, VLF is
permanently evolving. From the earliest experiments in 2007 to
complete contextualization of V.L.F. In 2010, the attitude of these
laboratories can be found in research and sperimentation.
This fact distinguishes VLF from other more or less
similar proposal: to settle V.L.F. on a tested scheme would be the
death of the project.
TM: When did you first start to act in porn films? What
was it like in the beginning?
MM: The beginning of V.L.F. was not so spectacular.
Years ago it took me some useless afternoons to reassemble randomly
some private videos made with a girl. Nothing to do with the material
produced later but I immediately realized the potential of the thing.
Once I worked out a modus operandi and eliminated all
amateurish elements, V.L.F. was born.
TM: How can one imagine a typical day of shooting for
one of your productions? Is a lot preparation required? Would say
that the shoots can be stressful, or is it just fun all the way?
MM: There isn't a defined modus operandi. It all
depends on the understanding between me and the performers. Certain
shots do not require much preparation, and stress, like any other
negative factor, is absolutely avoided. To obtain a product worthy of
the V.L.F. brand, beyond the ultimate result, it is important that
all the participants have gained a positive experience.
TM: You seem to have a bunch of regular actresses that
can be seen in many of your productions. How did you meet them and
what is their appeal, in your opinion?
MM: My labs are always available and open to new
performers (the word 'performers' is more appropriate than
'actresses' since we do not interpret a role, but we act a
performance) who share my attitude, but paradoxically we do not look
for new girls, girls look for VLF, clearly to express an aspect of
their sexuality that are unlikely to fully live elsewhere.
None of these girls is a professional actress, I have
always avoided mercenaries because I demand that the collaboration is
two-way, I do not want people who do what they do for money but to
express something through the means that I put at their disposal.
Till now quite a few girls have worked with me: the
best in terms of attitude have remained and they donate something
personal to the project, the other flow and reflow in the nothing
they represent.
TM: You have been around for quite some time and have
released plenty of films. How has your work evolved, since the early
days? Are you still pleased with the quality of your older
productions?
MM: I'm devoted to every single frame I shot; the only
things that have changed from the beginning are instrumentation,
expertise and performers. The basic motor has remained the same since
the beginning. Everything, from the early short films, is a picture
of what I was at a particular time, as a kind of diary of images.
Everything is functional to a unifying discourse, that is the aim of
V.L.F.: the singularity.
TM: „Adoration of Decline“ was a collaboration with
the noise project rXaXpXe. How did you two get in touch and in what
way does it differ from your regular works?
MM: We came in contact because of the mutual respect
and regard to our work; 'Adoration of decline' comes from an artistic
and personal understanding and it represents an episode of my life
that I care for a lot. I think it isn't different from my work, it is
simply an extra-V.L.F. work, so it doesn't have the coordinates of
all products on behalf of V.L.F.. I consider it an interesting and
well done experiment: music and images blend perfectly and create a
truly transcendent atmosphere. Thanks to Cosmic swamp rec, this video
has been celebrated with a DVD of which I am extremely proud.
TM: Masks seem to play a vital role in your works. Do
you simply use them to stay anonymous, or are you also out to create
atmosphere or maybe even convey a deeper meaning?
MM: One of the fundamental coordinates of V.L.F. is the
depersonalization of the project participants, rather than anonymity.
The moment one is involved in filming, she loses her identity and is
relegated to the status of the Logos. I'm not interested in the
element of personality, it doesn't make the kind of mechanics that
are explored in my work richer. The ideal form for the situations
that I intend to document goes beyond the concepts of 'I', the masks
are tools that historically perform this task in an exemplary manner:
hiding the characteristic features of a person, masks exile him from
the lower human sphere and it leads him to a higher level. This
higher level is the surface where V.L.F. works.
TM: You often include (non-sexual) images of animals.
What do you want to convey by using them?
MM: V.L.F. works with flesh: flesh is its principal
element and field of exploration. Times ago, I used dead animals
images among alive humans images: I can't see differences between
these two things. It was simply an experiment that I liked to do at
that time.
TM: On your website, your works are described with the
term „Kali Yuga Entertainment“. Do you attach philosophical ideas
to your work in the porno genre, or would that be an
over-interpretation?
MM: We're living in Kali-yuga era, even if I don't care
a lot of past orthodoxies and traditions. In its more etherodoxic
interpretetion, this fact involves a modus in observation and
reinterpretation of reality and in the role that carnality assumes in
the existential sphere.
V.L.F. is the product of a series of considerations
based on this approach applied to the mechanics of physical
interaction.
TM: A lot of satanic imagery and hints at Satanism can
be found in your work. Is this only an aesthetic choice, or does it
have any deeper meaning? What does Satanism mean to you?
MM: Actually, there are many references to a draconian
gnosticism that many can accidentally confused with traditional
Satanism. a part of my work has been unified with some aspects of the
personal consideration of the world perceived. The higher spectra of
contemporary Satanism partially join the philosophical implications
of VLF, while the lower popular theories, such as Thelema, are
proudly exiled. We are 309.
TM: Your works also have a very artistic side. How
important is it to you and could you imagine doing regular,
non-artistic porn?
MM: The aesthetic of my video is the result of applying
my background to a creation really independent at all levels. I
haven't yet figured out what the concept of 'art' means, I presume it
is one of the many terms that have no real application. Common porn
is the pathological repetition of the usual 4 or 5 situations, I do
not care to work on stasis at all. I find stimulations in my own work
for the freedom of content and form that it allows me. The debate on
'pornography is art' or not is stupid as any other debate, everyone
sees their own stuff in a personal way, depending on one's culture
and possibilities. Unfortunately the latter are usually very small.
I don't make a distinction between anything, at least I
try to: the results create differences, beyond the intentions.
TM: Virtually all of the intercourse that is presented
in the VLF works is fetishistic in some way. Are these your personal
fetishes? Are „extreme“ sexual acts obligatory for a VLF feature?
MM: Nothing is obligatory, even if the fields in which
I work have inevitably to do with corporeality. Many photos and some
videos do not contain sexual mechanics of any kind. I do not impose
anything and preclude nothing, permitting also the performer to have
a role in the final choice of work.
V.L.F. is not a production company aimed to the sale,
and so we have total freedom of expression: inserting the obligatory
element in the context of VLF would be counterproductive for that VLF
is proposed to do. Everything in sex is fetishistic, in a broad
sense. When this activity is celebrated in video or photographs the
thing is even more evident. Everything that you see in my work rises
from my idea filtered by the attitude of the performer in question.
TM: What do you think of the mixture between sex and
violence? Some of your new videoclips feature pretty severe scenes of
cutting. Will this maybe play a bigger role in the future?
MM: Aside from the reproductive function, well done sex
is sublimated violence, violence that, according to the situation,
takes on a more or less dramatic aspect. I do not know what role or
development will have the action elements in my videos, everything is
fluid and constantly settling. Blood is an element that randomly has
united all the productions in video from a year or so, in the forms
of menstruation, trauma, cutting. The women have a deep and engaging
relationship with blood, and it would be limiting to not elaborate
this aspect.
TM: You create your own soundtracks under the moniker
of „zerogravitytoilet“. Can you tell us about this project and
maybe the other noise projects you were involved in?
MM: ZGT was born nearly a decade ago as a side project
to an harsh-noise one. I don't have any expectations about my musical
projects, which are considered more a divertissement than anything
else. the creation of the original Soundtrack for my work enters an
argument of solipsistic autarky and has a sense, while the existence
of projects that add nothing to a genre of music is pure
self-delusion. Many 'musicians' should do the work of self-analysis
before proposing the usual hackneyed stuff with useless results.
TM: Noise and pornography often go hand in hand. Why
are so many noise fans into porn and vice versa? How do the two match
up?
MM: Noise is made, omitting the names that created the
genre, from chronic masturbators who create the same things for years
with always the same results for the sole purpose to give themselves
a voice in front of other disadvantaged. I became interested in this
genre in the early 90s playing for 2 decades in various projects and
since then I've only seen the usual shit done and redone in the same
way. This masturbatory illness makes them easy prey to pornography:
these people don't care of an evolution but only a stasis in which to
create their own safe little world. It is no coincidence that the
most captivating aspects of this genre are the graphics and
aesthetics. This is the point in common with the common porn: an
empty form without content.
TM: Do you have any commercial aims with VLF? Is it
even possible to make real money doing what you do?
MM: Inevitably V.L.F. is completely outside of any
market logic. Commercial pornography survives because it is a great
support to the onanistic activities of the user. Of course VLF is not
suitable for masturbation: being outside of expectations does not pay
in this world.
TM: How important is packaging to you? I remember some
of your old photosets coming in pretty luxurious DiY packaging. Will
there be more of this, or are you focussing more on „regular“ DVD
releases?
MM: You're referring to Govnoed revue, an initiative
that is currently in a dead period due to the lack of truly original
ideas. This publication was based on a distortion of the concept of
seriality of the publications of its kind and was playing on the
transformation of the package. 5 numbers have been published and, at
least at the level of ideas, I'm working on the next.
Two dvds have come out, the first 'LIBER CXI' is an
'anthology of short films whose layout has been taken lightly at the
time, while the new' No Vaseline 'was more polished in every aspect,
professional printing and canonical but tidy packaging.
Packaging really matters, especially to enhance a
product that is professional in all its aspects.
TM: Have you ever had problems with censorship because
of your works?
MM: Yes, in many ways. Video-hosting sites have deleted
my videos several times, because they are so distant from cautious
household pornography, and the master of 'No vaseline' has been
rejected by some companies for professional duplication on dvd.
This slow but continuous boycott of my work by
costitutionalized reality is the sign that I'm making things the
right way.
TM: What do you think of modern pornography? What does
it have in common with VLF and where does it differ?
MM: Pornography (apart from a few rare cases) is the
repetition of a scheme functional to a physical use of the genre,
while it is my pride just doing what I please, regardless how it can
be perceived by an audience more or less paying . This is the main
difference.
The points in common (to a eye careless for the
subtleties) can be the topics discussed, but only in a superficial
way: VLF has varied interpretations and uses, it is like a mirror,
everyone sees what it is. In fact, I notice with pride that most of
the following of VLF are women, which is known to have a more layered
view of sex.
TM: Are there any porn films, directors or actors that
have been an inspiration to you?
MM: I would say no, I really appreciate the work of
some 90s directors as Thomas Zupko and Rob Black for example. To the
present day, the dissemination of this material on the Internet has
virtually made it possible for anyone to be able to indulge but
unfortunately it did not happen. Certain no-budget material from
South American south is still very interesting.
TM: What kind of literature, music and films do you
enjoy?
MM: I'm an omnivorous devourer of
music-film-literature, despite not having a favorite genre. making an
exhaustive list would be useless and out of place. I realize that I
appreciate those works of which I can sense the sincerity upstream:
with age I've become able to appreciate the concept more than the
form.
TM: That’s all. Thanks again. Any last words,
comments, greetings etc.?
MM: The only people I want to thank are my more
faithful performers: without them my work would be inevitably
different.
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