Agustina Lamborizio
Photographer and voyeur
Córdoba, Argentina
How would you describe yourself in two sentences?
I like to describe myself as a bastard artist, because I have never formally studied photography or felt part of art circles, I was always very self- taught and on my own.
What frustrates you?
Many things, how elitist and classist the art circle can be in many ways and how hard it its to enter this circles, the phonies, when it takes a long time to close an idea and especially frustrates me this modern urgency or pressure to produce ALL THE TIME, and i think this is due to social networks and the internet (that came to change everything), it generated a tendency to have to upload post every day to be able to appear in the algorithms, the information is consumed so fast that there is more material than one can remember o pay attention to, the content becomes ephemeral and the one that manages to capture your attention in those few seconds thank you look at a post is the winner. It almost feels like an obligation, if you don't publish you don't exist, and it puts you in a position where one must choose between showing something that is not finished as one would like or starting to lose visualization and exposure. This influences and conditions the artistic process.
Before, in older times, a great piece of work took years to be finished.
In my opinion, the love (or obsession) for immediacy/ novelty is going to kill us.
I prefer someone to get angry than to only say that what I do is nice but there is nothing deeper happening.
What is your position on this current of postmodern overproduction and anxiety?
You have to rescue something of this i think, the idea of constantly producing is not so bad, because that also makes you grow as an artist, practice, what you should not do is produce with the mere purpose of post it on instagram, because perhaps you created something that's OK, but the piece next to that one can be amazing and you will miss it.
My advice is that: produce a LOT and in quantity, but not for the networks or for someone else, do it for yourself.
Why photograph?
I photograph to stay here, to remember. To understand, both to what I observe and to myself. I photograph because it allows me to feel like a spy, an unwanted guest at the table, a voyeur. And above all it gives me room to fantasize and create as many characters and narratives as I want. I photograph because it allows me to create hybrids with other disciplines or techniques, and in this way constantly encounter new processes and learning, as well as meeting new people who share those same interests.
What inspires you?
I do not want to fall into the cliché of saying that I am inspired by everything around me, because in reality it is not like that, but there are certain constant stimuli in my life from which I get ideas or references when I need them. For example, I watch a movie every day (if I can) because #cinephile, I enjoy all genres but old or black and white movies, comedies, documentaries, as well as horror movies really attract my attention. Advertising and marketing from the 20s-60s are another great source of inspiration alongside vintage magazines for fashion or glamor photography (Playboy, penthouse), comics, grungy realism / horror literature, and art movements such as pop art and its references, without which perhaps I would have a totally different style from the one I have today.
I believe that by externalizing the issues that concern us you are inviting others to question them with you, and that seems beautiful to me
Do you use photography to participate in a conversation, debate, or take a position?
I do not believe that i am directly or consciously doing it , I am not a militant or an activist, but in a certain way everything we do is a political statement so my answer would be yes. Through my work I seek to express certain things and question many others.
The theme of sexuality, eroticism, glamor, gender and the histrionics of life is very present that without realizing it I was appropriating it, perhaps in a certain way to show something that I also repressed myself. I believe that by externalizing the issues that concern us you are inviting others to question them with you, and that seems beautiful to me, when art can produce changes at the level of thoughts / values / beliefs in other people it is mobilizing.
What do you want to cause in the viewer?
Whatever it is, I'm happy to cause something. Obviously there are certain reactions that I like morethers, but for example I find it much more admirable for someone to get angry or offended by a piece of art, since if they react like this it is because something they are seeing or experiencing makes them question themselves and their beliefs / habits / ways of thinking, and that, that process of questioning and rethinking what is known is the foot for many other things, so in that sense, I prefer someone to get angry than to only say that what I do is nice but there is nothing deeper happening.
IG: @burningdiva_
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