kagablog

Aryan Kaganof is a master at transgressive filmmaking, writing, and art in general. A true innovator, Aryan shot the first ever Mini DV film to be blown up to 35mm and he is currently finishing touches on the first full length feature film shot entirely on cell phone cameras, SMS SUGAR MAN.

Over the past decade Aryan has made countless films, written no less than three books, had many performances and exhibitions, and is showing no sign of slowing down.

royce icon: You’ve done so much work that I really don’t know where to begin. I guess first we should focus a bit on your film work. How is SMS SUGAR MAN coming along, and what inspired you to create a film shot entirely on cell phone cameras? Also, what other projects are you currently working on?

aryan kaganof: SMS SUGAR MAN is almost complete. Composer Michael Blake delivered the music score two weeks ago and it is now in place. The blow up to 35mm will take place as soon as we have mixed the sound. The inspiration came out of the technology itself. Basically it is now possible to do this process, from cell phone to 35mm movie. And therefore I decided to do it. In a sense I was merely a conduit in a process of technological inevitability.

german poster for wasted!, the first film
shot on dv tape and blown up to 35mm;
directed by aryan kaganof in 1996

royce icon: You’re credited as being the first person to ever make a 35mm film on miniDV tape. What drew you to DV, and how do you feel knowing that a whole new generation of filmmakers have embraced this technology? Do you think DV is superior to film?

aryan kaganof: When I got the Sony VX1000 in my hands the first time I felt like The Mighty Thor with his hammer. Very powerful. I knew the second I looked through the viewfinder that this machine was going to change cinema history. I wanted to be a part of that transformation process. I know that many young film makers got inspired by watching my feature WASTED! (Naar de klote!) which was the first feature film shot on dv tape and blown up to 35mm. I am always really honoured when I hear from someone that that film inspired them. There is certainly a lot of freedom in terms of camera angles and movement in that film. But I don’t like to compare video to film or the cell phone images to film, I like to work in a medium specific way, that is to say, to extract from each medium what is particular, unique and marvellous about it and highlight those aspects.

royce icon: Most all of your films, and your art in general, seem to be rather subversive. What drew you into taboo territory? Have you always had proclivities that leaned towards the fringe, or was it triggered by something or someone?

aryan kaganof: I guess growing up in South Africa in the sixties and seventies which was an extremely conservative environment with rigorous government censorship of all media my curiosity was piqued by the notion of all the media that I wasn’t being exposed to, that I wasn’t allowed to see. So in this way the link between taboos and repression, between transgressing taboos and liberating one’s own mind, was pretty much mapped out for me.

royce icon: How much time do you normally take to shoot your films?

aryan kaganof: That really depends on the shoot. I made a 37 minute long fiction film called A FUNERAL that took five years to shoot and complete. SMS SUGAR MAN was shot in 12 days but the post production has been gong on for about eight months now.

royce icon: What is your normal budget for a film?

aryan kaganof: Most of the budget on any film goes into my salary. I try to spend as little money as possible on the films per se.

royce icon: What type of camera(s) do you use when you shoot, and what kind of editing software do you use?

aryan kaganof: I used the Sony VX1000 for many years. I’m less excited by other cameras that don’t have its superb design. I edit on Final Cut Pro.

royce icon: You started making films around the same time as many of the Dogme 95 filmmakers. What do you think of the general Dogme 95 aesthetic? Do you consider yourself aligned with that aesthetic? If not, why?

aryan kaganof: For me dogma of any sort is exactly what I try to avoid.

royce icon: You’ve made a lot of short films as well as features. Do you prefer one medium to the other, or do you feel that they are equal?

aryan kaganof: Like I said earlier when discussing mediums, I try to work in a medium specific way, which is to say, exploring in a short film what is special and unique about the short film; and finding out in a long feature, what it is that can only be expressed in the medium of the feature film, trying to discover its unique possibilities as a medium.

royce icon: Of all of your films, which do you think is your favorite? Which was the hardest to create?

aryan kaganof: Gee, this is a very difficult question. Generally the film I am working on at the moment is the one I love the most (or hate the most). I never watch the films so I don’t really know much about them. I just make them.

royce icon: Do you have any advice for beginning filmmakers, and artists in general?

aryan kaganof: Don’t ever take advice from old farts who think they know something. Always trust your own instincts.

royce icon: Tell us a bit about your newest book, JOU MA SE POEMS. What can the reader expect to find in this collection of poems?

aryan kaganof: These poems are all wonderful and filled with incredible insights into the very nature of being. They will also give ugly young men with pimples the most unbeatable possibilities of getting into the panties of those nubile teenage girls who normally only let much older men fuck them. If the pimply young men learn these poems off by heart and pretend they wrote them, they will SCORE SCORE SCORE!

royce icon: Tell us a bit about the African Noise Foundation. Is there a specific meaning behind the foundation, a message that you are trying to communicate?

aryan kaganof: WE PROMISE NOTHING. WE BRING THE NOISE!

royce icon: Considering your involvement in the above stated organization and your work with Merzbow and other experimental musicians, I’m assuming that you have an interest in noise and experimental music. Who are some of your favorite experimental groups and projects? Are you at all interested in early “industrial” music groups like Throbbing Gristle, S.P.K., Nurse With Wound, Cabaret Voltaire, etc.?

aryan kaganof: I always loved the music of WHITEHOUSE above all other. Their attitude was (is) without peer. I also loved NON and ZERO KAMA. These days I don’t listen to much music at all. Too busy making my own films. But I recently heard a great song by a group called RELAXED MUSCLE. The song is called BATTERED and it’s the best song I’ve heard for twenty years. Killer. Absolutely killer!

royce icon: What is the ABRAXAS YOUNITY MOVEMENT? It it at all affiliated with Boyd Rice’s Abraxas Foundation? The principles expressed for the movement on your website seem to be highly individualistic, and they somewhat bring to mind thoughts of LaVeyan Satanism and a little bit of Randian Objectivism. What is your opinion on those two philosophies, and do they mesh with the AYM aesthetic at all?

aryan kaganof: The Abraxas Younity Movement has no formal affiliation with Boyd Rice’s Abraxas Foundation beyond the fact that Boyd is a brilliant and highly articulate individual thinker and the Abraxas Younity Movement encourages all its members to think freely and act in accordance with the inner voice.

royce icon: Talk a bit about Pine Slopes Publications.

aryan kaganof: Pine Slopes Publications was set up to act as a vehicle to publish literature that is so far outside of the “mainstream” that it does not even figure on the radar. Lesego Rampolokeng’s blackheart and Helge Janssen’s Tell Tale are good examples of books that would never have been published in South Africa were it not for Pine Slopes.

royce icon: You have made references to being “born again” in 2001. What does this mean to you? Do you mean that you were born again in a spiritual and religious sense?

aryan kaganof: It’s a long story - but basically I met my biological father in 1999, lived with him until he passed away in late 2000, and when he passed I took on his name and inherited my blood line. So it was an intensely spiritual period for me, one that I am still in the midst of.

royce icon: The majority of your work seems to have virtually no distribution in the United States, which really sucks. Is there any hope of better distibution, or online distribution in the near future?

aryan kaganof: It is good that I have little or no distribution as yet, this makes it more difficult to see the good shit and only the really curious, smart and clued-up kids out there will find my work. Only they deserve access to it. It isn’t mass market by any means. I never felt the need to have millions of people see or love my work. The few people who do have access to my work, have contact with it, generally have the course of their life altered by it. I am serious about what I do; the distribution is up to others. But I do say this : SAMPLE AT WILL THERE IS NO COPYRIGHT.

royce icon: You used to go by the name Ian Kerkof. What prompted you to discard this alias?

aryan kaganof: See above re: my father.

royce icon: How do you feel that the internet has contributed to the art world? Do you think that it has helped art in a big way?

aryan kaganof: I think the art world is a pretty sick, conservative place. The internet is exciting because it has made the “art world” redundant and irrelevant. Check out my blog GREAT ART DAILY (www.kaganof.com/kagablog/) to see what I mean.

royce icon: What does art, in it’s entirety, mean to you?

aryan kaganof: If art doesn’t heal then it’s not art.

royce icon: Okay Aryan, that’s all I wanted to ask. Is there anything you would like to say?

aryan kaganof: I would like to say thank you for giving me the time and space to answer these intelligent and well thought out questions. I would like to say that there is very little time left so don’t waste it cos remember that it’s your time that you’re wasting!

this interview was first published on the drowning in odium website