Luis Garay is a choreographer and Diego Bianchi is a visual artist that works with sculpture and installations. 
They created a performance called Under de si, which was shown in Malta Festival in Poznan this year. The show is a mixture of an exhibition, a performance and a happening.
By: Agnieszka Hoffmann
1. Is this kind of art your main job or do you do something else on a daily basis?
– Diego: No, it was very different this time, because it was a collaboration with Luis. This was the first time we were working together. I was collaborating with other artists, visual artists, but not with a choreographer yet. It is different connection, but we mix very well, fity-fifty all the time. And sometimes I work in performance too. I like to work with performance.
2. “Under de si” is a bit like performance, but also a show?
– Diego: Yes, a piece of theatre, perhaps.
3. Why did you choose the name “Under de si”? Does it have anything to do with “the sea”? Or is it just a coincidence that it sounds similar?
– Luis: Under de si means couple of things in Spanish: by fonetic si means “sea”, under de “sea” refers to a search for the perfect image, at the same time is just an image..
What comes to your mind when you hear “under the sea” that´s a landscape, an image, fiction. Also means under de YES, since si is YES in Spanish, we go under the yes, yes, yes yes. “Si mismo” also means “oneself” in Spanish. Under de si, then, also refers to “under one self”.
4. What kind of music did you use for the “Under de si” performance? Did you create your own music?
– Diego: All music was used from pop music, like Beyoncé. Then cut short parts of the songs and repeated. Made by the musician, Ismael Pinkler. We worked together with him. Luis, me and Ismael worked on it.
5. But the musician edited and remixed the sound, not you yourself.
– Diego: yes, the musician. He made the music before the show . But we listened and decided, this is ok, this is not.
6. Did you know how this music was going to work with the show?
– Diego: no not, really. It’s improvisation.
7. You had this show in Argentina and now in Poland, did you perform in other countries as well?
– Diego: No, this is the second time. The first time in Argentina and the second time here. Maybe there is an opportunity to go to Brazil, but I am tired to make it again, although Luis wants to go.
8. So you are not sure yet.
– Diego: I don’t like to repeat again the same situations.
9. I see. You would like to do something completely different.
– Diego: Yeah. But in the world of theatre, they used to go to big tours. Go and come back, go and come back again.
10. Maybe the purpose was, that the people could recognize them..
– Diego: Yes. But maybe we can repeat it in the future. Maybe in October, in Brazil, we’ll be again. And we have to find the people in the place.
11. Volunteers to work with you?
– Diego: Yes.
12. Can you tell, that the people who come to see the performance react differently in Poland comparing to people living in warmer country, like Argentina?
– Diego: I don’t know, maybe the same. But people in Argentina interact more. They touch the performers, drink a lot or smoke. We wanted people to smoke inside the cabin, but here, in Poland almost nobody entered and in Argentina a lot of people were inside, smoking.
13. Do people sometimes say that this isn’t real art? Comparing to traditional art like painting,
– Diego: Yes, they do, also in Argentina.
14. What is the main message of the Under de si performance?
– Diego: I prefer not to speak about it, because the message is different for everybody. Each person can have a different view of the same work.
In my installations there are always a lot of scenes with sculptures for example and people have to make their own lecture.
15. But you’re the inspiration for their thoughts.
-Diego: yes
16. So can I ask, what what was the first thought when you decided to create this kind of art?
– Diego: We were thinking about the image of everybody, image of surgeries, how people work with their body, the idea of beauty and ugliness. The idea of the body under pressure, to be better, to be bigger to be muscular and beautiful. Also the idea of images, which people show in their telephones.
17. It’s the trend in modern world, almost everybody is showing their pictures on Instagram or Facebook.
– Diego: Yes, but we went to not to oppose the real world, but to exaggerate. Put more obscenity, a lot of food, drinks and smoke, all the things together.
18. To create a strong impression?
– Diego: Yes. And everybody is doing a very strong effort, like an excercise. It’s not acting, it’s an excercise for everybody. But it is very minimalist, very real, because you are not acting. Every part is real, but all these parts together make a big lie, a big fiction about life.
19. Do you get some new ideas after the show is done?
– Diego: No, I am dry after it.
– Luis: I do. I did something in December, and after I was very inspired because of it.
20. What was it?
– Luis: It was an installation for 12 performers called FISICOLOGIA in which none movement to the performers was also applied. I also kept investigating how effort creates fiction and what that could mean.
21. Do you usually create performance-like events, or do you also create another works of art?
– Diego: yes, I work with installations and sculptures.
22. So you have common exhibitions in museums?
– Diego: Yes, but I always mix installations and performance. There was an installation, where I put sculptures and I put a platform above in which was a hole. And I put my ass in there.
23. That seems funny.
– Diego: Yes, and I have different installations with hands.
24. Luis, you were a dancer before. How did it happen that you have changed your occupation and took up other kinds of art, like installation or performance?
– Luis: By choreographer and director. When you meet new people, they give you another point of view, your world starts to expand.
25. So your collaboration with Diego wasn’t because you decided to work with visual art?
– No. It was a proposal from the theatre. And I accepted it, but I said that I wanted to work with Diego, because we are friends for a long time. I said, ok, we are going to do something, but I don’t want to do the stage work, like I used to do, I’m going to do something with him.
26. From where do you get an inspiration for your art?
– Luis: From meeting people. When you meet people, they modify your view.
27. Do you still dance in some of your performances?
– Luis: I used to, but I don’t dance anymore.
28. But you were dancing a little in the smoking room in “Under the si” show.
– Luis: Yes. We go out to dance a lot with Diego, his family and our friends.
29. But it is dancing on the party, in free time, not for performances.
– Luis: But our free time is very mixed with our work.
30. Do you also play your art outside theatres, on the street?
– Diego: Yes, in Buenos Aires several times.
– Luis: I have done something like this in the square in Buenos Aires that is very trashy, very popular neighbourhood. And then in November in outdoor museum.
31. Was this performance a kind of art?
– Luis: yes.
– Diego: But also classes, excercises for students.
32. What kind of excercises? The physical ones or was it also art?
– Diego: No, it was like experience with people..
– Luis: Perception excercises These were workshops. We have done them before we did “Under de si” together.
33. But you still do excercises and workshops nowadays?
– Luis: Yes we do workshops sometimes, Diego teaches sometimes in university, me independetly or when I travel abroad in the festivals I present them. I usually work around enhancement of perception exercises.
34. Is it a little bit like a meditation?
– Luis: Always a little bit of meditation. Because when you meditate, you are very wise and at the same time you are very stupid. Diego has done these excercises in his classes, and I had my separate workshops too.
– Diego: He is more physical, and I work more with objects, sculpture and materials.
– Luis: It is interesting, because Diego comes from the outer world and I have always been referring to the inner world, like inside of your body. And Diego has always been working outside the body.
35. So it is the cooperation with two different points of view.
– Diego: Yes.
– Luis: It is always like that.
36. Do you have any artist that particularly influenced your way of thinking?
– Luis: I have a lot of artists that I like, from dance, performance world. Then I got to know artists because of Diego, from visual arts world, that I liked too.
37. Could you share with us a few names?
– Luis: Maurizio Cattelan
(an Italian artist living in New York, famous for his satirical sculptures)
– Diego: Bruce Nauman
Links to other works:
Luis Garay: http://luisgaray.hotglue.me/
Diego Bianchi: http://www.diegobianchi.com.ar/inicio.php
Black Water Project 