Interview for SOBASC website by Mike Bjella (USA).
What inspired you to move away from "traditional" tagging and writing to those first yellow forms that later progressed to the large shapes?
It was during the end of the 90's. Graffiti was my biggets fixation, but I started to think that just making the same old letters for years was a bit boring... In the last years with some friends started to make strange freaked out letters, ugly... at the time we where very influenced by some punk stuff coming from scandinavia! Than I decided to find my own style. I was also interested in some strange kind of art, for example the work of Richard Long... it was very interesting. Making artworks in public places... not just writing your name. And I started to think that there was something very interesting inside "public art", more than just the aesthetic. Anyway probably my biggest influence was the french artist called Stak. I was a fan of his pieces... and around 95 I think, it started to make strange abstract shapes on trains and walls... when I saw this stuff the first time on a graffiti zine I was almost shocked! That was something really new and totally european! Something fascinating... I wasn't able to understand exactly what it was, it was great.
When did you start bringing your work into galleries? Was this an easy transition?
This is another important question. It was (it is) not an easy transistion. I allways made my works for myself mainly, so, I think the best thing for me is making my stuff in a good place, looking it, maybe taking a nice picture. The problem is when you see that day after day art is becoming the most important thing in your life you only want to do that. Doing stuff ouside galleries it's awesome, you are really free in a way, but, I don't know how to explain... you are like in a cage also. Making art for me it's a way to survive... I'm very poor, but I need to do this stuff. I'm allways searching a way to do that... I like to experiment, and it's not easy to do that in public spaces only. I'm 32 now and things change during the years. Anyway I allways liked also making drawings, prints, sounds, zines... not only public art.
You've mentioned being inspired by spirits and heavy anxiety, for one of your zines you created. Is there a unified emotion or something that inspires you in all of your work?
Ok, you are talking about the zine called KAMI, I think. This winter I had some problem with anxiety and I was alone most of the times drawing shapes on paper and reading. I was also going often to walk on the mountains and the hills near my hometown. I was reading some books about shintoism (anthropology is a bg interest for me) and I found many interesting things: first of all it's something very similar to the old european paganism. For them spirits and gods are everywhere, in a tree, in a river, also in a stone... I like d also how they see these spirits: without a shape, sometimes people put a frame on their shrines or a origami, because spirits don't have a real shapes. Ok maybe a dragon or a fox, but the human shape of the spirits came in japan with buddhism... later. It was fashinating and I saw on it many connections with my works. There is allways something spiritual in my works. I think the real artist must be someone special... like a shaman. It's not easy to explain again. Art it's something useless, but people need it. We know few things about our ancestors of the stone age, but we know the awesome art inside the caves. Art (I mean visual art, music, poetry...) it's allways been something spiritual and magical.
Any 108 visits to the USA in the future?
I hope to back in USA in the future, but nothing is planned. I'm travelling a lot but usually I go where they invite me. Obviously I would like to make exhibitions there, maybe also to play live somewhere but it's not so easy to manage things like that right now. I'm also dreaming about coming to walk on your mountains, but for the moment it's only a project.
I loved that you used "Jesus Tod" in your winter video. What kind of music if any is playing when your out painting or in the studio? What have you been into lately?
Yeah, Filosofem is one of my favourite album ever. I'm not talking about Varg ideas, but artistically Burzum is surely a big influence for me. I'm glad you saw that video, it's just a fast, dirty clip, but I think it rapresent very well my work. I used that song not just because I like that album. The last winter in my town was very long, I think the longer I remember since when I was a kid. We had snow for almost 3 months... I like snow so much. Anyway as I told you it was also a bad moment for me, my mind was totally black and I was painting most of the times alone in abandoned places using only black paint. I think that song fits perfect with that... Anyway I allways listen to music, allways! I like many kind of music. Now I'm listen expecially to slow stuff, gloomy stuff, psychedelic stuff... here is a list of bands I listen to in the last months: Alog, Sonic youth, Aphex twin/AFX, Joy Division, Nadja, Death in June, Wooden shjips, Labradford, Concrete, Slowdive, Eyehategod, Morrissey, Depeche Mode, The Knife, Fursaxa, Dopplereffekt, Psychic ills, Brian Eno, Integrity, Current 93, Amon Düül, Matt Elliot, Nurse with wound, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Fever ray, Kuupuu, The Field, Flying Saucer Attack, 7 Seconds, Fall of Efrafa, The Cure, Iliketrains................ hum, and more!
Tell us about your band Corpoparassita and Larva? New releases?
Ok: about Larva now it's called Larva 108 because there are too many bands called larva. Larva 108 is just the music a make as 108. Sometimes can be electronica, ambient, sometimes nois, drones... In these days finally it's coming up the first real CD. It's something like a "best of" (hahah) of songs I made between 1999 and 2009. In these years I made some tapes and CDr usually in few copies not easy to find.
Corpoparassita is another project I run with some friends. we started in 2002 (from the ashes of Haselwurm) inspired by Luigi Russolo, DADA, Antonin Artaud, Lynch and many other things usually people labeled us as Death/dark ambient. We released a lot of CD, tapes, CDr with many underground labels around the world. Our live performance are more noisy with something psychedelic I think. We just released some splits and we are waiting for a tape and a new CD...
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