IN CONVERSATION WITH CAMERON PLATTER

An interview conducted via IM. Cameron Platter’s new show Studio Party Party can be seen currently at KZNSA
Robert: I thought we could just have a casual chat, around your new work and your stuff in general
Cameron: Casual is good, like a long cool drink with umbrella in it. And with hippos shouting in background.
Fire questions away.
R: Exactly,chilled but with the sound of flaming dice. The new work, Studio Party Party is quite different from your previous stuff. Not in terms of style, which is consistent, but there is no narrative, or character
C: OK, this might take a minute...Bear in mind, I am dictating a lounger.
R: Cool
C: Reality is getting stranger than fiction. I'm kinda casting myself, and other real people as the head characters. No need to suck the weirdos out of the make-believe any more. Also it's about stripping things away, to a kinda minimalism. Rough 'n Ready?
R: So the sculptures are designed to be interacted with?
C: Yes. Just looked over typist’s head, should read “dictating from a lounger.” Don’t want your readers getting the wrong impression…
R: I was wandering who the lounger was...
C: Wandering???
R: Wondering.
R: Tell me more about the process of the work. Was it a crazy chain saw party outside the gallery?
C: Well, the chainsaw was inside the gallery throughout the show. It made a lot of noise and vexed a couple of people, which was good. The thing was to make the show in the space because I didn’t have a studio that was big enough. So, by default, it became a “process” show. Which was cool- I’d never done anything like that. I’m a believer in what happens behind the scenes is sometimes/ often more interesting than the dressed up product. The party was something else altogether. Felt almost like a different show. It was a celebration of hard work, and let people interact and have fun with the works.
R: Isn't that a bit at odds with the show, which is at least a bit about leisure and laziness?
C: Interesting opinion, care to elaborate on leisure ‘n laziness. In my mind, partying is damn hard work.
R: Well, I saw the objects as leisure cross-overs. Kind of in the line of a camera phone, but blown up, with crazier functionality. Maybe laziness was a bad term. More like the compacting of functionality
C: Leisure cross-overs. Genius!!! Compacting of functionality. Genius!!! What's the question again???
R: That it was a celebration of hard work? But I'm also reminded of a James Bondian thing. Like if Q was an artist. (And not wanky Daniel Craig Bond, Sean Connery more like)
C: When we had the show almost ready/ set up, with the minibar’s car soundsystem playing and its strobe light going, this security guard was having a look, and he said to his friend: “These are something like James Bond things.” It was probably the most astute, rad, and complimentary comment I’ve had on the show.
C: Roger Moore was also cool. Reading any good crime-fiction? Or anything else interesting…
R t: I've just been reading a bunch of James Bond at the moment. For a work I'm doing. That's why I was thinking on that line.M The original novels are a lot more tragic than the movies. If you read between the lines you see Bond's dark flipside.
C: I agree, Bond is kinda sado-M. And he smokes a lot. Which I don’t anymore. And I heard you gave up too.
R: And he drinks a lot. It’s true, I also quit!
C: The way foward!!!
R: Yay! Bizarrely, people look down on non-smokers.
C: Yay x 2. You’re right. Giving it up helps your art practice. I’m serious.
R: Tell me about Durban. Has moving out there permanently been a big change?
C: Durban’s described in chi-chi W magazine as a gritty port city… Go figure. I live outside Durban (Oh My God!!!). It’s the chance to focus, concentrate, and get back to the basics about why I make art/ stuff. It’s certainly a big change from CT, and its scene. I mean, I work in a sub-tropical forest 2kms from the warm sea. And I have a pug called Salvo. I’m more relaxed in KZN
R: Relaxation... leisure again. Are you making more films? Will you go that route again?
C: I suppose the notions of Leisure and Hard Work keep on cropping up. As well as being strapped to splintery wooden bench and being whipped over and over again…
C: I never stopped making things for people to watch. I’m producing about 1 film/ video thing a year now. The next one, ironically, has a lot to do with Leisure Suit Larry.
R: I love Leisure Suit Larry. We had to play that on the sly in case my mother walked in. I think I learned what a blowjob was from that game. He also always introduces himself as Larry, Larry Laffer (James Bond again).
C: And all the blowjobs afterwards have never been as good… This new Larry work has multiple different stories and endings throughout it. Like you’d select 1 disc of say 10 to watch, or show, on a particular day. I suppose the videos/ films are not so far away from the sculptures in that they revel in being exhibitionist- like an art equivalent of opening your trenchcoat. He drank martinis too?
R: That also mirrors the multiple endings and open game play that those type of games developed. I'm not sure about the Martinis.
C: The video I showed at the KZNSA has a little Larry in it too. Will send you images.
R: He's the archetypical loser. Balding, desperate... different in ways from your more active losers like Dirty Harry. Why Larry?
C: It's a sex thang. Its all about sex now.
R: Getting older?
C: Nail on head. At least I'm not balding.
R: Yet
C: Grey, not balding.
R: I was just looking at some Larry pictures (from the first game). I love that old 8bit animation, all blocks and 16 colours. It does make you feel older though... the kids these days don't relate to that shit. I ran into this teenager who didn't recognise a record player.
C: It has a very handmade feel about it.
R: Even though it's digital.
C: Funny. My video work is almost the most handcrafted, hand-done, side of what I do. Even though it's digital... What did the “person” think a record player was?
R: Didn't ask him. Somehow things that are digital can look more handmade. I think it's because unslick digital drawings refer to the past (which although is recent, in terms of technology is Jurassic).
C: I think there's a return to doing things yourself. Making things from what you got. Not just in art. Like growing a vegetable, instead of buying one. Which may mean people would start making their own art instead of buying it.
R: Sure. I guess it's part of the whole ecology/economy meltdown fear.
Or value handmade art more.
C: MELTDOWN
(Ironically, at this moment Gmail packs up. So that’s where we got. Thanks Cameron)

Robert Sloon

Extract from: Sloon, Robert. “In conversation with Cameron Platter.” www.artheat.net, Thursday, November 20, 2008