Max Hattler
German videomaker in UK
Interview: 10 questions
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background
I grew up in Germany and moved to the UK when I was 20. I studied in London: BA in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, and MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art. I’m currently doing a Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London.
2. When, how and why started you filming?
My first love was painting, my second computers, and my third music. It took me a while to realise that I had to combine all three within the medium of film/video/animation to make it work for me. I first started making films at Goldsmiths but only really found my own expression as an artist at the RCA.
3. What kind of subjects have your films?
There are different and overlapping themes in my work. War and conflict, beauty and death, physics and metaphysics; audiovisual abstraction, reflection, repetition, synaesthetic experience. I work across a range of moving image media including films, video installations and live performance.
4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
I tend to employ the same approach I used to use for painting and making music: start somewhere, anywhere, and let it grow organically. Then edit, rework, remix, repeat, till the work emerges.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
I use pretty much standard computers with standard software, sometimes complemented by a sub-standard digital camera.
6. What are the chances of the digital video technologies for creating art using “moving images†generally, and for you personally?
Digital has democratized the means of production. Making moving image work is not expensive any more. Anyone can do it, as long as they have the time. For me personally it’s the non-linear, non-destructive editing possibilities of digital technology that are most important, maybe. I don’t think I would have gone into film had I been born 30 years earlier.
7. How do you finance your films?
I finance my artwork through a wild mixture of film and arts funding, commissions and artist residencies, talks and teaching, awards, screenings, and live performances.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team?
if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?
I love collaboration … as long as I can have the last word!
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?
Kaleidoscopes, computers, music, Oskar Fischinger and John Whitney, to name but a few influences.
10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
Maybe my dream is to be able to continue to make work, ever better and more meaningful work.
Can works of yours viewed online besides on the CologneOFF platform? Where?
List some links & resources
official
http://www.maxhattler.com
video
http://www.vimeo.com/maxhattler
http://www.youtube.com/maxhattler
social
http://www.facebook.com/maxhattler.artistpage
http://www.twitter.com/maxhattler