TA: Mr. Pineda Gould, amongst many other things you have been labeled "avantgarde musician", "singer-songwriter", "movie director", "writer", "poet", "philosopher king", "religious leader" and "insane"? Despite the fact that some of these labels imply a bit of irony, which one of them feels like home to you?
RPG: I feel compelled to state that fist and foremost, a house is not (always) a home, but in all these constructions, or so called labels, a certain house has been constructed for those of us Dyonisians trapped in the nomadic path of creative dementia praecox. At many times I feel the necessity to find the hearth of this structure, load it with the dry, sensual wood of creation, and illuminate that very hearth and its surrounding construction in the flames of the tortured muses that at times are chained to me. I can make my home in any label, and I find the "singer-songwriter" in particular quite piquant.
TA: Now that we addressed the matter of different houses within the landscape of art, thought and religion, what is it exactly that makes them false fronts in a way? In regards to art, thought and religion as houses themselves, I might add the question if they are at least somehow stable and if yes in what sense?
RPG: They are false fronts to the extent that art is a false front. The word false itself has a pejorative connotation, but that is not the case here. It is an asset. Most artists have trouble being labeled, when this is the best thing in the world. If someone says to me: you are a singer-songwriter , I readily reply: yes. And so on. There is nothing more stable than the emptiness of words made solid in the instance of the utterance. Religion is a stable house, but not a stable home. And so it goes. Art is nothing but embracing the falsity of things, but that very good, beautiful falsity that needs at least two people to become. That is why many artists are quasi-pschizophrenics (another great label by the way).
TA: Love has always been a main theme within your work as well as in your life. Set aside the boring fact that I could say similar things to most other artists, I would like to ask how your (now not anymore so) private love life manifests in your work? Perhaps there is a certain development that occurred in both "realms" simultaneously? Asking this I do not necessarily assume that a woman guided/guides your ways through the creative process, it might just be as well the other way 'round.
RPG: Love is so prominent, because as you so well put it, I am often intoxicated by this phenomena. I am somewhat hungry at this point, so talking of love becomes complicated. So capricious is love. But for the past year I have been submerged in the glorious nasality of French; a serious trickster when it comes to love. In the baroque excess of the French language, many men fall captive, and cannot avoid becoming lost on the jagged rocks around our modern day Sirenum scopuli. Like Odysseus, we must find the wax to put in the ears of our friends and the ropes to tie ourselves to the phallic mast of love, and let the siren rape us. Is love an intoxication? It is indeed. Is it worth dying for? We do it every night. Birdwomen of the world, do not launch yourselves into the water just yet, as we must all sail by again. Did Jesus know what to do with love? No, he never wrote a song.
TA: You are half Mexican, half American, have strong bindings to the German artistic scene and now you're living in Montréal, Canada, where you share an apartment with two French twins. I hope you don't mind me asking if what other magazine's labeled your "inspiring neverending identity crisis" can be traced back to such simple facts of life? (I might add that Deleuze once said in regards to Kafka that the devil is the duplication itself.)
RPG: Simplicity would require finding a home. But this is more the case of a house. Yes, it is this simple. If that is what he (Deleuze) said of Kafka imagine what he would say of Wittgenstein. Symptomatology can be very poetic indeed, and satisfactory. But as we probe further we realize that the causes themselves break down into ever more complex elements. The fact that my father has origins traceable to Tangiers and the Ivory coast and my mothers Austrian heritage become significant with further probing. Whichever house you choose.
TA: Now that we addressed your girlfriend Séverine Lombardo and her twin sister Élodie Lombardo as entities first, I would like to dive back into real life. You're working on a dancing performance together with Séverine and Élodie right now, can you tell us a little more about that?
RPG: The name of the piece is Petites Pièces de Poche, choreographed and conceived by Séverine Lombardo. I like to call it by its anglophone eponymous name: little pocket pieces. I am collaborating with another musician in this work. Speaking for myself and what this work means to me I would say that my part is understanding the dynamic impetus in someone else's brilliant vision, and try to find a way to make the work live and come into being through its aural counterpoint. More than anything, it is a test and testament to my capacity to rid my work of all masturbatory elements (something that has been both criticized and celebrated in some of my work); it represents the creation of art that is functional in feeding and improving upon another individual's work. These are the serious moments in life, when what you do as a compulsion becomes organized and must submit/interact with the wills of others. That is the "work" aspect of it, what makes it exist in the world, where some money can come from these actions. I don't believe this is necessarily a good thing, but it definitely is pleasurable and leaving philosophical beliefs aside it is something I will defend. Especially when the work in question is so significant. The work plunges the audience into pitch black, where spasms of light, movement and music will overtake their sensory experience. It is a work of fragments and delicate abstraction, something that moves beyond trends and fads of any kind. From out of the darkness we reach out and assault, to fade back into the darkness once again and recommence the assail from another side. Highly recommended, if I may say so myself.
TA: Mr. Pineda Gould, thank you very much for this interview, it was a pleasure tasting some of your thoughts. Now as a last request, I would like to ask you for your retrospective on the year 2010. What will have been the most important things that you did and did not do in 2010?
RPG: Being that everything is what it is, there are no important actions. Once we attack that belief we realize that things are both important and not important at the same time, and to different degrees. The rhizome comes into being. In 2010, there will be much excitement. All acts of artistic creation are not important, albeit necessary (paradox included). Things to be considered truly important. Important: being a good man involving my family and friends and maybe even strangers. Detrimental: not learning German. Improving my French will be very important as well. Making music, film and poetry; those are only gifts.
Love is a Weapon, by Robin Pineda Gould from
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