ANCIENT AMATEURS

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• published: 16 Jun 2015
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-A loving portrait of a few porn actors and myself -A play on the idea of purity, the antropoceen, enlightment, nature versus culture Stefan.ruitenbeek@gmail.com 2012 subs h264 VimeoHD 2997p full interview about the film: (scroll down for english) http://www.martagnyp.com/interviews/stefanruitenbeek.php excerpt: As from April the 14th de film Ancient Amateurs by artist Stefan Ruitenbeek can be watched in the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam. This exceptional film combines the genres of porn, documentary and art film, with a surprising merge as a result. Marta Gnyp: Why did you choose to go into porn with your movie? Stefan Ruitenbeek: There are several causes that have brought this work into existence. As an artist I am interested in the morality of aesthetics. Our judgement of beauty lies deeply embedded in our morality and what we deem to be good. There is a world, however, the world of pornography, on which the aesthetic morality, and everything else we consider politically correct or hold in high esteem within any other given context, doesn’t seem to get a grip. But, if you ask me, there is the higher universe of art, which is this big theatre of aesthetic and moral values. MG: The film constantly displays the opposition between things: the pureness of primordial sexuality versus the commodification of sex in the porn industry; the confrontation between the quick satisfaction of desire sought after in porn and the sublimation of desire in art, the dreams and the reality. What do porn and art have in common? SR: Both harbour the possibility for certain kinds of behaviour, but they also provoke certain behaviour, they are monsters that create their own rules. MG: What was it like to actually make the movie? SR: The high energy that I felt on the porn sets that I visited in the preliminary phase of making the movie, reminded me of the atmosphere I know from art school. Young people that hope to find something within that environment, who seem to find some hope or faith there, or who want to benefit from it. MG: Art and porn as the promised land. SR: Yes. Both art and porno are worlds made of illusions, in which promises and hope are magnified. The faith in these promises is what I work with; it is a subtle form of hypnosis that causes the transformation of my actors into the embodied figments of intersubjective imagination. MG. Is that why the museum, as a place where the movie is in display, is so important, in order to play with these shifting patterns of expectation even more? SR: Of course I’m interested in presenting pornography in the setting of a museum, because of the resulting transformation of meaning of these pornographic images. Everybody with the even the slightest interest for art must surely enjoy the way in which things seem to become enchanted in the light of our artistic expectations. It also really pleased me when I found out that the porn actors were willing to believe and invest in my story about the merits of art, origin, pureness and primitive man, that I told them long before the movie was even made. MG: The great public interest in this movie proves that the setting of a museum for a semi porn movie isn’t the most obvious choice. Is it the showing of porn in a public that is a taboo, or is the showing of porn in a museum? SR: Porn in the museum is mainly a taboo because of the predominant aesthetic morality, within the discourse of contemporary art as well as generally. If I’d chosen to film on porn set in a more documentary-style detached way, I would have maintained the illusion of a certain journalistic objectivity. If I had tried to present a polished image of the actors, it would mean I’d be worshipping them. I’m not trying to make fancy porn; the production quality is just as blunt as gonzo porn. The faith and conviction of the actors themselves is what enhances the make-believe of the story. MG: How did you come up with this idea of prehistoric life? SR: The idea of making up a childish little tale about procreation, a myth about the evolutionary origins of sex, seemed to me innocent as well as ironic in the perspective of porn actors, who rather than making babies, spray their seed all over someone’s face, turning the body into a fetish of lust. I wanted to relieve my actors of their perverse role, to see them as naive and innocent beings; as primitive people in a simple world that doesn’t cultivate perversions. It’s a movie about innocence in a hypocritical, yet sacred, perverted, preconditioned world. full interview about the film: (scroll down for english) http://www.martagnyp.com/interviews/stefanruitenbeek.php