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picture by Anne Garrity from The Concordian
I first met Gina Haraszti at NUmontreal in March of 2013, a 3 day“catalytic think tank invitation-only gathering in Montreal that brought together 30 leading new media influencers to rethink and push the boundaries of meaningful Jewish experiences for the Millennial generation.” I had never heard of her before but when I did, and spent a bit of time exploring her work, it became obvious that she was someone I wanted to know better.
Gina Haraszti was born in Budapest, Hungary and came to Montreal in 2009 to do a Film Production MFA at Concordia University. She is a “filmmaker and artist with a background in art & technology, interested in the experimental aspects and transmedial forms of visual culture.”
Her life is a testament to her curious nature, creative impulse and talent. Over the last 16 years, Gina has studied motion picture and video production, architecture, screenwriting, documentary filmmaking, and fine arts. She’s won numerous awards; made a number of challenging and, predominantly, experimental films that have appeared in International acclaimed festivals; participated in the creation of Prezi; and has produced many new-media art installations and projects. She’s nothing if not prolific, and this isn’t a question of quantity over quality. Ironically, she describes herself as a very slow filmmaker. She revisits her work, for months and often years, until she arrives at the moment where she feels there’s nothing else she can do to make it better.
Her projects explore themes related to identity, memory and perception and do so by using innovative formal strategies. Her films are not easily classifiable. Her work blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction, commercial and experimental, objective and subjective. It’s also clear that her work is very personal. Her approach to storytelling is loose and creative. In an interview with the student newspaper The Concordian, she once said that “(Filmmaking) is not about breaking the rules, but making a better film without them.” Her perspective is that of an artist; whether she’s working on a fictional piece or a documentary, the challenge remains to tell a story and to communicate what she wants to communicate.
Image may be NSFW.
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As an artist, particular attention is paid to the formal structure of her art. She explains this as a virtue of her arts education and her fascination with still images. She works at crafting a temple out of the imagery she uses in her projects, thereby blurring the lines between the formal nature of the work and its content. Her great use of sound is another formal dimension that plays a big role in telling her stories. Throughout her career, Gina has successfully created rich atmospheric soundscapes that draw in the viewer.
Admitting that it’s cliched, Gina believes that subjects choose her and not vice-versa. She finds inspiration in what happens to her; predominantly in things that are sad. Once inspired the creative process becomes very personal and, frequently, painful. Her goal is to deliver her story as honestly as possible. The more she explores her subject matter, the more she digs for a truth, the more she becomes vulnerable. She sees this as one of the keys of success. Filmmaking for Gina is therapeutic. She describes it as lying on a couch with the public acting as therapist. It’s a courageous approach. She works at stripping away symbolic layers between her audience and herself, revealing herself as much as possible.
Gina Haraszti dives into Otaku Culture
Gina is currently working on a new project about Otaku culture in Japan. Outside of being a self described nerd, she attributes her interest in the matter to a personal sense of feeling homeless, up-rooted, displaced. She’s looking for belonging, and finds comfort when she can access the internet, her social networks, her interests, her community. She’s fascinated by the relation of the millennial generation with the virtual world vs. that of ‘reality.’ She believes that people looking online for things they can’t find in their day-to-day lives is a rising trend, and hopes that her project about Otaku culture will provide an examination of this social tendency.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
She’s not quite certain what exactly it is that people look for in these alternative online realms, but she believes it might have to do with faith and religion, something she’s always been fascinated by: the ability or inability to believe.
As a Millenial myself, I find Gina’s recent investigations into digital communities to be entirely relevant. Increasingly connected online, I sometimes feel alienated from my physical life. I wonder what that means for me as an individual; what community or communities I belong to; and whether I can refer to a specific place as home. Gina’s work is important because it explores the very anxieties and questions most of my generation faces.
I for one, am very much looking forward to her project about Otaku culture. Visit the project website HERE!
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