Camel Collective (Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats), La distancia entre Pontresina y Zermatt es la misma que la de Zermatt a Pontresina (The Distance from Pontresina to Zermatt Is the Same as from Zermatt to Pontresina), 2018. 2-channel video, 5.1 surround sound, 28 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.
Camel Collective (Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats), La distancia entre Pontresina y Zermatt es la misma que la de Zermatt a Pontresina (The Distance from Pontresina to Zermatt Is the Same as from Zermatt to Pontresina), 2018. 2-channel video, 5.1 surround sound, 28 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.
Camel Collective (Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats), La distancia entre Pontresina y Zermatt es la misma que la de Zermatt a Pontresina (The Distance from Pontresina to Zermatt Is the Same as from Zermatt to Pontresina), 2018. 2-channel video, 5.1 surround sound, 28 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.
Camel Collective (Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats), La distancia entre Pontresina y Zermatt es la misma que la de Zermatt a Pontresina (The Distance from Pontresina to Zermatt Is the Same as from Zermatt to Pontresina), 2018. 2-channel video, 5.1 surround sound, 28 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.
Camel Collective
Our current projects developed out of our interests in lighting and sound production and the ideological roles they play in creating the illusion of realism, or real-ish e​f​fects. ​("Realism" is a pretty dubious term that often creates confusion over whether one is making a value/moral claim or an ontological claim about the world.)​ We’re interested in the human labor concealed in the production of these effects.

Our next project involves automated technologies and the ideologies of "sustainability" that act as their chaperones. These ideologies will have serious repercussions as to how we collectively deal with or disavow the damage the capitalist system has inflicted on the planet. I have worked in the past as a stylist for commercial video and photography, and Carla and I are both versed in film theory, particularly in relation to the documentary, but neither of us had experience in practical filmmaking before producing our recent video works. Obviously we have become involved with the material practices of production in film, theater, or audio/music, but it is important that we do not come to our subject matter as "professionals" or "experts." We like to learn, plus this allows us to get things wrong and be somewhat independent of the financial structures of those fields.
Our projects are ​built from conversations between ​the two of us, and with ​​outside collaborators. For La Distancia… we worked with two blind actors​, Marco Martínez​ Juárez and Jesús ​Rodriguez Fernandez ​from Teatro Ciego, and a team of Foley artists​—referred to as Gavira​s​ in Mexico after Gonzalo Gavira—at Estudios Churrubusco in Mexico City. Foleys/Gaviras record all of the sound effects for moving images. Without them the artifice of the moving image falls flat. ​The script is from an exchange of letters between Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse debating the student movement of the late 1960s, an exchange tragically cut short in 1969 by Adorno’s death. While we only used a few letters for the video, we had all of them translated into English, and Spanish for the first time, and published with commentary.
How are the interviews conducted and what is the process of incorporating the information they provide into the work? How are the interviews conducted and what is the process of incorporating the information they provide into the work? We generally ask interviewees questions related to labor practices in their fields or about technical aspects of their work, always with an ear to the personal and political ways they narrate their experiences. These interviews allow us to not be restricted by some individual protagonist’s experience or biography. Our works are fictional but the interviews guide them. The works are informed constructions—the fiction is there to extract truths from facts.
Volumes is an opportunity to ​show a work we feel is greater than the sum of its parts, one that can intervene into conversations about identity and politics. The challenge Marcuse and Adorno pose to the present is vital. Freedom from a total exchange society (which we internalize into our narratives of emancipation) cannot be achieved quickly or without "unlimited discussions." To us, "volumes" speaks to both the materiality of this document and the sheer quantity of effort yet to be made on this subject. How does sound function in this piece in relation to volumes? You encourage the viewer’s movement through space toward different parts of it which represent different points of view, or different keys to the construction of the narrative. How does sound function in this piece in relation to volumes? You encourage the viewer’s movement through space toward different parts of it which represent different points of view, or different keys to the construction of the narrative.
Our approach to sound is an important aspect of La Distancia… as it reveals and demystifies the hidden labor performed by Gavira/Foley artists. We have separated the audio tracks into six channels oriented to create disjunctions and discontinuities between sound and image. Much of the sound for the work could be taken as a kind of concrete music. The viewer is kept aware as to where s/he/they are standing, where the sound is coming from, and how it is made. We stress this because it underscores how techniques and technologies often serve to obscure the human element of production and consolidate the work of many and attribute it to the few. Sounds familiar, right?
Camel Collective was formed in 2005 as a research group during a fellowship at the Whitney Independent Study Program. The group met to conduct research on labor, affect, and the history of artist collectives. Anthony Graves (b. 1975, South Bend, IN) and Carla Herrera-Prats (b. 1973, Mexico City, Mexico) have worked together as Camel Collective since 2010. Camel Collective has exhibited and performed at museums and exhibitions including MUAC, Mexico City (2017); REDCAT Gallery, Los Angeles (2015); Trienal de Artes Frestas, Sesc, Sorocaba, Brazil (2015); the Bard Hessel Museum, Annendale-on-Hudson, New York (2014); Casa del Lago, Mexico City (2013); Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan, Puerto Rico (2012); Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2011); and Aarhus Kunsthalle, Denmark (2010). Camel has also exhibited works at Artist's Space, Art in General, Exit Art, and the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City. They work between Mexico City, MX, and Long Island City, Queens.
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