One of France's most talked-about multimedia artists has quietly taken up a one-year residency at Videotage in the Cattle Depot Artist Village in To Kwa Wan. And Jean Sebastian Lallemand, aka seB a, promises to send waves of inspiration surging through the red-brick barns during his stay. For a highly eccentric artist who has wrapped his whole body in carpaccio (thin slices of raw meat), for a show, encased his head in rubber bands in the name of art and lived for six weeks in a spooky, abandoned psychiatric hospital for his first short film, he is surprisingly shy and softly spoken in the flesh. He also looks entirely at home. For the next year the Cattle Depot is Lallemand's studio space. 'I am given a place to experiment and they will help publish and show my work,' he explains. 'I'm not getting paid, but I get the space to work in, and I get to mix and work with a whole community of Hong Kong artists.' He is editing a short film he shot in Morocco, but soon the 30-year-old will be working on video projects for the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC), as well as hosting workshops. He has good news for this city's artists, who are often forced to work as designers to make ends meet: Lallemand has made an art form out of merging the two worlds. 'It is important to have your feet in the commercial world,' he argues. 'You can't just be an artist and always do whatever you like.' For the past three years he has juggled burgeoning careers in both the commercial world of advertising and the bubbling undercurrents of cutting-edge, European art - from graphic design to film and video work. It began when his father, an abstract painter, insisted his son should avoid the artist's life. Lallemand ignored the advice and went to art school in Orleans where he excelled in etching. During his five years there he experimented with various disciplines, from graphic design to photography and video, and upon graduation was accepted at Fabrica, the Benetton research and development communication centre in northern Italy. His work as a researcher soon attracted the interest of the company's visionary founder, Oliviero Toscani, who forged a protege/mentor relationship with the young artist. 'My life was in two parts. One was experimental and artistic and one was really commercial. So I was working for Peter Grabriele's Witness, for Benetton, for MTV. At the same time we were creating installations for arts centres and theatres,' he explains. 'We used to provoke people with images.' For his first short film, a 'mental portrait of a man on the verge', he took up residency in an abandoned psychiatric hospital for six weeks. The resulting 14-minute short, After Words, which stars Lallemand as the sole character, astounded Toscani. 'He asked me to spend another year, as a consultant to Fabrica Cinema.' The film screened at the Venice Film Festival 2000, the Rotterdam Film Festival 2001, and Croatia's Split Festival of New Film. It hit Videotage's screen as Lallemand's welcoming party got under way at the start of this month. There was a music video for the acclaimed Gotan Project, the French tango/dance act that is swiping all the European music awards. Lallemand was asked to direct the video for the hit single Santa Maria: a sexy affair, of a couple dancing a passionate tango in a boxing ring. Just as Lallemand was emerging in Europe as a notable artist and highly in-demand advertising consultant, he moved to Hong Kong with his girlfriend. 'I have always been fascinated with Asia,' he says eagerly. 'And while I'm here I intend to make my first full-length movie.' For more information about Lallemand's screenings visit www.videotage.org.hk
