How do you choose a theme and the materials for a work?
I think the raw material for my works is in the world, in the mixture and the chaos of the things all around me. My method of creation is to give new form to this disorder.

Can you talk about the inspiration for your works? For example, how did you get the idea for Ao Plano [a birds-eye video of a carpark, in which four trucks attempt to park in a square]?
My obsession with systems and circuits is perhaps a search for order in the middle of all this chaos of possibilities of the process. For Ao Plano the whole parking-lot structure of white lines painted on asphalt intrigued me. My initial intention was to use that structure for a video in which trucks (which represent a state of change for me) test the borders of the frame. But by the day of filming, we decided that the parking lines didn’t enrich the scene. Luckily, we found the perfect location next to the parking lot. Chance and error always enrich my creative process, testing my capacity to adapt and improvise. 

Do you have any role models or references for your art?
I start by being attentive to the world, alert to everything around me and the ephemeral, fragile meanings that are lent to things. Afterwards, I look for a way to synthesise this process.

What do you feel in the studio and why?
Art is a place of doubt, of fissures, not of solutions. It is also something that gestures more at a beginning than an end. Fundamentally, for me art is an exercise in freedom – and in the reinvention of the world.

Why does the world need to be reinvented?
Because what a poet doesn’t see, doesn’t happen. And because, in the end, that’s what poetry is.

What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I think the artist is always working. Reading books or watching films is part of the process of creating, just as spending the weekend at a farm (sitio) is as well. Many things are revealed to me through these experiences. And sometimes I have ideas when I’m in the middle of nowhere, stuck in traffic say.

What, if anything, do you dislike?
I don’t like to talk about one of my works until I’m sure what my wish for it is. I don’t like artists-turned-celebrities. I hate being the object of profiles and prefer to see photos published of my work, not of myself. 

• See Cinthia Marcelle's work in the 10 year anniversary exhibition at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake until 26 February 2012.