WEBVTT 00:00:29.355 --> 00:00:32.708 —CHRISTIAN MARCLAY: Testing, one, two, one, two. Can you hear me? 00:00:32.708 --> 00:00:33.831 —MAN: Yes. 00:00:33.831 --> 00:00:38.937 —MARCLAY: I'm soft-spoken. But it-- it  feels like it really bounces around, 00:00:38.937 --> 00:00:40.740 so I hope you're happy with this sound. 00:00:50.898 --> 00:00:56.455 I was experimenting with records,  melting them in my kitchen in the stove. 00:00:56.455 --> 00:01:00.342 And uh, the fumes, I think, got to me. 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:11.700 That night, I went to sleep and I had  this dream that I ate a record because 00:01:11.700 --> 00:01:16.260 I felt so nauseated. I thought, "Well,  maybe I could make a little video." 00:01:25.780 --> 00:01:35.000 I enjoyed music as a physical experience. I used  to love going to clubs and hearing music very loud 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:38.866 that just would, you know, take over your body. 00:01:40.511 --> 00:01:42.858 Now, I regret it because I'm like half-deaf. 00:01:42.989 --> 00:01:49.886 But, um, I think there was something  fascinating about sound being objectified. 00:01:58.980 --> 00:02:04.200 My influences for DJing really came  more from Musique concrète or John Cage. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.440 So I was always interested  in the conceptual side of things. 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:15.000 In the 80s, I started a band called  The Bachelors Even. It was a duo and my 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:18.864 collaborator was a guitar player, Kurt Henry. 00:02:18.864 --> 00:02:20.281 That's when I started using records. 00:02:21.039 --> 00:02:29.079 I would record these skipping records and use cassettes  onstage as these background rhythmic loops. 00:02:29.079 --> 00:02:35.813 We had a lot of destructive actions, actually, breaking  things for the sound, uh, that it would make. 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:47.640 A very liberating moment was punk rock. You know,  here were people performing without any training. 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:54.720 The combination of punk rock and performance  art really allowed me to get involved in music. 00:02:58.200 --> 00:03:03.900 Everybody I was hanging out with were either  dancers, musicians, painters, sculptors, 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:09.600 performance artists in the East Village, just  being creative and collaborating very often. 00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:19.200 I came to London with my wife.  We needed a change from New York. 00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:29.880 Over the years, I've done many different things.  When I was a kid, I would always be collaging. 00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:34.740 I'm still the same person, cutting and pasting. 00:03:36.540 --> 00:03:41.760 My work is quite eclectic. If I'm  doing something new, I'm excited, 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:49.740 and I might work with a printer one day or with  film fragments that I collage or graphic scores. 00:03:51.420 --> 00:03:58.380 I think it's important to make discovery through  the knowledge of other people. That's what I've 00:03:58.380 --> 00:04:05.340 enjoyed about music all my life is it is a  collaborative effort. So the thread of my work 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:13.140 maybe is sound. But sound is such a wide subject,  so it allows me to work in many different media. 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:21.300 Video, because it includes sound and image,  is a good medium for me. Now, it's, of course, 00:04:21.300 --> 00:04:28.200 very easy. You can film a video on your iPhone  and edit it on the phone and just send it around. 00:04:28.902 --> 00:04:30.790 You hang this one and I'll hang this one? 00:04:30.892 --> 00:04:31.699 I see, yea. 00:04:32.180 --> 00:04:35.221 Otherwise they, ah the mobile goes... 00:04:35.221 --> 00:04:37.740 The Snapchat project came about as a surprise. 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:43.020 For me, it was a chance to work  with contemporary technology. 00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:51.420 I'm like really a low-tech person. I'm  not-- not very good with computers. 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:59.280 Because I don't use social media, I didn't know  what Snapchat was. So, I did a little research 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:06.120 and realized that three-and-a-half billion Snaps  are created every day and that just blew my mind. 00:05:08.940 --> 00:05:14.853 I wanted to shift the focus so it wouldn't be on  the image but on the sound. 00:05:17.130 --> 00:05:19.087 It seems more active today. 00:05:19.087 --> 00:05:20.657 It's talking a lot to us today. 00:05:20.657 --> 00:05:23.037 What I like is when they all go on together. 00:05:23.037 --> 00:05:23.537 Yeah. 00:05:23.664 --> 00:05:26.032 So that we really get this chorus effect. 00:05:26.234 --> 00:05:26.734 Yeah. 00:05:26.936 --> 00:05:29.873 Right now the library is just one Snap for each frequency, right? 00:05:29.873 --> 00:05:31.873 We're going to have a thousand Snaps with each frequency 00:05:31.873 --> 00:05:32.784 and it's going to make it feel a lot better. 00:05:33.376 --> 00:05:36.828 The Snapchat engineers were amazing. 00:05:36.828 --> 00:05:41.662 They developed these algorithms  allowing me to find what I was looking for. 00:05:42.859 --> 00:05:45.668 People are going to have such a blast with this! 00:05:45.668 --> 00:05:47.228 —I think so, yeah. 00:05:52.320 --> 00:05:55.140 I ended up making five  different sound installations, 00:05:56.040 --> 00:06:00.720 most of them interactive, from  Snapchats that were publicly posted. 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:06.780 The one that I spent the most time  working on was called "All Together." 00:06:10.380 --> 00:06:14.760 As I would maybe make some 10 turntables, here, 00:06:14.760 --> 00:06:20.580 I had 10 iPhones and I created  a four-minute mix of Snapchats. 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:26.439 For me, what was interesting is that  this is a new form of communication. 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:31.860 People are creating their own language using  image and sound, which for me, of course, 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:36.120 is interesting because it is about image. And  I've always been very interested in images, 00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:40.260 even though sound is so important to my work. 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:54.900 Over the years, I've collaborated with many  musicians and always felt intimidated by 00:06:54.900 --> 00:07:00.840 their incredible knowledge and years of  practice. But they were very encouraging 00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:06.480 in the sense that they thought that my  way of doing things was interesting. 00:07:10.740 --> 00:07:16.560 I can't read or write music traditionally,  uh, so I had to invent my own ways. 00:07:24.469 --> 00:07:29.989 The more recent performance I've  done is called "Investigations." 00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:35.400 It's a series of found photographs  which were cropped, and they show 00:07:35.400 --> 00:07:42.480 the hands of different pianists. I wanted to  provide this to people who can read music. 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:51.060 The posture on the image has to be emulated.  So it's this overlap of different actions. 00:07:55.860 --> 00:08:00.900 I like to use the potential  of images to create music. 00:08:09.840 --> 00:08:16.020 I love onomatopoeias because they're words,  but at the same time, they're image. You can't 00:08:16.020 --> 00:08:23.280 really separate the word from the image.  It's a very expressive way to draw a word. 00:08:28.980 --> 00:08:31.740 A graphic score is really an open musical score. 00:08:32.760 --> 00:08:38.460 My graphic scores can be fragments  from comic books or photographs. 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:47.100 I like the idea that an image can suggest  sound rather than a note on a staff line. 00:09:03.992 --> 00:09:09.543 The choice of the performer is really important.  It's almost like selecting an instrument. 00:09:16.680 --> 00:09:18.840 In order to work on that Manga scroll, 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:24.660 I bought a lot of Manga translated  into English and I cut them up. 00:09:26.760 --> 00:09:29.220 —I think it's okay, yeah. 00:09:29.220 --> 00:09:33.240 —I mean, I can put more if you'd like it more  transparent. But I think you can see it anyway. 00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:34.320 —No, I think it's gonna work. 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:36.100 —All right, cool. 00:09:38.040 --> 00:09:43.800 I never thought I would get interested in prints,  uh, and I've worked in different studios now. 00:09:44.700 --> 00:09:48.000 I used to work at Graphicstudio in Tampa. And then, 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.820 when I moved to London,  the commute was a bit long. 00:09:56.400 --> 00:10:00.240 I became aware of Manga comic  books traveling in Japan and 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:05.880 seeing everybody in the subway reading this  stuff. You know, it's such a popular thing. 00:10:08.880 --> 00:10:14.040 The woodgrain has an expressionist  quality. I thought this would be 00:10:14.040 --> 00:10:18.840 appropriate because the collage is made  out of fragments and is cut out and glued. 00:10:21.480 --> 00:10:25.920 They're reminiscent of Edvard Munch's  "Scream," which has these concentric 00:10:25.920 --> 00:10:29.640 lines that feel like the sound is  really coming out of the mouth. 00:10:33.854 --> 00:10:38.367 The exhibition at Paula Cooper was  very much about this anxiety mood 00:10:38.367 --> 00:10:41.777 that we're living in right now politically. 00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:51.660 If you overlap 48 war movies on top of each other, 00:10:51.660 --> 00:10:58.920 you end up with a cacophony and you can't quite  follow the narrative. It's not a pleasant video. 00:11:04.920 --> 00:11:09.960 The sound becomes quite aggressive.  It's just a loop and it goes on 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:15.420 forever. And this tunnel vision, for  me, the video, is just a different 00:11:15.420 --> 00:11:20.280 way to express the kind of frustration  that we're all experiencing right now. 00:11:40.620 --> 00:11:47.820 I want to comment on the everyday life that  we're all living and the things that surround us. 00:11:49.800 --> 00:11:53.700 When I first came to London, every  day was a visual feast just because 00:11:53.700 --> 00:12:00.000 I was looking at things differently.  On my walk from the studio to home, 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:05.460 I take a lot of pictures, though I don't know  these days if my camera is better than my iPhone. 00:12:08.040 --> 00:12:12.600 Recently, I've made animations with  some of these photographs of trash 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:14.530 that I would find on the street. 00:12:16.985 --> 00:12:20.174 We showed the one with chewing gum in Times Square. 00:12:23.820 --> 00:12:26.460 For me, it's just a form of note-taking. 00:12:29.160 --> 00:12:35.160 It was nice to bring back to the street  what I had found on sidewalks in London. 00:12:40.246 --> 00:12:46.204 I wanna just be a dilettante for the  rest of my life. Just be able to change. 00:12:48.876 --> 00:12:54.014 The street can be a place of creativity  and the street can be the studio as well. 00:12:55.020 --> 00:13:01.860 The power of visual culture and of sound works  on us in a very subliminal way. But it's there. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:07.560 You never know when some idea's gonna  hit you. It can happen anywhere.