WEBVTT 00:00:08.353 --> 00:00:10.910 Wondering if we could just, like, get, like- You want to get it on the wall? 00:00:10.910 --> 00:00:13.250 Yeah, just a couple of strips on the wall. 00:00:13.250 --> 00:00:18.731 Growing up between two cultures and two languages allowed me to get some distance from them. 00:00:20.859 --> 00:00:23.850 I feel authentic in one particular milieu, 00:00:23.850 --> 00:00:27.757 but I switch milieu, and I feel just as authentic in that other place. 00:00:28.279 --> 00:00:31.570 And what is that thing that we call identity about? 00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:32.570 Action. 00:00:32.570 --> 00:00:35.000 At a very young age there was an awareness 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.150 of how much identity is in fact a performance, a kind of construction, 00:00:39.150 --> 00:00:44.520 and how much narratives underpin our societies and our cultures. 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:46.410 Being able to shift from one place to another 00:00:46.410 --> 00:00:51.678 also puts a kind of a focus on the self and this performance of authenticity. 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:57.182 These are things that bubble around the edges of my work. 00:00:58.043 --> 00:01:01.180 Where it becomes interesting is how to explore that dimension 00:01:01.180 --> 00:01:04.880 without writing a political treatise, or a piece of journalism, 00:01:04.880 --> 00:01:07.950 but rather through understanding that this is implicated 00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:09.708 in personal relationships. 00:01:11.310 --> 00:01:13.339 This is a subject that I keep coming back to. 00:01:14.080 --> 00:01:15.000 (knocking on door) 00:01:26.650 --> 00:01:27.454 (door slams) 00:01:30.897 --> 00:01:31.863 Everything okay? 00:01:32.317 --> 00:01:32.876 Yeah. 00:01:34.810 --> 00:01:35.310 Yeah. 00:01:37.798 --> 00:01:38.580 I'm okay. 00:01:39.082 --> 00:01:42.670 OMER: when I find my subjects, the process involves a lot of doubt about 00:01:42.670 --> 00:01:43.670 ethical dimension 00:01:43.670 --> 00:01:47.700 of what I'm doing, vis-a-vis someone else's story, someone else's life. 00:01:48.031 --> 00:01:48.816 These guys have to be here? 00:01:48.816 --> 00:01:50.349 I didn't realize you'd be filming. 00:01:53.171 --> 00:01:56.082 INTERVIEWER: We can stop if you're uncomfortable. 00:01:57.350 --> 00:01:59.789 The kind of space I create to throw those doubts into 00:01:59.789 --> 00:02:04.189 and shut them away is creating this kind of doppelganger art, 00:02:04.189 --> 00:02:10.000 this sort of double, who becomes the target for those issues. 00:02:10.660 --> 00:02:13.995 What's the difference between you, and someone who sits in an airplane? 00:02:14.857 --> 00:02:17.730 There's no difference between us. 00:02:17.730 --> 00:02:18.730 We do the same job. 00:02:18.730 --> 00:02:20.000 INTERVIEWER: But you're not a real pilot. 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:21.581 So what? 00:02:21.581 --> 00:02:22.581 You're not a real journalist. 00:02:22.940 --> 00:02:24.670 OMER: All those kinds of roles of someone 00:02:24.670 --> 00:02:30.198 who is listening while at the same time ostensibly forming judgments. 00:02:30.334 --> 00:02:31.421 INTERVIEWER: You sure you're okay? 00:02:31.923 --> 00:02:34.770 OMER: Allow me to externalize doubts, 00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:41.525 and to gain a little bit of distance from a subject that might be very dry or very personal. 00:02:42.310 --> 00:02:48.708 It creates a conversation about the right to take someone's story and change it. 00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:50.110 You don't like it? 00:02:51.353 --> 00:02:52.730 Why don't you ask me a better question? 00:02:53.782 --> 00:02:55.730 OMER: This project is triggered by 00:02:55.730 --> 00:03:00.383 a conversation with someone who is working in the drone program. 00:03:02.655 --> 00:03:06.190 Drones are these unmanned aircraft that are controlled remotely. 00:03:07.099 --> 00:03:11.372 There is a pilot who controls the movement of the aircraft. 00:03:11.731 --> 00:03:15.451 The other person is responsible for all the optics. 00:03:18.966 --> 00:03:20.398 SENSOR OPERATOR: 5,000 Feet's the best. 00:03:21.379 --> 00:03:23.230 You're a lot more sitting at 5,000 feet. 00:03:23.732 --> 00:03:28.250 I can tell you what type of shoes you're wearing from a mile away. 00:03:28.920 --> 00:03:30.746 We have the IR-infrared, 00:03:31.129 --> 00:03:35.670 which we can switch to automatically, and that'll pick up any heat signatures or 00:03:35.670 --> 00:03:36.819 cold signatures. 00:03:38.015 --> 00:03:39.760 I mean, if someone sits down, 00:03:39.760 --> 00:03:42.890 let's say, on a cold surface for a while and then gets up, 00:03:42.890 --> 00:03:44.817 you'll still see the heat from the person. 00:03:45.965 --> 00:03:50.060 It kind of looks like a white blossom, just shining up in heaven. 00:03:50.730 --> 00:03:51.839 It's quite beautiful. 00:03:53.871 --> 00:03:56.280 I mean, heck, if you see somebody 00:03:56.280 --> 00:03:58.313 light up a cigarette on that, that's a huge beacon. 00:03:59.700 --> 00:04:02.483 You're just on a preset path flying a circular orbit, 00:04:03.440 --> 00:04:07.079 watching them as they're smoking from about two to three miles away. 00:04:08.657 --> 00:04:14.160 And the computer will figure out the trajectory, the distance, and the speed, 00:04:14.160 --> 00:04:17.989 and come up with an estimated time that it would take for the missile to impact. 00:04:19.830 --> 00:04:24.161 The pilot will get all the clearances that are necessary to fire. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:28.754 He'll release the missile, and I'll guide it in on to its target. 00:04:31.863 --> 00:04:33.076 (knocking on door) 00:04:33.554 --> 00:04:35.848 INTERVIEWER: Hey, what are you doing? 00:04:35.848 --> 00:04:36.723 We're here. 00:04:41.147 --> 00:04:42.147 Everything okay? 00:04:43.127 --> 00:04:43.673 Yeah. 00:04:45.347 --> 00:04:46.347 Yeah. 00:04:47.328 --> 00:04:47.993 Everything's okay. 00:04:47.993 --> 00:04:49.160 So what do you want to talk about? 00:04:50.428 --> 00:04:51.706 INTERVIEWER: That's what I was going to ask you. 00:04:52.041 --> 00:04:53.706 Man, I don't want to talk about anything. 00:04:56.671 --> 00:04:57.911 You're the one paying, remember? 00:04:59.131 --> 00:05:00.161 Not paying that much. 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:01.314 PILOT: You want to pay any more? 00:05:01.314 --> 00:05:02.314 (bleep) 00:05:03.965 --> 00:05:04.582 INTERVIEWER: You okay? 00:05:04.845 --> 00:05:07.198 Oh, yes, it's just junk food. 00:05:27.694 --> 00:05:33.510 The work offers a restaging of that conversation and several flashbacks. 00:05:34.395 --> 00:05:38.560 Then each flashback, we eventually see a flying overhead shot of 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:39.295 a landscape. 00:05:39.821 --> 00:05:42.081 That voice that accompanies that shot 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:47.780 is the real sensor operator's voice, describing his real life and work. 00:05:49.669 --> 00:05:55.039 The work tries to weave together this person's recollections and his conversations, 00:05:55.039 --> 00:06:01.330 reimagining that encounter several times over as a kind of unresolved, repeating piece. 00:06:03.052 --> 00:06:05.819 SENSOR OPERATOR: Usually I wouldn't get home until 10:00 in the morning. 00:06:05.819 --> 00:06:07.850 You jump in the shower, get your breakfast. 00:06:07.850 --> 00:06:12.442 Play some video games for, you know, for four hours and then try to sleep. 00:06:13.949 --> 00:06:16.740 I guess Predator is similar to playing a video game, 00:06:16.740 --> 00:06:18.949 but playing the same video game four years straight, 00:06:18.949 --> 00:06:20.370 every single day on the same level. 00:06:20.370 --> 00:06:21.530 But then you have your moments 00:06:21.530 --> 00:06:24.870 when there's a real emergency going on, and that's just where stress comes into play. 00:06:24.870 --> 00:06:25.960 How do I hit that truck, 00:06:25.960 --> 00:06:28.167 and how far away should I put the missile to get the truck 00:06:28.645 --> 00:06:30.449 so that way I don't have any damage 00:06:30.449 --> 00:06:34.516 to the surrounding buildings or to the people or hurt anybody else's life that's around there? 00:06:35.229 --> 00:06:37.500 And sometimes I make mistakes. 00:06:38.863 --> 00:06:41.080 I mean, there is horror sides to working Predator. 00:06:41.080 --> 00:06:42.196 You see a lot of death. 00:06:43.535 --> 00:06:46.349 I mean, there came a point after, you know, 00:06:46.349 --> 00:06:50.530 five years of doing this that it's just I had to think about, 00:06:50.530 --> 00:06:54.469 wow, there's so much loss of life that was a direct result of me. 00:06:56.119 --> 00:06:57.959 I mean, there was a lot of personal stuff I had to go through, 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:02.307 a lot of chaplains I had to talk to, and a lot of people look like, 00:07:02.307 --> 00:07:04.996 "How can you have PTSD "if you weren't actively in a war zone?" 00:07:04.996 --> 00:07:09.211 Well, technically speaking, every single day I was active in a war zone. 00:07:09.379 --> 00:07:11.410 I mean I may not have been personally at harm, 00:07:11.410 --> 00:07:13.381 but I was directly affecting people's lives over there 00:07:13.381 --> 00:07:14.421 every single day. 00:07:15.330 --> 00:07:17.661 You know, it's not like a video game. 00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:20.539 I can't switch it off. 00:07:21.185 --> 00:07:22.233 It's always there. 00:07:24.289 --> 00:07:27.639 I'd very much rather think about the work in terms of portraiture. 00:07:27.639 --> 00:07:30.160 We know that somebody who's painting a portrait 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:35.819 is inevitably going to use a particular style in order to represent the subject. 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:40.280 What I do in a sense very often are portraits of, in this case, 00:07:40.280 --> 00:07:45.070 the drone sensor operator or laborers in sex industry, 00:07:45.070 --> 00:07:46.840 but because they are portraits, 00:07:46.840 --> 00:07:51.849 there is somebody who's telling their story and telling their stories are increasingly 00:07:51.849 --> 00:07:52.849 interfering 00:07:52.849 --> 00:07:58.234 with a more passive and fluid reception of who these people are and what they do. 00:07:58.834 --> 00:08:02.599 So Julia, what's coming up then after the dogs are taken care of? 00:08:02.599 --> 00:08:03.599 What do you do? 00:08:03.599 --> 00:08:05.900 I'm going to make my breakfast shake, run my bath. 00:08:05.900 --> 00:08:07.220 OMER: The structure of this project 00:08:07.220 --> 00:08:10.470 is literally showing a day in the life of workers 00:08:10.470 --> 00:08:13.325 in the adult film industry. 00:08:14.903 --> 00:08:20.164 I wanted to find a way to connect to a company and to film them filming their film. 00:08:21.982 --> 00:08:25.979 At that point I started to write vignettes that I would combine with this, 00:08:25.979 --> 00:08:30.099 so there's a documentary component to it, and a fictional component of course. 00:08:33.399 --> 00:08:35.800 I wanted to show them simultaneously, 00:08:35.800 --> 00:08:37.669 because I wanted to show how their separate lives 00:08:37.669 --> 00:08:40.760 at some point converge because of their work. 00:08:41.430 --> 00:08:45.158 The four screens represent an attempt to articulate that spatially. 00:08:48.935 --> 00:08:51.130 The work continuously braids 00:08:51.130 --> 00:08:53.980 stories and individuals together, and it pulls them apart, 00:08:53.980 --> 00:08:56.570 and there is kind of a structural dynamic there 00:08:56.570 --> 00:08:59.100 that's about movement and repetition, 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:00.829 and the potential for seeing beauty in something 00:09:00.829 --> 00:09:04.420 which is as pedestrian as four people driving to work in L.A. 00:09:04.420 --> 00:09:05.763 I mean, how boring is that? 00:09:07.270 --> 00:09:14.529 (music plays over radio) 00:09:16.968 --> 00:09:19.703 I rely on fiction very much for my work. 00:09:20.468 --> 00:09:24.713 Everything That Rises Must Converge is the title of Flannery O'Connor's short story, 00:09:24.713 --> 00:09:28.160 which served as an inspiration for what I was thinking at the time 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:30.600 and how I was going to approach a particular subject. 00:09:33.374 --> 00:09:34.699 Why I got in the business? 00:09:36.397 --> 00:09:37.300 It's my parents. 00:09:37.970 --> 00:09:38.610 INTERVIEWER: Your parents? 00:09:39.110 --> 00:09:39.610 Yeah. 00:09:40.447 --> 00:09:42.220 INTERVIEWER: Were they also adult film directors? 00:09:42.603 --> 00:09:43.220 No. 00:09:44.368 --> 00:09:45.646 My parents were hippies. 00:09:45.646 --> 00:09:47.556 INTERVIEWER: Oh, so were mine. 00:09:48.010 --> 00:09:49.010 No. 00:09:49.010 --> 00:09:50.288 No, no, no, no. 00:09:50.910 --> 00:09:52.148 My parents were the real deal. 00:09:52.770 --> 00:09:53.894 INTERVIEWER: Mine were too. 00:09:54.324 --> 00:09:57.335 No, dude, it's written all over you. 00:09:57.933 --> 00:10:02.111 Your parents were your typical fair-weather, happy, 00:10:02.278 --> 00:10:03.605 non-threatening flower children. 00:10:03.605 --> 00:10:07.970 OMER: There's one character whose politics is correct on the one hand, 00:10:07.970 --> 00:10:10.470 but he's completely resentful towards his mother, 00:10:10.470 --> 00:10:12.484 who represents this sort of other in the story. 00:10:14.589 --> 00:10:17.648 Reagan democrats, am I right? 00:10:17.959 --> 00:10:18.959 More or less. 00:10:19.270 --> 00:10:21.750 They were hippies, and they lived in a commune, 00:10:21.750 --> 00:10:24.769 and in this commune they were very busy chipping away 00:10:24.769 --> 00:10:29.779 at the hierarchies and the kind of power that underpins society at that time. 00:10:29.779 --> 00:10:31.750 Part of that is sex. 00:10:31.750 --> 00:10:35.850 Part of that is family and its relation to sex, 00:10:35.850 --> 00:10:40.240 so he describes a past where 38 people are sleeping and working together. 00:10:40.790 --> 00:10:43.000 Sex is something that you do with everyone. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:44.665 It's your obligation to do it. 00:10:44.665 --> 00:10:46.760 It becomes in a sense, work, 00:10:46.760 --> 00:10:52.038 something that defines that particular society and that children are also involved in this. 00:10:52.349 --> 00:10:54.999 This is something that this character has been through. 00:10:55.190 --> 00:10:59.590 This is the particular conundrum that that person is stuck in and that he represents. 00:10:59.590 --> 00:11:01.116 DIRECTOR: Okay, sexy time, ready? 00:11:01.116 --> 00:11:02.812 This one's got to be the one for all the marbles. 00:11:02.812 --> 00:11:04.490 I feel it in my loins. 00:11:04.490 --> 00:11:05.281 Here we go. 00:11:05.281 --> 00:11:06.066 Please hold. 00:11:06.066 --> 00:11:08.269 And sexy time, and hold on please. 00:11:08.269 --> 00:11:10.010 OMER: When they're acting in front of the camera 00:11:10.010 --> 00:11:13.450 for their film, they're in a genre. 00:11:13.450 --> 00:11:14.450 They're mannered. 00:11:14.450 --> 00:11:15.128 DIRECTOR: Here we go. 00:11:15.128 --> 00:11:15.701 Action. 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:17.752 He turned out to be 70 years old. 00:11:17.752 --> 00:11:18.752 What? 00:11:18.752 --> 00:11:22.101 Yeah, his picture was from 1986. 00:11:22.640 --> 00:11:24.119 This woman is a goddess. 00:11:24.119 --> 00:11:30.030 She needs to be appreciated, like a fine wine, aged to perfection. 00:11:30.030 --> 00:11:31.060 Just, just. 00:11:31.060 --> 00:11:35.831 OMER: It's a very stylized kind of performance, using a particular language for a particular 00:11:35.831 --> 00:11:36.859 audience. 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:41.490 They were in a sense the most banal, and that's what I was after. 00:11:41.490 --> 00:11:43.510 –Yeah, but you're just a- 00:11:43.510 --> 00:11:47.209 OMER: It's very, very postmodern in a sense. 00:11:47.209 --> 00:11:48.730 They're not bad actors. 00:11:48.730 --> 00:11:51.060 They're just playing in a particular way. 00:11:51.060 --> 00:11:53.720 It's genre, and I like using these different genres 00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:57.615 and sort of unpacking their languages and playing around with that. 00:11:57.950 --> 00:11:59.298 DIRECTOR: As soon as she starts talking, it's going to move. 00:11:59.298 --> 00:12:00.228 OMER: Okay. 00:12:00.587 --> 00:12:01.087 Tom, do you mind if- 00:12:01.087 --> 00:12:02.416 The first page? 00:12:02.416 --> 00:12:03.822 "Bueno todo estas?" 00:12:03.822 --> 00:12:04.689 Yes, please. 00:12:04.689 --> 00:12:05.689 Okay. 00:12:06.722 --> 00:12:11.013 (actress speaking Spanish) 00:12:14.003 --> 00:12:17.903 This character pulls you into another location, which is a studio. 00:12:18.070 --> 00:12:20.630 She's your guide into this world. 00:12:20.630 --> 00:12:23.970 She reappears when you're lost or bored. 00:12:23.970 --> 00:12:28.029 Her reading of the script and interaction with a director 00:12:28.029 --> 00:12:30.632 constitutes a distant and critical element, 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:33.970 this other narrative regarding crossing the border 00:12:33.970 --> 00:12:35.199 and migration. 00:12:35.199 --> 00:12:37.267 (actress speaks Spanish) 00:12:37.920 --> 00:12:39.730 But she really said all this stuff. 00:12:39.730 --> 00:12:41.330 Everything stands on something else. 00:12:41.330 --> 00:12:43.250 Everything stands for something else. 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:44.437 Yes, she did. 00:12:44.437 --> 00:12:45.933 Of course, there's some editing. 00:12:47.225 --> 00:12:50.755 And all that stuff about licking, you know, the wet dog at the beginning, 00:12:50.755 --> 00:12:55.181 and then the wind licking, and cold, bitter bursts. 00:12:55.874 --> 00:12:58.040 Wait, where does it say this? 00:12:58.040 --> 00:13:00.269 When they're on the truck on the way to the border. 00:13:00.269 --> 00:13:01.737 But it's biting, not licking. 00:13:02.957 --> 00:13:03.613 Right. 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:06.600 It's just a way to stop the flow. 00:13:06.600 --> 00:13:08.841 You know, it makes you think twice about what you're hearing. 00:13:10.300 --> 00:13:14.670 There will be a man and his wife who are undergoing a particular crisis, 00:13:14.670 --> 00:13:17.634 and perhaps a moment of transformation, perhaps not. 00:13:17.634 --> 00:13:19.381 Okay, action. 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:23.420 These two brothers I told you about, the ones I keep seeing. 00:13:23.755 --> 00:13:26.304 JOSH: You mean brothers, like two Black dudes, or, like? 00:13:27.069 --> 00:13:28.481 They were white, Josh. 00:13:29.007 --> 00:13:30.475 Biological brothers. 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:32.490 Maybe twins. 00:13:32.490 --> 00:13:34.779 They looked really similar. 00:13:35.449 --> 00:13:36.464 What they find? 00:13:36.464 --> 00:13:37.680 An egg. 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:41.031 What kind of egg? 00:13:41.031 --> 00:13:42.820 I mean, I mean, like a chicken egg? 00:13:42.820 --> 00:13:44.790 OMERFAST: In order to resolve the crisis, 00:13:44.790 --> 00:13:48.410 they need to produce something, and so they don't produce a child. 00:13:48.410 --> 00:13:51.920 They produce a story, and that story produces an egg. 00:13:51.920 --> 00:13:54.324 This was, like, perfectly oval. 00:13:54.324 --> 00:13:56.396 And it looked old. 00:13:56.420 --> 00:13:57.420 Trust me, Josh. 00:13:57.420 --> 00:13:58.420 It was an egg. 00:13:58.420 --> 00:14:00.217 Plus, they handled it carefully. 00:14:01.102 --> 00:14:05.470 OMER: People always talk about my work in terms of the real and the fictional, 00:14:05.470 --> 00:14:11.290 and that is not interesting to me at all, these notions of truth and the real 00:14:11.290 --> 00:14:16.296 are hugely important for us when we're talking in terms of a process of justice. 00:14:17.374 --> 00:14:18.219 I'm not a journalist. 00:14:18.219 --> 00:14:21.420 My work does not exist in the court of law. 00:14:21.420 --> 00:14:23.050 It exists in the space of art, 00:14:23.050 --> 00:14:27.762 and the space of art allows for ambiguities and for contradictions. 00:14:30.680 --> 00:14:34.040 This whole fetishized notion of truth and ideal, 00:14:34.040 --> 00:14:40.352 which is a lovely thing to aspire to, is in a sense the plaything in the work. 00:14:44.250 --> 00:14:47.740 To think about the work in terms of truth and lies 00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:49.349 or truth and fiction is to kill the work. 00:14:49.349 --> 00:14:51.196 (knocking on door) 00:14:57.772 --> 00:14:59.414 What, what are you doing?