1 00:00:09,140 --> 00:00:12,400 We're in the middle of installing "Party on the CAPS". 2 00:00:14,150 --> 00:00:16,180 So this curved wall that we picked up in three parts, 3 00:00:16,180 --> 00:00:17,630 it's going to be put together, 4 00:00:17,630 --> 00:00:18,630 painted, 5 00:00:18,630 --> 00:00:19,980 and then eventually installed. 6 00:00:19,980 --> 00:00:22,280 That will be, actually, a screen. 7 00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:29,480 I have these parameters, 8 00:00:29,490 --> 00:00:30,849 which is the sound, 9 00:00:30,849 --> 00:00:32,880 the editing, the animation. 10 00:00:34,300 --> 00:00:36,620 Everything is designed for the film. 11 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:40,540 Then I add the space-- 12 00:00:40,559 --> 00:00:41,860 how many screens, 13 00:00:41,860 --> 00:00:42,740 the scale. 14 00:00:43,580 --> 00:00:46,120 So, everything is coming together, 15 00:00:46,130 --> 00:00:47,320 and then the final touch is: 16 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:51,840 the video finally makes it onto the surfaces that we built for it. 17 00:00:54,970 --> 00:00:58,040 The problem is, things that are level never look straight. 18 00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:01,150 This is the step where I get to edit my film, 19 00:01:01,150 --> 00:01:03,320 but using space instead of time. 20 00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:06,820 I go shot by shot, 21 00:01:06,820 --> 00:01:10,060 and for each shot, decide what do you see where. 22 00:01:11,580 --> 00:01:12,580 I can make cuts, 23 00:01:12,580 --> 00:01:14,760 but I can also show something in different places. 24 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:17,960 That has an effect on how you experience the film. 25 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:26,380 ["Meriem Bennani: In Between Languages"] 26 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:32,820 The sculptures started happening with the films in mind. 27 00:01:34,300 --> 00:01:37,920 So I never made a sculpture that's not paired with a film. 28 00:01:40,380 --> 00:01:42,940 You bring into it things that are 29 00:01:42,940 --> 00:01:46,360 characteristics of another way of thinking. 30 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:53,940 You learn something from animation 31 00:01:53,940 --> 00:01:55,400 that has to do with humor. 32 00:02:02,460 --> 00:02:04,620 And then you can make sculptures that are funny. 33 00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:09,539 So I'll have the master version of the video-- 34 00:02:09,540 --> 00:02:11,660 that is what you would watch as a film-- 35 00:02:15,020 --> 00:02:16,720 and then the sculptures, 36 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:19,520 they come from a digital world 37 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:20,760 that I imagine. 38 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:25,780 Then they're fabricated. 39 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:29,380 So they all come from opposite places and they meet in the middle. 40 00:02:32,940 --> 00:02:34,960 [SOUND OF SCHOOL BELL RINGING] 41 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:39,180 I went to the high school I went to in Rabat, Morocco, 42 00:02:40,620 --> 00:02:43,580 and I filmed a group of teenagers. 43 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:47,280 ["Mission Teens"] 44 00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:57,120 The subject of "MISSION TEENS" is the French-speaking culture in Morocco. 45 00:02:57,139 --> 00:03:00,569 [WOMAN, IN FRENCH] --So I've been in the French system 46 00:03:00,569 --> 00:03:02,040 --since... 47 00:03:02,060 --> 00:03:03,580 --basically since kindergarten. 48 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:04,800 [BENNANI] The biggest tool for the way 49 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:06,290 that French maintain this power 50 00:03:06,290 --> 00:03:07,290 is education. 51 00:03:07,290 --> 00:03:09,980 [SHEEP, IN FRENCH] --Having your kids at the Mission is... 52 00:03:10,580 --> 00:03:12,020 --is prestigious! 53 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:13,240 [BENNANI] The film is not about how 54 00:03:13,249 --> 00:03:15,129 French is not a Moroccan language, 55 00:03:15,129 --> 00:03:18,409 but it's more so about why French is political 56 00:03:18,409 --> 00:03:19,939 and also a soft power tool. 57 00:03:21,340 --> 00:03:24,260 [TEACHER, OFF-SCREEN, IN FRENCH] --So, the definition of Third World is 58 00:03:24,260 --> 00:03:25,600 something you need to master! 59 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:28,240 [BENNANI] I was French educated. 60 00:03:28,660 --> 00:03:31,580 I learned about French history, 61 00:03:31,580 --> 00:03:32,580 French geography. 62 00:03:32,580 --> 00:03:33,819 The ways that I thought are 63 00:03:33,819 --> 00:03:36,360 like the way that I developed being able to be critical-- 64 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:39,280 all these things are complete products of French school. 65 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:42,640 I had to emancipate myself from that 66 00:03:42,650 --> 00:03:44,130 to be able to talk about it. 67 00:03:44,130 --> 00:03:46,340 [WOMAN, IN FRENCH] --The French Mission it's that we don't focus 68 00:03:46,340 --> 00:03:48,549 --so much on the country we live in. 69 00:03:48,549 --> 00:03:51,380 --Knowing that, even if it's a French school, but it's like, 70 00:03:51,380 --> 00:03:54,340 --we're in Morocco and I would like it if 71 00:03:54,340 --> 00:03:59,200 --they focused more on Morocco and Islam and everything. 72 00:04:02,980 --> 00:04:05,540 [HOUSE, SINGING] --I'm a fancy house in Rabat... 73 00:04:05,540 --> 00:04:07,940 [BENNANI] Also, I filmed houses from the neighborhoods 74 00:04:07,940 --> 00:04:11,040 where most people who go to French school live. 75 00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:13,760 [HOUSE, SINGING] --Got me up a golden door. 76 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,500 --I'm very much what everyone admires. 77 00:04:17,500 --> 00:04:18,900 [BENNANI] From the architecture, 78 00:04:18,900 --> 00:04:21,600 you can see what lifestyle people aspire to. 79 00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:23,720 "MISSION TEENS," 80 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:25,940 it's first been shown here at the Whitney Biennial, 81 00:04:25,940 --> 00:04:28,080 inside these sculptures on the terrace. 82 00:04:29,340 --> 00:04:30,680 I called them "viewing stations." 83 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:33,680 [HOUSE, SINGING] --Palm trees. 84 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:35,380 --Marble floors. 85 00:04:37,860 --> 00:04:40,039 [BENNANI] When you press the button, 86 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:42,120 it actually steals the video from the other side. 87 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:45,420 The other person on the other side presses the button as well. 88 00:04:45,420 --> 00:04:48,160 So it becomes about having to coexist. 89 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:48,660 [LAUGHS] 90 00:04:52,660 --> 00:04:54,180 The themes I choose for my work, 91 00:04:54,190 --> 00:04:56,360 I don't make a conscious choice of being like, 92 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:58,580 "I want to talk about post-colonialism." 93 00:04:58,580 --> 00:04:59,720 I try to... 94 00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:04,880 follow what I spontaneously am drawn to. 95 00:05:22,700 --> 00:05:24,320 In "Party on the CAPS," 96 00:05:25,940 --> 00:05:29,880 I imagined a world where teleportation is possible. 97 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:32,840 [ALLIGATOR] --Remember when teleportation replaced airplanes? 98 00:05:33,780 --> 00:05:37,440 [BENNANI] It's kind of like thinking about immigration in the future. 99 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:38,880 ["America's bouncer"] --You can't come in. 100 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:40,560 --You can't come in. 101 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:44,440 [BENNANI] Europe and America would freak out about their borders 102 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:46,000 if teleportation was possible. 103 00:05:54,569 --> 00:05:57,370 The Caps is an island in the middle of the Atlantic. 104 00:05:57,370 --> 00:06:00,490 That is a place where American troopers-- 105 00:06:00,490 --> 00:06:03,289 which is like a new version of I.C.E., kind of-- 106 00:06:03,289 --> 00:06:09,389 has put people that have been intercepted from Africa trying to teleport to America. 107 00:06:09,389 --> 00:06:12,240 And then the place has become a place of its own. 108 00:06:15,060 --> 00:06:17,300 The whole island of The Caps 109 00:06:17,300 --> 00:06:20,469 is a physical analogy for the idea of diaspora-- 110 00:06:20,469 --> 00:06:24,330 how people think of diaspora as either having to fully assimilate 111 00:06:24,330 --> 00:06:26,530 or return to the land they come from. 112 00:06:26,530 --> 00:06:28,930 But that actually there's a third alternative, 113 00:06:28,930 --> 00:06:30,920 which is in that in-between. 114 00:06:32,340 --> 00:06:35,700 --Can you have the starting point be where the lens would be? 115 00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:40,180 --See, the screen should come here. 116 00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:44,040 Usually when something interests me, 117 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:47,500 I'm not able to clarify at first why I'm interested in it. 118 00:06:47,860 --> 00:06:51,340 So that effort to articulate that interest, 119 00:06:51,340 --> 00:06:52,460 that's the work. 120 00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:55,600 I haven't been able to express myself 121 00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:58,540 or articulate myself with words as well as I would like to. 122 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:02,020 I think that has to do with being here for ten years 123 00:07:02,020 --> 00:07:04,120 and being English-as-a-second-language, 124 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:07,700 and feeling like I'm losing a bit of my first language, 125 00:07:07,700 --> 00:07:09,300 which is a very strange feeling. 126 00:07:09,940 --> 00:07:12,539 I've always been in between languages. 127 00:07:12,540 --> 00:07:17,580 I found that developing this practice that pulls from so many different languages-- 128 00:07:17,880 --> 00:07:18,800 of TV, 129 00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:20,220 cinema, 130 00:07:20,229 --> 00:07:22,039 sculpture and installation-- 131 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:26,700 mixing it all together has allowed me to hit the right note, 132 00:07:26,700 --> 00:07:27,740 in my own way.