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Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg in "Berlin" - Season 9 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

  • 0:36 - 0:42
    Nathalie Djurberg: Art is like one of the
    few places in society that is not so rigid,
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    which doesn't have to have one single purpose,
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    because where would this fit in otherwise?
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    My work, it's a looking for the answer,
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    but the answer itself is not so important.
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    It's more important what I discover during
    the making of it.
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    I moved here around 2003 for the electronic
    music scene.
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    I was just sitting at home making music for
    myself, before I met Nathalie.
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    Berlin is like a free zone.
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    You live in a sort of bubble.
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    There's not so many social constraints.
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    Djurberg: Living in Berlin has had a big influence.
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    For me, it's more feeling very free.
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    I'm self-taught in animation, and he's kind
    of the same with music.
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    Berg:
    If you're self-taught, what's driving you
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    is the necessity to do it.
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    Djurberg: The best way that I can make the
    idea is by making an animation.
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    It's just because that fits me.
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    If I could do it in a simpler way, I would.
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    So if I was a brilliant writer, I would write.
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    Before, I had been so frustrated in not being
    able to tell what I wanted to tell.
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    I didn't find a way to do it in one image.
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    Then I made an animation, and that suited
    me perfectly,
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    because I didn't have to be content with one image.
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    I could have a thousand.
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    In the studio there are no taboos.
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    Taboos exist because we are really scared
    of being that ourselves.
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    So we don't look at it.
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    Bringing art into the light--to say that,
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    "No, that was just a thought"--
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    didn't really belong to me in that way.
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    I was just so terrified of looking at it,
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    because I was so scared of finding out something
    about myself.
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    I never did something that was a maze before.
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    But this is pretty massive,
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    because usually I don't have to be inside
    the set this much.
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    Berg: When we met, she didn't think I'd be
    a good musical partner.
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    Djurberg: He was sharing an apartment with
    my best friend,
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    and she suggested he would make music to me.
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    I gave him a finished one I wasn't happy with.
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    Berg: When I saw her films, I hadn't seen
    anything like it before.
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    Like nothing.
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    There's nothing that looks like it.
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    It evoked something specific with me.
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    In the beginning, I was kind of scared to
    make music for them actually.
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    Because I thought, I don't want to change
    them too much.
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    Djurberg: When he gave it back to me, he had
    flipped it so much,
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    that all the mistakes and all the crudeness
    of it didn't matter.
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    It had made the flip that I hadn't been able to.
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    Even though images evoke emotions,
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    music or sound do it even more.
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    Hans is an expert manipulator in that way.
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    I don't really care about story.
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    It's the situation that interests me.
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    For me, it's not so interesting if I know
    everything that's going to happen in animation.
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    I lose interest in it because then I've already
    seen it in my head.
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    I don't write ideas up.
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    I never do because the one that matters stays anyway,
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    or they come back in another form.
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    Berg: It's more about letting things pop up
    and just knowing which things to grab.
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    That's how I see ideas, a bit like I don't
    make them.
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    I'm more catching them.
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    The best I can do is just catch the right ideas.
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    Djurberg: I am intrigued by what is hidden
    and what it is trying to hide.
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    For the "Dark Side of the Moon," it's about
    exploring a secret that you don't know what it is,
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    like your own secret that you expect to find
    but you never find it because it doesn't really
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    exist.
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    Berg: For this film, which is in this enchanted
    forest setting,
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    I wanted the music to be mystical.
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    It's more like a musical almost.
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    Because the characters are so clumsy, and
    ugly, and a bit disgusting,
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    I wanted to make the music really beautiful.
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    Djurberg: There's always a distance when you
    look at a screen or a projection.
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    I wanted to have this immersion of being with
    this physically.
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    Berg: It's like walking inside an animation.
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    The forest, it's like a magical place.
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    I wanted to work with that.
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    Djurberg: Both Hans and I are very colored
    by being Swedish.
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    The culture of the folklore, that was a very,
    very big influence in my childhood.
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    That always went back to nature, like fables
    where animals are representing different human
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    characters.
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    If I use an animal, I can show a personal
    trait, a characteristic.
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    I was extremely fascinated with the folklore
    that are not directed for children.
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    My art is not for children.
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    A child would look at the animation.
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    They might see a banana, but a grownup might not.
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    They will see a banana but also what it symbolizes.
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    My process is really long.
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    The animation that I'm working on now, I worked
    on it for four and a half months.
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    I don't like post-production at all, and I
    don't like editing.
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    There is no point in doing that afterwards.
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    Animating is for me to jump into the unknown.
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    Once that is done, there is no feeling or
    necessity to work with it after.
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    Berg: Now I'm just trying out different basic ideas.
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    It's quite dark, and I want to keep it like that.
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    In this animation, the search that goes on
    and on in this maze,
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    I want the music to be almost like it's rolling
    forward all the time, almost a bit drunk.
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    That's what I want to emphasize with the music.
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    Djurberg: The film is about that you get lost
    in your own mind.
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    Wanting to get out, you keep on going in this loop,
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    just going through these corridors like a maze,
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    never getting out.
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    Even if I'm not doing something that is directly
    about me,
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    it's absolutely still about me.
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    Everything I do in art is a discovering of
    who I am.
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    That is the search.
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    That is the fascination.
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    I don't think that emotions or feelings should
    be controlled.
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    They should be felt and looked at.
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    It's when they're hidden that they are a problem.
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    I have nothing really to say to anyone because
    I can't know what anyone else needs.
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    You can think that you know what someone else
    needs, but it's impossible to know.
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    But since people are not that different and
    I'm a human being,
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    some parts of me will really resonate with
    other people.
Title:
Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg in "Berlin" - Season 9 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Art in the Twenty-First Century" broadcast series
Duration:
15:33

English subtitles

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