< Return to Video

Diane Severin Nguyen’s Transfigurations | Art21 "New York Close Up"

  • 0:01 - 0:04
    (machinery beeping)
  • 0:07 - 0:10
    (beads rustling)
  • 0:10 - 0:13
    - For me, photography is a very intimate
  • 0:13 - 0:15
    and one-on-one encounter.
  • 0:17 - 0:20
    (gentle instrumental music)
  • 0:22 - 0:24
    Certain materials are understood
  • 0:24 - 0:26
    very differently through the camera.
  • 0:26 - 0:29
    I think it's amazing when something can be
  • 0:29 - 0:32
    really transfigured through the lens.
  • 0:37 - 0:41
    I make photographs and videos and
  • 0:41 - 0:43
    also have installation elements,
  • 0:43 - 0:46
    what I would call
    architectural interventions.
  • 0:47 - 0:51
    (instrumental music continues)
  • 0:57 - 0:59
    Photographs are such
    intense condensations.
  • 0:59 - 1:01
    They're almost like a dreamwork.
  • 1:12 - 1:14
    (people cheering)
  • 1:14 - 1:17
    That YouTube, internet
    space, it gives me ideas
  • 1:17 - 1:19
    to make me feel connected to other people
  • 1:19 - 1:21
    who are also trying to make things.
  • 1:26 - 1:29
    (gentle electronic music)
  • 1:34 - 1:38
    I love watching craft
    videos, fruit carvings,
  • 1:38 - 1:43
    cooking tutorials, makeup
    tutorials, braiding hair.
  • 1:43 - 1:45
    These crafts and acts of making
  • 1:45 - 1:47
    have a real temporality to them,
  • 1:47 - 1:49
    almost like an expiration date.
  • 1:52 - 1:55
    Photography deals so
    well with the impermanent
  • 1:55 - 1:56
    because you can just make an image
  • 1:56 - 1:58
    of a very impermanent situation.
  • 1:59 - 2:02
    (dramatic music)
  • 2:02 - 2:05
    As a photographer, I feel
    like it's my imperative
  • 2:05 - 2:09
    that I have to take in all
    of the trash, you know,
  • 2:09 - 2:13
    of the world and I think I
    work from this psychic garbage.
  • 2:15 - 2:19
    I work with so many discarded materials,
  • 2:19 - 2:22
    things that have very little
    social value ascribed to them.
  • 2:22 - 2:25
    I'll be cleaning my house
    and sweep up a pile of dust
  • 2:25 - 2:27
    and I'll take that dust
    and I'll just bring it
  • 2:27 - 2:28
    to the studio in a bag.
  • 2:31 - 2:35
    Or maybe I take something
    that has social value
  • 2:35 - 2:38
    and I turn it back into materiality.
  • 2:46 - 2:48
    A successful image happens right before
  • 2:48 - 2:51
    everything falls apart and that could be
  • 2:51 - 2:52
    because I'm lighting something on fire
  • 2:52 - 2:55
    and I only have one split second.
  • 2:59 - 3:02
    (funky music)
  • 3:02 - 3:04
    I'm touching things and arranging things,
  • 3:04 - 3:07
    but it all has to happen within
    one instantaneous moment.
  • 3:10 - 3:13
    (funky music continues)
  • 3:21 - 3:24
    (upbeat whimsical music)
  • 3:33 - 3:36
    Sounds that you can't hear
    and air that you can't feel
  • 3:36 - 3:39
    and all the factors that
    you can't experience
  • 3:39 - 3:41
    shape what the photograph
    ends up becoming.
  • 3:43 - 3:44
    (beads rustling)
  • 3:44 - 3:46
    By the time I'm finished with an image,
  • 3:46 - 3:48
    I don't even remember where I started.
  • 3:49 - 3:51
    (beads clinking)
  • 3:51 - 3:53
    It's actually a process that's an
  • 3:53 - 3:56
    accumulation of failures in my studio.
  • 3:58 - 4:00
    It's very improvisational.
  • 4:00 - 4:04
    I almost think of it as a
    performance I am doing alone.
  • 4:04 - 4:07
    (orchestral music soaring)
  • 4:12 - 4:15
    (water tinkling)
  • 4:22 - 4:26
    I try to work against
    that impulse to identify
  • 4:26 - 4:30
    and get more towards a place of feeling.
  • 4:30 - 4:32
    I think knowing can create a distance.
  • 4:36 - 4:38
    Growing up and seeing the way that my mom
  • 4:38 - 4:42
    interacted with physical
    things in America,
  • 4:42 - 4:45
    where so oftentimes in the wrong way,
  • 4:45 - 4:46
    in the way that she would pack my launch,
  • 4:46 - 4:50
    a sauce in saran wrap,
    chips in saran wrap.
  • 4:50 - 4:53
    I came home to visit my mom
    and she was out in the garden
  • 4:53 - 4:58
    and she was just stabbing
    fake flowers into the ground,
  • 4:58 - 5:00
    amongst real flowers.
  • 5:00 - 5:01
    It was just like why would you do that?
  • 5:01 - 5:03
    Why do you want fake flowers?
  • 5:03 - 5:05
    To her, there's no difference.
  • 5:05 - 5:07
    There are the fake flowers
    and the real flowers
  • 5:07 - 5:10
    filling up the yard and
    making it look vibrant.
  • 5:11 - 5:15
    Seeing her do that, combine
    the natural and the artificial
  • 5:15 - 5:17
    for the sake of this cohesive image,
  • 5:17 - 5:20
    I felt so much relation
    to that in my work.
  • 5:21 - 5:23
    There's something about hidden labor
  • 5:23 - 5:27
    that actually imbues a
    psychic charge to an object.
  • 5:30 - 5:32
    I'm interested in these
    divides in culture.
  • 5:32 - 5:37
    What's trashy and what's seen
    as intellectual and clean?
  • 5:40 - 5:44
    I really relate to that space of copying,
  • 5:44 - 5:47
    wanting to be this other thing
    and stepping into that role.
  • 5:49 - 5:50
    And I love karaoke.
  • 5:50 - 5:52
    When you're singing
    karaoke with your friends,
  • 5:52 - 5:54
    the lyrics all of the sudden take on
  • 5:54 - 5:55
    this totally different meaning.
  • 5:57 - 6:00
    It brings out the text
    of the original material.
  • 6:02 - 6:07
    ♪ And the vision that was planted in my brain ♪
  • 6:08 - 6:11
    ♪ Still remains ♪
  • 6:11 - 6:12
    ♪ Within the sound ♪
    - "The Sound of Silence"
  • 6:12 - 6:16
    was written to provoke Western
    liberal American sympathy.
  • 6:17 - 6:19
    The Vietnamese subject was always
  • 6:19 - 6:21
    very peripheral to that sympathy.
  • 6:21 - 6:23
    With "Tyrant Star," I was just looking
  • 6:23 - 6:26
    for the perfect war song
  • 6:26 - 6:29
    and I ended up picking this peace anthem.
  • 6:29 - 6:32
    I worked with this girl,
    I found her on YouTube.
  • 6:32 - 6:36
    She was kind of like the
    aspiring star of "Tyrant Star."
  • 6:36 - 6:39
    She can't speak English, I
    taught her every syllable
  • 6:39 - 6:41
    of "The Sound of Silence."
  • 6:42 - 6:44
    A lot of the sounds in this song
  • 6:44 - 6:47
    are helicopters used
    during the Vietnam War.
  • 6:48 - 6:50
    I could take these sounds that were
  • 6:50 - 6:52
    coming from a very violent place
  • 6:52 - 6:54
    and then shift them into a pop song.
  • 6:58 - 7:01
    I really like cover songs 'cause
    it takes this given reality
  • 7:01 - 7:03
    that you know and understand
  • 7:03 - 7:06
    and you can completely twist the affect
  • 7:06 - 7:09
    on that given reality based
    on who's singing it and how.
  • 7:11 - 7:14
    Just the act of having someone
    Vietnamese sing this song
  • 7:14 - 7:17
    was powerful, even for
    me to hear her sing it.
  • 7:17 - 7:19
    (somber music)
  • 7:27 - 7:30
    There's something about being an artist
  • 7:30 - 7:33
    that comes from an inability to just be.
  • 7:35 - 7:37
    The moment that you speak or communicate,
  • 7:37 - 7:39
    there's already mediation.
  • 7:41 - 7:44
    There's something that's about intimacy
  • 7:44 - 7:47
    that is actually more
    important than knowing
  • 7:47 - 7:50
    and I wonder all the time what actually
  • 7:50 - 7:52
    makes you closer to something.
  • 7:59 - 8:02
    (Singing to The Sound of Silence)
    ♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪
  • 8:04 - 8:06
    ♪ I've come to talk to you again ♪
  • 8:06 - 8:09
    ♪ Ten thousand people, maybe more ♪
  • 8:09 - 8:13
    ♪ Because a vision softly creeping ♪
    ♪ People talking without speaking ♪
  • 8:16 - 8:18
    ♪ People hearing without listening ♪
  • 8:21 - 8:23
    ♪ People writing songs ♪
  • 8:24 - 8:26
    ♪ No one dared ♪
  • 8:27 - 8:32
    ♪ Disturb the sound of silence ♪
Title:
Diane Severin Nguyen’s Transfigurations | Art21 "New York Close Up"
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"New York Close Up" series
Duration:
08:34

English subtitles

Revisions