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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: "A Crack in the Hourglass" | Art21 "Extended Play"

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    - I think that the monuments
    that are most interesting
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    are the monuments that either disappear,
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    question themselves,
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    that complicate some of these stories
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    that we tell ourselves.
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    (siren wailing)
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    I have for a long time
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    proposed a more anti monumental approach,
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    an approach that is more
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    of a platform for people
    to self represent.
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    I got COVID in early
    March here in New York.
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    It was pretty bad for me, I have asthma.
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    It was humbling to feel this
    incapability to breathe.
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    I felt that a lot of
    stories that I was hearing
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    had to do with family members
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    who would go into a hospital, sick,
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    and you could not go with them,
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    two weeks later they were dead
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    and you couldn't even go to their funeral.
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    As a Mexican, I think that
    we think a lot about death
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    and all the rituals, the toasts
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    and the things that we do to have closure
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    and to bid farewell are critical
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    to our survival as a community.
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    And that could not happen.
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    The Brooklyn Museum is
    working to make connections
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    between this artwork
    and the communities here
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    in New York to create a way
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    for people to be able to come
    together to remember our loss.
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    - People don't really talk
    about death in Chinese culture.
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    It's seen as very superstitious
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    and kind of might bring on
    more death or more bad luck.
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    Regardless of the pandemic,
    that's always a thing.
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    And I think with the pandemic,
    people are very scared
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    or very apprehensive to talk about it.
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    My aunt passed away this past March.
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    She was our everything, essentially.
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    It was hard for us to kind
    of process and even recognize
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    that my aunt died because
    like the last time
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    we saw her was the Lunar
    New Year, right before.
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    One thing you do during a funeral
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    for Chinese people is
    that you burn joss paper.
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    So, there are these paper mache sculptures
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    that are representative of material goods.
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    So it could be a home, a car, iPhone
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    Because we didn't get to experience that,
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    we didn't have like a
    physical space to talk
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    about the memories and
    then have the comfort
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    of just like physically being with people
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    that you're close with
    to just hopefully get
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    to the next day without
    being so sad about it.
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    - My studio and I, we
    decided to make an artwork
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    that would allow people to come together
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    and see a live event.
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    We thought that it was important
    that it'd be something live
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    that somebody from any
    time zone could log into
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    and experience, together
    with their loved ones.
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    A Crack in the Hourglass is
    basically a robot arm controlled
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    by a custom made software.
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    You send a photograph of
    a loved one or a family
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    or friend over a website called
    acrackinthehourglass.net.
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    It gets analyzed and
    it very slowly is drawn
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    by dropping sand from an hourglass.
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    As this image is appearing,
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    there's two cameras that are
    broadcasting the action live.
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    So when you participate,
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    you can invite friends to log
    onto the website and see it.
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    The work is the result of a collaboration
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    between people at my studio,
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    the work comes out of discussion,
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    comes out of a desire from
    all of us to do something
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    that would allow us to, I
    guess not feel so lonely.
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    When you enter the hall
    at the Brooklyn Museum
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    and you see all of these faces,
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    you notice that there is
    an exchange of glances
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    around the room.
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    Most of the people in the
    portraits are looking back at you.
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    Most people choose
    photographs where the subject
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    is not distant or looking away
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    but they're looking
    straight at the camera.
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    There's a moment which
    the image tilts slowly
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    and gravity pulls the sand down
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    making the portrait disappear
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    and recovering all the sand to be recycled
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    into new portraits.
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    All the portraits, so far,
    hundreds of them are all made
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    with the same small amount of sand.
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    And for me, that was really important
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    because it was a sense
    of universal solidarity
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    around this and a sense of connection.
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    Whenever I'm optimistic
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    I think that there is a sense of empathy,
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    and there is a sense
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    that this could happen to
    anybody anywhere in the planet
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    to an extent unites us and unites us
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    in understanding something
    that's invisible.
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    Disappearance, sometimes the
    ephemeral helps you remember.
Title:
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: "A Crack in the Hourglass" | Art21 "Extended Play"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Extended Play" series
Duration:
06:39

English subtitles

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