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Meriem Bennani: In Between Languages | Art21 "New York Close Up"

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    We're in the middle of installing
    "Party on the CAPS".
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    So this curved wall that we
    picked up in three parts,
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    it's going to be put together,
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    painted,
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    and then eventually installed.
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    That will be, actually,
    a screen.
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    I have these parameters,
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    which is the sound,
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    the editing,
    the animation.
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    Everything is designed for the film.
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    Then I add the space--
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    how many screens,
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    the scale.
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    So, everything is coming together,
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    and then the final touch is:
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    the video finally makes it onto
    the surfaces that we built for it.
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    The problem is,
    things that are level never look straight.
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    This is the step where I get to edit my film,
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    but using space instead of time.
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    I go shot by shot,
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    and for each shot,
    decide what do you see where.
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    I can make cuts,
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    but I can also show something
    in different places.
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    That has an effect on
    how you experience the film.
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    ["Meriem Bennani: In Between Languages"]
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    The sculptures started happening
    with the films in mind.
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    So I never made a sculpture that's not
    paired with a film.
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    You bring into it things that are
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    characteristics of another way of thinking.
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    You learn something from animation
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    that has to do with humor.
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    And then you can make sculptures
    that are funny.
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    So I'll have the master version of the video--
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    that is what you would watch as a film--
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    and then the sculptures,
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    they come from a digital world
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    that I imagine.
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    Then they're fabricated.
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    So they all come from opposite places
    and they meet in the middle.
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    [SOUND OF SCHOOL BELL RINGING]
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    I went to the high school I went to
    in Rabat, Morocco,
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    and I filmed a group of teenagers.
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    ["Mission Teens"]
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    The subject of "MISSION TEENS" is
    the French-speaking culture in Morocco.
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    [WOMAN, IN FRENCH]
    --So I've been in the French system
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    --since...
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    --basically since kindergarten.
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    [BENNANI]
    The biggest tool for the way
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    that French maintain this power
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    is education.
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    [SHEEP, IN FRENCH]
    --Having your kids at the Mission is...
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    --is prestigious!
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    [BENNANI]
    The film is not about how
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    French is not a Moroccan language,
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    but it's more so about why French is political
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    and also a soft power tool.
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    [TEACHER, OFF-SCREEN, IN FRENCH]
    --So, the definition of Third World is
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    something you need to master!
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    [BENNANI]
    I was French educated.
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    I learned about French history,
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    French geography.
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    The ways that I thought are
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    like the way that I developed
    being able to be critical--
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    all these things are
    complete products of French school.
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    I had to emancipate myself from that
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    to be able to talk about it.
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    [WOMAN, IN FRENCH]
    --The French Mission it's that we don't focus
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    --so much on the country we live in.
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    --Knowing that, even if it's a French school,
    but it's like,
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    --we're in Morocco and I would like it if
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    --they focused more on Morocco and Islam and everything.
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    [HOUSE, SINGING]
    --I'm a fancy house in Rabat...
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    [BENNANI]
    Also, I filmed houses from the neighborhoods
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    where most people who
    go to French school live.
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    [HOUSE, SINGING]
    --Got me up a golden door.
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    --I'm very much what everyone admires.
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    [BENNANI]
    From the architecture,
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    you can see what lifestyle people aspire to.
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    "MISSION TEENS,"
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    it's first been shown here at
    the Whitney Biennial,
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    inside these sculptures on the terrace.
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    I called them "viewing stations."
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    [HOUSE, SINGING]
    --Palm trees.
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    --Marble floors.
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    [BENNANI]
    When you press the button,
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    it actually steals the video
    from the other side.
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    The other person on the other side
    presses the button as well.
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    So it becomes about having to coexist.
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    [LAUGHS]
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    The themes I choose for my work,
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    I don't make a conscious choice of being like,
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    "I want to talk about post-colonialism."
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    I try to...
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    follow what I spontaneously am drawn to.
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    In "Party on the CAPS,"
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    I imagined a world where
    teleportation is possible.
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    [ALLIGATOR]
    --Remember when teleportation replaced airplanes?
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    [BENNANI]
    It's kind of like thinking about
    immigration in the future.
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    ["America's bouncer"]
    --You can't come in.
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    --You can't come in.
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    [BENNANI]
    Europe and America would freak out
    about their borders
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    if teleportation was possible.
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    The Caps is an island
    in the middle of the Atlantic.
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    That is a place where American troopers--
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    which is like a new version of I.C.E.,
    kind of--
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    has put people that have been intercepted
    from Africa trying to teleport to America.
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    And then the place has become
    a place of its own.
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    The whole island of The Caps
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    is a physical analogy
    for the idea of diaspora--
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    how people think of diaspora as either
    having to fully assimilate
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    or return to the land they come from.
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    But that actually there's a third alternative,
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    which is in that in-between.
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    --Can you have the starting point be where
    the lens would be?
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    --See, the screen should come here.
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    Usually when something interests me,
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    I'm not able to clarify at first
    why I'm interested in it.
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    So that effort to articulate that interest,
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    that's the work.
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    I haven't been able to express myself
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    or articulate myself with words
    as well as I would like to.
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    I think that has to do with
    being here for ten years
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    and being English-as-a-second-language,
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    and feeling like I'm losing
    a bit of my first language,
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    which is a very strange feeling.
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    I've always been in between languages.
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    I found that developing this practice
    that pulls from so many different languages--
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    of TV,
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    cinema,
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    sculpture and installation--
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    mixing it all together has allowed me
    to hit the right note,
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    in my own way.
Title:
Meriem Bennani: In Between Languages | Art21 "New York Close Up"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"New York Close Up" series
Duration:
07:48

English subtitles

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