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Representation is a sort of surveillance.
Martine Syms -
My mum was very interested in art and liked to write, and my dad was a hobbyist photographer.
Martine Syms
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Pipilotti Rist is a Swiss video artist I learned about pretty early on. She's one of the first contemporary artists I knew about and was really drawn to.
Martine Syms -
I think the medium or format of distributing things has its own characteristics. I think that an exhibition can communicate certain things that a video can't, and publications communicate that in a different way.
Martine Syms -
My family, my background... it just parallels really nicely with a lot of social and cultural movements.
Martine Syms -
I'm interested in the economy of words and forms: jokes, aphorisms, copywriting, advertising, that way of writing when meaning has to be squeezed into as few words as possible.
Martine Syms -
Los Angeles is an uncanny place to live. It has many science fiction qualities. For example, when I'm standing in line at the supermarket and I recognise the person in front of me, but I can't figure out how I know them. Suddenly, I realise I saw them in some random commercial six years ago.
Martine Syms -
I grew up watching tons and tons of television. It was all I would do, especially during summer vacations.
Martine Syms
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I didn't really grow up with any traditions. I grew up in a pretty liberal household in Southern California. I think that's part of my interest in thinking about heritage. I don't have a second language or cultural heritage in that way.
Martine Syms -
I had a studio visitor ask me when a piece was complete, and afterward, I realized I was kind of annoyed by the question. I wrote down to myself, 'Nothing's ever finished' as an operating value.
Martine Syms -
It's very comforting to feel myself getting stronger.
Martine Syms -
I'm so voracious with books, movies, TV, and I'm always interested in the way that different cultural values are presented or, in their absence, are present.
Martine Syms -
I think of entrepreneurship as a way of creating value.
Martine Syms -
I have said it before and I will continue to say that I don't think art is the most effective form of protest. I don't think it changes policy; I think it changes discourse, and discourse can change ideas, and for me, that's what it's about: having that space for conversation.
Martine Syms
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I grew up in Altadena, California.
Martine Syms -
I guess I can be a little mischievous!
Martine Syms -
Entrepreneurs create value; I wanted to create ideas that became machines for making value.
Martine Syms -
If some things don't make me feel good, I stop them. How simple, yet so hard to do.
Martine Syms -
I was very conscious of the film industry - a lot of people, neighbors, worked in it. I actually grew up doing a bit of extra work myself. I was homeschooled, and it was a way that I could make money. My parents let us do these jobs, and I never got very far, but I was much more interested in what everybody else was doing, and I liked being on set.
Martine Syms -
One of my early memories is of a white girl twirling in a circle. I realized later on that it was from that show 'Small Wonder' - the oldest I could have been when I was watching it was four or five, but it's one I think about a lot. It's stuck in my head, this terrible Fox television show.
Martine Syms
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I grew up in Los Angeles. I watched lots of television; I still watch lots of television.
Martine Syms -
At some point, all black movies became biopics. All the good, serious ones became biopics. 'Ray,' 'Ali'... those types of movies, those are the opportunities available for mostly men. Those are the opportunities for a black actor to transcend 'black' movies. They have to play a black icon.
Martine Syms -
I'm really obsessed with this show right now called 'Power,' produced by 50 Cent.
Martine Syms -
It's weird how the Internet changes everything. The kind of narrow casting... instead of reaching for a broad audience, you are reaching for a more targeted audience.
Martine Syms