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" 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

Parents

Work

" I feel like there are actually a lot of relationships between a website and a film in terms of designing an experience for a screen. "

" 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. "

" I definitely think an on-screen experience is universal, in a way. "

" I just have a deadpan sense of humor, I guess. "

" I grew up in Altadena, California. "

Martine Syms

California

Grew

" 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. "

" I think I do more fiction than autobiography. "

Martine Syms

Autobiography

Fiction

" 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. "

" My family, my background... it just parallels really nicely with a lot of social and cultural movements. "

" A lot of my work, the subject is film and television itself, and history, and how that kind of coincides with larger cultural history and memory. "

" I guess I can be a little mischievous! "

" There's no reason to be ashamed of feeling good. "

" Growing up in a specific area has a certain sociological and economic reason, so I'm interested in using myself as a case study to look as those things. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

Values

Way

" 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. "

" There's an uncanniness to living in Los Angeles, from the way you move through the city to the moments of feeling familiarity or deja vu, like you've been somewhere or you know something when you really don't. "

" I grew up in Los Angeles. I watched lots of television; I still watch lots of television. "

" I've always been interested in the manufacturing of narratives, identities, and ideologies, and how they are embodied and negotiated by viewers. "

" My writing, it's mostly fiction, but I want it to feel intimate and real. "

" I think the sitcom is the format for television. It's the essential form, and it represents more of the canon of TV, which is why I latched onto it. "

" Representation is a sort of surveillance. "