WEBVTT

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(loud scraping)

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MEL CHIN: It was after a big 
museum show, her first museum show,

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that I was in an elevator, going 
down and the voice says, or asks,

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“Mel, what do you love more 
than anything in the world?”

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And I said, “Well, I love to make things 
with my hands. I just love doing that.”

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(drawing on paper)

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The other voice says, “okay, stop.”

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And I listened to that voice.

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By stopping I was able to 
flow free in the world again,

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not being held by some delusional 
idea of what it meant to be an artist.

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And I felt free to listen to other voices, 
other ideas that were in the world.

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NEWSCASTER: It happened on Detroit’s 
East side, the 2100 block of Springell.

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You’re watching one of the most 
intense fires of this “Devil’s Night.”

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The target—an abandoned home.

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For nearly 2 ½ hours, city firefighters struggled 
with low water pressure and a roaring blaze.

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(car motor rumbling)

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CHIN: If you look at the images 
of burning homes in Detroit,

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if that’s my recollection of it, I have 
to change that image of that house.

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What could you do with that house? You 
have no electricity, no water, no money.

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But you have these places decayed 
by fire or by abandonment.

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As an artist, you go in to 
see what you can contribute.

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That’s where the “Spawn” idea came around—

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It stands for… a covert activity.

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You take the internal organs of a place,

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and you use it in a whole ‘nother 
way, rather than just reconstruction.

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(creaking floorboards)

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MAN: But it’s sad to see something 
that working and now not working.

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–Can we get up the stairs this way?

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–We’d be better off going up the stairs 
the front way. This has got a lot of trash.

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CHIN: This project is about 
transformation on many different levels.

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You’re taking what is considered 
of no value and of shame and says,

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“No, it has value, but it has 
another kind of value, another life.”

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Through the idea of conceptual 
art, we can do this.

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It’s almost like kind of, reclaim it out 
of the fire. It’s a whole ‘nother idea.

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So it’s a three-year project, 
maybe two-year project,

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where you actually see a transformation over time.

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–MAN: And the last I know, 
the basement was flooded.

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–CHIN: Okay, so there is a basement to 
this? But we got to engineer it correctly.

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So you can work on one half.

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And the whole house can just swing 
aside and the basement is revealed.

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Take a whole house, put it on a pivot, 
so the whole house can spin aside.

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And underneath is all this activity 
in the basement of raising earthworms,

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or fishing worms, Devil’s Night 
Crawlers that you can sell to

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the large fishing population, 
-...in a way where it could really help

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transform the vision of 
Detroit in a very positive way.

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My contribution is twofold— to create 
something that can be living after I’m gone,

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or I’m not a part of it so it can 
be returned to the neighborhood.

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(sweeping broken glass)

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And at the same time reclaim an icon 
from what it has been depicted now as.

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(sweeping broken glass)

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MAN: Yo, man, you think 
it’s going to happen today?

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MAN 2: I hope so.

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MAN 3: Hey, guy, Gerald’s been here 
all day. Is it going to happen soon?

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MAN 1: Maybe.

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MAN 4: What you guys doing?

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MAN 2: Well, we’re just waiting for it to happen.

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MAN 4: Come on, guys, you got to make it happen.

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MAN 3: Here we go.

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MAN 2: Gerald, you’re the hardest 
working man around. How is it today?

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MAN: Man, I am one happy ass. Big fat worms to 
sort for all those rich people’s delicate roses.

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MAN: Fade in to black.

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CHIN: Making art, I think, is not 
about one track, not one method,

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but the diversity of mediums 
and techniques is minor.

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But the diversity of ideas 
and how they survive and the

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methods they are transmitted is very important.

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(ethereal music)

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“Knowmad” is a video game that you sit down,

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and you drive through 36 tribal 
carpets that were selected

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based on a mapping of tribes that exist in 
Turkey, or Anatolia, in Iran and Afghanistan.

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Tribal cultures are dying, as we 
know, or as we have known them,

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after existing for thousands of years.

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Video game culture is thriving, overtaking 
Hollywood in terms of how much money it brings in.

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Perhaps in a video game, it can drive 
you into a place, a curious place,

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where you might ask the question, 
“Where did these patterns come from?”

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(throwing carpet)

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(throwing second carpet)

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It felt like to have the installation 
occur with the real tribal rugs

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was a way of allowing peripheral 
information to float back into your head

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as you would turn away from the game.

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There’s a real world of rugs 
and people there as well.

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That’s a prayer rug, so we want to make sure 
it’s pointing in the right direction—east.

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It’s creating a layered environment.

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MAN: Originally, Mel kind of 
gave us the concept of what to do

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and the whole driving game aspect and stuff.

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Only he really didn’t know what all 
it was going to entail. Half-way.

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MAN: He gave us specific rugs 
that he wanted us to use,

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and using software we developed sort 
of these abstract obstacle courses.

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(inaudible speaking)

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This gave us an opportunity to 
just sort of make these abstract,

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colorful, make-believe worlds 
where there really was no rules

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other than just sort of respect the symbolism

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and the patterns in the carpet and 
just kind of go crazy from there.

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CHIN: I wanted to limit my influence. Rather 
than saying, “It has to be this, and this,”

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I said, “Sort of see this, but you 
do not have to be held to that.”

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Because if we’re going to make 
art, it should be liberating.

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My thoughts in the objects I 
make or have made have been a

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collection of ideas that have 
come from others as well.

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Part of the art is creating the 
form for the new invention to occur.

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Knowmad is a digital re-weave of patterns 
that have been around for thousands of years

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that we may know nothing about.

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But perhaps in a video game, 
we might have that, again,

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the desire to respect what they might 
have been, more than just decoration.

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Because they are about people.

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“Revival field” is a simple sculpture 
that has this poetic premise.

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In Michaelangelo’s days, he 
would have a block of marble,

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and he would have an image in his 
mind, incredible images in his mind,


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and he would take the chisel and carve away 
until we see something as remarkable as “David.”

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In our contemporary times, 
our materials have changed.

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Our materials are still 
marble, but they also can be…

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stuff that we’ve never dreamed of using.

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In this case, toxic earth.

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It is the sculpturing of an 
ecology from one near death,

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or one that is decayed or 
dead, into one that is living.

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NARRATOR: The diversity of life has 
been deeply affected by industry.

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The smelting of metals, such as zinc, cadmium, 
lead, and copper, produces particulates,

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sometimes invisible to the eye, 
which contaminate the environment.

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These metal particulates weaken 
and destroy many forms of life.

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Long after the smelting is complete, 
pollution remains in the soil.

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There have been no viable 
solutions to this problem,

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until the “Revival Field'' project, 
which proved an existing theory.

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Special plants called hyperaccumulators 
are introduced into the barren landscape.

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The metal in the soil would kill most plants,

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but the hyperaccumulators thrive, pulling 
the metals into their stems and shoots.

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When the plants mature, they are harvested.

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The plants are then burned in reclaiming furnaces.

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This process yields metal purer than 
high-grade ore, which can be resold.

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The continuation of this process cleans the soil 
and allows life to return to the environment.

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This renewed ecology is the 
completion of a work of art.

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CHIN: I don’t go about trying to make 
a science/art project or anything,

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or political project. I think it has 
to be driven by some kind of poetry.

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That poetry of plants having the capacity 
to transform a system was amazing enough,

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and it was also driven by pragmatism.

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I think you have to have both. It has 
a little red cast in it, at the base.

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But I don’t know if that is…

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In this world, there are cultures 
dying… and some cultures thriving.

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There are soils that are dead that can 
be reborn with the help of a work of art.

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There are neighborhoods, they tell us, that 
are dying… but instead they are inspiring.

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We assume that we are living 
in a culture of consumption…

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that tells us what to eat and what to dear.

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But it’s not all that. Art for the 21st 
century is the same as it’s always been—

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it is never the same.

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MAN:

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You know, normally I like to use artificial.

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But if I’m going after that big lunker, or that 
ornery wall-eyed pike up here in the great lake,

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I like to use the biggest, 
baddest worm of them all—

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Devil’s Nightcrawlers, direct from Detroit City.

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These worms will drive you crazy 
with all the fish you gonna catch.

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See what I mean? Devil’s 
Nightcrawlers, the Motown worm.

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Guaranteed to catch you mo’ fish, give 
you mo’ action than any worm around.

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Devil’s Nightcrawlers, 
home-grown in East Side Detroit.