"I guess I can be a little mischievous!" — 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.

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'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.

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.

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 just have a deadpan sense of humor, I guess.

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.

People act like art is a white thing - or not for people of colour - when, really, so much culture and art comes from people of colour. I want everyone to get into what I am doing. So sometimes I don't like to work just in an art context because it feels like a lot of people aren't going to see it. I like it to be a part of everyday life.

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I guess I can be a little mischievous!