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I've always seen my work as trying to make the connection with men who no one really spends time with.

Laurel Nakadate

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Laurel Nakadate
Age: 48
Born: 1975
Born: December 15
Artist
Film Director
Austin
Texas
Really
Make
Always
Spends
Men
Connection
Time
Connections
Seen
Trying
Work

More quotes by Laurel Nakadate

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I have very little interest in endlessly telling people about my artistic process. It sounds like throwing yourself against a wall and crying. It's not interesting to most people. It's interesting to yourself. But it's your problem, not anyone else's.
Laurel Nakadate
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[Photography] ties back into this feeling of wanting to watch things fall and the moment before they break. Fireworks are that way for me - this lovely thing that blows up and is gone. It all goes back to this desire to record things before they disappear - the original reason we take pictures, right?
Laurel Nakadate
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Humans like to look. I think that voyeurism and exploitation are often used in the same sentence. But, in my opinion, voyeurism is a beautiful and delightful thing. There is nothing more intimate than really looking at someone.
Laurel Nakadate
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A cupcake is like a great pop song. The whole world in less than three minutes. And it's impossible to have a bad cupcake. In New York you walk everywhere. So I'm always looking, always on the eternal search for the perfect cupcake. I take them very seriously. It's like hunting and gathering for me.
Laurel Nakadate
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I think that fact alone levels everything. Slapstick amazes me, the folly of humans today, the Ponzi schemes, giving birth to eight babies at once, it's amazing... And I know, it's horrible to have your money stolen and all that, but those are amazing stories.
Laurel Nakadate
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A lot of people have said that the main thread in my work is loneliness or just wanting to create a world with someone who doesn't really have much in their life, so maybe I'm looking for someone who's lonely and wants to try to create something with me as a subject for my videos.
Laurel Nakadate
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Although I use myself in my videos, I really see myself as a character. When I look at myself, when I sit and edit, I never think, That's me. I think, This is a character, and how do I edit this to tell a story?
Laurel Nakadate
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Death is sad, yes, but there are some great laughs you can find there.
Laurel Nakadate
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I love fiction. I like reading short stories. Cupcakes, pop songs, Polaroids, and short stories. They all raise and answer questions in a short space. I like Lorrie Moore. Amy Hempel. Tim O'Brien. Raymond Carver. All the heartbreakers.
Laurel Nakadate
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In general, I wait to be approached. I want to be the one who's hunted, I want to be the one who people take interest in.
Laurel Nakadate
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I never want to make videos with people who don't want to make them with me. I don't want to force people to take part. Only people who want to collaborate. And that's important because otherwise, the videos wouldn't work. Them choosing to take part is very important to the videos.
Laurel Nakadate
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A lot of people think that my work is about mocking or making fun of things, but a lot of it is about discomfort and making myself as uncomfortable as the men feel, or putting myself in a situation where I'm revealing my loneliness as much as they're revealing theirs.
Laurel Nakadate
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I shot my undergraduate work on 35mm. I love the way it looks, but I haven't shot film in a while. If you can avoid scanning, it makes your practice faster. Oh, and I shoot a lot of Polaroid, too. I have about five hundred Polaroids from my film that I hope to show soon.
Laurel Nakadate
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The amazing thing is that we live our lives with the hope that things will go right, that things will happen. And all along the way, we're inspired by the unknown and the unnameable. The minute you can fully describe something it's gone.
Laurel Nakadate
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People want movies to be one thing or another they want it be fact or fiction.
Laurel Nakadate
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I think we're put out into the world to forge relationships with people. Those can be as small as buying coffee from someone or as large as a marriage. The important thing is that we try to make connections or have experiences with other humans. Otherwise what's the point of being on this earth?
Laurel Nakadate
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I present the thing we're going to do as a simple starting point. They all know it's an art piece and that it's all going to be recorded. And I have never had an experience where one of these men tried to take advantage of the situation. If they were guilty of anything it was of being lonely. It was never that they were violent or dangerous.
Laurel Nakadate
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I believe that I am some sort of fiction writer and I'm using myself in my work because I'm the person I'm most convenient to use!
Laurel Nakadate
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Heartbreak is when you're just far enough away from what you desire that you can feel it. Change is the Pangaea moment. I feel like I'm at this point in my life where I have created this place, this island in the ocean, and I'm happy there.
Laurel Nakadate
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Everything is mediated. Everything is influenced by its maker. And happily, right? I'm so happy everyone leaves fingerprints on things whether they like it or not. Fingerprints solve crimes. They're profound. They're your best and worst friend and you were born with them and you can't get away from them without a lot of pain and sandpaper.
Laurel Nakadate