rebel without nostalgia interview by OLIVIER ZAHM portrait by TERRY RICHARDSON The artist Aaron Young was born in California in 1972. He studied film and Hollywood beckoned, but when he realized he would have more freedom as a visual artist, he retrained himself as a sculptor, painter, and video-maker. One of Young’s first works was a performance of a motorcyclist doing burnouts on a painted floor, which he videotaped. Noisy, and dangerously provocative, the video caught the eye of curators, from the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts to MoMA in New York. Since then, Young has refined this work and made many others, creating a highly controlled burnout/art hybrid using man and machine. OLIVIER ZAHM — You were born in San Francisco, right? AARON YOUNG — Yes, in ’72 — and I’m still wearing plaid pants. OLIVIER ZAHM — Do you remember the hippies? AARON YOUNG — The hippie vibe is…