Dy­namic En­coun­ters

Symposium:


Session Title:
  • If You See Something Say Something: Art, War, Surveillance and the Sustainability of Urgency in the Post 9/11 Era

Presentation Title:
  • Dy­namic En­coun­ters

Presenter(s):


Venue(s):


Abstract:

  • Panel:  If You See Something Say Something: Art, War, Surveillance and the Sustainability of Urgency in the Post 9/11 Era

    My 2007 work Do­mes­tic Ten­sion used a vir­tual, tran­si­tory and in­tan­gi­ble medium – the in­ter­net – to con­vey to the Amer­i­can pub­lic some­thing of the daily ex­pe­ri­ence of the peo­ple of Iraq liv­ing in a con­flict zone. In this pro­ject, in­spired by the 2004 death of my brother in our home­town of Iraq, I was con­fined for one month in a Chicago gallery with a paint­ball gun aimed at me, which peo­ple could shoot over the In­ter­net. Since this pro­ject, I have had an anti-ma­te­r­ial ap­proach. I want to cre­ate ex­pe­ri­ences that will last in peo­ple’s mem­o­ries far more vis­cer­ally than the pas­sive view­ing of a ma­te­r­ial ob­ject which will just end up in a gallery. Em­body­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence in an ob­ject is a West­ern no­tion. How can we re­verse that no­tion so the art­work be­comes the ex­pe­ri­ence it­self? So it is an ac­tive ex­pe­ri­ence, with no prod­uct and all process. The ex­pe­ri­ence of my daily life and those around me is the di­rect and con­stant fod­der of my cur­rent pro­ject, the 3rdi. With a cam­era im­planted in the back of my head, cap­tur­ing an image spon­ta­neously once a minute and up­load­ing it to the web, I am invit­ing peo­ple to ex­am­ine and ac­knowl­edge the oth­er­wise over­looked cor­ners of our lives and sur­round­ings; while also high­light­ing the ever-pres­ence of se­cu­rity cam­eras and other sur­veil­lance ap­pa­rata and the near-ab­sence of any truly pri­vate space in our mod­ern re­al­ity.

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