Tag Archives: Rabih Mroué

Summer Prog (2)

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We continue the presentation of films to be shown this summer. Check the blog for regular updates on the where’s and the when’s, plus more info on the films to be shown.

A couple of years ago we had the pleasure of screening a video work by Lebanese  artist Rabih Mroué, With Soul With Blood. Since then we’ve attended a couple of his performances – Riding on a Cloud and The Pixelated Revolution, both at Inkonst in Malmö, as well as last year’s extraordinary retrospective at HAU in Berlin. It’s all been most engaging. This summer, we’ll be screening another of his videos, called Shooting Images.

shooting images by Pascheit Spanned c

still from Shooting Images by photographer Pascheit Spanned (2012)

“Shooting Images by Rabih Mroué shows a performative reenactment of existing videos uploaded onto websites such as YouTube in which we see what a person is recording with his mobile phone: a Syrian regime sniper aiming his rifle at the civilian and shooting. The cameraman’s death becomes apparent when the phone, through which we witness the scene, is roughly slammed to the ground. Investigating the images produced outside of official regime media during the Syrian civil war, ongoing since 2011, Mroué became intrigued by these disturbing videos that portray the questionable reciprocal intimacy that exists in the brief moment of eye contact between the sniper and civilian when the rifle’s sight line aligns with the lens of the mobile phone.”

– quoted from Gwen Parry, Former West website

The term shot-reverse shot is used to describe an editing technique of classical Hollywood continuity in films. It features singular images of faces that are assumed by the viewer of the film to be looking at each other, taking turns talking to each other, although they are not shown together in the same image frame. The shot-reverse shot emphasizes the linear, the chronological, and the logical. In Shooting Images we see literal version of the shot-reverse shot being deconstructed.

“I had been struck by one sentence:

“The Syrian protestors are recording their own deaths”.

I found a lot of material, but one group of videos grabbed me in particular, in which we witness a cameraman being shot by a sniper or simply by one of the regime’s soldier forces.

These videos show the moments of eye contact between sniper and cameraman, when the gun’s line of sight and the camera’s lens meet.”

– quoted from the script of the film

There Were Calls Of ‘Bravo!’

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audience

The screening on June 26:th opened with the film With Soul, With Blood by Rabih Mroué. In the film Mroué scans a grainy newspaper photograph of a massive crowd at a political protest in a futile effort to find any trace of his own presence at the event.

Next we screened two parts of a film made by Fia-Stina Sandlund, An Idealistic Attempt and Reconstruction Of An Action That Never Took Place. While planning a protest action together with Danish activist Ulla Roder, the artist asks herself to what extent she is prepared to take risks for the sake of ideals. When Ulla Roder gets arrested, the artist produces a reconstruction of the action that they had planned together: an opera performance with lyrics about Maersk McKinney Moller transporting arms.

While introducing this film, and talking about some earlier works of the artist, there were shouts of ‘Bravo!’ from the audience. Read more about these works at www.fiastinasandlund.se

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The evening concluded with a slideshow of images by photographer Tod Seelie, who accompanied the streetartist Swoon and her allies while constructing and sailing their armada of rafts across the Adriatic Sea, from Slovenia to Venice, Italy. The work is called The Swimming Cities Of Serenissima. Read more about this work at www.swimmingcities.org

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