The Agreement' by Hassan Khan Broached Literature and Visual Arts Into One Discussion

Published by Ahram online

Original link :
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/25/36635/Arts--Culture/
Visual-Art/The-Agreement-by-Hassan-Khan-melds-literature-and-.aspxh

The Agreement is Hassan Khan’s new bilingual publication
that follows his solo exhibition The Twist that was held last
September at Objective Exhibitions in Antwerp, Belgium.

Rather than introducing his new book The Agreement in a
 gallery space or museum, Khan pensively probes a new
territory by launching an artistic publication in Kotb Khan bookstore
in Maadi last Thursday and thus turning the place into a juncture where
 various creators such prominent filmmakers, bloggers, writers, artists, 
curators and designers  meet.

The evening opened with a presentation by Bassam El Baroni,
 the director of Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum and
curator of the publication Fifteen Ways to Leave Badiou’ in
 which he invites critical theorist Suhail Malik with fifteen
 artists to produce a text and artworks responding to Alien
 Badiou’s piece Fifteen These On Contemporary Art.

Later Hassan Khan, along with writer Haythem El-Wardani
and May Abo El-Dahb, director of the art space Objectif Exhibitions,
 started an engaging panel discussion about Khan’s
 latest publication and artistic project.

Through the narration of five short stories and the display
of ten sculptural objects, artist, writer, and musician khan
 explores new areas at which a colloquial language is
built in its either lingual or textual form. 

The stories don’t necessary have a dramatic climax,
 but moments of tension and distress where the reader
 finds himself in private voyeuristic position with very
unusual yet familiar characters and specific occasions in their lives.

Through a meticulous description and vivid portrayal of their
 ubiquitous setting, the protagonists become recognizable that it
 would be unnecessary to continue the rest of the anecdote.

It’s a specific relation between a person and his siblings, a
 pet or an object that would create a certain cultural demographics, 
an aesthetical ambiance or recurring model in the Egyptian society, 
which is contemplatively captured throughout the pages of the book.

The book opens with a portraiture of Amal, a spinster who chose
 not to get married knowing that her birth defect and fortune might
be an attraction for some greed and lives at her family’s building in
 Heliopolis with her veiled sisters-in law and two brothers one of
which is an army officer.

Neither the dermatological sequence nor the descriptive
 narrations form the structure of the story of Amal or the
 rest of the four stories.

However, its a specific anomalous mise-en scene that
was shaped with the juxtaposition of different elements
 together such as a specific way of dressing, vulgar colloquial
words used, a day-to day habit or even a possession.

Such a peculiar milieu can be found between officers Ashraf
in his brutal speech with his informers or in the fierce playfulness
 of Hassan and Waleed at the court yard of the British school
with white Muslim converts teachers.

An interdicted relationship of unrelated elements build the
sequence each story. For example, Talaat ‘s recent promotion
at the governor’s office will consequently make him able to replace
his yellow Fiat 128 and boost his confidence in front of his loser
old colleague in accounting, Fikry.

Also, the German Alsatian dog Rex is not just a pet for Haythem
who is a weed smoker, a Pink Floyd fan and a resident of four story
 apartment block with smoky dark glass windows in Madinet Nasr,
 but he completes a specific idiosyncratic of a nineteen-year old boy
of that era. “ He had no idea what he meant within class information
of 80’s and 90s youth culture in Cairo,” wrote the author speaking
about t Rex.

The stories are reassembled with an  image of the croquet court
at Heliopolis sporting club and photographs of ten sculptures with
 unusual titles. Some of which had the title of the characters of one
of the tales such as "Haythem’s Dream" a glazed ceramic cylinder or
the glass sculpture "Fikry’s Soul and Hassan’s Tree", however none
holds a direct symbolism of the tales' moral or reference to any
 incident in it.

It is interesting then to see how an international established artist like
 Khan would purposely design kitsch objects of domestic popular
ornaments and display it on a shelf in a contemporary art gallery
 under the title The Twist and later print a photographed version of
 them in a publication under the title The Agreement.

Although some of the audience at the book launch tried to discuss
 the classification of the text, critic Haytham Al Wardany described
it as a genre of literature that has been “ Instantly born”.  And in fact,
 the ten images with the five short fables form together an anomalous
artwork that can hardly identified under a certain genre or label.

Not only khan’s interdisciplinary work has varied from performance,
 video, music, installations and writing, but also he would
re-orchestrate all these together to create a new unexpected
 provocative blend.

“ I don’t want to have a defined signature”, explains khan answering
one of the questions.

This can be also understood in khan’s text or reply to
Alien Badiou in the other publication that was also distributed
this evening Fifteen Ways to Leave Badiou, where khan in his reply
piece The Knot in which he explains that “ the subject of an artistic
truthis the set of the works which compose it” so that what articulates
 a piece isa “ set of references that can ultimately allow us, the viewers
 of the work to be able to recognize it”.

The Agreement is not khan’s first work that follows an exhibition or an
artwork as he previously produced another publication within the
exhibition Photocairo entitled “Nine Lessons Learned from Sherif Al
Azma in which he takes his 17 years old friend as a source of inspiration
 for a series of self-reflective lessons.

Another self-critical piece was his performance art 17 And In AUC. 
For 14 days the artist sat in mirrored glass room at AUC and spoke
about his experience with the academic institution such as his
literature classes, Greek campus or his mates’ birthday’s parties.
 He then documented what he has said in a book of transcriptions
 for the act and published it under the same title.

Although these publications differ than each other in their format
and structure, they all experiment with the literate text , have a
 hidden sarcasm  within it  and  holds a sense of a fictional
 documentation of our contemporary time.

Even in his formal writings in several prominent publications, Khan’s
 textual pieces seek to analyse local sociological history and
reflect an instinct for the unconventional.

 Such as his witty piece inE-flux online journal "In Defense
 of The Corrupt Intellectual " or his writings in Bidoun magazine
 such as The Popular that is not Pop: An album cover for the
 Anxious on on 1970s shabi (popular culture) singer Ahmed
 Adawiya or Doctor Know that was about Dr. Mustafa Mahmud
and his examination for the underground shabbi music scene in
Loud, Insistent, and Dumb.

The Agreement is sold at Kotb Khan bookstore and
 online at amazon and Sternberg press’s website’s http://www.sternbergpress.com.

MOMA Celebrates Nagy Shaker's Film Summer 70

By   Mariam Elias/ Special to Daily News Egypt    March 17, 2011, 8:30 pm
In the long history of Egyptian cinema, experimental film has
always been a rarity,overlooked by critics and ignored by
art-house audiences. 

Produced in early 1970s,Nagy Shaker’s
experimental film “Sayf Sab‘een” (Summer 70), was one of the few
Egyptian attempts in the realm of avant-garde cinema and is now
regarded as one of the pioneering films in the field.

For that reason, the film was selected by New York’s Museum of
Modern Art(MOMA) for its film archive, becoming the first Egyptian
movie to receive such an honor.

Last November, Shaker’s film was screened in
MOMA under the three-year program
“Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema, 1960s – Now,” 
organized by Jytte Jensen, the curator of the department of film in MOMA,
and Rasha Salti, artistic director of ArteEast. After touring various
 parts of the globe, the series has reached the Tate Modern in
 London this month.

The series presents an outlook on the chronological evolution of
experimental film and video made in the Arab world from the 1960s
 until today. 

Other Egyptian films included in the series include Maha Maamoun’s
 “Domestic Tourism II” (2009), and Shadi Abdel Salam’s classic feature “
The Mummy/Night of Counting the Years” (1973) and his short
“El-Fallah El-Fasseeh” (The Eloquent Peasant, 1970).

Shaker was studying in Rome where he met Italian artist Paolo Isaja.
 Using an old 16mm camera, each artist alternated between directing,
 filming and recording. Together, they created the 70-minute black
and white silent film.

“It was a time when youth culture was so active and
radical, as many decided to bail on the idea of money
and became hippies.They wanted to change the world,
 although it was much better than now! We also choose
to be rebellious but through our film,” explained Shaker
at a lecture held in Helwan University in December
 following a film screening.

Gloria Mirlino, an American nurse of Italian descent, 
became the connecting point between the two, each forming
 his own subjective account of the model. The result is an
expression of a certain youthful frustration packed with conflicting
ideas such as freedom, familial bond and loss of identity.

“Isaja was interested in the effect of childhood on people’s
 personality and wanted to link the past with the present,
 while I wanted to link the present with the future,” Shaker said.

The two different segments were then edited to produce
a film essay that runs like a conversation between
the two directors where the voice of each is
 deliberately made undistinguishable from the other.

Running like a visual poem or a melodic stream of thoughts,
 “Summer 70” is a study of the language of cinema, an analytical
experimentation in the vocabulary of the moving image.

Composed by Suleiman Jamil, the film’s soundtrack mixes
electronic rhythms with instrumental beats. Jamil was interested
in developing folkloric music and his sound score is an
 extension of this endeavor, acting like a link between western and
eastern cultures.

Rather than a direct interpretation of the picture, Jamil’s music
 contrasts at some times and harmonizes at others to add different
level of connotation and vibrancy to the picture.

Watching “Summer 70” instantly provokes several questions
 concerning the anthology of experimental film in Egypt and the
 Middle East. One being that today’s much-discussed independent
 movement in film and video might have roots that are yet to be
 acknowledged, suggesting that there might be other undiscovered
pioneering works.

The screening at MOMA encouraged many international critics, 
historians and curators to reconsider the contribution of Arab cinema
to the global avant-garde wave, especially since the Arab world has
always been excluded from the discussion of modernity and
international film history.

What’s also remarkable is how this collaboration between
two artists from different backgrounds produced in 1970 lacks
 the clichéd ethnic iconography or stereotypical categorization
 of the west and east that defined post-9/11 art, even
when it indirectly tackles the issue of identity.

“Summer 70” will be screened at Tate Modern London
 on March 24 under the touring program
 “Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema, 1960 – Now.” 

Original Link:
http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/egyptian-experimental-film-rediscovered.html

The Daily Click By SeaShellNoise

By Mariam Elias / Special to Daily News Egypt

First Published: September 17, 2009

Since its launch on May 8, new Cairo-based website SeaShellNoise made a daring, highly ambitious promise: to change its entire interface every day. 

Initiated, designed and developed daily by Egyptian freelance graphic designer Ahmed Foula, this website, in many ways, is another exemplar of people’s fascination with communing with others; of forging some kind of connection in the virtual space.

Foula’s basic idea was to create a website for his portfolio in graphic design. After several failed attempts to reach a specific vision with a web developer, Foula decided to use his web domain to display a daily self-portrait of his state of mind. 

Like a TV station, the broadcast duration of each project is only 24 hours. And in order to stimulate the spectator’s curiosity, the possibility of going back or forward with pages to check older and coming projects is not available. 

“I have noticed that accumulation is a core function of the internet,” Foula told Daily News Egypt. “Web browsing is mainly structured to explore past or future activities, while the present moment was usually the least important. “For that, I decided to remove the archive and focus on the present; changing my website everyday to reflect my current condition.” 

The displayed material has ranged from personal objects and comical video footage to abstract designs or simply anything related to his daily routine. On one day, the website featured anomalous objects such as local pharmaceutical products packaged into kitschy Pharaonic wrappings and a 25-piaster coin with both sides containing engravings with no picture. 

Watermelons are clearly an object of affection of Foula’s. On Day 4, he offered the ingredients of watermelon jam juxtaposed with a news article about bombs discovered inside a watermelon in Israel. Day 50 was dedicated to showing an educational video about the content and nutritional importance of watermelons.

SeaShellNoise has also acted as a platform for transmitting video and film. Among the most notable films shown on the website are Nadia Kamal’s acclaimed documentary feature “Salata Balady” (Oriental Salad) and Nick Holt’s “Guys and Dolls,” a BBC feature about the relationships of single paraphiliac males with their life size, anatomically correct dolls. 

Day 54 was quite exceptional. The website was left empty for the public to use it as a drawing pad. The following day, all submitted works were uploaded and tagged with the names of the participants. 

Since portraits can be the most deceptive mark of identity, Foula started to collect passport-size photos as part of his ongoing research on stereotypical Egyptian features. This archive of faces was then used in a series of projects published on a number of days. One project contained several photos assembled beside each other shown under a magnifying lens. 

Countless other schemes, varying from a photo of a landscape with an animated waterfall and an interactive game of dots and lines to the launch of new Arabic letters like " naal" , presented in alphabetical order and accompanied by voice-clips for illustration. 

Amid all these experimentations lies a strong attention for the aesthetic. Visitors of SeaShellNoise are offered skillfully designed frontage with a well-harmonized composition each time they enter the website.
“This idea of having a link with the whole world, open 24/7, and with an international access is insanely dazzling,” Foula says. “It proved to me that human communication is a need that should become a sacred ritual for all of us.” 

In an essay titled “Self design and aesthetic responsibility” published in the seventh issue of e-flux online journal, art critic and media theorist Boris Groys explains that “self-design has come to be the mass cultural practice par excellence.” He further adds that in both the real and virtual world, we are all subjected to aesthetic evaluation that holds us accountable on how we portray ourselves and define our self-image. 

For this reason, many people have found the internet an attractive comfort zone that offers much more freedom for self-representation than other media. Hence, SeaShellNoise cannot be merely regarded as another cool website, but a perfect illustration of how we can subtly create a perfect public image for ourselves, not by explicitly articulating it, but by creating several activities and works that mirror our true selves.
Visit the website at www.seashellnoise.com.