[-empyre-] Life imitating art imitating media?

Ferry Biedermann ferrybie at yahoo.com
Sat Feb 12 11:25:08 EST 2011


Hi,
I am a former Middle East correspondent for European newspapers and a current Europe correspondent for a Middle Eastern newspaper. And I studied cinema in the very distant past. 
What strikes me about some of the contributions is the almost all-encompassing brief that art seems to be entrusted with nowadays. I certainly think that all areas of human endeavor lend themselves to artistic interpretation and I also accept that new art forms emerge all the time. But I do wonder about the added value of artists when they become just like other journalists or activists or commentators. Art seems to me intrinsically subjective, personal, idiosyncratic. Does it not become just one voice among many if artists insist on participating in other disciplines on the terms of those disciplines? Don't they then run the risk of being absorbed by those disciplines, in the way that let's say in advertising commercial artist is just a fancy term for designer?
What this means specifically for the current developments in the Arab world would be first and foremost that we should recognize that they are happening because of politics, not because of art, not even because of new social media. Art in Egypt was mostly apolitical prior to 25 January. What criticism there was, for example in some movies such as the recent Hawi by the quirky and outspoken Ibrahim al Batout, was subdued and oblique. Social media played a huge role in spreading anger about issues such as police brutality. It is no accident that the facebook page that is credited with starting the protests was called we are all Khaled Said, the youth who was allegedly killed by police in Alexandria. But the social media are a tool, a very effective one but therefore not much more than a tool, and not the reason behind what is happening in parts of the Arab world. The same goes for satellite television, Al Jazeera and even the much maligned international broadcasters because anybody who knows the Middle East should be aware that good old standbys such as the BBC and Radio Monte Carlo are still hugely popular sources of information.
Art will play its role in helping people everywhere interpret what is happening now in the Middle East or by helping change the way we look at what is happening there or simply by dazzling us with its creativity and brilliance, which is the part that I always like. But please do not diminish the role of art by making it into just another tainted craft.
Ferry Biedermann


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