[-empyre-] -empyre- Introducing Mirene Arsanios, Ayah Bdeir, Mayssa Fattouh, Shuruq Harb

Tue Feb 15 21:27:53 EST 2011

hi mayssa,

great to see you here!  i was wondering if you could elaborate a bit  
more on the ways how artists are experimenting with platforms  
(re:casablanca conference).  do you feel the experimentation is more  
technological or conceptual, or combines both?
in the 90s and early 2000s - the heydays of new media art, net.art,  
electronic art if you will - (not the 80s by the way) much of the best  
works managed to combine a probing of the media/technology by  
stretching its aesthetic possibilities and often by referencing its  
socio-political grounding. very similar to what one of the father's of  
it all - nam june paik did. do you feel these elements come together  
in the works and approaches discussed during the conference?
what i found interesting during my research is that what in the west  
is considered "old skool" like video, photography, has a different  
status in let's say egypt and lebanon. of course we find artists like  
aya bdeir, ricardo mbarkho who works with software, recently lamia  
joreige with interactive installations and the fabulous sound artist  
tarek atoui. however if i would have to make a sweeping  
generalisation, the emphasis  of much of the work we are seeing from  
the region is more concerned with "the image" and the construction and  
porosity of that image (be that by technological or by ideological  
means as we detect in the work of akram zaatari, lara baladi, rabih  
mroue, mounira el solh, raed yassin, joanna hadjithomas&khalil  
joreige, hassan khan, mahmoud khaled,...). does this chime with your  
observations?

.nat

  following, as this is something i have been thinking a lot about too:

>
>
>
> On the other hand, new media as it is called, I feel no longer fits  
> in the realm of this century, it was perhaps still new until the  
> late 80s but with the expansion of the computer's capacities and the  
> internet's proliferation it is just another available medium. This  
> said though artists in the Middle East are still experimenting with  
> these platforms for several reasons that were highlighted in a  
> conference about digital arts in Casablanca, organized by Crea  
> Numerica with the aim to identify "digital artists", hosting  
> platforms and challenges they face in the French speaking countries  
> which pretty much are in all corners of the world. I was asked then  
> to assess the Lebanese scene. The first question I was asked by the  
> artists is what is considered as digital art today? it is important  
> to note here that art schools in Lebanon hardly ever introduce art  
> outside the classical formats of fine arts in their curriculum, this  
> though is now slowly changing. Informal art schools are opening  
> around the region - this, interestingly, is perhaps also due to the  
> lack of governmental art policies and their general lack of interest  
> in investing in the cultural fields with the exception of Gulf  
> countries.
> I hear the comment discussed earlier about internet as a space of  
> freedom and democracy, it does perhaps provide an immediacy in the  
> accessibility which could result in the interpretation of a certain  
> democracy or freedom but it would be a total illusion to think that  
> these platforms are free of interferences.
>
> I apologize for the disruptive flow, I'm happy to dwell on all above  
> points but for now will leave the floor to the other guests.
>
> Look forward to the continuation and a growing momentum of the  
> discussion.
>
> Mayssa
> -- 
> Independent Curator
> mayssa.f at gmail.com
> Skype mayssafattouh
> +97466894029
> Doha, Qatar
>
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Timothy Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>  
> wrote:
> Thanks very much to Horit, Nat, and Eliot for contributing to the  
> discussion during what turned out to be a tremendously momentous  
> week in the Middle East!  We continue our conversation this week  
> with four new featured guests, Mirene Arsanios (Lebanon), Ayah Bdeir  
> (Lebanon/US), Mayssa Fattouh (Qatar), Shuruq Harb (Palestine).  We  
> are delighted that Ayah decided to join us after we made the initial  
> announcement of featured guests at the start of the month.
>
> We look forward to hearing your thoughts and we welcome you warmly  
> to -empyre-.
>
> Best,
>
> Renate and Tim
>
> =================================================================
> Mirene Arsanios (Lebanon)  is curator, critic,
> and co-founder of 98weeks Project Space and
> artist organization in Beirut.  She studied art
> history in Rome and received her Masters in
> Contemporary Art from Goldsmiths College, London.
> She previously worked as a researcher at Ashkal
> Alwan and as an Assistant Curator at MACRO,
> Museum of Contemporary Art Rome. She now teaches
> at the American University of Beirut.
>
> Ayah Bdeir (Lebanon/US) is an engineer and interactive artist who  
> does not believe in boundaries set by disciplines or cultures.  With  
> an upbringing between Lebanon, Canada, and the US, her work uses  
> experimental tools to look at deliberate and subconscious  
> representations of reality.  Living and working between Beirut and  
> New York, Ayah has exhibited at Peacock  Visual Arts in Scotland,  
> the New Museum, Ars Electronica, Badcuyp, and Location One.  She is  
> an Honorary Fellow at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New york   
> where she was in residence in 2008, and mentored the regional  
> reality tv-show Stars of Science promoting science and technology  
> innovation in the Middle East.  In 2010, Ayah was awarded a Creative  
> Commons Fellowship which includeed spearheading the first Open  
> Hardward definition and co-chairing  the Open Hardward Summit at the  
> New York Hall of Science.  She works commercially with collaborators  
> as art&d studio.
>
> Mayssa Fattouh (Qatar) is an independent curator
> and cultural practitioner born in Beirut and
> currently based in Doha Qatar. Fattouh has been
> developing her practice between Beirut, Dubai and
> Bahrain where she worked as Curatorial and
> Program Manager at Al Riwaq Gallery. Her latest
> ongoing project
> <http://receptiveground.blogspot.com/>Receptive
> Ground, is a web based archive platform
> addressing subjects of art and culture in the
> Middle East and the Arab Gulf. Fattouh is
> currently pursuing her Master's of Arts in
> Communication at The European Graduate School in
> Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
>
> Shuruq Harb (Palestine) is an artist based in
> Ramallah, Palestine. Working with text and
> photography, her artistic practice deals with
> issues around writing, language and image.  Harb
> has worked on several online projects such Across
> Borders in 2005/2006, and is currently developing
> online photography courses for  Birzeit
> University 's Virtual Gallery. She is the
> co-founder of ArtTerritories, an online platform
> for critical exchange on matters of art and
> visual culture in the Middle East and the Arab
> World.
>
> -- 
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>
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