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

Fri Feb 18 00:31:31 EST 2011

Hi Ayah,

Great to know that Karaj will be opening up a door to experimental art, it
is really high time that the safe choices, established institutions and
market are challenged here and see the rise of experimental artists and the
creation of ephemeral works rather than the so called "collectable" ones.
This I believe is not only valid for the Middle East but the rest of the
world as well where for instance very few unlimited editions artworks are
acquired by museums.
Very few art spaces in the Middle East show electronic art at the exception
of video, in Beirut, BAC (Beirut Art Center) showed an interactive piece
only once, Wafaa Bilal's video game Virtual Jihadi in the context of the
exhibition America. In the region again very limited resources in terms of
funding are given, Abraaj Capital Art Prize - created in 2008 for artists
from the MENASA region and one of the most substantial prize available -
doesn't encourage media works or any ephemeral works for that matter.
I know that Karaj organized a video/animation competition that was to be
projected on buildings, I was wondering about the entries you received; how
experimental were they; what was the main concern of the participants was it
visual, technical..., did artists participate in this competition?

Thanks.
Mayssa

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 11:58 PM, ayah bdeir <ayahbdeir at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I should open by saying that I am not a curator or a theoretician when it
> comes to the topic so forgive me if my thoughts are much more grounded in my
> *own* experience and exposures as an artist, rather than in depth
> observations/thoughts about the "field" as a whole. That said, I'm excited
> to take part in the conversation and to meet all of you (and to re-see you
> Mayssa and Nat!).
>
> Like Tim mentioned, I come to art from a slightly unconventional
> background, as I have training as an engineer. After having studied computer
> engineering in beirut, I went to MIT to the Media Lab to studio Media Arts
> and Sciences and have been living in the US for a little over 7 years now. I
> tend to not call myself a media artist for some of the reasons referred to
> by Mayssa and Nat: Often "new media" is used to reflect art work that uses
> new technologies, but in my opinion, as mediums of  "display" (screens,
> projections, audio installations, etc). That's why I like to use the term
> "interactive artist", to signify work
> where the medium used (software, hardware, interactive-display, sensor-based, etc)
> is crucial in defining the relationship of the work to the audience. So (in
> part of course), the medium is the message.
>
> My entire artistic practice has been formed during my time in the US
> (Boston, New York). And recently, I have partially moved back to Beirut, and
> been trying to settle there. For obvious reasons, this isn't easy. And first
> and foremost is an "identity" issue. Not identity as an arab or lebanese or
> woman, but as an interactive artist. Because the "interactivity" in
> interactive art requires technical knowledge, most interactive artists are
> also "geeks" one way or another. If our craft is technology, then we must be
> fluent in technology, and as it keeps changing/moving/reconfiguring, we need
> to be as curious and involved in pushing technological experimentation as
> artistic concept. In the US/Europe, so much of our community is formed of
> engineers, computer scientists, programmers, roboticists (etc) who have jobs
> or teach in technology. Artists attend/give technical workshops, have
> startups, develop software, belong to techies mailing lists, embark on
> purely technological projects, etc. And it is not detrimental to our
> identity as artists. In the middle east, this fluidity between disciplines
> is still uncomfortable. You are an artist OR a designer OR an engineer, and
> that, i think, is preventing the medium from a creative explosion.
>
> Again coming back to my personal experience, in the United States (and
> Europe), interactive artists have (often) very little trouble finding a
> support structure. From an institutional perspective, organizations (in my
> case Eyebeam, Creative Commons, INK, MIT) over the years offer support for
> the sole purpose of providing support to experimental interactive work. It
> comes in the forms of stipends, commissions, studio spaces, etc. Also,
> galleries, festivals are interested and comfortable showing this kind of
> work, and needless to say, that's a long way from being the case in the
> Middle East (although it's improving). But the place where I really feel the
> difference, is from the Community perspective. In the "west" I am part of a
> large community of people, artists, engineers, hackers that are very
> comfortable straddling the border between art and technology. The community
> provides a lot of support, brainstorm, constant learning and sharing that is
> crucial to the process. When I am in Beirut, I feel alone, cut out, and
> constantly having to explain (or justify) how it is that i am equally, or
> simultaneously experimenting in art and in technology.
>
> In part that led me to join forces with friends and start
> www.karajbeirut.org, a lab for experimental arts and technology. There is
> *some* international support, but it's still in early days of attempting
> to meet/bring togther a community of like minded "straddlers". I am looking
> forward to liaise with other communities, groups, people, and am very much
> interested in thoughts.
>
> cheers
> ayah
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> twitter - *@ayahbdeir*
> *website  - www.ayahbdeir.com*
> MS. MIT Media Lab - *www.media.mit.edu*
> adjunct faculty at NYU - *ab197 at nyu.edu*
> fellow at Creative Commons - *www.creativecommons.org*
> honorary fellow at Eyebeam - *www.eyebeam.org*
> founder - *www.KarajBeirut.org*
>
>
>
> On Feb 15, 2011, at 5:27 AM, nat muller wrote:
>
> 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.
>>
>> --
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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-- 
Independent Curator
mayssa.f at gmail.com
Skype mayssafattouh
+97466894029
Doha, Qatar
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