belit

and the image gazes back, 2014, single channel video, 10:30 min.

(short)

The images we see around us shape us as much as we shape them, be it a beheading that seems to adopt aesthetics of a Hollywood film, or images of people taking over the tv station in Burkina Faso. We are born to the images, and born out of images. We think, talk, walk and create images as the images we have seen. Images walk, talk like us and reproduce through us. This video is an attempt to talk about our relation to images and vice versa in a loose, associative manner.

(longer)

When I saw the images of the beheading of James Foley and images of Seven once again, I got shocked, I knew I could not draw a straight line between them, but there were at least several lines connecting those, back and forth, inside out.
The images we see around us shape us as much as we shape them, be it a beheading that seems to adopt aesthetics of a Hollywood film, or images of people taking over the tv station in Burkina Faso, looking like they are posing for the cameras while partying. We are born to the images, and born out of images. We think, talk, walk and create images as the images we have seen. And images walk, talk like us and reproduce through us. This video is an attempt to talk about our relationship to images and vice versa in a loose, associative manner. This way this video talks about representation, visibility, and blurry areas between fiction and reality, and questions our perception of the world through the lens of the images we are subjected to.

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“The video piece and the image gazes back questions the role of images in current and historical events, engaging an underlining emphasis on visibility and representation. Even as these events, and their representations, resonate in our own memories from media, the artist is navigating the blurred lines between fiction and reality, the visible and the unseen, audible and mute, imaginable and unimaginable.”
Rijksakademie OPEN 2014 Catalogue