DVD Box Set Launch and Screening:
Radical Closure, Curated by Akram Zaatari
Monday, October 18, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
41 Essex Street
New York, NY 10002
The Chicago-based media arts organization Video Data Bank is pleased to release the highly anticipated DVD box set, Radical Closure. Curated by Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari, Radical Closure features works produced in response to situations of physical or ideological closure resulting from war and territorial conflicts. The program looks at what is known as the Middle East, and how the moving image has functioned throughout its history, charged with division, political tension, and mobilization. The 5-DVD box set has an accompanying monograph with curator’s essay, and features important work by 24 artists including Guy Ben-Ner, Harun Farocki, Mona Hatoum, Walid Raad, and Avi Mograbi.
We will screen a selection of works from Radical Closure at the e-flux storefront space in New York’s Lower East Side for the launch of this box set, to be introduced by VDB Director Abina Manning. The program concentrates on works portraying unsettling situations, narrated with both considerable emotional investment and critical distance, including:
Lisa Steele, Birthday Suit with scars and defects, 1974, 13:20, Canada
Hatice Güleryüz, Intensive Care, 2001, 2:20, Turkey
Hatice Güleryüz, The First Ones, 2000, 4:40, Turkey
Marwa Arsanios, I’ve Heard Stories 1, 2008, 4:42, Lebanon
Mahmoud Hojeij, we will win, 2006, 7:30, Lebanon
Köken Ergun, Ben Askerim (I, Soldier), 2005, 7:11, Turkey
Elia Suleiman, Homage by Assassination, 1992, 27:37, Palestine/U.S.
Running time: 68 minutes
Admission is free.
More information on the box set, which is available for institutional purchase and screening rental, can be found at www.vdb.org.
For more information about the screening, please write to contact [at] e-flux.com.