**********************************STUFF ABOUT MY LECTURE, POTENTIALLY REALLY BORING STUFF FOR SOME PEOPLE**********************************
My writing the essay lecture today was incredibly interesting. Probably one of the most interesting lectures I've had all year...
The speaker today was a man named Walid Raad who teaches at Cooper Union which is nearby. I'll try to sum up what his artwork is about without turning this thing into an essay. I just used up a lot of my brain power writing my first draft for my writing the essay paper so bear with me here folks the history of the middle east is ultra complex I'm doing a ridiculously brief summary of his work which deals with the region, more specifically Lebanon... Okay, here we go.
Mr. Raad is from Lebanon. Lebanon like much of the middle east is a land ravaged by violence and bloodshed. Raad grew up in Lebanon believing that as a Christian he was superior to the other people living around him. He moved to the United States when he was 16 and started learning more about the history of his region. It eventually dawned on him that he had been brought up blind to all the hatred that was so present in the region, but he also noticed that so much of the regions history was never told or merely glossed over.
Two years later he returned to Lebanon.
In 1990 he started an organization called the Atlas Group Archive (they have a web site which you can visit at http://www.theatlasgroup.org). It's a made up organization that is writing the history of Lebanon. Filling in gaps and telling stories that have gone untold. He does through creating fake historical documents attributed to various made up historians. He does everything from creating journals, and photos to films.
Obviously this is a project with a high potential for seriously negative consequences. The creation of historical documents brings to mind tactics used by dictatorships, governments, and propagandists to mislead the public. When he was asked about the ethics of creating historical documents he told us that when he's pitching this organization at various places he makes it painfully clear that these documents are not real. It's one of the first things he does whenever he's presenting his work. Instead, what he's doing is finding real things and creating the universe in which they make sense. He's putting these real life events and telling presenting them in a familiar context.
He believes that it's like when you have a breakup with someone and you think about it. You create a fantasy in your head of how it all occurred to try to make sense of it, but other people are going to see it a different way, but what it is that you tell yourself is very important. How you deal with that upset and what you do to comfort yourself says a lot about you at that point in history. He said that "fantasy is part of who you are and were" and that when it comes to his work, even if these people who are supposedly the authors of these historical documents aren't entirely real the events are and that's what matters.
I'm probably not doing justice to the ideas he presented I only started taking notes half way through the presentation and I was busy listening to him most of the time. It makes sense in my head, but I'm not exactly the most articulate person so I'm not sure how well it's getting across to anyone else. I'm sure some browsing through his web site might help...
Anyway. He showed us some of the historical documents that he had created and they are incredibly detailed and include even the most banal of details such as descriptions of people he saw and whatnot. The most interesting thing I thought was when he talked about horse races that people would attend. The story was that historians would always gather near the finish line behind the photographer and place bets on whether the photo would be taken before or after the horse crossed and line and how far away it would be. The photographers never seemed to get the photo right when the horse hit the line so it was always exciting. The moment was never recorded in the moment it occurred but instead through what happened right before or right after but never in the present.... think about it... it's in interesting idea to toy around with and I'm not even going to begin to try to work it out right now...
One of the projects he's working on right now is recording a history of every car bomb ever used in Lebanon. He's working on a super exhaustive research project for each car. One car is taking up six to eight months of work (three people working on it together) and he estimates that it'll take him 25 years to finish the endeavor and he loves it. I could go into this aspect a lot, including in interesting piece he did involving a car with it's engine hanging way above it in a big empty room (car engines are usually the only part of the car to survive a car bombing intact), but I'm going to spare you all.
I'm going to start wrapping up...
What Raad does with this organization of his is go around the country giving business presentation type things about the group. It's a performance and he let's people know that. Last year he was at the Whitney Biennial.
When asked if he considered what he does art he said that he was more concerned with raising awareness about his cause and educating people about the middle east.
He feels that compared to looooong ago when art was characterized by its aesthetic properties, art is now what's in an art museum. The definition of art has become institutionalized and objects are now only deemed as being art when presented in an artistic context.
He seemed wary of calling his own work art even though everyone else was very excited about it and really interested. Eventually he relented and admitted that "the good thing about calling it art is cause I can sell it for ten times more than I normally could." Hahaha. So true... I thought his performance/presentation was great and he was very fair in his assessment of the region. No group of people were spared from his criticism or sympathy. I've yet to check out the web site, but hopefully it'll have some more of his historical documents that he's created...
Yeah... so that's that about Walid... really funny guy too... I wish he was a professor at NYU...
**********************************END OF POTENTIALLY REALLY BORING STUFF ABOUT MY LECTURE**********************************
So here's the rest of my day...
I turned in all my stuff to get my passport made this morning.
I paid off the rest of my tuition for the year so it looks like I'm cleared to register Thursday morning.
I wrote a 5 page draft of my paper for writing the essay. It has to do with the idea of authorship when it comes to filmmaking. Basically it's the auteur theory vs. dogme95 (http://www.dogme95.dk) or other schools of thought which champion a more collaborative way of looking at filmmaking. I think both sides have their points so hopefully I can work something out of the tension between the two viewpoints. A lot of the ideas and quotes in the essay are stemming from an interview I'm still in the midst of conducting with David Wingo (the guy who did the music for George Washington and All the Real Girls. I'm actually kind of excited about writing this essay since the topic is interesting.
Last but not least... I watched Annie Hall again today. What a great great great great great film. So intelligent and so funny. Kind of like listening to a Pavement song... you pick up something new every time... some sort of reference or odd joke you didn't understand the last time you saw it. Diane Keaton is so great and Christopher Walken... hahahaha. Definitely my favorite comedy ever.
I just checked the Atlas Group Archives and yes they do have the journals and stuff archived in there. Take a look at them if any of the above interested you at all. Really neat stuff.
Wow, this was another really long entry...
My lips are chapped and I think I have a cold. I keep getting a cough at night and my nose is really stuffy.
I'm done now and it's exactly three o'clock. I have to wake up early (at 10:30) tomorrow and go meet with my Writing the Essay instructor to conference about my essay... joy.
Now, I will leave you all with the closing lines of Woody Allen's Annie Hall:
"This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" And the guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships. Y'know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but, uh, I guess we keep going through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs."
