The Pixelated Revolution
Syria, 2011. On the street, under the eyes of the whole world, men who film their own death fall. Pictures of a revolution. Revolution of the image.
The Pixelated Revolution
A non-academic lecture
in English with Italian subtitles
Bologna, MAST.Auditorium
October 11, h 21.00
duration 1 hour
Free entrance. Reservation required
Conceived, directed and presented byRabih Mroué
ProductionBerlin Documentary Forum – HKW/ Berlin, dOCUMENTA 13 Kassel, Spalding Gray Award 2010 (Performing Space 122, New York), The Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburg, On the Boards Seattle, Walker art Center Minneapolis
Surtitles byLaura Bevione for theFestival delle Colline Torinesi
Syria, 2011. Armed with cameras or cell phones, thousands of peaceful demonstrators opposed to the stifling regime of Bachar Al-Assad pour into the streets.
In the chaos and turmoil of clashes with the authorities, they shoot on the fly, recording the event they are creating. With a quick click, breathtaking, startling images appeared on the Internet and then went viral, revealing to the entire world the maelstrom of political and digital resistance. The situation then deteriorated, resulting in a massive increase in the number and virulence of violent attacks, and the images became unbearable. Caught in the sights of snipers, men were shot down, filming their own deaths up to the very last second.
“Syrians are filming their own death”, that is how The Pixelated Revolution begins, aiming to study the various tips and directions on mobile phone documentation, as shared via the medium of Facebook and other virtual communication tools during the first year’s events of the Syrian revolution.
It begins from the point of how Syrians are recording their images “now and here” and reflects on the relationship of this act of photographic documentation with death, and how we perceive these video “now but there”…
Mroué plays out the role of selector, interpreter and commentator as he appropriates material into a narrative of his own device. Trying to make sense of the abundance of visual information and the narrative it forges, Mroué produces a grid from these images to systematically analyse the patterns of repetition. A captivating lecture-performance that plunges into the heart of the violent upheavals of news stories being written and recorded as they happen. A captivating lecture-performance that plunges into the heart of the violent upheavals of news stories being written and recorded as they happen.
