Video Documentation

Following a series of lecture-performances, presenters in this session discussed their works in a lively joint conversation in the context of a compilation of “visionary ‘projects for empowerment’ that simultaneously operate as ruthless mechanisms for depletion, destruction, and antagonism.”
 
Moderated by Nada Raza and Laura Metzler, the presenters discussed the role of speculative fiction in their works. Umber Majeed (New York & Lahore) chronicled “nuclear power in Pakistan within the frameworks of aesthetics, nationalism and state propaganda” Alexis Destoop (Sydney & Brussels); “reconfigures the history of the Russian-Norwegian borderland to reimagine a poetical re-appropriation of the past and the future”. Bassem Saad & Edwin Nasr (Beirut) dealt with rituals of war in the rendered image through the use of virtual reality and video games in the Middle East and the United States. Khadim Ali (Sydney & Kabul); expanded on his talk Demonology as the enabler for “othering” and persecution of minority Hazara people in Afghanistan. Moe Satt (Yangon) discussed his performance “incorporating over 100 facial, hand and body gestures / postures to codify the oppressive socio-political conditions of warfare experiences in Myanmar.”