What concerns my work
is thinking about how death is represented
in the images of the war
I lived my entire life in Beirut
and all my works actually,
they are mainly related to the history of Lebanon,
to Beirut
and relation to the region
But I raised during the civil war
and of course it
influenced my entire life
and my entire work
so most of my works
are like a kind of reflection on this war,
on the post war
"The Pixelated Revolution"
is about the first year of the Syrian revolution,
and mainly it started from specific videos,
where you can see an eye contact
between the killer and the victim
And the victim is the Syrian protester
who is behind,
has mobile phone with a lens,
with a camera
[Suddenly, the sniper sees the eye watching him
An instant, the eyes of the two men meet
Eye contact
Then without the slightest hesitation,
the snipper lifts his gun and aims at the eye
He shoots and hits his target]
I started actually this work from a very,
very strange sentence that a friend of mine,
just said it in front of me
The Syrian protesters are recording their own deaths
And this really struck me and I thought,
I have to look for it
because I was really not sure about this,
like, "How can someone shoot his death?"
I dont agree with this sentence,
because the Syrian protesters,
they dont believe that they are going to be dead,
they are going to record whats happening
and death comes accidentally
I went to the internet
and I started to look for the Syrian protesters videos
And then I found another video,
then another video,
and then I found a lot of videos
Then you say, like,
"This is something
Its a phenomena and its worth it,
like, to reflect upon it,
what does it mean?"
And for an instant, like,
you think that, its a war against the image
and this regime fears the image
to the point that any mobile phone
equipped with the camera,
becoming a target,
to chase and be shot
I gave this title,
"Pixelated Revolution"
because, as all these videos are really so pixilated
with low resolution
and it doesnt matter,
the quality of the image
But what is interesting in these videos,
specifically these videos,
is you can feel the eye contact
and the eye contact is with the lens
and this means it is with the viewer,
with us, as spectators,
because like if someone is looking
at the lens like this,
as if Im looking to some the person
who is now looking to the interview
So, it iswhen you see the gun
as going through the lens and then shoots, huh?
Its as a shooting the spectator as well
and then you feel the camera falling to the ground
And this is what is interesting
because death is happening outside the image
and all the violence is outside the image
Its off camera
and everything we have to build in our mind
