Documenting revolution and conflict in the digital age
Public Debate
Eye Film Museum
Saturday, January 21, 12.00 - 17.00
The program at Eye explores the complicated relationship between the activist moment, increasingly mediated by the participants in these events themselves and increasingly in near real-time, and the static character of the archive and its implicit ‘suspension of time’. We center for this on two ambitious projects under development:
Vox Populi - Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age, of Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi, which draws on the vast materials produced during the original uprising in Egypt against the military regime of Hosni Mubarak and their aftermath, collected by a group of artists, writers, theatre makers who would subsequently go on to found the Mosireen independent media centre in Cairo.
http://tahrirarchives.com
The Syrian Archive, an initiative launched by a collective of human rights activists dedicated to preserving open source documentation relating to human rights violations and other crimes committed by all sides during the conflict in Syria.
https://syrianarchive.org
Next to the complicated politics and ethics of these online archiving initiatives we want to question what the role of the artist is in such processes - a kind of stage designer? a choreographer? a facilitator? Or perhaps a creator of imaginative ‘interfaces’ as in the work of the American artist Robert Ochshorn, whose stunning interfaces for digital rich media collections far transcend the realm of ‘design' into a new kind of art form. Ochshorn will also present his remarkable work during the event.
Speakers:
Lara Baladi
http://arts.mit.edu/artists/lara-baladi
http://tahrirarchives.com/read-me
Hadi Al Khatib
https://cihr.eu/hadi-al-khatib/
Jeff Deutch
https://cihr.eu/jeff-deutch
Robert Ochshorn
http://teleputer.org
Charles Jeurgens
www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/item/k.j.p.f.m.jeurgens.html?f=charles+jeurgens
Moderated by Annet Dekker & Eric Kluitenberg
Timetable Vox Populi & The Syrian Archive
11.45 - Doors Open
12.00 - Welcome . introduction: Eric Kluitenberg & Annet Dekker
12.30 - Lara Baladi: Vox Populi - Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age
13.15 - Discussion
13.30 - Hadi al-Khatib & Jeff Deutch: The Syrian Archive
14.15 - Discussion
14.30 - Coffee break
15.00 - Response to both projects by Charles Jeurgens & discussion
15.30 - Robert Ochshorn: Reimagining the Interface
16.00 - Closing discussion
17.00 - Doors close
See als the report by Iona Sharp Casas.
