Project Detail

When Things Occur

Synopsis

Based on Skype conversations with Gaza-based photographers, fixers and drivers who were behind specific images that were transmitted from screen to screen in the summer of 2014. The film probes the face of mourning and grief- its digital embodiment, transmission, and representation. It asks how the gaze gets channeled within the digital realm, and how empathy travels. Equally, how the documentary signifier - and its abstraction - operate when viewing suffering from behind one's LCD screen. What exactly is viewing suffering ‘at a distance’- and how many meters or kilometers is that? What is the behavior and political economy of the image of war? And who is the ‘local’ in the representation of war? (Oraib Toukan)
Official Selection Berlinale 2017 - Forum Expanded

Details

Year: 2016
Type of film: Shorts
Running time: 28 mins
Director: Oraib Toukan
Producer: Oraib Toukan
Editor: Oraib Toukan; Editing Consultant: Casey Asprooth-Jackson
Screenwriter: Translation and Subtitles: Fadi Abu Nimeh, Oraib Toukan
Commissioned By: Cities Exhibition 5, Birzeit University Museum. This piece is part of the artist's ongoing research, based at The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University