Beirut Metro Map

a project done within the DasArts studies Block 20, 2004.

presented at Home Works III, a forum on cultural practices, Nov. 2005

by creating a virtual metro network the map adds another implicit layer to the psychological and physical labyrinth of Beirut. This map focuses on the ever-present demarcation lines that divided the city during the long period of the civil war and explores the relationship to the post-war social environment in the city. The circulation flow seems irrelevant to the current geographical urban structure, yet it reflects an abrupt mobility in the city due to a mass behavioural patterns of the inhabitants. crossing point 

"Bchara ElKhoury/ Sodeco" 

To go from Beirut theater to Sassine square take Metro line W2 in the direction of Saida, stop at Bchara ElKhoury. A police officer was shot by a sniper; he survived after being left for hours before anybody could take care of him. Walk the way to Sodeco line E5 in the direction of Tripoli and go out at Sassine. The internal security investigation reported that the sniper was taking position on a building in Bachoura and he probably belongs to the “Palestinian Liberation Army”.

Lost in the city

a project done within the DasArts studies Block 20.

presented at the red light distrect, Amsterdam, April 2004

"citizens of the modern city know that we all must become detectives, simply to make it through the day and night". 

Marshall Berman 

A video projection of an entrance of a tunnel, projected on a building, in an attempt to create a virtual opening in that specific location of Amsterdam (the beginning of Oudzijdsvoorburgwal), where all the streets and canals seem to go into a dead-end, an attempt to change the flow of the circulation in that city.

I am elsewhere

a performance done within the DasArts studies Block 20.

presented at Ten Cate hall, Amsterdam, April 2004

"A hallucinated vision where the overwhelming presence of everything has finally transformed into pure nothingness". Marc Auge 

a narration of a personal story to reconstruct my memory through deconstructing my actual physical existence, the ‘no feeling’, ‘no emotions’, and living in the void, the few seconds before death, the last moments of awareness where seconds becomes so slow and so heavy but at the same time extremely short and venerable."No feelings, no emotions, dizzy, numb, vanishing, disappearing, entering the void, the nothing, 3 seconds of awareness, experiencing death while still alive, experiencing life while passing away".

Will you have sex with me?

a performance done within the DasArts studies Block 20, 2004

"a labyrinth of endless steps, no matter how far you walk, it will always leave you with the feeling of being lost within yourself" 

dressed up in a suit and tie, I roamed around asking people the following question: Will you have sex with me?being sentimental without getting emotional / acting tender without having feelings / seeking pleasure while being numb / hoping that time will pass while crossing to the other side.

Private / Public

a project done within the DasArts studies Block 20, 2004

"The non-place is the main distinctive feature of submodernity, a category that lacks relationships, identity, and history, an overpopulated place where millions of people meet in a mutual ignorance". 

Marc Auge 

intrigued by the public aspect of the housing system in an asylum seekers camp in Amstelveen, where the apartments were stacked in long spread buildings, and where many people had to share apartments and rooms; I tried to produce some personal living spaces, like a utopian family house for a normal family living under normal circumstances, I photomontaged some images of the public housing system to make them look like private "nice" houses.

I am not the others

An installation about cultural clashes, 

displayed at the Town House gallery, Cairo, April 2003

"Tous ces regards qui me mangent… vous n’êtes que deux ? Je vous croyais beaucoup plus nombreux. Alors, c’est ça l’enfer. Je n’aurais jamais cru… vous vous rappelez: le soufre, le bûcher, le gril… quelle plaisanterie. Pas besoin de gril: l’enfer, c’est les Autres". Jean Paul Sartre

‘Gazing’ as a mean of communication or non-communication, among individuals and/or cultures. It is about self perception through looking at others and analyzing them.

Written Visuals

An installation about art criticism

displayed at the Goethe Institut in Beirut, March, 2002

As the visual work has become a prisoner of its description, the ‘artist’ is losing his/her role in the work because the ‘written text’ has become the actual author of the ‘visual text’. 

This exhibition criticizes the exaggeration of the criticism at the art scene in Beirut, the imbalance between the actual work and its text. This situation raises a great question mark; does the work of art live up to its description? And is it necessary for us to see the visual product after reading about it? Do ‘words’ manipulate what we see?

Barcode

An anti-Globalization installation and performance

displayed at the Hi Sam café, August, 2001

About inhuman consumption, ‘digitizing’ and merchandizing human beings. I went around distributing a text and sticking a barcode on people while simultaneously explaining how we are losing more and more our humanitarian aspects while being transformed into merchandise with barcodes.

Oeuvres Bachiques

An installation about alcohol, 

displayed at Zico House, Beirut, April 2001.

It's my personal experience with alcohol in an atheist family within an Islamic social environment that forbids alcohol whereas it used to be much more tolerated. Also in nowadays, minor issues are being censored, for instants; Abu Nawas’s poems are prohibited in Cairo’s book exhibition 2001, after being in the market for hundreds of years. This installation is homage for this much appreciated poet in the Arabic literature.