[BIOGRAPHIES
OF (some of the) VIDEO ARTISTS]
Babak
Afrassiabi was born in Iran and is a visual artist working
in the fields of video and photography. He occasionally curates
film/video programs and exhibitions. His interest in psychoanalysis
and cinema has lead him to produce - besides his video works -
texts and lectures that bring the theories of psychoanalysis close
to cinematic slapstick and montage. He lives and works in Rotterdam,
the Netherlands.
Romeo
Doron Alaeff was born in Brooklyn, New York. His work, which
includes photography, film, video and installation has exhibited
nationally and internationally and has appealed to a wide range
of audiences for both artistic as well as historical/cultural
interest: His photography work was recently exhibited in the 2001
Biennale in Lyon, France. He has also shown his work at the NY
Video Festival, the Kunsthall (Rotterdam), the Witte de With in
conjunction w/ John Baldessari at the International Film Festival
(Rotterdam), the National Museum (Madrid), the Museum of Contemporary
Art (Barcelona) and The Cartier Foundation, (Paris).Romeo lives
and works in New York and is currently working on several projects
including a documentary about his brother's coming of age (13-21yrs)
which is sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Martin
Arnold: "When you look at a strip of film you will at
first see a regular sequence of frames that represednt a three-dimensional
space. Those are the tracks the camera left behind; the apparatus
inscribed itself into the materials. If you look more closely
"into" the frame, you will see tracks of people and
objects which were in front of the camera at the time of the recording"
Laurie
Halsey Brown is
an artist from New York presently living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
She creates projects about being there that deal with a
psychological, experiential relationship to architecture and surrounding
ideas of (dis)location, simultaniety and reflection.
http://www.movinginplace.net
Maya
Deren: 1917-1961 "My purpose is to make an expereimental
motion picture (the physical scope of which is subject to material
conditions) in which I will attempt to develop a cinematic art
form, originating in the creative potentialities of the movie
camera itself, and freed from the infulence of other artistic
idioms, such as literature, theater, the plastic or pictorial
arts." 1944
SEEN,
HEARD, LIVED
by Vartan Aror
-Bombarding the seashore.
Hit the car.
Father dead.
Father vanished.
-Took the family
to hospital,
from hospital to hospital. -
Near death
dying.
Moribund.
-In the evening,
till evening.
-The car not like a car.
-Friends came,
tried to clear the road.
-Oh, we lost him.
We found another.
-Crying.
So he was found,
in the swaddle,
three months old.
Why did he cry?
-They found what was to be found.
Were happy.
-Road clear and clean.
-Took and gone.
-Toward life
toward death.
-Transplantation.
-Grandfatherıs house.
The only home.
-How are they?
Fine.
-Dinner is royal.
-Bombing doesnıt stop.
Never stops.
-Who can stop it?
Only Him.
He is absent.
-Kitchen in ruins,
but they came out
from under the kitchen table,
all four of them alive.
They are still alive, living.
-Itıs clean there, under the kitchen table,
not a grain of dust.
-Went to church to light a candle ,
barefoot Iıll go, he said.
Pious he is.
-His voice is heard,
surely.
-The bakery is safe,
the only place to hide,
underground, under our building.
Itıs fortunate to have
such a hiding place.
-As soon as it begins raining, come down.
You too, we say.
Wonıt come down, so fearless he is.
Whatever is written on my forehead
nobody can change.
he stays there.
You go down, he says,
Iım here, good night.
-Eh, bravo, bravo.
Marathon of respiration,
mixed toghether.
They rushed in, alarmed.
-Itıs safe underground,
no raining there
and the sound is low
wonıt be heard so much.
-But where to hide
the respiration sound?
-Still drinks milk in a bottle.
Donıt tell nobody, heıll be ashamed.
-So after this
you have to shit in nylon bags,
no water in the privy.
-They too want to breath,
itıs their right.
-No way to get rid of cockroches.
Youıre ashamed to bed with them.
-Theyıre harmless.
-Bakery in flames.
It rained from the unhoped side.
-Refugees
are subject to change.
-Old is gone
New is here.
-Go in peace.
Welcome.
We are still here.
-Itıs a miracle, a miracle.
-If not so,
to us too somebody would said
³go in peace².
-We have to repent,
the hour is nearing.
-You never know what may happen
it may be our turn.
-Will it?
It will.
-That is dead,
this is dead.
Death.
-Ruin,
loss,
neighbourhood is deserted
our men are out of Nabıaa .
Itıs empty.
He stepped on the mine, sang, ha,ha,ha,.
-He sang like that, too.
So he is a soprano.
-Alas, his children.
-She raised them without a father.
-Broken neck after the accident.
Put it back, so
the children wonıt be homeless.
-What to say to this?
-Is there anything to say?
-They wonıt let any.
-And the two poplars:
they grow under their shade.
-Dead on the New Years Eve,
blind lead.
-The mother in black till now
whatsoever.
-Under gunfire,
falling down like rain,
I was hanging laundery up on the roof.
(Hashoghlian)
-Zavenıs father also died.
On his funeral,
he was in our place:
so what?
we also are fatherless.
-Eh, Yeretsgin4
we too drank of your cup.
-Neighbourıs father
the intellectual father died too.
-Heart attack?
What is it?
Brand new something.
Does man die of heartattack?
-Iıll marry first, used to say
my son.
-Went without knowing
what is love.
-Out of love.
-Love
Hate.
Is there any difference?
-Churchsı bells should chink
itıs New Year after all.
-Moses had guts to gunfire,
opens the door and the bullet doesnıt hit my head.
He doesnıt apologise.
Drunkard.
-We chimed
half an hour and twenty minutes.
-Heartache.
-Then Sossi too
was a widow, like us.
-One of the daughters will be a poet.
She is talented.
-On her fatherıs death
without giving a damn to her shortness,
she had written a poem.
-No more Marlboro on the market.
Good for the smokers.
-He was a good actor.
-He awaked this morning, had a shower,
and died while shaving.
How?
-It was his last performance, they say.
-So it be.
-Take this
and kill as much as you can.
-Can you find a better amusement than this?
-Enjoyment should be like this
or shouldnıt be.
-Care for your pleasure.,
donıt look no right, no left,
only at your pleasure.
-Itıs important to know the direction.
-This at your hands
has some pieces.
Itıs important to pull it down every once in a while
to clean it, oil it,
or else it will rust, get useless.
-Pulled down the wall,
so they can hit their backs.
-They made it.
-At night, threw a handgrenade,
Arshag lost his leg.
-So this is why he was braying
like a donkey.
-What else?
Seems it hurts a lot.
-Have you lost a leg
so to speak?
-Almost a month and it festers,
the doc hadnıt done it right.
-No money for the medications.
He was the only breadwinner of the house.
-If we work, all of us, again we canıt make it
again we can’t make it.
-Sister Louise came again
and read biblical verses
after making the bird cross itself.
-Harmless she is.
Grandmom will take her in the women’s committee.
-No worthier than her.
-One day
they’ll carry you on four shoulders.
What will you take with you?
You came naked…
-He took the watermelon out of the garbage,
took it to the garden. He and his wife
feasted on it.
-Owns many buildings,
has accounts in Swiss banks.
-His sordidness brought him here.
-We went to uncle Manoug’s
to watch videos.
-He had taken off his leg.
Saw us, went on one leg to his room,
Came on two.
-I had one in metal,
one in wood.
I prefer the one in plastic.
-Light and easy.
-Seen
all these.
Now revising.
-We have nothing to do with them.
Armig is foretelling by water ,
-Palmreading,
prophysing.
Its profitable nowadays,
emptyhead people a lot
-They’ll ruin my house.
Today they had thrown a refrigirator in my balcony.
I brought it with me, so you can see,
there, in my pocket.
-Nine years and I’m waiting
for an eye.
Today I went again to the eye bank,
nothing suitable for me yet.
-Because of the shaking
I fall down on my head from the 3rd floor,
nothing happened. Only my eye…
-You find one someday.
-Throw himself on the handgrenade
for the boys’ sake.
-Became immortal.
-One of his friends killed his mother.
With a knife.
Had begun cutting her thongue, nose,
pulled out the eyes
-After that we hadn’t seen him.
He must have beem killed.
-The wife a saint,
had a mouth, not a thongue.
-Kahke and chay, in the center ,
Santa was there with
the Brothers.
-This year he was disguised as Santa,
again.
-Lets go home, its ceasefire.
-Parishvisiting has begun.
The man is getting tired.
Khachig will come soon.
Peeled the mandarines and ate them all.
-Why do you cover the fruits?
he asks.
-For the mosquitos.
-If I want it, I’ll do whatever
to annoy him.
but I won’t,
Won’t be as mean as him.
-Began to paint the rope.
Once in a while I paint it.
I combed his beard too.
-So what?
I’ll fetch my friend.
He is as brave as to kill.
-Didn’t get it.
If we had wanted that,
we could do it ourselves.
-All of you have been silent so long
that the man has given himself priorities.
-Siyese inglizi (English politics)
-and the beadle is a gossipy
dog.
-I’ll kill my sister.
Five thousand is all it costs
and I don’t get envolved.
-I’ll put mother in a resthome
-and already had put the house on sale.
-Before completing fifth grade,
the boys go to work for a goldsmith.
This is common nowadays. And in a few years time
they open their own businesses,
call themselves master.
-My son killed his secretary
in the office.
For eleven years he was bedding her secretly.
The wife knows all about it.
She was keeping silent for the children’s sake.
-I’m on good terms with the chief jailer.
I’m mending the flag’s handle.
Whatever I want I take with me to the jail.
The boy needs nothing,
living like the english crown prince.
-In the backstreet, infront of the resthome
We’ll bury him,
cause its impossible to go to the graveyard.
-Burial like a wedding.
The flowers…
Church like a garden, ribons still there.
-Not a burial like my father’s.
All the committee members were there.
Took the coffin to all Siss streets.
I’ll make the Karasounk still better,
more gorgeous.
-He was three months old.
We baptised him under bombings.
You never know what will happen,
at least he’ll die christian.
-God forbid it.
-“Baljan” was godfather.
How could we know that he was a swindler?
He was on good terms wih us.
He had askes us to take his house
in rent.
-Without a contract.
-What is a nail?
It was forbidden to nail.
-The stairs are worn out
because of your so many guests.
-They hang people
on the municipality’s stadium.
-Face open?
-They asked for cream cheese.
I thraw boxes of cream cheese in the trash.
They ravish it there.
-He had put the crane.
Stepped on a mine.
-So long ago.
-Let it be my husband, and not yours…
-Is it decent to say this?
-He drinks, he smokes,
came to us at two early morning, with five children.
-Took them to reconcile
without complaint.
-This is the Holy Bible,
this The Cross
and this the warning cane.
-Listen to The Bible
kiss your cross
and have your beating.
-Eighty years old
And terrifying people.
-After the cinema
he tied the boy to the tree
put marmelade all over him
so the flies will gather on him.
-Had a beating,
said “thank you”
and went out of the room.
-He used to drive a bus.
They killed him in it
when he was 21.
-Took the gun
‘if I couldn’t kill 21 persons
I won’t rest’ he said.
-See this corner?
he made them beat me here,
he was looking, hands crossed.
-Don’t you think I’m happy
for his death.
I say this only for you to know.
-Now the school hasn’t a bus,
it was carbonised.
-And so pupils
got less, naturally.
-After the football game
always there is a fight,
nobody wants to loose.
-H.M.E.M.member Viken also
became a donkey-martyre,
during a football game.
-They killed him
then went to their village.
-He sows,
he crops
it’s his land, he does whatever he likes.
- Now this epidemy
had spread everywhere.
-Jebel-Bourj-Hammoud
towering as they like.
Thanks!
At least the shits may sweem in the sea.
-Can’t find stornger money than the dollar.
-It too goes higher, lower,
can’t trust it anymore.
-Pile your treasures in the heaven.
-“This will keep us safe”
-Is this the baby
they found in the car?
Kiss uncle’s hand,
have his blessing.
-It’s forbidden to whistle in the house.
Who’s whistling?
-Want to call Yanco ?
Turn off the light,
he brings his friends too.
-Killed
we found him in the trash.
-Not the first,
and not the last, sure.
-Shouldn’t talk about him,
the fire burns where it falls.
-The house turned to a café.
-He was the first on his class,
now he can’t do it.
-They were bread and butter
now has taken the child and gone.
-On my first wedding I had a tie,
now I’ll have a papion.
-Change.
-He who crosses the ocean, forgets.
-Drink to the absents’ health.
-Want to shoot?
Let me open the car’s top.
-My forefinger freezes shooting,
enough.
-After champaigne
it’s a maddening joy for me
to shoot.
-In front of our place
his head torn open, was bleeding.
-Pile stones on one side,
iron on another,
careful of broken glass,
wash the blood,
take out the corpse.
-After thirteen years
Krikor Lousavorich
Came out of the deep abyss.
Should believe in miracles.
-No ID
no identity.
Got married, his son
had identity.
-Whenever he sees me
turns his face,
don’t know why?
as if I had killed his mother.
-They burried her today.
-Body in pieces,
nobody there. I collected
the pieces, put in a coffin,
took down the 4th floor
all alone.
-Till now
I respect him for what he has done.
-He sells suitcases,
one or two, each year.
In front of the shop
They had thrown a corpse
And he knows the thrower.
Won’t talk to them after that.
-The shopkeeper infront of his shop.
In his house mother-sister
curse each other.
-After he finished the military service
he began drinking, smoking,
enjoying turkish songs.
-Was as pure as a saint.
-We married him so he won’t have to go to military service.
But they took him.
In the first year, just didn’t know his whereabouts. Mother
got mad.
-He lost the little that was left
in his head.
-One of the girls
is unmarried.
She looks older than her mother.
-That’s not their concern
if my son goes to the brothel,
they wouldn’t worry if their daughter
was not working there.
-Grapeblessing is late
and they didn’t cook herisa .
Angel’s absence is so feeled this year.
-Came from a far street
to tell us we have an overseas call.
-They almost broke the door
to come in.
-Such a big difference
between them.
-I told him ‘what do you know of notas,
fill water in the bucket and play’.
-On saint Sarkis day
she didn’t eat for three days.
The horseshoe mark was clearly seen
On the flour .
-Her eyes were blackened.
-The first day is the hardest,
then you get used to it.
-Mother was ninety nine.
Died. If she hadn’t known her age
she might have lived longer.
-The cake was as tall as me.
-Went to hospital,
I was dizzy of the smells,
I felt like fainting,
The boys caught me,
‘What’s the matter’ said.
-Didn’t want to amputate her leg.
We brought her home, she died.
All the expenses were of no use.
-Went to visit,
gave her communion,
read a Hokots at home
and took away the stone .
-Take down the president’s picture, said,
he is not wort it,
a rascal.
-Yesterday the aeroport was open
only for a few
planes.
-After the father’s death
the wife took charge of the keys.
If the boys were not in bed at eight,
she will beat them with a cane.
-This is bombing.
They began again.
-Just terrifying people.
-They bomb all these
and not a plane is taken down.
-While in service
he learned to smoke,
the rest he already knew.
-Who are you after all
to save anybody from prison?
-After that he went mute,
got a stroke, died.
Men sometimes shouldn’t talk,
or else God will silence them.
-I hope you understood what I mean.
-Two days later, striked.
He didn’t get it.
-Keeps his arms in the kitchen,
safe there.
-The bed you are sitting on is full of mines,
move it if you can.
-The bus burned.
Was a big one, thirty people in it,
and many others standing, too.
Always heavy traffic there.
Every year I make the cake.
He died on his birth day.
It’s the eight year I celebrate it alone.
-I had hung his pictures all over
the place,
in the entrance too.
-I carried him all alone
were soaked in blood
the doctor said ‘not my job’
and sent me away.
-Stitched the head
without asking anybody.
Arrived home, and
he was dead.
-Lined us under a wall
‘we will kill you’ they said,
then changed their minds
took the jeep and were gone.
We waited a while,
then went home.
-For us the dead were blessed,
at least they could sleep
peacefully.
-Seven bombs fell on the church.
They have seven places to mend,
and a lot of money it needs. The seventh
didn’t explode. The boys came, undid it. It was exactly before
my feet.
-It is something, you know, undoing a bomb.
If you fail doing it
you have to cover it by yourself,
so that only one man will die.
-Because of reading by candle light
all the family are using glasses.
-I killed my husband by a hammer.
Then with my children’s help, burried the
body.12 years later all came out.
-Akhraz was burned.
His fasmily one by one throw water on him
then waited till he died.
-Died.
Was smelling awfully.
-Burried three days later.
The smell had took the world.
Unbearable in the bier.
I drived keeping my head
out of the window.
-Aeroport closed today.
-Their shop full of stolen goods,
they make quiet a fortune.
-Fled by ship
an hour before the explosion.
I don’t think they’ll return.
-Bombed the graveyard,
can’t leave the dead in peace.
Instead of candles, they are collecting bones .
Lot of work, but pleasant.
-They were invited to their place
for lunch.
On their way back it happened.
-Who’s looking after the orphans?
-After my husband’s death
we went to their place,
they didn’t open the door,
talked from behind it.
And now sends word, that her husband
before dying
wants to see the children.
-The grandfather hadn’t sent them to an orphanage,
although he was not a rich man,
he pays for the school
and works day and night.
-Till my death I’ll work, he says.
Crooked back accends and descends the stairs.
-In the name of God they kill,
every thing they do in God’s name
isn’t considered sin.
God is great
God is almighty
God…
-Revolver on his waist the Father says mass,
turns back to look,
they may hit him from the back,
that’s what he doesn’t want.
When saying ‘peace unto you,
he shows his pistol
to show them he is armed.
-They began to collect the guns.
We should do something
Before our turn comes.
-I killed him where
he had made them beat me.
-Called his name
he turned around.
On his forehead I fired,
never attack anybody on their back.
-It’s a matter of principals.
-After being responsible for the district
he began beating people
in the streets.
-One of his legs is amputated,
now they have to amputate the other
or else all his body will corrupt.
-I was thinner than him.
I new it because of the medicines,
they stitched my neck seven stitches,
was dead, come back to life.
If not a miracle, what else is this?
-Whatever will be, will be,
nobody can change
the written on his forehead.
-Every time I see, I remember him.
I cry. Sometimes I laugh.
Nothing helps.
-Instead of five times a year
we began going to the graveyard
every day.
Will die on the way to the graveyard.
-Mom’s coat caught fire there from the candles,
we barely put it out.
Let, she said, let me die,
at least I go to my husband.
-Graveyard singer
whenever you go, he is there.
Singing.
Beautiful voice.
Sings for his dead son.
Makes us mad with laughter.
-We couldn’t find your thombs.
Lighted the candles there.
All the same.
What will happen,
here or there?
The important thing is tp light a candle.
Thanks for remembering.
-To die is to escape.
-Twenty years I was in war,
and now
I’ll go to military
service.
-Nothing.
They teach you how to assemble-dissemble a gun,
as if it is something new.
Stay on guard,
wake up at 3:30 am,
run 300 meters
don’t try to run too quickly,
you have to jump in a fire,
climb like monkeys,
they shoot a bit higher than your head,
make you throw grenades,
give you G3-M16-mag
have to shoot a target
respect your officers
whatever they say “Yes Sir’ you’ll answer,
it’s nothing, just one year,
don’t be a knowall,
or else they’ll ask a lot os questions.
-It was harder in our time.
It’s not the same now.
-We were going to the aeroport
the bombing began,
turned back,
hardly made it home.
-Always leave the windowa a bit open
so the glass won’t shatter during bombing.
-By a hairline escaped death
and now is saying
I wish I was dead, why didn’t I die?
Happy are the dead, etc. etc.
-Wrapped my eyes, put me in a car,
drove half an hour to somewhere
nobody talked on the way.
Car sounds like mercedes 200
but I’m not sure
it might be a BMW.
They all drive such cars, you know.
I knew my whereabouts because of the muezzin of the mosques
told myself I’m almost dead,
whatever will be, will be. I don’t care.
They asked a few questions. Didn’t get it clear,
Yes, I said, no no I said,
Don’t know I said,
they knew I’m armenian, put
me back in the car, I walked a bit,
then here opened my eyes.
-Nowhere safe now.
Was not like this before two years.
-Is he dead, is he alive, didn’t know.
Hadn’t a thomb to light a candle on.
-On the way to the graveyard
he sells candles, sings in the church,
if somebody see him will think ‘what is that criminal doing
in the church?’
20 peoples’ deaths are on my shoulders,
he says,
and doesn’t feel shame.
-How many people die every day?
Aproximately?
-And now
after the war,
I feel like killing,
I go out, walk a little, feel more quiet,
not a cat, not a dog that I could kill
and see some blood.
But I can feel walk’s benefits.
Driving a bycicle is useful too.
-Besame, besame mucho,
como si fuera esta noche la
ultima vez.
Besame, besame mucho,
Que tengo ganas.
-“Christ apeared unto us
Peaces voice was heard”
-For 40 years I live here
and still
I feel a stranger in this country.
-He fears nothing,
except the dark.
Hands come out from under the bed,
he says and cries. Shivers.
Made him drink water,
looked in water ,
took him to the church, wrapped him in a chasuble,
prayed.
Now he is better, not like before.
-I won’t vote, won’t go voting.
What do I gain of all that?
All of them are scoundrels and thieves.
-Had an eight room house,
now he lives under some stairs.
Lost his mind too.
War does everything.
-Every night, before sleeping
I beat the devil with a long stick, then
I sleep peacefully.
Or else till morning
he keeps me awake.
-Today the school bus caught fire
because of the shooting.
The driver hardly took us out,
but many pupils were stucked in.
We took refuge under a building. Then
when the bombing was lighter, went home.
Not yet dark.
Next day the bus was still there.
-My husband, at that age,
every evening kneels in his bed
and prays.
If I say this to anybody, they won’t
believe.
He prays, he says, for the murders he had done,
so that he could sleep in peace.