Workshop – Tech-myth production

Medrar Studio

Workshops

Medrar for Contemporary Art

3 March 2017 - 7 April 2017

TECH-MYTH PRODUCTION WORKSHOP
FOR VIDEO ART AND EXPERIMENTAL FILM

During one month of the workshop, eight Egyptian participating artists met four days per week for nine sessions collectively to explore video art production and to develop their proposed concepts, while looking at works and writings of some selected artists working with the moving image. During the workshop each of the eight participants had the opportunity to have a weekly one on one meeting with one of the workshop instructors, Mohamed Abdelkarim (Egypt) and Anne Haaning (Denmark), in order to discuss the progression of their work. 8 video art and/or experimental film pieces were produced during the workshop.

Part of the workshop’s sessions was open for public attendance and participation. Field trips included attending Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog at Cimatheque. The workshop was a merge between both the visions of the instructors and the participants with some brainstorming which had taken place in the screenings, public discussions and the readings.

Tech-myth production workshop

‘Myth’ is a word often used to describe cultural accounts that diverge from the prevailing logic of those societies that consider themselves founded on the rational and scientific. Technology is understood as aiding the idea of the progressive society, informing and enlightening its citizens and affording prosperity through efficiency.

Technology’s ability to remix reality, through the editing and the circulation of images, for instance, seems to have evolved from providing magical make-believe to challenging the very concept of truth. Who would’ve guessed that the renewed legitimisation of non-scientific accounts of reality would emerge from the stronghold of science itself!

For artists working with the moving image today, the context of their practice expanded fundamentally. Within this landscape of New Age Mythical production of meaning detached from any kind of historical relationship to facts, and from the expectations of authenticity and authority, what kind of possibilities may arise for the artist?

It may be that our sense of overview and control is potentially disappearing – but this sense might have been fictional in the first place. Lived myth is indistinguishable from facts. Only the myths of The Other appear fantastical and surreal.