ذهبت إلى القاهرة ، وجميع ما حصلت عليه هو هذا مقمل الفكرة

I went to Cairo, and all I got was this lousy idea.

I went to Cairo, and all I got was this lousy idea, which was made in Chinatown, NY.

I went to Cairo, and all I got was an idea.

I went to Cairo and got an idea.

An idea about Cairo.

Went to Cairo—got this idea.

I went to Cairo and got this idea.

I went to Cairo, and all I got was the idea for this sign.

I went to Cairo and got the idea for this sign.

I went to Cairo, and all I got was this sign made in Chinatown.

I went to Cairo from August 13 to September 3, and all I got was the idea for this sign made in Chinatown, New York.

I went to Cairo from August 13 to September 3, 2007, and all I got was this lousy idea, which was translated online from English to Arabic and made in Chinatown in New York.

I went to Cairo in 2007, and all I got was the idea for this lousy neon sign made in Chinatown, New York, but never got it made, and now it is 2008.

I went to Cairo in 2008 after trying to make a neon sign in Chinatown in New York based on a lousy idea I got in Cairo in 2007, which was translated online from English to Arabic, but never got it made; however, I can tell that online translation is getting better all the time because now even the word lousy gets translated into English whereas in 2007 it didn’t.

I went to Cairo, and all I got was this lousy idea in 2007, and in 2008 it was still lousy.

I went to Chinatown in New York in 2008 to get a neon sign made of a lousy idea I got in Cairo in 2007, which was translated from English to Chinese, but I never got it made or translated or went to Chinatown, but I did go to Cairo in 2008.

In 2007, 2008, and 2009 I went to Cairo, and chances are I also went to Chinatown in New York each of those years for dinner, as well as used an online translator; however, most of the time, it was to translate English to Japanese.

In 2009 I went to Rome and was told in English that there are many Japanese in Cairo—they are extremely interested in Egypt—but I went to Cairo after Rome and have not seen any Japanese yet, though I will be in Japan after Cairo—I wonder if there are many Egyptians in Japan? There are many neon signs in Japan, as well as the potential for making neon signs in Chinatown in New York, as well as lousy ideas for many neon signs in my head; nevertheless, there are no actual signs of this idea yet, though, with each passing day, the translation technology at Google is getting better as indicated by the August 7, 2009 closing stock price of $457.10 per share as compared to the $500.04 close on August 13, 2007—wait, that’s a drop of $42.94—well, at least this idea has improved since 2007; also, I cut the sign makers from Chinatown out of the loop and now am having the sign hand painted in Cairo by ______ at _______, which is a place that a friend of mine sometimes uses for her work. I know it is not neon, but what can I do? My stock is dropping, and I can’t afford the luxuries anymore. Actually, I don’t have any stock, but I love neon, particularly all those pieces from the late 60—too bad I’ll never get to make the piece. “Never.” Funny, I just watched Hiroshima Mon Amour, with its emphasis on the city of Nevers in France and its play on the French word “jamais,” which means never, and I was thinking how strange it is that when I was in Italy before Cairo I went to the intersection of Viale della Tecnica and Viale del Ciclismo in the Esposizione Universale Roma and found the apartment house where the two characters Piero and Vittorio from Antonioni’s film L’Eclisse, or “The Eclipse,” played by Alain Delon and Monica Vitti always meet, but fail to show up at the end of the movie, although the camera does show up as if it is looking for them, so I showed up there, filmed, and accidentally caught an Italian garbage man on film going to the house for what seems like an affair—anyway, my point is that there is an important scene in L’Eclisse where they are napping in front of the College of the Sisters of Nevers, of all places, which must be an oblique nod from Antonioni’s film, which begins at the end, to Resnais’ film released just two years prior which is about a love affair that was doomed from the start.

Black & White Video

Black and White Video, 2009, found balloon, three cubic yard dumpster, video, black and white, sound, total running time 1 minute and thirty seconds (balloon missing/destroyed). Project for Last Day of Magic, International Artists’ Museum Artura/Projective for Détournement, 2009 Venise, a collateral event of the 53rd Venice Biennale presented at ScalaMata Exhibition Space, Venice, Italy.

In the fall of 2008, a black balloon blew down Kent Street in Brooklyn, New York, and into my leg. I picked it up, took it to my studio, and bounced it between the studio wall and the front of a video camera. The balloon appears as a black shape on a white field, alternately decreasing in size, or occupying a progressively larger portion of the video camera frame, eventually hitting the front of the lens and blocking all light.

After I filmed the balloon, it sat on a shelf in my studio for five months, gradually shrinking, until I discarded it into the three cubic yard dumpster outside my door. Almost immediately after disposing of the deflated balloon, a friend asked if they could have it, so I climbed into the dumpster and with the assistance of a different friend I methodically emptied its contents into a number of large garbage bags.

Although we sifted through the refuse like meticulous archaeologists, we failed to locate the missing balloon. I checked each piece of trash as I returned it back into the dumpster; nevertheless, the absent balloon did not materialize. The black balloon drifted up to me, stayed for some months, and then vanished. Black & White Video and several images are all the remaining proof of the balloon.

Landscape Film (Tottori, Japan)

Landscape Film (Tottori, Japan), 2009, video, color, sound, total running time 1 minute and 52 seconds.

Landscape Film is partially constructed from material extracted from Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 film Woman in the Dunes. The scenes utilized from Teshigahara’s film have been sequenced so that they show the protagonist walking through an empty landscape, then suddenly, without reason, breaking into a sprint and running out of the film. The screen in Landscape Film is divided between Teshigahara’s B&W footage and color footage shot in April 2009 in Tottori, Japan where Teshigahara made his film 45 years earlier.

I walked and filmed 199 steps in the Tottori sand dunes corresponding to each of the main character’s paces from the film. Once brought together side by side with Teshigahara’s footage, each of my steps was meticulously slowed down, or sped up to match the shifting gait of the central character.

The soundtrack is comprised of live sounds recorded during my walk and portions of the film’s ominous score. The synchronized footsteps on sand and powerful wind overloading the microphone function as additional sound effects duplicating the protagonist’s movements and environment.

The left channel's figure moving on screen serves as a document of a dubbing process, a point of view shot from Teshigahara’s actor, or potentially even someone pursuing the main character. Beyond the precise matching of the footsteps, the relationship between the footage, like the principal's behavior, is left ambiguous.

My parents went to Venice and all I got was this lousy...

 

My parents went to Venice and all I got was this lousy youth-sized Brazilian t-shirt of a dead man in a beach chair from a 1971 movie based on a German novella featuring an aristocratic Polish adolescent conceptualized by a third-generation Italian from New York who had to sleep with the obsessed South Korean immigrant to get it made on May 5, 2009, 2009, silkscreen and heat transfer on youth t-shirt. Project for Culture Kiosk/Souvenir Art/Markers 7, International Artists’ Museum Artura/Projective for Détournement, 2009 Venise, a collateral event of the 53rd Venice Biennale presented at ScalaMata Exhibition Space, Venice, Italy. This project is a collaboration with Jennie Jeun Lee.

If a souvenir is a catalyst for a memory of a past experience, then what better way to remember Venice than by considering a corpse? This collaboration utilizes a classic “joke” t-shirt design from the seventies in which a number of different locations are inserted into the sentence formula “My parents went to (someplace) and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Regardless of the place referenced in the shirts, they all emphasize the simple disappointment with the shirt received over the experience enjoyed by the parents. In this instance, the specific information and history printed on the shirt is stretched to an unusual level. Luchino Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice, a story of a famous author’s increasing fixation with a young boy, forms the starting point for a self-reflexive, run-on sentence that incorporates a number of additional details not normally found on souvenir t-shirts. This shirt integrates some of the complexities of its own history, from the origins of its manufacture to the “labor negotiations” required for its production.

The shirt is printed on the front in English and in multiple languages on the inside of the shirt according to the nationalities referenced in the text. This provides a level of specificity; nevertheless, due to the utilization of online translation programs, numerous mistakes occur. The inaccuracies in translation mirror the loss of clarity often found in the bootlegging process as copies move further away from the original source material towards an international audience.

Moreover, the dead man referenced in the shirt’s text – actor Dirk Bogarde from the final scene of Visconti’s film – is not the image on the shirt, rather an image of a different dead man on a beach chair is utilized from the 1989 comedy film Weekend at Bernie's. The substitution of imagery from an entirely different film genre, made in a different country, from a different era, further emphasizes the inauthentic nature of this souvenir.

Nonsynchronous Five Times

Nonsynchronous Five Times, 2007 – 2008, three RGB filtered black and white Super-8 reels transferred to DVD, color, sound, total running time 6 minutes and 16 seconds

Nonsynchronous Five Times investigates the difficulties of making something straightforward. Three black and white Super-8 film cassettes were shot in single takes from a fixed position looking onto the top of filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's grave marker In Kita-Kamakura, Japan. Each of the three takes was shot at high speed and with a filter for one of the three additive primary colors (red, green, and blue). Superimposed atop one another and colorized accordingly, the three elements should combine to create a singular color take; however, any deviations between the three pieces of footage caused improper registration and undulating color shifts. The objective of creating one color take was complicated by numerous factors: wind moving the tripod and camera, wind causing ripples on the water atop the grave marker, wind causing movement of the trees and their reflections in the water, as well as changes in light conditions from shifting cloud cover.

The soundtrack is the narrative backbone of the work, providing a real-time documentation of the process of shooting three film cassettes. We hear one cycle of Ozu’s gravestone being washed, the camera running at high speed, the camera being reloaded, and the camera filters being changed. This cycle occurs in the fall (note crows) and in succession three times, once for each of the film cassettes and its associated additive primary filter (RGB). The second sound element was recorded at Ozu's grave marker, yet half a year later in the summer season (note cicadas). Attempts to get clean recordings were often thwarted in both situations by sounds drifting into Engakuji Temple – ambulance sirens, trains, or people walking and talking.

At times, the three pieces of film footage come together briefly in proper registration and work in creating a singular image. As well, at times the sound of cicadas is indistinguishable from the sound of the camera filming. However, most of the time, the five elements that make up this film are in various states, ultimately calling attention to the film's constructed nature. The RGB composite image track is present only for the first three minutes of the film, after which the film proceeds as a soundtrack only - filming three cassettes took six minutes; however, the cassettes are superimposed, not shown consecutively and accordingly take up less than the actual filming time.

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes, 2009, video, color, silent, total running time 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Book: 2009, bound 162 page hardcover book, h 8" x w 10"

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes is a 3 minute and 5 second video comprised of one hundred sixty photographs taken consecutively on Friday, February 20, 2009. The images were shot from a fixed position in the back of a car with a digital camera on full automatic mode. All images were made at one-second intervals by means of a timer and the images are displayed in the order in which they were shot with no editing, or retouching. The information at the beginning of the video denotes the distances and times between three different IKEA locations and the information at the conclusion of the video refers to the exact times at which the three IKEA images were made. The book version of this project was conceptualized, executed, and bound within the same day. This project is a collaboration with Anibal J. Pella-Woo.

Part Tool, Part Trap

Part Tool, Part Trap, 2009, Facebook, assorted artworks

Part Tool, Part Trap was an auction that took place on Facebook over three weeks during which I divested of all art works that I had produced that were still in my possession, as well as the ownership rights to works that were generated, but destroyed. All lots were free, open to the first person that claimed them, and shipped without charge to the new owners in Berlin, London, Cairo, and the United States. There were absolutely no terms to the exchange. All postings of object descriptions, images, negotiations, and correspondence by potential owners were systematically deleted at the conclusion of the project from oldest to newest postings, after which all information and friends were deleted.