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.