Video & Sound Installation | (selection)
BOX OF PAIN
Conceived at Kühlhaus during Berlin Art Week 2016, BOX OF PAIN is a site-specific video installation by Syrian artist Ali Kaaf. The work is named after a poem by Paris-based Syrian poet Golan Haji. The corresponding sound piece is made in collaboration with musician Attila Wiegand. Visibly and invisibly, video and sound in their combination opened up the physical space.
The video was projected onto a floating surface above the floor, which could be seen from different perspectives, so that this video installation became an object.
It is not so much the suffering as the frightening illustrative moment that is expressed here.In this work it is more about understanding pain as a feeling and to be able to feel it in art and experience it emotionally. For this video installation a ney music (arabic ناي, reed flute) was chosen, played by Atilla Wagner. This kind of music symbolizes the liberation from pain.
The title, BOX OF PAIN, is named after a poem by Golan Haji.
Scherben Mantra
6 Min Full HD -Excerpt from video.
In this video performance themes such as pain, spatial separation, seeking or helplessness are reflected. What we observe is the constant change of countless levels: The overlapping fragments of individual mirror fragments, the artist's hand and finally every reflection in every single part. At the same time, each view is broken, abandoned, created anew, and abandoned again. Just like the hand, the eye of the beholder tries to orientate itself in this scenery, but without success. This search is accompanied by the clinking and cutting noise of clashing fragments.
Video Installation accompanied to the 48 Variations for Two Pianos by John McGuire, Festival ME_MMIX 2018, Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Palma, Spain.
Metal
The ends of two everyday metal spoons are rattling against each other with rapid movements. Their curves, with traces of use, reflect the sunlight that shines through the windows and also falls on the wall in the background.The objects, with their different reflections, seem to explore each other trembling. One reflects the interior of the room, the other a window until they both reflect the same thing by turning: the artist. The artist leaves the objects to be presented and moves into the background as an observer.
