group show: opera austria - museo luigi pecci - Prato, 2005
click image to download hi res image Searching "extraordinary rendition" on Google.com, 2005/06 wall painting, certificate of authenticity (acrylic paint on wall - dimension variable, here over 5 meter high) ('extraordinary rendition' is a program by the CIA to interrogate people in countries other than the USA. - in most cases this involves torture and murder) <wall paintings are part of my work since the late 1980s>
Homeland Security I - V, 2004 dvd, 5 clips, less then 2 min
click image to download hi res image
each video segment is less then 2 minutes long.
Each segment is individual but can also be shown together.
CLICK TO SEE MOVIE: movie
BICYCLING DAMASCUS, 2004 - 90 min Bicycling Damascus is my second video - after Bicycling Tirana - for which I visit a city with a bicycle. I bicycle against the traffic while filming without holding the steering wheel. I drive for 90 minutes around this ancient city filming directly across the steering wheel thus rendering it into cross hairs. This brings me through a variety of different neighborhoods and places that give a cityscape quite surprising to see. This risky and unlawful engagement with the bicycle, the city and my camera creates an anti-gravitational epic of traffic jams, busy people and a colorful middle eastern street live in a country, the US State Department considers to be involved with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. (Syria indeed does have very bad human right reports and still has to come to terms with the massacre of Hama, a rebellious city where president Assad ordered 1982 the killing of around 40.000 inhabitants.) The bicycle is not only my unique vehicle of transportation but also my urban eyeglass - some extension of my visual and acoustic organs. As such it is a real social urban interface. I'm a bicycle rider since early childhood. My first birthday present I remember was a bicycle. I have never stayed in a place for long without a bicycle, including in Tokyo where I was harassed daily by the police for riding a bicycle. (I was considered a bicycle thief). The bicycle I used in Damascus was lent to me. I hired it for half the price of a new Syrian bicycle. The bicycle was lent to me by a tailor. Syria has a beautiful domestic bicycle production. They all look the same but don't even function as new one's in the shop. The more useable bicycles are now imported from China. (I hope I don't offend anybody with my comment but unfortunately, that was my experience: Ii fell in love with the local 'every body the same bicycle' but I came to understand that it was nearly impossible to ride them, nothing functioned properly - that kept me from buying one, from exporting one) A part from this lousy = expensive = lending practice, the bicycle lent to me was very bad. Not only did it have barely any breaks but also, the bicycle was shaking to the point of ...me falling off. It took me about one hour to get used to it. Riding without holding the steering wheel requires a bicycle that is stable and predictable, in particular if one drives dangerously. This bicycle was shaking nonstop and performed quite dangerously. I had a couple of quasi-accidents and falloffs. In the end I survived.. - voila la video (close window to return) (an extract of 3 min - the total is 90 min - unedited)
differnt neighborhoods.. some can be very wealthy ... (if Bush invades Syria, they would be turned into "green zones")
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