At Those Terrifying Frontiers Where the Existence and Disappearance of People Fade Into Each Other
Basel Abbas
Ruanne Abou-Rahme
- Date:2019
- Media description:Single-channel video with two audio channel and subwoofer, colour, sound, 10 min. 56 sec.
- Category:Video
- Donation of Mercedes Vilardell, 2024
At Those Terrifying Frontiers Where the Existence and Disappearance of People Fade Into Each Other
1 March – 24 June 2024 / Sabatini Building, Floor 0, Protocol Room 1
The artistic practice of Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme is characterised by a profound reflection on historical narratives, often taking as its point of departure the contemporary political situation in Palestine and fusing mediums such as text, sound, film, installation and performance, in addition to investigations that pivot around stories of identity, violence, colonialism and memory with little representation.
At Those Terrifying Frontiers Where the Existence and Disappearance of People Fade Into Each Other is an eleven-minute video in which three visual elements overlap to form layers of information: night-time images of the wall that runs along the Gaza Strip, digital images of avatars and a text. The common thread is sound, also created by the artists, made up of echoes and voice samplers.
Images of the wall are the backdrop to the demonstrations on the Great March of Return that started on 30 March 2018 to demand the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and an end to the Israel’s blockade. The avatars, created by software using images of the protestors circulating on the internet, appear on screen with faces which are scarred, or with defects and incomplete features, the result of how the software represents data and the absence of information from low-resolution images. The script, written from fragments of Edward Said’s most personal and poetic work, After the Last Sky (1986), sets forth a reflection on what it means to be a person, a body or an “illegal” entity. It becomes a song that is performed by the artists as a way of embodying the text.
The work spotlights the violence implicit in the construction of images and the position facing people considered illegal, disposable and invisible, not only in Palestine but also in broader political and social contexts, at those terrifying frontiers where the existence and disappearance of people fade into each other.
