Voice of Antartika: documentary

a self sufficient video | يتاذلا ءافتكلاا ويديف

karakafa — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:01:00 -0500

A SELF SUFFICIENT VIDEO | يتاذلا ءافتكلاا ويديف

Concept, Camera and Editing: Aras Ozgun and Yasmine Shash
Music Excerpts: Scanner, Sublime Frequencies, Rami Ayach

The video takes its title from a satirical monologue in Naguib Mahfouz’s “A Drift on the Nile”, in which the protagonist questions the logic of state-centric modernization policies built on the idea of economic self-sufficiency, which characterize the Egyptian political history and public life just as any other “developing country”. Using the “window” as a metaphor as well as a practical visual device, “A Self Sufficient Video” traces an iconography of Cairo’s everyday urban practice. It presents a cityscape as seen from the apartment windows; never ending construction sites scattered around the city, the sculpturesque satellite dishes on top of every building that contrast with the poverty that surrounds them through their high-tech reference, the colorful balconies and windows of unfinished building blocks of the urban poor—marking, affirming and denying their poverty altogether at the same time, and the layers of dust on the windows themselves—the only reference to the time that passes in the “city of sand” which got lost somewhere in the past on its way to a modern future. By framing these cityscapes with the windows, the camera asserts a visible distance between the inside—the private domain, and the outside—the public life. At a later moment, the camera overrides this distance, frames the movement of the city by becoming a part of it, through the windows of the car, passageways, or police boxes on the sidewalks, and goes back and forth on this line of tension between inside and outside. The resulting iconography of Cairo actually carries a “self sufficient political commentary” on the city’s public life itself.

File Download (8:39 min / 63 MB)

Avital Ronell - The Death Drive

karakafa — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:12:00 -0500

This is the unauthorized version (or, let’s say “the editors cut”) of the Grenz-Film interview made with Avital Ronell on Freud’s notion of “death drive”. Patrick Pulsinger’s music (used in the background), and a few minor editing details were changed in the final version of the interview which was published as a part of “Philosophy on Stage” DVD.

Philosophy On Stage ::

File Download (7:47 min / 36 MB)

Death to/and Photography

jaluki — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:44:00 -0500

Concept, Text and Voice-over: Angela Harutyunyan
Editing and Production: Aras Ozgun
Images provided by Tevž Logar
Music: Mirumir: “Beskonechnost’” and Brian Eno: “”The Lost Day”

correction – The work “This is Not My World” is dated to 1976, as opposed to 1978.

File Download (13:19 min / 64 MB)

Ozlem Sariyildiz - A Piece of Monologue

karakafa — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:38:00 -0500

in memory of ulus baker…

text: “a piece of monologue”, samuel beckett
oread by: ronald pickup
music: scanner
camera: aras ozgun, ozlem sariyildiz
editing: ozlem sariyildiz

File Download (15:22 min / 72 MB)

Ulus Baker - Kibris Uzerine

karakafa — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 06:17:00 -0400

Ulus Baker’le Kibris’in siyasi tarihi uzerine 19 Agustos 2003 tarihinde Aras Ozgun tarafindan yapilmis bir video soylesisi.

File Download (32:19 min / 126 MB)

mesele(m)

karakafa — Sun, 20 May 2007 02:22:00 -0400

1992’de ODTÜ’deki bir belgesel atölye çalışmasında üretilmiş, 12 Eylül süresince hapis yatıp sonradan üniversiteye geri dönen öğrencilerle yapılmış kısa bir belgesel.

File Download (21:36 min / 84 MB)