Introduction #1 : Meditations on Mobility

mobile ¤ moveable; able to move easily + (of a person) being able to change ones social status

mobilization ¤ the process of becoming mobile. to organize for service or action (especially troops in a time of war). associated with mobilization for war: increased production of the tools for war-making, gathering of funds to finance the military campaign, galvanization of public opinion against the enemy, propaganda. it is the accumulation of force.

agility is motion beyond mobility - beyond mobilization. we don't speak of mobility when it comes to the mind, then we speak of agility. we aren't used to speaking of agility in terms of military machines. agility is demotion, retrograde or a sideways step when necessary, against the force of the mobilizing/mobile mass.

Introduction #2 : suspended animation

2001. lived experience assumed a scripted, almost fictional aura. we had the uncanny feeling that the story had been written, its conclusion already determined, and that one had nothing more to do than go along with the show. facts and other inconveniences were of no consequence.

we asked ourselves, how might one not go along with this show? if the narrative were moving in a linear manner through time, we would have to collapse this time using a non-linear motion. by means of a series of revisions, substitutions, repetitions and combinations/montages, all moments - past, present, future, possible, imagined - could be contained with in the present moment.

by collapsing time, we could also disrupt the sense of inevitability contained in this narrative structure. we could disrupt the stability of its assumed causalities, for causalities are temporally linear arguments.

the material used is largely footage collected from 2001-2002 over periods of time ranging from one day to some months and following certain criteria. in march 2003, there was a period of one week of intense filming, in which many hours of material was collected. it seemed that none of this material was sufficient to document this moment in march, but it came to be more accurate when combined with the earlier materials, and finally that none of the works was really complete without the others.

all works in this series: document 1 (2001/7) tire (2002) liberty international (2003) basra (2003/4) roadblock (2003/7)