2019
Collaborators: Ghida Anouti, Ralph Karam, Karim Rifai
Advisor: Ghazal Abbassy-Asbagh
Biyye’ el Hawa
Phew!! Some Air
Or Guy Debord’s Lungs
Ah, the joy of working on such an exciting project. Thank god Ali’s helping me with the painting job of this cart. The way he handles that tape. Beautiful. He’s enjoying it. I would’ve loved seeing him work in that garage shop he always tells us about. if only.
Ok. Now that he’s away, I’m taking command of that paint brush. For Ali.
Dip. Smooth. Ah the joy.
Aaaaand there goes my Armani pants. All white. And it’s not going away.
Ok. Now that he’s away, I’m taking command of that paint brush. For Ali.
Dip. Smooth. Ah the joy.
Aaaaand there goes my Armani pants. All white. And it’s not going away.
excerpt 1 from essay.
As a commentary on the ability to warp and mold realities based on images, we designed an installation called “Beyye’e El Hawa’, which literally translates to ‘Seller of Air’. The name is a play on words that has multiple interpretations, each tackling a certain subject that we intend to criticize/highlight. The project is a public performance that entails pushing a wagon from Corniche El Manara to Martyr’s Square while extracting then selling air from an encased tree situated on the cart. The wagon is a commonly seen and used object by street vendors; it is a traditional Lebanese image of sales, market and exchange.
excerpt 2 from essay.
The rise of the October 2019 Lebanese Revolution has transformed cities and spaces in the country into diagrams generating a multiplicity of images. According to Deleuze Gilles’ reference to Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish, to define a diagram is to say “a functioning, abstracted from any obstacle… or friction [and which] must be detached from any specific use. The diagram is no longer an auditory visual archive but a map, a cartography that is coexistensive with the whole social field. It is an abstract machine” (qtd in Eisenman 125). What Foucault refers to as an abstract machine is “conceptually and ontologically distinct from material reality, yet [it] is a fully functioning machine nonetheless, that is, [it] is an agency of assemblage, organization and deployment” (124). In the context of the Lebanese social movements, waves of images are emerging as new realities, distorting and redefining the direction of the revolution. A network of images generate new meanings and strengthen the capital regime market and profit with influxes of advertisements and commodified assets.
In Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle”, he remarks, “Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation” (Debord 1). One’s experience of the real world transforms into an illusory experience defined by images. Both material products and abstract ideas are manifested in images that people consume and interact with firsthand, rather than live the actual reality of them. Consequently, images create a new reality that is defined by a series of advertised and sold commodities. Not only do these images transform the way we live, but they also monetize people’s emotions, opinions and relationships. Debord introduces the concept of the spectacle as the social relation between people mediated by images (4). As the spectacle transforms even our internal thoughts into commodifiable assets, through social media for example, it becomes the manifestation of capitalist driven phenomena. Advertisements, marketing and constant bombardment of images fortify modern day societies with the ability to dictate mass opinion and lifestyle, controlling what people will assert value to, with the illusive façade of consumer choice. This system deceives individuals by giving the impression of factual objectivity, causing the spectacle to be passively accepted.