Buildups
by Adam Kaplan, 2015, 5'
2015, 5’45’’. Video CGI. Courtesy the artist

Schermo dell'Arte - Archivio Film   Presented at VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images - 8th edition

In January 2010 a 30-minute long YouTube video was released by the Dubai police force. It profiles a group of Israeli secret Mossad agents on a mission to assassinate a senior Hamas military commander: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. They are filmed by security cameras as they move around the airports, malls and hotels of the Emirate’s capital before and after the unseen murder. In Buildups the artist recreates these real spaces in CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), resembling both architectural scale models and outdated computer games. The score is composed of buildups segments assembled from millennial trance music tracks. The juxtaposition between reality and fiction reinforces the absurdity of our times when war and violence are transformed into spectacle.

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