{"id":2662,"date":"2020-10-07T19:14:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T19:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deptford.tv\/?p=2662"},"modified":"2020-10-07T19:14:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T19:14:00","slug":"the-generals-stork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/?p=2662","title":{"rendered":"The General\u2019s Stork"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Online Book Launch | Heba Y. Amin: The General&#039;s Stork\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/469020170?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"680\" height=\"383\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sternberg-press.com\/product\/the-generals-stork\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The General\u2019s Stork<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Our friend Heba Y. Amin launched her book &#8216;The General&#8217;s Stork&#8217;, accompanying her Solo Show &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/photomonitor.co.uk\/exhibition\/when-i-see-the-future-i-close-my-eyes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">When I see the future, I close my eyes<\/a>&#8216;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eva Eicker writes about the show: In her first UK solo show, Egyptian artist Heba Y. Amin presents  ongoing projects combining various media such as video, appropriated  archival photographs, performance and real footage. The title When I see the future, I close my eyes  lends itself from the song \u2018Excellent Birds\u2019 (by Peter Gabriel and  Laurie Anderson) for Nam June Paik\u2019s reflection of digital media Good morning, Mr Orwell  (1984). In her research-based practise, Amin is tackling the history of  the technological influence on politics and the construction of  territorial power with a focus on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. This  work could not be more relevant than during these times of global  political threats.Inspired by the news in 2013 when Egyptian authorities detained a  migratory stork for espionage because of an electronic device fitted to  its body \u2013 Amin combines colonial narratives with the records of modern  technology. In the video work As Birds Flying (2016), she  depicts savannahs and wetlands, including settlements in Galilea  (Northern Israel), which were captured in found drone footage. The audio  presents dialogues from Egyptian actor Adel Imam\u2019s film Birds of Darkness and  discusses political tension, censorship, democracy and surveillance,  such as \u201cThe government wants credibility, but no one trusts them.\u201d  Opposite this work, the artist presents wallpaper composed of  appropriated archival aerial shots of Palestine and its history over  time, again mimicking the (spying) bird\u2019s perspective. The General\u2019s Stork  (2016-ongoing) shows a stork\u2019s life and its famous owner Lord Edmund  Allenby in Cairo, the British High Commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan  from 1919 to 1925. In the photographs the artist appropriates the bird\u2019s  colour: flipping from b\/w to colour. The work immediately gains a  manipulated artificiality, intensified by the stork\u2019s tall,  out-of-proportion (but factual) appearance. Here she mashes up reality  and appropriation, culminating in a speculative yet satirical approach.  \u201cWhat does it read like in a different context? I wanted to erase and  dominate the narrative\u201d, Amin remarked when we met.This ties over to her second project, Operation Sunken Sea  (2018-ongoing); installed as a long table with flat lightboxes in a  dimly lit space, the work evokes a governmental feel to it. At one end  of the room is a b\/w portrait of the artist \u2013 powerful, tall, a  quasi-persona of a dictator. Opposite on the rear wall is a video  projection of Amin\u2019s speech recorded in Malta 2018 in front of a live  audience. Stitching together quotes from famous dictators ranging from  Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini to Former Premier of the Soviet  Union Nikita Khrushchev \u2013 the artist is mimicking dictators and proposes  a solution to the so-called migration crisis by relocating the  Mediterranean Sea within the continent of Africa. Occasional and  affirmative sounding (if not very staged) cheering interrupts the  overall silence of the piece or space, suggesting a focussed and serious  listening is required. The lightboxes feature archival material  supporting and recording the early twentieth century utopian visions of  draining the Mediterranean Sea supported by various world leaders and  scientists. This also includes a re-staging of Herman Soergel\u2019s  portrait, where Amin poses as the German engineer claiming to unite  Europe and Africa as one continent to gain power, which the New York  Times called at the time a \u201cutopian phantasm\u201d (14.4.1929). In 1956 a  confidential CIA recommendation to Eisenhower proposed to funnel water  and \u2018create\u2019 peace in the Middle East, stating it hoped \u201cit would keep  Nasser\u2019s mind on other matters, because he needs some way to get off the  Soviet Hook.\u201dIt is easy to become completely absorbed by the sheer visual and  audio absurdity of human megalomania. While the politicians seek  justification for their action or settlements with the proof of  technology or photographs \u2013 the artist is taking them out of context  opening the discourse: \u201cCan you look at them and remove the context?\u201dThe third work, the multi-channel video installation Project Speak2Tweet  (2011 \u2013 ongoing) features anonymous voice messages left at an online  platform initiated by a group of programmers as response to the Egyptian  Governments\u2019 Internet shutdown during the 2011 uprising. Posted on  Twitter, the uncensored messages by activists and the public resulted in  moving messages to update families and friends. Here the artist gives a  voice to the people \u2013 and the world was listening. Most touching is a  man leaving a message not knowing if he will return from his trip to  Cairo\u2019s central square. Brilliantly installed as a metal construction,  the visitor navigates looped snapshots of destroyed urban structures in  Cairo as though meandering through a prison-like interior representing a  corrupt dictatorship.For a short-lived moment, this work resonates as a good example of  technology in juxtaposition to the other two bodies of work. This is  nothing like the unstable-democratic realm and the ideal of \u2018never trust  the internet\u2019, which we are adopting as norms. The messages are not  publicly accessible anymore, and saved on the Twitter server.Eventually the paranoia of stork-espionage was discredited and  evidently the bird was part of migration research by zoologists.  Subsequently released, the bird was apparently caught and eaten. Without  simplifying the complex themes, the exhibition equally manages not to  overload the experience in the space and offers plentiful resources. The  artist brilliantly dissipates the distinction between the truth and  narrative in her projects by manipulating archival material and  mimicking the political language and fascist mannerisms to open up  debates. One is also left with a bitter aftertaste \u2013 the shifting  between absurdity and reality is aching. The satirical element is  overshadowed by the fact this is not shocking rhetoric anymore: we have  become very numb to the increasing politicisation of news and media. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our friend Heba Y. Amin launched her book &#8216;The General&#8217;s Stork&#8217;, accompanying her Solo Show &#8216;When I see the future, I close my eyes&#8216;. Eva Eicker writes about the show: In her first UK solo show, Egyptian artist Heba Y. Amin presents ongoing projects combining various media such as video, appropriated archival photographs, performance and&hellip;<a href=\"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/?p=2662\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The General\u2019s Stork<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,12,15,16,21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcement","category-events","category-news","category-projects","category-publications","category-reports","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}