Egyptian artist mines the dark side for latest work
CAIRO: In a darkened room on the second floor of a decaying downtown building, a handful of people have gathered to watch flickering film images of decapitation and death.
Crouching against a back wall, the spectators stare straight ahead as animated rats gnaw on human faces, sickly corpses are ripped apart and thick pools of blood spill across the screen.
No, this isn’t some kind of ritualistic death cult and it’s not a teaser for a new Marilyn Manson DVD.
It is, however, the latest work by the experimental artist Amal Kenawy, who uses razor-fast video cut-ups and freaky imagery to create powerful works that creep into your subconscious and set up shop like a bad dream you barely remember.
Entitled You Will Be Killed, the piece is a disturbing take on violence, war and mortality and is Kenawy’s sixth experimental film.
“I want to use the medium to disturb, Kenawy tells The Daily Star Egypt, referring to her film’s hyper-fast animation techniques and morbid imagery. While the look of her work has the visceral aesthetic of a David Fincher (Fight Club) film, Kenawy says she uses old-school stop animation techniques to create her phantasmagoric images.
“It’s a very classical technique for animation, she says, adding that the movie was created by piecing together individual chunks of film, drawing on them by hand and then assembling it frame by painstaking frame – a process which took about six months to complete.
While some artists working in experimental film use digital technology to create a smoother, more cohesive work, Kenawy, who has a six-year-old son, jettisoned computer editing to ensure that her film maintained its crude, raw vibe.
Heavy stuff indeed.
“I wanted to keep this spirit that everything is fresh and strong and violent, says the Egyptian-born artist, dressed in a black, lace-trimmed evening gown and a violet scarf.
And then there’s the sound.The disturbing nature of the images is ramped up by a disjointed, eerie soundtrack, which features random bits of sampled opera and classical music pieced together into a disorientating sound collage.
“It’s more direct and less symbolic – I’m trying to get to the specifics, she says of her work.
The roots of the project go back to a recent visit to Singapore, where Kenawy showed an earlier work in a filthy and decrepit building which once housed the Imperial forces of the British military.
Rather than cleansing the space, Kenawy simply projected her film onto a massive wall marked with stains. She was struck by the connection of the space and the medium and was immediately inspired to create a similarly raw work which could be shown everywhere.
“I didn’t clean the wall . it was part of the vision itself, she says, adding that her new work deals with the violence of war and the result of conflict, which is ultimately death.
“I’m not a dark person, explains Kenawy. “This is part of what we are living.
