Waiting for the Barbarians
- About
Waiting for the Barbarians, 2013
Part 4 of I Stared At Beauty So Much project
Animated photography, sound, multiples sources, video HD format, 4 min 26 sec
Commissioned by the Onassis Cultural Centre for the Visual Dialogues
In their video Waiting for the Barbarians, Hadjithomas and Joreige use the 1898 eponymous poem written by Constantine Cavafy to relate to the history of Lebanon and the notion of a decaying society. As Cavafy’s poem is recited, hundreds of still, panoramic images of Beirut are animated. Time, space, and movement contend with one another through subtle video overlay so that nature is reversed, many suns appear on multiplied horizons, and temporality becomes over-imposed. The atmosphere of uncertainty produced by these lagging yet constantly shifting images is heightened by the content of Cavafy’s poem, which narrates a society in a state of imminence, waiting for a group of people described as “barbarians” to come and destroy their way of life; yet the barbarians never come. Voiced over images of present-day Beirut, a place with a history of war and corruption, where the unexpected always happens and society always verges on collapse, the poem raises questions around fears and representation of the “other.” Using this poetic narrative, the artists interact with the past to expand their understanding of the present, specifically the nationalism and xenophobia endemic to it.
- Credits
| Inspired by the poem of Cavafy: | Waiting for the Barbarians |
| Voice over: | Bernard Khoury |
| Sound Design: | Rana Eid
Studio DB |
| Photo and video: | Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas |
| Photo-composing: | Alexis Gaillard |
| Animation: | Noel Paul
Studio Rez Visual
Belal Hibri |
| Sound: | Karine Basha |
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