Waiting for the Barbarians

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 Constantine Cavafy’s Waiting for the Barbarians, the impending disaster – the arrival of the barbarians – is the only hope that a society, stumped in despair and helplessness can envision. A common enemy to unite against. And so, they wait. But their waiting is in vain as the barbarians never come. Four photographs, each composite of fifty panoramic images of Beirut’s horizon captured at different times of the day, are filmed, evoking an unsettling otherworldliness that oscillates between stillness and movement, animation and photography. Time seems caught in a jarred, eerie loop. Different instances mingle, creating impossible images that evoke otherworldly visions; nature is reversed and several suns rise over multiplied horizons.