Katia Kameli

Soundtrack for the 6 channel video installation, this is the 7th act of love.
Interpreted and composed by Noriko Tujiko, a japanese musician living in Paris.
Text by Elisa Tan, taiwanese writer and curator, living in London.

7 Acts of Love in 7 Days of Boredom
*for collaboration with Katia Kameli

Act 1
The Declaration (Stolen Lines):

He gets off his seat, walks to the door.
“I love you.”

“Next stop, Greenpoint Ave, stand clear of the closing doors.”

Halfway out, one foot each on the train and platform

He jams his arms between the closing doors,

“I LOVE YOU – you make my life more than it could ever be.”

She eases back into her seat
tucks a private smile behind her ears.

One stray brown curl.

Sep 28 2007, G train between Nassau Ave and Greenpoint Ave

Act 2
The cusp of the sun recedes,
Rays behind an old church, silent chimes like pins
tilted towards cloud cushion and wordless sky:

Inside, a young African-American boy sits
waiting for no one
He highlights Scripture from a Bible,
Waiting aimlessly
For the mouth of God to move
but

once.

Oct 9 2007, Manhattan Ave, OTT Thai Restaurant, Brooklyn

Act 3

Overslept

So Tired
If late
Get Fired

Why bother?
Why the pain?
Just go home.

Do it again.

Norman B. Colp
‘The Commuter’s Lament / A Close Shave’

Subway Art – 42nd Street/ Port Authority Bus Terminal
18 November 2007

Act 5

Half-drunk and close beside
another perfect stranger.

One arm on a bare, blue chest.

Let me recite you, stranger
a bedtime story in my
awkward Mandarin:

The poet Li Bai was held for treason by a tyrant Emperor who for no reason loved beheading Intellectuals. He was given grace enough to be granted clemency but only one condition. That he would compose his own pardon in 7 paces.

One pace a day, each pace made 7 days, 20 words and 4 lines of verse.

Let me translate it into a
Sonnet you can understand,
Its title:

‘Thoughts on a Quiet Night’
Or Corcovado:

The moon is bright above this bed
A sheet of frost covers the ground
I raise my head, glance to the light
Lower my head to dream of home

This is but a game – of substituting words,
For people, and people for words – of
Mixing stories and different poets

(Was it Li Bai or Cao Zhi,
Frank Sinatra, Antonio Carlos Jobim
Or Everything But the Girl?) :

Um cantinho, um violao
Esse amor, uma cancao
Pra fazer feliz ja que se ama

Muita calma pra pensar
E ter tempo pra sonhar
Da janela ve-se o Corcovado
O Redentor, que lindo

Quero a vida sempre assim
Com voce perto de mim
Até o apagar da velha chama

E eu, que era triste
Descrente desse mundo
Ao encontrar voce eu conheci
O que é a felicidade, meu amor

~

At dawn the pigeons
betrayed my verse
with their cooing of nowhere:

lovers are able
to find a home
most everywhere.

For that, for this, for you –
There is neither
confession nor pardon.

Undated and Going Nowhere

Act 6
Lost and listening to Chopin

Nothing to do but to keep walking
and walking

: 2 nights past our separate ways

A speck of rain breaks and blushes
on a perfect cheek

a hairline crack on porcelain

26 nov 2007, E14th St to 8th St, NY

Act 4

Nothing to desire.
Something to recall.
Nothing to regret.

Vera Pavlova:

14 Nov 2007, M23 Bus service from W23rd St, Chelsea

Act 7

Amore….I

Infinity, Drift across continents

Eliza Tan
7 Sept – 3 December
New York, 2007
(Lire la suite…)

http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2008/katia_kameli

Katia Kameli was born to a French-Algerian family in Clermont-Ferrand, France in 1973. She lives in Paris. After study residences in Greenwich, Vienna, and Bourges, she completed her study of art at the latter and acquired an additional diploma at the Collège-Invisible of the Marseilles Art Academy.

Silke Schmickel (SS): The first of your works that I saw were the Super-8 films Nouba, Aicha, and The grass is always greener on the other side. All three testify to an astonishing plasticity reminiscent of the aesthetics of classical paintings. Did this reference play a role? Did you begin your artistic career in this medium?

Katia Kameli (KK): I come out of painting and photography, and the relationship to classical painting is indeed present, but it was more unconscious when I made these films. The decision for Super-8 was really the result of exigency. In 1998, when I was studying at the art academy in Bourges, they didn’t want to lend me a camera to shoot in Algeria. I bought 4 rolls of film, packed my own Super-8 camera, and took them to Algeria.

SS: Since these early works, a multiplication of your artistic practices can be observed, from video works and photography to installations. Are these parallel projects or new orientations?

KK: I had to assert myself in more and more areas and never wanted to be associated solely with one medium. I decide on the medium depending on the context. If I have worked more in video recently, it is because of my limited possibilities to work in Paris, which make it difficult for me to conceive large installations. My studio is like a home studio. For my most recent project, which I began in January 2008 during an artist’s residence in New York, I was able to realize a film and an installation. I like to carry out a declination of ideas.

SS: Your project Bledi is a good example of such a declination. It starts with drawings, which were then animated and they finally led to a video and a video platform. What does Bledi mean and how did it develop?

KK: Bled is Arabic for “land” and “I” is a possessive, so it means “my country”. I began by downloading Algerian newspapers and then reworking them into drawings. The resulting 30 drawings became the storyboard for the film. I wanted to use these pictures to appropriate the reality of the Algerians. The work shooting my film led me to set up a video platform in Algiers. While I was seeking funding for the project, I came up with the idea of a “making of”. All the elements of my work stand in relationship to each other; it’s a kind of coming and going.

SS: What also connects your works is research on interculturality, on in-betweenness, whereby Western references are juxtaposed with Arabic ones.

KK: Yes, being in between and every kind of hybridization are central motifs in my work. This is because of my own history; I have always traveled back and forth between many countries and was never tied to a single region. And that is reflected in my work. Formally, as well, I don’t have just a single terrain.

SS: Your video Nouba displays this form of hybridization. You enrich the image of an Algerian wedding with electronic music, which is more Western in character…

KK: I came back from Algeria with this film and I felt a necessity to de-territorialize the images. I decided to use sound to achieve a Verfremdungseffect, in order to avoid all exoticism.

SS: Nouba opens the second edition of the DVD collection Resistance(s) [1], which contains works by video artists from North Africa and the Middle East. Is art a mode of resistance, and can it change our often stereotyping vision of the Other?

KK: When I wanted to shoot Nouba, I wanted to cast a different glance at the situation of women in the Muslim world. So the film has its place in Résistance(s) , with everything the word implies.

SS: Along with your own artistic activity, you are also active as a producer, especially with young Algerian filmmakers…

KK: When I shot Bledi, I got to know many Algerians who sensed that I did not have the typical views of a Western artist, and they trusted me. That made it clear to me how important it is to give them a possibility to express their view of things. So we founded this platform and produced five films in one month. I had no idea how these films would be received. Two of them were shown at a great number of festivals, and I am very happy about the result. This project created a special situation in Algiers and gave the young people new impetus to produce their own films.

Silke Schmickl
Studied art history; directs the independent film label Lowave, based in Paris; curator of film programs for international museums.

(The interview was conducted in Paris on March 6, 2008.
Translation from German: Mitch Cohen)