“See Without Being Seen” considers a range of image capture technology as it has been used in the representation of the Iraqi people while playing with rhetorical devices through a silent narrator who twists perspectives, intention, and meaning. The video is divided into five chapters, or tracks, the first titled “Birdwatching,” featuring early historical film footage of the subject looking back at the camera gazing at the subject. The implication is that the Orientalist gaze, through the camera, considers the subject exotic and foreign, no different than wild animals found on a safari expedition. Other tracks create patterns out of the appropriated footage from old documentaries, a visual echo of media stereotypes of Arabs in popular culture and found today in gaming technology and memes. It also considers the influence of such dehumanizing images in constructing contemporary depictions circulated by Western news, social media platforms, and mobile phones. “See Without Being Seen” ends with footage of drones flying in—a different connection to birdwatching, the circulation of digital images glorifying death and torture, and remote, vertical warfare. 

See Without Being Seen

See Without Being Seen
Medium: Video
Length: 12 min 11 sec
Year: 2022

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