De-Composition No. 26

A multimedia installation by Ahmad Rafi, 2021,
in collaboration with Karin Hörler (film), Monika Thiéry (composition/piano) and Eric Plandé (saxophone), Eckhard Kuchenbecker (sound installation), Ahmad Rafi (concept and painting)

The starting point of this work is a 4 minute cellphone video sent via What’s App, that shows a banned funeral in Iran. The conditions captured in the documentation manifest themselves in the form of unintentional, unusual compositions. From the particular information illustrated in the virtual room, a sense of space is experienced, within which the relation to an original video is artistically explored. The politically explosive social media video has been distorted and abstracted, in its chronology, the sound interpreted orchestrally, with the focus being on film stills. The artistic forms of expression allow for a discussion of the document. The powerful images are unobtrusive signs of the ongoing repression, that are addressed in the installation through film, sound and painting.

Video installation, studio Konrad Franz, Alte Dorfkirche Hausen

Painting

Meaningful still images from the 4 minute video documentary served as a template for painting. Fifteen images were realized in oil in a realistic manner on portrait canvases, each measuring 121 x 200 cms.

The stills address the limitations of the clandestine recording situation, which are revealed in a series of random images with unusual composition. In the first minute you see the palm and fingers of the cameraman in front of the lens, progressing to monochrome images, as if a battle w as being fought for visibility of the event.

From the virtual information comes a sensually, perceptible space in which language develops into music, images into abstraction, and the expansion of time and space into the catalyst of reality.

„De-Composition No. 26“, exhibition 2021, 15 paintings, oil on canvas, 200×121 cms each