(Photo: courtesy of DCAF)
On Saturday 21 March, live performances and a video screening will be brought together at the Old French Consulate located in Cairo's Downtown, as part of the fourth Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (DCAF) which runs between 19 March and 9 April.
Titled Great Tricks From Your Future is an interactive multi-disciplinary show that includes an ongoing project by artist duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou Rahme, a solo presentation of works by Basim Magdy, a performance by Jochen Dehn and another by Benjamin Seror, a concert by Stine Motland and C. Spencer Yeh, and a screening of a short film by Bedwyr Williams.
Mai Abu El-Dahab, the visual arts curator explains that all the elements are "brought together by a common thread that they each develop very specific tools for inventing narratives – mixing reality and science fiction, bringing the past into the present, inventing an audio rather than spoken language."
"The artists are from very different backgrounds and have very different working methods and mediums, but as you’ll see, they are all interested in inventing narratives that can confuse and re-imagine how we think about or experience the present," Abu El-Dahab adds.
According to a DCAF press release: "Basel Abbas (PL) & Ruanne Abou-Rahme (PL/US) weave together seemingly unrelated events, both fact and fiction, as their own investigation of how the radical potential of the present moment might be experienced or understood.
"In his live performances, Jochen Dehn (DE) takes mundane objects, and through pseudo scientific demonstration transforms them into readily available tools for everyday magic.
"Basim Magdy (EG) dislocates images from the format and logic where we expect to experience them, turning plausible reality into a lived form of science fiction.
"In Stine Motland (NO) and C. Spencer Yeh (US) collaborative music, they share a conversation in a language of their own made up of bare vocal sounds.
"Benjamin Seror (FR) tells stories that bring the figures of ancient mythologies with all their metaphorical weight to experience the present with us.
"And Bedwyr Williams (UK) likes to explore the worst-case scenario, and makes films that are a glimpse into what happens if certain events or ideas are taken to their logical unobstructed (horrifying) conclusions."
Program:
Saturday 21 March, 7pm
The Old French Consulate, Fadl Street, downtown Cairo
Check the festival's program here.
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