May 2010

Abandonment and Wit(h)nessing is a 20 screen video installation about witnessing a patriarchal ideology of supreme control and supreme abandonment in today's Syria.

supported by The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture exhibited in Paris in May 2010

March 2010

PhD thesis

An aesthetic critique of psychoanalytical theories with an emphasize on female nihilistic destruction

Pleasures from looking, fears of being seen and shame for being recognized are visuals of psychoanalytical theories. They constitute identification and projection on objects in the world and belong to the space of the imaginary. Psychoanalytical theories inspired film theories but imprisoned it by not helping to understand its visual culture. The aesthetic experience that defines art is an affective event. My research question is whether aesthetic control as such is as useless as psychoanalytic control when it comes to dealing with the nature of man at its wildest. I especially want to explore the visualization of it. The emphasis on female nihilistic destruction asserts womanhood itself with its fears of loss of reality, of beauty, and the apathy that follows. These factors are the cause of female nihilistic self-loathing, contempt, and masochism. Nihilism can be a chance to destroy.