Live stream: Dubblaja: Remixing Landscapes through Soundscapes

When foreign films, TV shows, and soaps are shown in the Middle East and North Africa, the voices are often dubbed in Arabic, with characters acquiring new names and new personalities. Sometimes a new story is even created. The films shown this evening are silent - we can”t hear the voices of the characters. The Salwa Foundation artist collectives present sounds scores and remix videos to the footage from Eye”s collection, thereby reclaiming the narrative and questioning the stereotypical framing of the silent characters on the screen.

The films that will be screened this evening have been restored by the European Film Fund in collaboration with Eye. They are the inspiration for the audio performances; sound and vision will complement and inform each other. The selection of films includes snippets of 20th-century archival footage from the Middle East and provides a glimpse of the type of visual ethnography that was prevalent in the colonial era, and shows how the “Orient” was presented by the West. The footage is nevertheless an extremely important tool to contextualise this history of representation, while it also highlights the power dynamics that continue to be relevant today.

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