Sliding from dreams to trance to horror, Rana Hamadeh’s evolving video-work Standard_Deviation (I) ventures into Sophocles’ famed tragedy Oedipus Rex. Rather than re-narrating the misfortunes of Oedipus, king of Thebes, whose grievous journey of self-discovery unfolds at the height of the Theban plague, the work conducts a reading of the dramatic constructs of Sophocles’ play itself—that is, of his figuration of tragedy as a “technology of endurance.” Hamadeh’s phantasmagorical tableaux vivants are accompanied by a cacophonous sound composition. The preview of this new work, on show at Tent in Rotterdam, is accompanied by a conversation between Rana Hamadeh (DAI, 2009) and Katja den Dulk (DAI, 2017). Katja is an ex-artist who enjoys thinking about and tinkering with systems, simulations, and the means to manipulate the lived experience through a practice of pseudo-art as relating to science, similar to how art intersects with pseudo-science.

| tag: Rotterdam

Joining the talk will also be Rana’s collaborator and conversation partner, Sara Hamadeh.