Moad Musbahi

Ikhtiyar and the Production of (in)Visibility — How do artists present their work and choose to engage with the politics of creativity? These questions are prevalent in early Arab-Islamic texts and culture. Through the concept of ikhityar (the Arabic word for choice) processes of selection, reproduction and thus inclusion and exclusion, have developed into a rich tradition with many different forms; transmission, quotation, parody, reference, reuse, restoration, memory, conservation, copiousness. This lecture performance will question the role of origin, authenticity and visibility in the work of “paper nor me_xx1” among other examples, considering the ethical implications of ikhityar and how it continues to operate as a contemporary form of production.

writing as scripting — accompanying text, to be spoken aloud during screening. each section corresponds to a train on a track, the word count determined by the time of the train in the frame 00:00-06:50 all 600 0 Voice-over 00:00-01:36 left 225 1 "The traveler who knows that the coins which he offers up to this sacrificial column recommend him to the protection of the boiler god which glows through the night, the smoke naiads which play above the train, and the demon who is master over all lullabies. He knows all of them from dreams, but he also knows the succession of mythical trials and dangers which has presented itself to the zeitgeist as a ‘railway journey,’ and the unforeseeable flow of spatio-temporal thresholds over which it moves, starting with the famous ‘too late’ of the person left behind, the original image of everything missed, through to the loneliness of the compartment, the fear of missing the connection and the grey of the unknown station into which he is riding. Walter Benjamin in the text ‘Kriminalromane, auf Resien’ published in 1930 writes on the interplay between the detective novel and the rise of railway journeys. He makes a list of detective novelists that are in tune with the particular journeys of the train – “Anna Katherine Green whose ‘short stories are just the same length as the Gotthard Tunnel and great novels Behind Locked Doors, In the House Next Door, bloom in the purple-shaded coupe light like night violets.”" 00:30-01:14 down 90 2 Within scientific discourse, there is a conceptual model known as path dependency. It is a modelling technique that ascertains how previous technologies lay the ground for future ones. It places emphasis on the material effects of this dependency, that the channels laid, and the spaces configured in the lifetime of the previous technology provides the possible ground from which to steer development from which would emerge the successor technology. Path dependency gives acknowledgement to the historical social and cultural factors that becomes manifest in the roles of serendipity and tinkering within technological development. 01:16-02:10 up 130 3 An act of prejudice is the act of a determination of something that is about to occur, in advance of something. In advance of knowing the context or event say. Through the signature we determine our signee. We determine her based on her previous act of fixing her name, her identity, as inscription, on a substrate, be it a page, a computer screen, an engraving on a sculpture, the document that represents a building. 01:20-04:56 down 400 4 “New infrastructures do not so much supersede old ones as ride on top of them, forming physical and organizational palimpsests—telephone lines follow railway lines, and over time these pathways have not been diffused, but rather etched more deeply into the urban landscape.” (repeat 10x) 01:50-02:58 right 150 5 The tension between the image and caption, where one evades and one inscribes, splits focus, leading to an oscillation between transmission and retention | reception and perception. The care taken with the act produces a legibility that allows the information within the symbolic construction of the text to be constitutive. The text to be understood for text. Text awaiting a reading. The closer the reading, the greater the text communicates. This closeness indicates a reduced pace, but an increased friction and thus traction with which the flow passes between arrangement of ink to arrangement of thoughts. Traction here is dependant on a certain care, in terms of legibility, and a care that is defined by the placement of the legible signs that denies them the potential to fall off, from the page and ultimately from communication. traction regulating speed… care in terms of placement in time and place Traction (n) Early 15c. “a drawing or pulling” (originally the pulling of a dislocated limb to reposition it). Here ‘traction’ is defined as a process of pulling, implying a pulling away from some place toward another place. This formulation in terms of a process of tension between abs-traction and dis-traction produces movement. 03:08-04:05 up 140 6 x 03:45-04:32 down 90 7 The speed of this movement; between a thing that distracts the self, to the self’s abstraction of something is regulated by the traction of the medium. The number of distractions on a table, dis- alluding to a lack, herein a lack of focus, a minimal traction. The abstractability of an item is determined by the amount of care placed into it, allowing greater retention in its legibility. The care in which a caption is written and placed determines the potential flow of information. Existing to distract and is itself an abstraction of the image with which it is coupled. 05:10-06:39 up 215 x x 05:54-06:29 down 70 x x 06:08-06:17 up 5 x x