Through the ages: German curator uses video to explore violence from 1971

Becker attempted to project structural violence through the video medium.

KARACHI:

About 30 students and art critics crowded into a room at the Goethe-Institut on Friday to watch an interactive session on violence, with particular reference to Karachi.

The video comprised works from the collection of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k) Video-Forum, selected and introduced by n.b.k head and Berlin-based curator, Kathrin Becker.

“In art, the depiction of violence has a long tradition,” Becker opened, “especially since the 20th century, it has been used in order to critique war, dictatorships and other unjust and inadequate forms of political and social realities.” The video screening ‘On Violence’ reflected the critical awareness of artists from separate cultural backgrounds about different forms of violence. The work ranges from 1971 to the present.

The vast white screen lit up as the first of the collection - seven short clips from the 60s - played back to back, ending on one from the 21st century. The compilation began with a subtle form of violence and the intensity of the brutality increased with each subsequent clip played.

“The violence seen in the clips played has been changing and forming a new shape with the passage of time,” said Becker. It has taken a totally new form after 9/11, she added. Becker’s consulate director suggested she take up the topic given the law and order situation in Karachi, she told The Express Tribune. Coming off the back of a two-day workshop on ‘Cultures of Curating’ in Lahore, this is Becker’s second visit to the city.

It is also the first attempt in her professional career to project ‘structural violence’ through video. The difficult term, ‘structural violence’ has been used by thinker Slavoj Zizek who sees it at an “objective” feature of contemporary capitalist societies. This is not the same as “subjective” violence perpetrated by “an easily identifiable agent” or actor. He has argued, for intance, that sometimes the truly violent act is doing nothing, a refusal to act.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2011.