Monday, October 2 at 7 p.m.

> The Inhabitants of Images (Chapter 1)

Mysterious occurrences in a city haunted by images, of people known to me, and others unknown. Images abandoned by their occupants; some have become ruins. An image is invaded, a new face moves in—sometimes an ally, sometimes an old foe. One vanishes, while another travels from one picture to another. 

During the “Dream City” festival, Mroué will present the first chapter of his non-academic lecture “The Inhabitants of Images” in which he analysis a street poster that gathers the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser with the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri together in an exceptional meeting. What was the nature of this post-mortem meeting, and how was this picture taken?

> Make me stop smoking Presentation of ideas under study 

I have been collecting worthless material for almost ten years now, taking good care arranging it, documenting it, indexing it, and preserving it from any possible damage. This material is constituted of cut outs from local newspapers, photographs, interviews, news stories, excerpts from television programs, objects and other things… 

Today I possess what resembles an archive, or let’s say I possess a real archive that relates only to me: a kind of added memory that occupies different corners of my domestic space, despite the fact that I do not actually need it. It is an invented memory that is exhausting me, and which I cannot liberate myself from. 

For this reason, I will uncover some parts of my archive, hoping that -by making it public- I can get rid of its weight. This will be my attempt to destroy a memory that doesn’t know how to erase itself.

Tuesday, October 3 at 7 p.m.

> Pixelated Revolution (A short version)  

“Syrians are filming their own death”, that is how the Pixelated Revolution begin; starting from one group of videos in which we witness a cameraman being shot by a sniper or simply by one of the regime’s soldier forces. 

These videos show the moments of eye contact between sniper and cameraman, when the gun’s line of sight and the camera’s lens meet. 

This non-academic lecture/video arises from the point of how Syrians are recording their images “now and here” and reflects on the relationship of this act of photographic documentation with death, and how we perceive these video “now but there”…

> Sand in the Eyes 

Rabih Mroué explores the image politics of ISIS videos in contrast with videos shot by drones. Based on research material comprised of recruiting videos secured by the officers of the German Intelligence Services, Rabih Mroué asks not only what these videos reveal about their producers or the videos’ capacity document killing, but also questions the politics inherent in dealing with these videos from the point of view of the state and society.