In conjunction with our residency at the Serpentine Gallery’s Centre for Possible Studies, the Bidoun Library is presenting a program of two films drawn from our collaboration with the online archive UbuWeb this Wednesday, June 8.

The program will be introduced by Masoud Golsorkhi, editor of Tank magazine.

Wednesday June 8, 2011
7-9pm
Free!

Centre for Possible Studies
64 Seymour Street
London W1H 5BW

Bahman Maghsoudlou
Ardeshir Mohasses & His Caricatures
1972
20 min

A short documentary about Ardeshir Mohasses (1938-2008) featuring rare footage of the Iranian artist in his studio in Iran before his self-imposed exile to New York, which was to last over thirty years. Mohasses’ anti-Shah and anti-Islamic Republic cartoons used settings and costumes of the Qajar dynasty (1794 to 1925) — a misdirection that fooled no one. The film features commentary from Iranian intellectuals of the time, including Houshang Taheri, Javad Mojabi, and Fereidoun Gilani. Mohasses, a man of few words, is noticeably mute throughout.

Kamran Shirdel
The Night It Rained
1967
35min

In northern Iran, a schoolboy from a village near Gorgan is said to have discovered that the railway had been washed away by a flood. When he saw the approaching train — so the story goes — he set fire to his jacket, ran toward the train, and averted a serious and fatal accident. Kamran Shirdel’s film The Night it Rained does not concentrate on the heroic deed promulgated in the newspapers, but on a caricature of social and subtle political behavior — the way in which witnesses and officials manage to insert themselves into the events. Shirdel uses newspaper articles and interviews with railway employees, the governor, the chief of police, the village teacher and pupils — each of whom tell a different version of the event. In the end, they all contradict one another, while the group of possible or self-appointed heroes constantly grows. With his cinematic sleights of hand, Shirdel paints a bittersweet picture of an Iranian society in which truth, rumor, and lie can no longer be distinguished.

Mean Streets Pastel Houses Coming July 2011

With Skip Arnold, Gordon Flores and others
Cinematography Tyler Jamison
Written and Directed by Kathryn Garcia & Richard Lidinsky

BLVCK EYE: A five-part film series presented by BLVCK AMERICA

Part 1: Curated by Bidoun. Montage of off-kilter Iranian films followed by virtual dance lessons from Mohammad Khordadian.

Sunday, January 30th at 7pm
Liberty Hall at Ace Hotel
New York
Free!

Related: Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image

Telefantasy Studios presents two spectacular new episodes from the science fiction adventure series, The Multinauts.

Generations after the wars of Cancelation, a dark tyranny grips the Multiverse under the rule of Corporate Warlord, Oysters Rockafeller. Xanthor, Gigs, and Centari, three unlikely heroes from three very different dimensions, are transported aboard Tetra, a sentient starship infused with the wisdom of an ancient civilization. Moved by Tetra’s plea to restore peace, the trio embarks on a noble quest to save the Multiverse by taking on Oysters Rockafeller in a post-apocalyptic showdown. The Multinauts is both frightening and funny. It’s adventures explore astonishing new worlds full of remarkable creatures and dazzling special effects.

Episode I: “Flashback” — Good times go terribly awry when the trio travels to a wild kegger full of space preppies that turn out to be more than just party animals. Look for a special double cameo by Ariel Pink who lends his talents as a sewer mutant as well as a performance of the song “Flashback”. Other memorable cameos include web diva, Leslie Hall as well as DJ Lance Rock of Yo Gabba Gabba.

Episode II: “Mirror Man” — Finds the Multinauts on the bleak desert planet, Cherotec. In an attempt to regain a lost power crystal, the team must face mysteries lurking in the sand and the bizarre mirrored domain of Indigirka. This episode contains a chilling performance by Geneva Jacuzzi as well as an appearance by Francois Sagat.

Fun Boy 3, The More I See (The Less I Believe)

via JJ

Thursday August 5, 2010 at 7 PM
235 Bowery
New York, NY

The Bidoun Library Project at the New Museum is a highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East. Arrayed along the library’s shelves are pulp fictions and propaganda, monographs and guidebooks, and pamphlets and periodicals, representing the oil boom and the Dubai bust, the Cold War and the hot pant; depicting Pan-Arabs and Black Muslims, revolutionaries and royals, Orientalism and its opposites.

For the opening night Bidoun will present selected readings and video clips from the collection. In addition, for the opening day of the project, Bidoun has invited booksellers usually found outside the New York University library to set up shop outside the New Museum.

Join us afterward for dancing and drinks at:

Sweet and Vicious
5 Spring Street
9pm
Music by Tim DeWitt (Gang Gang Dance)

For information visit bidoun.com or newmuseum.org

Golden Sounds’ 1986 hit Zamina (Waka Waka, time for Africa)

From the first 2010 World Cup broadcasts on ESPN, my fellow tweeters cracked jokes about The Lion King. We imagined Rafiki calling the matches, or James Earl Jones (who provided the voice for Mufasa), and half expected the referees to raise the Jabulani aloft to announce the arrival of the New Ball. Most folks simply observed, “I feel like I am watching The Lion King.”

There is a good reason for this. The score used by ESPN to frame its broadcasts was written by Lisle Moore, a Utah composer who had worked with the network in the past. Moore gave us muscular music for a sporting event, upbeat music for a media event organized around putting us all in the mood to buy a shirt, a ball, or a Coke. Layered over the orchestral swells are the oddly familiar sounds of African voices, or, I should say, African-sounding voices. Africa is scored here as a noble landscape, peopled by a unified chorus, singing together in a harmonic convergence of tribal cultures.

“With the exception of the African choir,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune, “all of the music is performed by Utah musicians.” (”ESPN Turns to Utah for World Cup Music”) That African choir, lending this score a sense of location, is actually made up with members of The Lion King’s Broadway cast. The African-sounding choir from New York City was hired to sonically channel an idea of African authenticity keyed to ESPN’s American audience. This is of course true of all scores produced by the World Cup broadcasting networks as they reach for music their imagined audience will understand. Without a doubt, we are hearing not African music but (to invoke philosopher Valentin Mudimbe) a musical “Idea of Africa.”

In the mix of the music draped over the 2010 World Cup, are more specific strains - signals clearly audible to the listener of African music, the sound of a continent being ripped off. This is nowhere more obvious than “The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup ™ Song”, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”, sung by Shakira and Freshlyground, a South African Afro-fusion bad. The global pop hit has a clear relationship to a Cameroonian military song, Zangaléwa, popularized by Golden Sounds in 1986. “Waka Waka” doesn’t just borrow from “Zangaléwa” - listen to the two and you see that “Waka Waka” is, very nearly, an illegal cover (the chorus is a direct use of “Zangaléwa).

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Before the start of their 2006 World Cup semi-final, players for Brazil and France stood together and held a banner declaring “Say no to racism”. The gesture was part of a Fifa campaign — each of the 64 matches included a visible statement against the racist abuse directed especially at black players in Europe. From the round banner marked with this slogan which covered the centre circle until the start of the match, to pre-game statements read by team captains before kick-off, during Fifa’s 2006 World Cup, players, fans and tournament organisers declared that racism has no place in football.

Imagine a similar intervention today. South Africa has the highest incidence of rape in the world. The statistics are chilling: one in two women are raped; women are more likely to be raped than to learn to read; and they have little reason to trust the law to defend their right to their own bodies.

One grisly dimension of this crisis is that black lesbians are singled out for homophobic rape and violent assault with particular frequency. In April 2008, Eudy Simelane, a former midfielder for South Africa’s women’s national team, was raped, beaten, stabbed and left to die in a creek 200m from her home. A shocking number of South African female athletes have been assaulted — women who dare to play a “man’s game” become visible targets.

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