It is not just empathy and tragedy that this project intend to express toward the Syrian crisis, but also a visual critique of the grotesque ways News Channels cover the Syrian events. This project asks what are the ethical limits of how much graphic can be shown to gain viewers? be it in photography or in video, what is the point of showing too much graphic footage? By juxtaposing the News verbal and visual language with the process of cutting meat, the 6 minutes long experimental video shows how in every household there is a window to another side of the world, yet, the meat is a manifestation, a product, a profit, just like the news coverage of these events, tragedy becomes a product, as well as a profit.  

        Susan Sontag, an American artist and political activist, in her book “Regarding The Pain of Others” 2003, tackle the aesthetics and ethical problems of photography in conflicted and tragic events. She said provokingly “not even pacifists” any longer believe war can be abolished, but wonder if it is still possible to change minds and save lives with images of war’s cruel results.”

“Where have they been? After a century and a half of photojournalistic witness, ''a vast repository'' of ''atrocious images'' already exists to remind us of what people can do to each other. She reminds us of how hard it is for the image makers to keep up with improvements in the technology of torture and execution, from the stake, the wheel, the gallows tree and the strappado to smart bombs dreamed up on bitmaps in virtual realities.

    Cutting Meat is an experimental film that used different mediums, from recording a piece of meat being cut, painting over a portrait, creating a collage between refugees photos, recording scenery, to using News footage. The intention is to express the struggle of refugees through the lens of News. To raise questions such as; what is ethical for news coverage to show? And to what extend the media is willing to go to gain more views using the pain of others?

 

 

This Project was created for

VES 83 The Devil Probably

Pro. Stephen Prina

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Science - Visual and Environmental Studies Spring 2016

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