Wa 'ala Sa'eeden Akhar

A text-image montage with empty apartments, lonely rooms, of views from windows and street scenes in New York and Cairo. In the background: an uninterrupted soundtrack of news and talk shows. Self-proclaimed pundits make their appearance, want to be heard.

“Today in this house nothing happens, nor does it in the homes of others. Time and place stand on parallel lines, refuting the coordinates of existence. The chronology of events is obscured, subversive noise is obliterated, elucidation impossible and language futile. All that remains is a soundscape perpetually occupied by self-proclaimed patriots, and scattered spaces carved by the rhythm of everyday life, all conspiring to maintain the status quo while hiding the humming background noise of the world.
And on a Different Note is a navigation of an attempt to carve out a personal space amid an inescapable sonic shield created primarily by prime time political talk shows with their indistinguishable, absurd, and at times undecipherable rhetoric/ noises. Equally repulsive and addictive, these noises travel across geographies gradually constituting an integral part of a self-created map of exile.”
(Mohammad Shawky Hassan)