Zaatari is an artist and curator from Beirut who uses video in innovative ways, from documentary to narrative and recounting history.

His work consistently poses questions about the methods, forms and uses of photography and other visual imagery. Zaatari was co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation in 1997 together with Walid Raad. This short, sparse video transposes the contemporary language of email and mobile phone text to the old technology of a typewriter. It focuses on a failed and perhaps clandestine romance using email which reveals how new communications technology can shape relationships. Two correspondents flirt lonely-hearts-style in the agonisingly slow exchange of the typewritten message. The work presents an alternative or hidden history of Lebanon. This work was presented by the Art Fund through Art Fund International.

Provenance

The artist.


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