Chamber of Public Secrets
Chamber of Public Secrets (CPS) is a production unit of critical art and culture: an informative, non-profit, independent contributor to the global cultural scene, established in 2003 by Khaled Ramadan.
The unit works as a network of artists, curators and thinkers who have been collaborating since 2003 in the organization, production and circulation of film and video festivals, art exhibitions, TV and radio programs, political fictions and documentaries. CPS members also set up debate forums and talks and publish books and articles on issues like media representation, migration, mobility, aesthetic journalism, colonialism, gender and difference. CPS helps to debate the position of artistic and media narratives, and the function and responsibility of both in relation to society.
Members of the art collective Chamber of Public Secrets live and work in places like Cairo, Beirut, Trento, London and Scandinavia.
Activities
Chamber of Public Secrets was elected as one of three curatorial editorial teams of the Manifesta 8 Biennial in Murcia, Spain 2010. The contribution ¿The rest is history? envisioned Manifesta 8 as a series of transmissions (including works of art and interventions in the mass media) that use artistic methods and the strategies of negotiation to explore the specific geographic and socio-political structures that define reality today, and its history. This way, CPS sought out and promoted dialogues which simultaneously occupied and interrupted the basic boundary conditions that defined the framework of Manifesta 8, placing them in the public realm through the practices of media production, documentary-making, artistic research and aesthetic journalism.[1]
In 2009, Al Jazeera TV produced a 28 min. documentary about Chamber of Public Secrets' history and activities.
2009 was the year of the MidEast Cut festival. It offered an investigation of the cognitive, cultural, social and political 'space' of alternative / experimental short film, documentary and video from and about the Middle East, Iran and Turkey. It reflected on a popular development within alternative film stemming from recent geo-political events around the world. This has led to widened awareness and resulted in independent electronic art produced mainly by film and video makers who have made the widespread usage of the (video) camera into a visual statement and an alternative to the information flow of the mainstream media.[2]
In 2008, Khaled Ramadan of Chamber of Public Secrets was appointed research curator at the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial in Beijing, China, and curated the Middle East Channel.[3]
The team's interest in art, history and representation led to the establishment of Immigrant Image Archive in 2007. The archive collects, preserves, and provides photographs and video films about immigrants to North Europe. It solely contains images with relation to immigration taken by the immigrants themselves. Hence, visitors to the archive and its activities are confronted with the social realities and experiences of the contributors who are conveying their own stories.[4]
The new international festival Made in Video was introduced by Chamber of Public Secrets in 2006. The festival focused on the way contemporary artists use video as a medium to approach political and social problems from new angles. Methods used included manipulated news clips, video as visual evidence and experimental interview forms. It featured independent media, not only as an artist's tool, but as every citizen's tool to suggest their views in an artistic, journalistic or documentaristic way with the aim of wrestling the mainstream broadcast scope and definition of news.[5]
Chamber of Public Secrets has also been a steady contributor to the artist-driven TV-TV channel. The team has produced more than 30 programs [6] for the TV station since its establishment in 2005.[7]
Films & Documentaries
- I said to President Mubarak (2011)
- The Skype Project - for Ibraz Venice Biennale (2011)
- Shadow of San Anton (2010)
- Beirut Skinhead Movement (2010)
- Out of Gaza (2009)
- Quest for the Brotherhood (2008)
- Mapping the South (2007)
- Comrade Alfredo Neri (2006)
- Wide Power (2005)
References
- ↑ "Manifesta 8". Manifesta 8. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ↑ "MidEast Cut Festival". Chamberarchive.org. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ↑ "3rd Guangzhou Triennial". Gdmoa.org. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ↑ "Immigrant Image Archive". Chamberarchive.com. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ↑ "Made in Video Festival". Chamberarchive.org. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ↑ "CPS programs on tv-tv". Chamberarchive.org. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ↑ "tv-tv". Tv-tv.dk. Retrieved 2011-09-05.