EBTISAM ABDUL AZIZ  |  Self-Representation in the Arabian Gulf 

Autobiography 03-07 Part 2

There is no doubt that a person’s autobiography is based on central features, some of which are necessary and general, and some of which are facts and events associated to ideas, opinions, behavior with and relationships with society and others. In this work, “Autobiography 03-07 Part 2,” which I consider the second and completing part of “Autobiography 03-05,” I mix documentation and theatrical drama. The numbers are a summary of my autobiography for a certain period, and I employ it in the framework of the theatrical that portrays the negative aspects of today’s society where the individual is rendered useless in the midst of consumerist societies that recognize only material profits. The video is of a deliberate moving scene, the same one we take part in every day, except I present it in a cynical manner that mocks class divisions. It is a cynical critique of consumerist societies signifying the transformation of the human being into a code or a set of numbers. The artist’s body is changed into a well-known brand or an emblem printed on t-shirts and placed on giant billboards.

In the last exhibition I chose numbers with loud attention-grabbing colors, using the modern advertising techniques that draw the viewer in exactly the same way they are shoved down our throats to consume us on a daily basis. This work is just like other performance exhibitions (body art shows), where the artist’s body becomes the central point of convergence for physical and social elements. When I wear my outfit (with my autobiography on it) and walk outside, I am symbolizing abstract issues within the context of events taking place in the language of the time. Fast and incessant, its events accumulate and are stored in our memories in an image that has deep undertones of the repression suffered by millions. Things may seem normal, or ordinary, but in reality they are sad. We almost take consumerism for granted now.

~

Art is, to me, all the media and principles humans use to produce a work that expresses their ideas. A work of art is the embodiment of an idea expressed through an artistic form. It is closely related to social progress and human intellect: the more knowledgeable we become, the more that reflects on our art.

True artists will seek to express themselves with the tools of their time, with the tools available because of change. In my works I attempted to reflect this emancipation of the artist. Most of them express a great deal of change in myself as an artist and how I deal with the idea and reality. An artist cannot be detached from the events that surround him or her. An artwork is being reproduced at many levels. I began to wonder about the entity and the value that makes it a work of art. Most of my works are related to modern science, especially mathematics. I need these sciences as a modern human being, and that need commands their inclusion in art. I used installations, video, photography, maps, and system art—anything and everything that is modern—in producing my art. I also dealt with everyday issues laden with psychological poignancies; issues like life and death, happiness and sorrow, love, hate, and jealousy, as well as other human situations we are faced with in our daily lives. Some works concern the relationship between visual culture and its incorporation of modern technology, giving a new technological visual vigor to my work.

My works are a clear and present part of who I am in the theatre of life and daily existence. The varieties of shapes and materials, from photographs to video, installation, numbers, and geometric shapes are definitely exhibited for different purposes. Some document the accelerating times, others are blueprints of giant environmental projects through which I showcase ideas that search for human nature and sail into an adventure that explores the workings of the human brain. Others present an alternative concept to the accelerating change in our environment and other visual concepts that explain the contrast between shadow and light. Some are intimately related to optical illusion art in a display of visually distorted geometric shapes and lines, which surely betrays my closeness to mathematics. Manipulating numbers and mathematical systems is simply a cry of revolt against the shackles of oppressive regimes.

—Ebtisam Abdul Aziz  

   Contributor’s Notes
   Introduction: Self Representation in the Arabian Gulf
   Acknowledgments

   Ebtisam Abdul Aziz  |  Autobiography  
   Manal Al Dowayan  |  I Am
   Tarek Al Ghoussein  |  Blue 2007     
   Madeline McGehee  |  Photographs

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