rainer ganahl hong kong basic chinese artist commune

index

Basic Chinese - photographs

Basic Chinese - Studying by numbers

Ball-Point drawings and post card works - works on paper

Homeland Security - why I am not a terrorist - video stills and movie

Bicycling Hong Kong - a risky return of the repressed video stills and movie

Kai Tak International Airport - the good use of an airport as a private playground - video stills and movie

Installation views - Artist Commune, Hong Kong

HOMELAND SECURITY 1 - 5

dvd, 2002/03 each segement is about 1 min 40 seconds

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homeland security 1 -2003

homeland security 2, 2003 -

homeland security 3, 2003 -

homeland security 4, 2003 -

homeland security 5, 2003 -

video still - homeland security

work behind is: embroidery made by Pashtuns near the Afghan border in Pakistan according my design taken from network news during the time of the bombing of Afghanistan.. see more works:

short description:

Rainer Ganahl
Homeland Security, I - V, 2003 dvd;

each video segment is less then 2 minutes long.

This video series represents a continuation of my language based video works entitled "Basic Feelings" and "Basic Conflicts" . The principle is always the same: a given sentence is uttered by me in all 11 of the languages I have been learning so far. In a situation comparable with that of a language lab, I repeat the same sentence in all these different languages touching on humor, absurdity and paranoia. With this new set of "homeland security" clips, filmed as police mug shots, I am making references to the newly created department of Homeland Security, that is most likely to bring us some kind of a quasi-totalitarian Big Brother police apparatus. Our homes will be subject to digital data mining and endless profiling - in a phrase: "homeless security," since it is becoming harder to feel our homes are actually home.
My 'homeland security" sequences start with Arabic, a language I have been learning only since 2001 and then ends with the more familiar ones. The sentences are simple and express a degree of paranoia: "I am not a terrorist" (1), "I am not a religious fanatic" (2), "I don't give money to terrorist networks" (3), "I don't know how to build bombs" (4) and "I am not downloading dangerous information from the Internet".
Rainer Ganahl