video installation, 16 min, colour, HD, sound. rear projection in wooden booth
This video was edited using footage recorded by soldiers during the Afghanistan War. The videos were found on a social networking site frequented by soldiers, their families and the simply curious.
In 2012, near what I thought would be the end of military occupation in Afghanistan and with the conflict in Syria impending, I contacted some American soldiers through social networks in an attempt to get a research the memories and imagery that they recorded during combat. That was when I came across the helmet-cam footage, which gives a soldier’s-eye view of the surroundings, where the camera is located very close to the true line of vision. Every month they pick out their best footage and post it online.
In reorganizing the images, I propose a journey through a symbolic war in which the enemy is invisible and the target uncertain. What interests me most about this research is the experience of a latent present, in which the conflict no longer takes place between the soldier and the enemy, but in the rarefied space and time between the camera and the helmet.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
