Digitizing Memory
24 Feb - 06 Mar 2013
DIGITIZING MEMORY
24 February - 6 March 2013
In the two years since 25 January 2011, history has been unfolding in a rapid-fire series of stutters and starts, confused by radically conflicting narratives of events, punctuated by causes celebres that are forgotten within a matter of weeks, and characterized by the eerie, almost performative repetition of the same events over and over.In the face of this amnesia, multiple archival initiatives have emerged—from the Mosireen video collective, to the online platform Qomra, to Khaled Fahmy’s digital archive initiative, joining preexisting internet activism projects like the Arab Digital Expression Foundation and the Arab Techies.Sponsored by Qomra.org, “Digitizing Memory” is an exhibition and event series that seeks, for the first time, to bring this network of initiatives into real space. The exhibition has a practical aim on one hand: to introduce audiences to the Qomra video archive initiative, and offer a series of workshops. A public panel discussion will address the conceptual concerns behind digital archival practice in the current moment: As the very actors in unfolding political events are the ones documenting them, are we seeing the end of the ideal of the objective, removed documentarian/journalist? And if so, can history be written in the first person? Is it possible to catalogue and index this (verging on the sublime) flood of images and videos in the midst of this fluctuating, unfolding history, without the distance presumed to be needed to allow these events to coalesce into something comprehensible? About Qomra
Qomra.org is an innovative online platform that allows citizen-to-citizen information sharing in order to increase political awareness and strengthen civil society. Qomra provides a user-friendly platform to upload, share and discuss content, bypassing mainstream censorship mechanisms and allowing users to freely express political ideas and opinions in real time. User participation will create a permanent archive of various forms of documentation of events from before and during the ongoing revolution, through which citizens can share their knowledge and hold their representatives accountable for abuses of power.
24 February - 6 March 2013
In the two years since 25 January 2011, history has been unfolding in a rapid-fire series of stutters and starts, confused by radically conflicting narratives of events, punctuated by causes celebres that are forgotten within a matter of weeks, and characterized by the eerie, almost performative repetition of the same events over and over.In the face of this amnesia, multiple archival initiatives have emerged—from the Mosireen video collective, to the online platform Qomra, to Khaled Fahmy’s digital archive initiative, joining preexisting internet activism projects like the Arab Digital Expression Foundation and the Arab Techies.Sponsored by Qomra.org, “Digitizing Memory” is an exhibition and event series that seeks, for the first time, to bring this network of initiatives into real space. The exhibition has a practical aim on one hand: to introduce audiences to the Qomra video archive initiative, and offer a series of workshops. A public panel discussion will address the conceptual concerns behind digital archival practice in the current moment: As the very actors in unfolding political events are the ones documenting them, are we seeing the end of the ideal of the objective, removed documentarian/journalist? And if so, can history be written in the first person? Is it possible to catalogue and index this (verging on the sublime) flood of images and videos in the midst of this fluctuating, unfolding history, without the distance presumed to be needed to allow these events to coalesce into something comprehensible? About Qomra
Qomra.org is an innovative online platform that allows citizen-to-citizen information sharing in order to increase political awareness and strengthen civil society. Qomra provides a user-friendly platform to upload, share and discuss content, bypassing mainstream censorship mechanisms and allowing users to freely express political ideas and opinions in real time. User participation will create a permanent archive of various forms of documentation of events from before and during the ongoing revolution, through which citizens can share their knowledge and hold their representatives accountable for abuses of power.