THE CIRCLE: AN ANATOMY OF VIOLENCE
Extract
The Circle is an immersive documentary sound and image installation about displaced individuals and communities within Iraq. It is based on an innovative mixture of documentary photography, video testimonies and location sound recordings recorded in Iraq over several years.
This work was made as a collaboration between film-maker/photographer Simon Hipkins, documentary photographer Agata Skowronek and composer/music producer David McAulay.
EXHIBITIONS
August Babel Institut, Berlin, Germany, 09.2017
Counterpoints Arts ‘Displaced’ Exhibition, London, UK 06.2015
Background
Prior to 2003, Iraq was a multicultural society. A broad diversity of religions and ethnicities had co-existed for thousands of years united by a common heritage. Since then, decades of violence have divided Iraq’s population and caused dramatic shifts in the demographics of the country as different religious and ethnic groups have sought refuge from violence directed towards them.
Whilst those who could migrated abroad, many millions sought safety within Iraq’s borders – migrating internally to regions, cities or villages where their religion or ethnicity was under less threat.
This has left a vulnerable country where those seeking to gain power and influence can easily exploit people’s fears.
With this project we wish to take audiences beyond the expected norms of current affairs reportage and instead place them in a challenging and confrontational new environment that demands engagement on an emotional and visceral level. By doing so we believe we can offer an alternative vision of Iraq and its people – both in content and form.
Concept
Since the invasion in 2003 we felt strongly that Western media representations of Iraq had failed to show the impact violence was having on people’s everyday lives. The words of ordinary Iraqis were rarely heard over the clamour of political posturing, military campaigns and acts of terrorism. Iraq had been reduced to a body count with little meaning attached to the lives lost.
To counter this we travelled across Iraq and interviewed a wide variety of different people and communities. We looked for individuals whose stories exemplified the situation of the many who have fled from one part of the country to another.
Whilst doing this work we saw how the process of being displaced had imposed a ceaseless uncertainty on lives of the people we met. Even in the rare cases of individuals who had managed to rebuild their lives successfully there was still a strong sense their displacement continued on a daily basis.
For this reason we wanted to create a circular form to our work that would simultaneously repeat and alter over time. To do this we have chosen to loop a video alongside a separate audio loop of a different duration. Over time image and sound drift apart – producing fresh interactions between sound and image with every cycle.
Every hour, the audio and video reach a synchronicity point again for one loop before they slowly slip apart again – creating an endless spiral in time.
