Sinbad by Oertli / El-Sawy
2009
Live Performance with Ahmad El-Sawy (oud, voice, electronics, composition) and video-projection
or single channel video
45:00 min (3 min excerpt)
HDV
Starting point is the legend of Sinbad and his journeys on the sea. What would Sinbad get to see if he’d be travelling nowadays? The cooperation of the Egyptian musician and the Swiss video artist combines two different view points: Ahmad El-Sawy has transferred Arabic poems into music. Some of those texts can be read as comment about our times dispite the fact that they originate from past centuries. The writers talk about home, rich and poor, religion and most importantly about the loss of the own culture.
Christoph Oertli has shot video images during two longer stays in Egypt and compressed these images into a visual strand, which resembles a journey through different centuries: landscapes, urban scenes and ultramodern building complexes slowly drift past the camera. A young man embodies todays’ Sinbad; occasionally he’s travelling within his own country, but he undertakes as well virtual journeys at his computer, since means and possibilities are missing for travelling abroad.