Initiations....

Hi everyone,

I will confess, I am not a blogger and hope not to be converted to one by the Interruptive team anytime soon. I try to guard my technological dis-connectivity fiercely to make room for infinitely richer, more fluid and complex forms of connectivity; the human one. The more time I spend behind my LCD screen, the less time I have for walking the streets of the city, or sitting down in an old coffee houses exchanging random ideas in a spatial manner, an impossible feat to carry over to written text without putting one's own credibility at risk.

I am willing to make text contribution with reasonable infrequency to the magazine, but can be fairly generous with my photo essays. Photography (my adopted art) for me is an activity premised on constant intervention in space and time . For every photograph we take, we cut off the object of our contemplation from the surrounding it is situated in. Every moving instant we freeze is an act of interruption. It is meant to rescue few moments from the gushing river of time, so that traces of ourselves, our presences are kept as foot marks in the desert of oblivion.

How about a positive- negative photo essay, where a sequence of photos would be interrupted with some form of negative space (empty square boxes- to bring the mind's attention to that which is unseen, as much as what is seen .
The reader could be engaged in some form of mind game to the to fill in all possible scenarios.

Another permenant essay we could have, is some sort of a regular story that surfaces from the interruptionists ritualistic walks. At the end of the year we make a map of the areas visited and identify human characters as the iconic markers of the place as opposed to the architectural ones. (The baker who operated his store for 30 years, or the guy who migrated from Jerusalem to open his shoe shine store after the war, the grandmother of Mais who drank coffee with her neighbour across their street balcony over several decades).....

We could also consider a regular introductory article that sets the tone for the broader theme of each issue titled:
"Reflections on Interruptions" ? Possible themes:

Urban Interruptions
Visual Interruptions
Behavioral Interruptions
Social interruptions
Poetic Interruption.

On a last note Khaled after you took off, almost at the tail end of our morning walk today heading back towards the old Abddali bus terminal, we stopped to photograph a beautiful bakery (Alsharaq) and were generously offered sweets by one of the guys there. Later, a couple of curious fellows outside gave a rose to each one of us. Just when we where ready to say our goodbyes, we realized that they gave us a perfect interruptionist gift, even if unknowingly (five roses, four red except mine, it was bright pink). They could not have ended our day on a more poetic note. It was the unearthly sign I have been looking to be officially initiated into the interruptionists world.

This seemed liked a pact with the devil?

Eman
May 4, 2009