The Atlas Group / Walid Raad
The Loudest Muttering is Over / Civilizationally, we do not dig holes to bury ourselves

The Atlas Group has produced various visual and audiovisual documents that while fictionalized are often based on kernels of real experiences. Through the guise of The Atlas Group archive, Ra'ad reconsiders the recent internal conflicts in Lebanon not as a concrete set of facts and events, but rather as an abstraction of memories and media.

The Loudest Muttering is Over: Documents from The Atlas Group Archive, is a multi-media lecture presentation of the foundation's archival material. In his presentations Ra'ad uses photographic slides, notebook pages, and videotape excerpts as historical artifacts attributed to imaginary anonymous sources or invented characters such as Dr. Fadl Fakhouri, a leading historian of Lebanese history, or Souheil Bachar, an ex-hostage. The findings and claims of these figures are inspired by actual circumstances and objects such as the role of the car bomb in the Lebanese wars, existing captivity narratives, and horse-racing photographs.

Raad's lecture-performances conjure up an alternate universe that mimics conventional formats of visual and textual representation such as the video documentary or the witness testimonial. His archival materials do not document what happened as much as what can be imagined, said, or taken for granted. Using events from the Lebanese wars as a lens through which to examine the ways we represent, remember, and make sense of war, Ra'ad poses salient questions about the nature of individual and collective memories and their role in the formation of accepted historical narratives.

Walid Raad is a media artist and an Assistant Professor of Art at Cooper Union (New York, USA). His works include textual analysis, video, performance and photography projects. He took part in the documenta 2002. Walid Raad is also a member of the Arab Image Foundation (Beirut/New York).

The Atlas Group is an imaginary, non-profit research foundation, founded by Walid Ra'ad in 1999 in Beirut to explore the contemporary history of Lebanon and, in particular, some of the unexamined dimensions of the Lebanese wars (1975-1991).

The Atlas Group / Walid Raad
The Berlin Lab - Lecture Performance
The Loudest Muttering is Over
FRI 13th of June, 20.00 h
Admission: 5 Euro
Civilizationally, we do not dig holes to bury ourselves
SAT 14th of June, 20.00 h
Admission: 5 Euro

The other Lab participants:
- Ralph Lemon, New York >>
- André Lepecki >>
- Tanja Ostojic, Belgrade/Düsseldorf >>
- Zoran Eric, Belgrade >>
- Junko Wada, Berlin >>