Lost in the city

Living in the beyond, there is a lot of time to count seconds, in Amsterdam there is a lot of water but there is no sea, in Amsterdam time is bigger than memories. I wish I can build an additional memory for this same time.

Personally, I find myself Living in the in between interval, experiencing an exploratory, restless movement of discovering this void of nothingness. I have been experiencing this nothingness on several levels, first on the Local level; as Beirut is passing through a phase of physical and economical reconstruction after a devastating civil war. The second is on the Regional level; as the Middle East is passing through a transitional period and a major change in powers. The third is on the international level; as the world is passing through a metamorphosis of globalization that will redefine power distribution.

Personally, I find myself Living in the in between interval, experiencing an exploratory, restless movement of discovering this void of nothingness. I have been experiencing this nothingness on several levels, first on the Local level; as Beirut is passing through a phase of physical and economical reconstruction after a devastating civil war. The second is on the Regional level; as the Middle East is passing through a transitional period and a major change in powers. The third is on the international level; as the world is passing through a metamorphosis of globalization that will redefine power distribution

I am the all knowing, the deceased. I live among you and have seen the imam Mehdi master of time, may god hasten his arrival I sit with him, he talks to me and he tells me of what was, and what will be. He spoke to me about the time of revelation, the signs and what will come. I am the all knowing, the deceased, I have fought in the name of our lord and his prophet. I have seen the revelation during my life and after my death.

A self presentation through the duality of representing the 'shiny image' or the 'angel', and the 'real' or the 'evil' side. It is a self presentation through 'destructing' or 'constructing' others, the way one can defend himself through hiding behind a fake 'image' that pleases others and then act in contradiction behind the scenes. It is the 'fear' of being 'wrong', the 'fear' to say what you think, the 'fear' of confronting the others who are waiting to destroy you.

The end of the Cold War marked the end of an era without bringing forth the beginning of a new one, we find ourselves in a moment of transit where space and time cross to produce complex figures of differences and identities, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion. We find ourselves lost in the au- delà as Homi Bhabha likes to call it, or in the non-place as Marc Augé describes the transit places; for there is a sense of disorientation, a disturbance of direction, we are living in the beyond.

In the Heart of Beirut is a film directed by karl choubassi, a project within the framework of "Les Nuits de la Lecture" 2026 City / Coutryside

Silence of the Gospel We sleep with red angels who show us the desert without tiny ones and without the sweet, desolate awakenings. We sleep. A wing breaks us, escape, we have wheels older than the feathers flown, lost, to explore the cemeteries of slowness, the only lust. The bottle that we surround with the lines of our wounds cannot resist any desire. Let us take the hearts, the brains, the muscles of rage, take the invisible flowers of pale young girls and knotted children, take the hand of memory, let us close the eyes of remembrance, a theory of trees delivered by thieves strikes us and divides us, all the pieces are good. Who will put them back together: terror, suffering or disgust? Let us sleep, my brothers. The inexplicable chapter has become incomprehensible. Giants pass by, exhaling giant complaints, complaints like the dawn wants to push, the dawn that can no longer complain, after all this time, my brothers, after all this time.

The gel was blue / when I first met her / clear sky blue / she was so bright and so far away / it was so white like the horizon/ I looked back inside / the gel seemed yellow / like the light / I went out to the street / just any street / it was so cold, so empty, so green / I felt alone / I felt so lost / the city was green / bluish green / and the streets were green / vicious circles / I can't get out / it takes me in / a little city that turns around / and absorbs me in / so deep inside the streets that leads nowhere / inside of her / the yellow is red / a tempting red / invites me in / out of the city / time is passing / it was so harsh / she fades away / behind the gel / I was so warm / waiting for her / I was lost inside the city / the spiral streets that goes inwards / took me inside / to the blue inside / I feel the time / it passes slow / it is so fast / it is so cold inside the city / it is so cold inside of me / so many people / so big the void.

The body without organs is the unproductive, the sterile, the unengendered, the unconsumable. The death instinct: that is the name, and death is not without a model. For desire desired death also, because the full body of death is its motor, just as it desires life, because the organs of life are the working machine. The body without organs is not a projection; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the body itself, or with an image of the body. It is the body without an image. G. Deleuze & F. Guattari

An icon of the twentieth century the AK-47, or Kalashnikov is the most used and probably the most lethal machine gun ever. In the recent clashes in Lebanon, we suffered from the destructive lethality of this weapon and the need for dismantling it has become urgent. This project is a trial to take apart he AK-47 and degrade it from its terrible capacity to injure and kill by deconstructing it into pieces.

Sonata op 49 #2 by Ludwig Van Beethoven. The keys SI 1st octave and DO 2nd octave were broken and the piano tuner Tony Mobarak was evacuated with the Canadian community in Lebanon due to the July Israeli aggressions. Since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1992 we were living a transit period of reconstruction and rehabilitation, a period of a fragile peace so prosperous and promising it was and yet so unstable. Since then we lived the illusion of wellbeing that masked a fear of an upcoming dramatic collapse. We lived a harmonious sonata practicum abrupt by some broken piano keys.

a 20 minute video by: Hassan Choubassi. Editing: Vartan Avakian. Supervisors: Chris Keulemans, Jan Van Den Berg, Harco Haagsma. Thanks to: Kristina Andersen, Moniek Toebosch, Peter Van Hoof, Christine Tohme, Ghassan Salhab, Rima Kadissi, Leyla Makdissi, Tamara Samerai, "de Prague" pub, "Layla" pub and DasArts staff.