Multi-Channel | 2015
In September 2013, the United Nations Mission to Investigate Alleged Uses of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic issued a report confirming several uses of the nerve agent sarin in the ongoing Syrian civil war. The deadliest of such attacks occurred on August 21, 2013, in the suburbs of Damascus, where thousands of people exhibited symptoms of respiratory and heart failure, frothing from the mouth, pinpoint pupils, neurological convulsions, and hallucinations.
Multi-Channel depicts a compilation of photojournalistic documentation of these events, however, the brightness of the footage is mapped to the number of people viewing it. The experience acts as a type of mirror, reflecting the privileged position in which we bear witness to human rights violations—the agency we have to walk in and out of its gaze, and the degree to which our compassion is fatigued by the ubiquitous rendering of such horrors.
Exhibits:
Docu{rithm}, Power Plant Gallery, Durham, NC, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Aaron Kutnick. All rights reserved.