The war correspondent, 46' film for a dual screen, Lunds KonstHall,
29th Sao Paulo Biennial, 2010-2011
The War Correspondent is a many-faceted meditation on the image of war in the news media and the entertainment industry. The narrative is pieced together from a richly varied repository of material from illustrated newspapers, a mixture of animation, films and the Internet. It narrates part of the life of the supposedly first war correspondent, William Russell, who covered the Crimean War (1854-1856).
The War correspondent is a video installation for two screens, done in 2010 and presented at Lunds Konsthall in Sweden. It was as well presented in the 29th edition of Sao Paulo Biennial, that happened in 2010.
The War Correspondent is a many-faceted meditation on the image of war in the news media and the entertainment industry. The narrative is pieced together from a richly varied repository of material from illustrated newspapers, a mixture of animation, films and the Internet. It begins with the creation of modern war reporting. In this video, I recount part of the life of the supposedly first war correspondent, William Russell, who covered the Crimean War, which occurred in the Balkans, between 1854-1856. The film depicts war journalism and its ethical and aesthetic implications into the rising of a mass media and public opinion in the mid 19th century. As a vehicle of information and ideological socialization and also as an historical record, the newspaper is the starting point for the film. The War Correspondent alternates between moments of aestheticization and fictionalization with others of objectivity and documentary rawness.