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Nervus Rerum

The Otolith Group

This video is no longer available

Memories for Forgetfulness Elsewhere | III. Images of Resistance from Elsewhere Nervus Rerum
The Otolith Group
2009

32 Minutes
Courtesy of LUX Distribution, London

Date
Repeat: Wednesday, February 16

The title of this work comes from Cicero’s Latin, meaning “the nerve of things.” Using Jenin refugee camp in the Palestinian Occupied Territories as its visual subject and a rich soundscape of excerpts from the writings of Fernando Pessoa and Jean Genet, Nervus Rerum confronts the difficulties of representation the people within this geographic enclave face. The Jenin camp was established in 1953, in order to provide shelter for Palestinians dispersed and expelled from their homes after the formation of Israel in 1948. The inhabitants of this camp resist resettling in order to keep their dispersed status, as to relinquish it would be to relinquish their claim upon their native home. As a result they have no political representation, rights, or status. In turn, Nervus Rerum disperses the sources it uses to represent these people and this place, exploring representation, transparency through opacity, and the form of the essay film in itself.

The Otolith Group’s Nervus Rerum is presented within Images of Resistance from Elsewhere, the third of five chapters in Memories for Forgetfulness Elsewhere, an online film program curated by Irmgard Emmelhainz for e-flux Video & Film. The program streams in five thematic group screenings each two weeks long, and will be accompanied by two live discussions.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Category
Film
Subject
Palestine, Dispossession, Refugees, Representation
Return to III. Images of Resistance from Elsewhere

The Otolith Group is an award-winning artist-led collective and organization founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002, that integrates film- and videomaking, artists’ writing, workshops, exhibition curation, publication, and the development of public platforms for the close readings of the image in contemporary society. The Group’s work is formally engaged with research-led projects exploring legacies and potentialities of artist-led proposals around the document and the essay film, the archive, the aural and sonic mediums, speculative futures, and science fiction.

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